Have You Been Vaccinated?

2 Timothy 3:5 (ESV)

^“ having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”

A vaccine!  That seems to be what everyone is hoping for - a vaccine that works against the Corona Virus. The pharmaceutical companies can’t work fast enough to develop one.  Will they?  Who knows? Most everyone seems to be hoping and waiting for it to happen.  The politicians are certainly promising one. Some day in the future perhaps we will be asking one another, “Have you been vaccinated?” 

Reading about the potential for a COVID 19 vaccine reminded me of something Pastor Ray Schade one said at a seminar on stewardship.  He told the group that sometimes he is concerned that some Christians have been exposed to just enough Christianity that they have become immune to it.  What did he mean? He was concerned that people knew just enough about the Christian faith that the message no longer penetrated to their soul… that faith no longer took hold or caught fire in their heart. 

What would that look like?  Paul describes it as “having the appearance of godliness but denying the power of it.”  Jesus in Revelation 2 says this is what happened to the Christians in Ephesus.  “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”  In other words, you do all the right Christian things on the outside – belonging to a church, going to church, giving to others, singing the right hymns and so forth.  But it’s all on the outside, not on the inside.  You are like a store that advertises a product for sale, but when you go to that store you find that they don’t have it.  Your religion has become a show, nothing more than window dressing disguising a spiritual emptiness inside.  Your faith has become like a fire that has grown cold and gone out.

Is there a cure for the vaccine?  Is there a way to relight the fire?  Yes.  St. Paul told Timothy to “fan into flame the gift of God that is within you.  Jesus told the Christians in Ephesus, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen and repent…”  With a fire that has gone out, you would get some more wood and light it again.  You would fuel the fire.  Well Jesus and Paul are telling us to add fuel to our faith.  A fire needs wood and oxygen.  Faith needs God’s grace and His word.  Repent, Jesus tells us.  In other words, return to God with your heart.  Come back to His Word.  That’s how His Spirit promises to work in our heart.  “Faith comes through hearing the word, the word about Christ.”  “My word,” God promises, “My Word will not return to me empty but will accomplish the purposes for which I gave it.” 

There were times in the cold Milwaukee winter when my old Chevy Nova wouldn’t start. So, we would get out of the car, spray some ether into the carbonator, get back in the car, turn the key and step on the gas.  That ether was just the spark needed to get the engine going again.  God’s Spirit, working through God’s Word to bring you back to Jesus – that’s the spark needed to get faith going again in your heart and mine.