Chateaubriand

We will finish the book The Fine Line this week and so I want to use this post to wrap up and leave you with a final thought. Kary used a quote from a guy named Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand. He was a Frenchman who lived back in the days when Frenchmen had a significant influence in the world. If you are a history buff, check him out here. Anyway this is what he said…

008000;">“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and he leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”

That caught me when I first read it because I have always lived with this dichotomy between my work and my “off ” time. Most of my life has been split between the time when I had to go to work verses when I don’t have to go to work. Why does our Western culture drive such a distinction between the two? Why do we feel like we have to survive for the weekend? Why is the goal in this life to get to retirement? What a wonderful world this would be if we could  merge our work time with our play time such that we didn’t know the difference. I know there are many people that work for others and are not able to literally live that out. But there are many of us that could live in that paradigm but choose not to.

We have carried that dichotomy into our Christianity!

Maybe a better place to live out that concept would be in our Christian life? We don’t really have a boss that requires us to live one way on Sunday and if we meet that requirement we get “off” time the rest of the week.  But that is exactly the way I see many Christians living. It’s all about Sunday morning and checking  the box of attending a church. The rest of the week doesnt get in the way. We rarely let Christ get in the way of our Christianity! The Fine Line has challenged me to be a transformist…to be in the world and not of the world…to love without reason or condition…to blend my life. 

My life is less concerned with finding the right church on Sunday as I am with finding Christ in my life everyday.

click comments below tell me what you are thinking…

‘To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure.  In fact, both their minds and their consciences are corrupted.  They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.  They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.’  Titus 1:15-16

 This verse is directed to non-believers but has implications for believers as well.  The mind represents part of our Soul (mind, will and emotions) and the conscience is part of our Spirit (intuition, conscience, communion with God).  How can we grow if we are corrupted?  After coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, we have to deal with the areas of our lives that are broken…but how?

 I think of a computer that is ‘corrupted’.  It won’t work properly, and neither will we.  We need to run an anti-malware program to clean it up.  It is the same with us.  We need the Holy Spirit to search us to see if there is any evil way in us.  We need a firewall to keep out the evil one because he is constantly probing our defenses looking for a way in.

 Could it be that the reason we see so little passion and commitment in our churches today is because they are full of saved but ‘corrupted’ people?  We need the healing and deliverance that Jesus promises.  Come Holy Spirit and do your work in us.

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I invited my good friend Bob Lee to post here…please leave your thoughts and comments below…thanks ebroussard