Have you ever had a time when you got overly spiritual and then you regretted it? Maybe you don’t understand what I mean by that. Here’s a time it happened to me.
During my time in college a couple friends and I decided to fast for 40 days. We decided we would only eat after 9 PM. It was a challenging, but very significant time as God moved in our lives over the course of those 40 days. As we went through the fast we decided to give up even more things like playing video games and watching television.
While it was really great to take a break from those things, looking back I realized that this was the first step in losing a close friendship. There was a guy on my floor that we hung out with regularly and the main things we did with him were play video games, watch TV, and eat together at the dining hall. Sadly, after about 2 weeks of being unable to do much of anything with us he decided to go find friends elsewhere.
I regret that we grew apart from one unsaved friend who we may have had the chance to impact because we stopped spending as much time with him due to our decision to fast.
I’m not trying to encourage you to stop fasting all together. Fasting is a great spiritual discipline that can help you really grow in your relationship with God. What I am saying is that we need to be really careful not to overly spiritualize our daily activities to the point where unbelievers don’t want to be around us any more.
Jesus was the perfect example of not being overly spiritual. Even though he spent hours (yes, hours) in prayer and seclusion (Mark 1:35, Matt. 14:23, Luke 5:16), He still found plenty of time to spend with His disciples and eat meals with sinners. In fact, when the Pharisees addressed this Jesus’ response was, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” We should be looking for ways to get closer to God, but not at the expense of our relationships with the very people who Jesus came for.
If we focus so much on spiritual disciplines that we neglect our unsaved friends we have missed what the Gospel is all about.
So, as you make resolutions for this new year, whether it’s fasting or just spending more time in the Word (both things that God appreciates), remember the reason that we’re all here – to live for Christ and to make Him known.