Every electronic device owner knows that software updates are a bit of a necessary evil. Sure, they’re inconvenient and disruptive and if you’re not careful about connecting to Wi-Fi they can consume your mobile data, but if you don’t download them, you are stuck using an old version of whatever application needs an update. Your identity or privacy might also be at risk if you prefer not keeping apps up to date.
Going from Manual to Automatic
For some of us, our faith is like that. We like to just check in every once in a while, make sure things are still going okay, then check out again. It shouldn’t be like that. Like app updates, it should be automatic. Our connection to God must in turn be the same. Instead of a manual process, one that we have to initiate and think about, it should be an automatic process, one that we don’t need to check on in order to feel secure. To be secure in the knowledge of our faith is one of God’s greatest gifts to us.
That is not to say that we should not fear God. Even though we can feel secure in our faith, that doesn’t mean that we should not remember the kind of God we have a relationship with. But also remember that fear is not necessarily negative. Luke 1:50 says, “And his mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation” (NKJV). That means that we don’t need to be afraid of God, since we can be certain that our Heavenly Father will always love and forgive us, but rather that we respect him and understand that we serve a God that is many times greater than we can possibly conceive. It is not simple fear, but rather awe and reverence.
How to Stay Updated in Faith
The Bible commands us in 1st Timothy 4:7 to “reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness” (NKJV). We can do this in a number of ways, which are referred to as spiritual disciplines. These are practices that we can engage in alone or with others and are actually things that we can put into practice, not just thought processes or attitudes. Some examples include prayer, reading the Bible, worship, and fasting. It must be remembered however, that while keeping the spiritual disciplines on automatic as much as possible is important, they do not make you godly, rather, they provide the means for us as believers to attempt to become godlier. Just because perfection is not achievable by humans, that doesn’t mean that we should not try.
The most important thing to remember about our relationship with God is that it should not be something manual that we need to check on every so often. It should be an automatic process, one that doesn’t always show itself, but is always active, and always there for you when you need it most. It is a constant presence. Our relationship with Him needs to be more than an hour and a half every week on a Sunday, it should be more like a constant sense of reverence and respect for our Heavenly Father who made us.