As we noted last week our Church Mission statement at St Jude’s is to transform disengaged people in to fully engaged men and women of God. This mission statement is aimed at inspiring our people to reach out to a disengaged world and bring them to Christ. However, the pressure towards disengagement also impacts all of us who have decided to follow Jesus in our lives. We need to be aware of the pressures at work in the world that drive us towards passivity; and as a result not only a disengagement with the things of life – worship, relationships, prayer and spiritual development, and service to God and His church – but also a numbness to the moral, spiritual and leadership issues of our time.
In addition, a sense of weariness, hopelessness and depression move to disengage us from the things that make life worthwhile, rewarding and satisfying.
They separate us from things that are worth being committed to. This calls for an engagement with life! An engagement Jesus tells us that cannot truly happen without being connected to Him (John 15:1- 8). It is Jesus who provides the light and direction for our lives. John writes. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). John also tells us that there is an active hidden force (darkness) at work in the world whose aim is to disengage us from life. However, this darkness is unable to overcome the life and light that comes to us through Jesus. John writes, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).
We need to be engaged with God and the things that pertain to His Kingdom. This is not suggesting that we are necessarily disengaged. Rather, the movement to engagement comes from recognition of the level of disengagement around us that attempts to influence our attitudes and perspective on life.
This recognition comes through two fundamental forces at work in our life. The first is our ongoing awareness of our own frailty and ability to deceive ourselves – this is the element of humility and meekness in our life. The second is the word of God, which is able to highlight the activity of darkness that drives us to passivity and disengagement with God and one another.
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Without such recognition, passivity and disengagement trap, beguile and engulf us as they flow through the various aspects of our daily life. They come through the small activities and decisions we make and manage to sap our energy; distort our affections and attitudes; and rob us of peace, satisfaction and fruitfulness.
Challenge disengagement and it will flee from you!
