Have you noticed how many people seem to conduct life via the drive through window? We can do our banking and pay for parking through the convenience of the drive through. We can pull up to a fast food restaurant order a meal at one stop, pay for it at another window and pick it up at yet another. There are also certain convenience stores where you can shop without leaving your car. During the Covid 19 outbreak people could drive up to a central location and health officials could test you for the virus right through your car window. I was even able to take my dog to the groomer and hand him out the window. Now that is convenience.
Sadly, many think that they can conduct their spiritual life in a similar “get and go” fashion. They drive to church, stop in for an hour, pay the toll, shake a few hands and drive away feeling they have taken care of their spiritual duty for the week. Being a Christian however, is not a drive through experience; it is a lifetime journey. Salvation is not just a list of 4 spiritual laws; it involves a daily walk with the Savior. The Bible is not a coffee table decoration it is a battle plan for our daily life. In our rush to simplify spiritual truth I think we may have dumbed down what the Christian life is all about. In following Christ we are instructed to enter a narrow way, endure a difficult race, and fight a good fight. Jesus said in Luke 9:23: “If anyone desire to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me”. That doesn’t sound like a drive through, hurry up and fill my order type of Christianity to me.
I have no problem with getting a meal occasionally from the window of a fast food restaurant. There is nothing less secure about depositing your money inside one of those little tubes and having it sucked into your bank. But when it comes to your relationship with Jesus, now that is something that takes time. As a matter of fact it takes a lifetime.