Dealing with cynicism

Live as children of the light (for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.  Ephesians 5: 8 – 10

From Ephesians 4: 17, through chapter 5 to chapter 6: 9, Paul urges the Ephesians into Godly living. His teaching is very specific, comprehensive and practical and is a wonderful if rather challenging exhortation of how to live. Only some of Jesus’ teaching is even more challenging.

Ephesus was a major centre of commerce with flourishing temple worship to the Roman goddess Diana so the Christians in Ephesus had a lot to contend with. This must be why Paul gave them so much advice on how to live right in the midst of idolatry and a Godless society.  The problems we face in our societies today may not have much to do with worshipping Diana but the challenges are just as real and difficult for the modern day Christian. We too must live as children of the light in our Godless societies and it can be very hard.

In UK one of the major obstacles to Godly living, very prevalent in society is cynicism. Cynicism is ‘an inclination to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile.’ Cynicism’s first cousin is scepticism which doubts the truth of something. Cynics tend to look down on the kind of advice Paul gave the Ephesians with a certain amount of derision. People feel it is not worthwhile to live the sort of life Paul was talking about in today’s culture; there is nothing in it for them. Cynics doubt people’s motives so if Christians are kind, loving, generous, merciful and so on cynics are sceptical about why they are doing it. 

Cynicism though is also prevalent in the church and people extravagant in worship or giving or who are enthusiastic about God and his love are viewed very cautiously and as ‘over the top.’ The same love, kindness, grace and mercy are viewed suspiciously as ‘too good to be true’ but that is exactly what God is – too good, kind, generous, loving, and merciful to be true except it is true!

Cynicism and scepticism like unbelief need to be rooted out of our lives. Cynics find it very hard to trust God and to believe that he wants good things for his children because for a cynic there is always an ulterior motive – God must want something so what is this going to cost me and so doubt clouds their minds. However we know the full price for salvation, forgiveness and a life of love was paid by Jesus on the cross and all we need is to walk by faith – hard if you are a sceptic.

The solution is to put out arms of love and trust to God, declaring and believing that what he has said is true and so silence cynicism and scepticism with words of life and faith.

Light the fire again

Yet I hold this against you; you have forsaken your first love. Revelation 2: 4

The Apostle John was writing to the church at Ephesus (Revelation 2: 1 - 1. He commended them for all their hard work and perseverance. They had not tolerated wicked men and had tested those who came to them claiming to be apostles and yet were not. They had persevered through great hardships and not grown weary. They had much to commend them but they had lost their first love, their passion.

When we are first in love, all we can think about is the wonderful object of our affection. It consumes us and we prioritise our first love over everything else. We are so excited about this person and all we want to do is talk about them to anyone who will listen. We hug to ourselves every little word and action that has happened between us. We can’t wait to meet them again.

When we first became Christians we were like that. We were walking on air thinking about Jesus and what had happened. We may have felt a great sense of gratitude to him; we may have felt so light as our burden of sin had rolled away. We wanted to talk about Jesus to anyone who would listen and we couldn’t wait to slip away and spend time with him or go to church to draw near to him.

The church at Ephesus had done really well. They were not full of dead works like the church at Sardis. They had worked hard, resisted wicked men, persevered, not grown weary BUT they had lost that wonderful love for God. They were doing all the right things but for the wrong reasons. They were not doing them out of love for the one who had saved them. 
For many who have been Christians for years, we too can fall into this routine; just as those who have been married many years can fall into a comfortable routine forgetting the passion that united them originally. We do all the right things, everything that needs to be done but the spark, the fire has died right down.

Today let us ask God to renew our passion for him and re light the fire we felt at first especially if we have become distracted by works over our relationship with Jesus. Our love now may be laced with a bit more wisdom and discernment than it was at the beginning but it should be just as passionate.

Lord Jesus I am so sorry that my love has cooled down. Please will you blow on the embers of my love today and cause the passionate fire I used to feel for you to burn again. Help me to do what I do out of love for you and not out of routine, duty or misplaced commitment. Light the fire again I pray. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.