How to be a Fruitful Christian (Part 2)

In my last post I wrote about the cares and worries of life.  This week I’ll take a look at the pleasures of life.

What about the pleasures of life?  There is so much fun stuff to do in the world that there is no time to do it all.  There are trips to plan and adventures to be had, hobbies to learn and gear to buy.  These things may all be good in themselves but they are yet another distraction to our busy lives.  I play the drums and the other day I read an advertisement for a company selling drumsticks.  They bragged that they had over 200 models of drumsticks to offer consumers.  Drumsticks are a piece of wood used to hit drums.  How complicated can it be that we need over 200 models from one company to fulfill all our needs? 

I think this is a principle that is applied to society as a whole.  We are simply overwhelmed with choices and hobbies and specialized gear.  We think we cannot do anything without analyzing the infinite choices and specialities out there and then buying the best we can afford before we even try to do something healthy and fun.  The internet has ushered in the information age and we’re so overwhelmed with information that we hardly know what to do with ourselves. We spend more time thinking about the pleasures of life and what we might do, than actually doing it.

After we get through the cares, worries, riches and pleasures of life we find little time left for God.  That right there is the problem.  We go through all the worries, riches and pleasures and then try to find a little time left over for God.  Instead we should put God first and allow him to lead us through the worries, cares, riches and pleasures of life.  I’m almost certain that if we did that, a lot of the busy things we do right now would cease to be important and we could let them go out of our lives.  Without God all of these things are distractions that draw us away from God and choke the fruit out of our lives.

With God, we can do all that we need to do, yet have our priorities in the right place and accomplish what God wants us to accomplish and what is meaningful.  If you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time.  We need goals and dreams and vision to serve God!  That is where lasting fruit will come.  Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you.”