"If you think that life is boring, if you believe that most activities are boring, if you are convinced that most people are boring, guess what? You are a boring person!"
These remarks were featured in a self-help infomercial during the 1990s. The upshot of the infomercial was that our perception of things and people is colored by attitudes, especially bad attitudes.
In 2016, plenty of human beings want to convey how bored they are about things and people. Christians, however, are not instructed by God to pursue a life of being perpetually entertained by everyone or everything around us. Our reason for being is not wrapped up in our obsessive self-preoccupations. We are commanded by Jesus to walk another path and to embrace another set of attitudes.
We read of this episode during the earthly ministry of Jesus:
Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"
Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
(Matt.22:35-40)
Observe: The first and greatest commandment is for us to love God with all that we truly are. We cannot endeavor to do that if we're bored with the truths of God and His glorious Son.
Additionally, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. There is no indication that we are to love only those neighbors who continually impress and excite us. In fact, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) teaches that we are to love and minister to those who may be our adversaries.
"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up."--1 Cor.13:4. Such love may be rare, but it is certainly not boring.
And: If you are committed every day to fully loving God and loving your neighbors, then you won't have time to become bored.
These remarks were featured in a self-help infomercial during the 1990s. The upshot of the infomercial was that our perception of things and people is colored by attitudes, especially bad attitudes.
In 2016, plenty of human beings want to convey how bored they are about things and people. Christians, however, are not instructed by God to pursue a life of being perpetually entertained by everyone or everything around us. Our reason for being is not wrapped up in our obsessive self-preoccupations. We are commanded by Jesus to walk another path and to embrace another set of attitudes.
We read of this episode during the earthly ministry of Jesus:
Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"
Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
(Matt.22:35-40)
Observe: The first and greatest commandment is for us to love God with all that we truly are. We cannot endeavor to do that if we're bored with the truths of God and His glorious Son.
Additionally, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. There is no indication that we are to love only those neighbors who continually impress and excite us. In fact, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) teaches that we are to love and minister to those who may be our adversaries.
"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up."--1 Cor.13:4. Such love may be rare, but it is certainly not boring.
And: If you are committed every day to fully loving God and loving your neighbors, then you won't have time to become bored.
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