Lynn Jones: The need for a commitment to Christ that lasts
By Lynn Jones
I’ve always liked Marc Cohn’s song, “Walking in Memphis.” Maybe it’s because of our proximity to Memphis, or maybe it’s the quality of the tune and lyric, which comes across well regardless of your location.
One line in the song particularly intrigues me. The singer had gone to the Hollywood Café to hear a pianist play and sing the blues. When she invited him to sing, he “sang with all his might”. At the end of the song, she asked him, “Tell me, are you a Christian, Child?” And he said, “Ma’am I am tonight.”
The line sounds good in the song, but it doesn’t sound so good when it is spoken by someone in life. Is Christianity something that you assume just when it feels good? Is it some emotional experience prompted by a driving gospel beat that can be dropped as soon as the music’s over?
Some see Christianity in those terms. Ralph Sockman observed that tendency in the way some approach the ministry. He wrote, “To enter the ministry merely because one has a gift of speech, a love of leadership, and a fondness for working with people is not a proper start for the long pull Godward. Too many preachers are like matches. They carry all their brilliance in their own heads, and the first flare soon fades. They lack that sustained brightness which comes from a current of power surging through them from a greater source.”
Of course, that applies to Christianity in general, as well as to the ministry in particular. What is needed is sustained incandescence rather than a brief burst of light.
An older man went to the doctor for treatment for his arthritis. The doctor examined him and gave him a prescription for some medicine. On the way out of the doctor’s office, the man stopped at the desk and wrote a check to pay his bill. A month later a person from the doctor’s business office called and said, “Your check came back.” The man responded, “So did my arthritis.”
The change produced in our lives by Christ needs to be more lasting than that. When we genuinely hear the Word of God and respond to it, the impact of that Word on our lives needs to last.
James 1:25 says, “But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”
Someone might ask you, “Are you a Christian?” If you are a Christian, your response should be different from the one given by the singer in the song who responded, “Ma’am, I am tonight.” It needs to be open-ended with no expiration date stamped upon it. It needs to be courageous and straightforward. It needs to be, “Yes, I am!”
Lynn Jones is a retired pastor who lives in Oxford. He does supply preaching for churches in his area and often serves as an interim pastor. Jones is also an author, has written two books and writes a weekly newspaper column. He may be contacted at: kljones45@yahoo.com
