One of the TV shows I will watch when I have an opportunity is “Blue Bloods”. If you are not familiar with the show, it is about a fictional Irish Catholic family, the Reagans where the “family business” is apparently law enforcement.
In an episode I recently watched, Erin Reagan is struggling with the fact that she has chosen to put her career as a district attorney as a top priority in her life. She discovers that many friendships from years ago have become tepid because she didn’t find the time to invest in them.
I suspect many of us who have or have had demanding careers or who have been forced to work long hours and possibly multiple jobs, can relate to making difficult choices and about how and where to invest our time. There is a truth worth noting in this fictional situation. Relationships require a certain amount of commitment, a certain amount of time to remain healthy, to thrive. This is true not only of our relationships with our families, friends, and with each other but also with God.
The greatest commandment tells us what we must do to be in right relationship with God.
I am always surprised when during worship I do not see more hands raised when Pete asks how many people joined the 45 Minute Club this week. To be in the 45 minute club, you are merely devoting 45 minutes spread across each of the 7 days of the week to spending time with God’s Word and time with God.
This can be done through reading of the “Upper Room” or some other devotional guide, through reading “The Daily Bible Reading” listed in each week’s newsletter, doing the reading in any one of the suggested plans to read the Bible in a Year, or even listening to a devotional or scripture being read each day.
We are so blessed in all the opportunities we have been given to invest in our relationship with God; to be passionate about our faith, and not be lukewarm. Interesting that we still may tend to neglect our relationship with God, even when our opportunities are so readily available.
We have talked at Faith UMC about having “all in” faith, but hear what God has to say to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3:15-16 about lukewarm faith, “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”