ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–Have you had your annual “spiritual” this year? We all know it is important to see the doctor for a physical each year, to be sure that we are in good health and treat any disease that we might have. Isn’t it just as important that we do this in our spiritual lives?
I just finished my annual day of humiliation and had my physical at the Cooper Clinic. Wonderful place. I first went there several years ago when I turned 40. They check you for every disease known to mankind. But the thing that really concerned me that first year was that my height was shrinking. When they measured me they said that I was 5-9. But I had been 5-10 since high school. This really bothered me and I asked the doctor about it. She told me that because I had been a runner for many years, my joints had probably slightly compressed and I had lost an inch. She said that by the time I turned 45 I might lose another inch. I really was shrinking.
When I got home I told my family this story and it really concerned my nine-year-old son. He said, “Dad is it true that when you grow up the older you get the shorter you get?” “I guess so,” I said. In complete seriousness, my son responded, “Dad, that Methuselah must have been one short dude!”
I can’t do anything about the fact that I am shrinking, but I don’t have to settle for pint-sized passion and a spiritually withered life. And as Southern Baptists, we don’t have to settle for shrinking influence on culture, shrinking churches, and a shrinking number of people saved and baptized. We can do something about this.
That’s why each of us needs to have an annual spiritual. We need to take an honest look at our spiritual life and see if we are healthy. Have we allowed spiritual disease to weaken us or even threaten our spiritual lives? Are we following Jesus to the lost or are we just concerned with our own needs? Are we helping our church become a mission force or are we helping to maintain the Christian club environment which leaves most of our churches virtually uninvolved in the lives of the very people Jesus is seeking? If all of us did this kind of spiritual check-up each year, it could result in a huge leap forward in the health of God’s people overall. And it could result in a major difference in the eternal health of millions.
Have you ever looked inside your heart? I just did. My doctor wanted to do an echocardiogram to make sure all my valves were functioning well. I watched a screen where I could see my heart pumping and my blood flowing. It was quite a sight. It caused me to think about my spiritual heart. I want to look inside there and see if the Spirit of God is moving and flowing freely. As I open His Word and ask Him to, God will open up my spiritual heart and let me see. It may not be pretty, but He will also show me how to be healed.
Just a few days ago, I was sharing Christ with a man I met at an airport. As I shared what Jesus meant to me, he interrupted me and said, “How can I take any of this seriously after the Ted Haggard stuff?” He went on to tell me that he needed change in his life but didn’t see anything in Christians to convince him that the power of Jesus was real. My heart was broken. I am sure that there is so much in my life that pushes people away from Jesus instead of drawing them closer to Him. I want God to change that. How about you? In days like these I can’t think of anything more important than for God to change our hearts in such a fresh way that our faith becomes contagious and transformational. It wouldn’t take that many of us moving forward in spiritual health and power together to make evangelism good news again.
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John Avant is vice president for evangelization at the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board.
