SUBSTITUTES

I remember an epiphany I had years ago in the midst of a Sunday School class. I was the "secretary" of the young marrieds class at the time. We were Southern Baptist. As SBC you fill out these little envelopes every Sunday in Sunday School and check off what you have done....read your Bible everyday? visited someone? studied your quarterly BEFORE coming to class? tithe? amount?

The Lord opened my eyes to see that all these check marks everyone was putting down on their envelope and I was putting in their "record" meant absolutely nothing. And what about giving without anyone knowing what you had given? I rebelled against the system. I refused to write the stuff in the permanent record book, which I figured most people were lying about anyway, and I didn't write down the amount given on the outside of the envelope for all to see.

You would have thought all hell had broken loose in the church office when I did that! I was called in to give account to the Sunday School Superintendent as to why I wasn't filling out the books and especially why I wasn't recording the money amounts. Being an honest person....I told them. I said that God didn't care about these little check marks and it was pressuring people to lie or feel "bad" if they couldn't check all the little boxes. I expressed my certainty that God wasn't going to use this record on Judgment Day except to ask us why we were fool enough to fill it out. I may have been a little less frank....but you get the jest. And of course then I went full force with scripture on the money issue. I was ordered to comply or give the all important books to someone else. Guess what I did?

It's a sutble temptation in our lives to prefer the Book to the Author. After all, books can be ignored and it's harder to avoid the Author when He starts to speak to you.....seeking a deeper relationship with you. The Pharisees in Jesus' day thought they were "all that" because they could quote all that scripture and keep all those laws. Yet they missed the prophesied Messiah when He came. They rejected God's Son over their knowledge of scripture.

I often work as a substitute teacher. One class I have often subbed for is Latin. I DO NOT know Latin. The kids know more than I do. I can somehow muddle through the text and get the lesson done......but I am just the substitute. The students have to wait for the answers when the real teacher returns.

A substitute isn't a bad thing....it's a good thing, at least there is control in the classroom and some learning going on. Perhaps you're serving your church, teaching Sunday School, tithing, visiting the sick, helping the poor. These are good things, not bad. But are you substituting your activity for a relationship with the One you are doing deeds for?

No amount of Christian activity can replace your relationship with Jesus. The apostle Paul considered every "good" thing he had done to be "rubbish" when compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ (Phil. 3:8). Never become satisfied with religious activity rather than a personal, vibrant and growing relationship with Jesus Christ.