Devotional 07-24-2022

Consider Your Ways: Escaping Complacency

In Acts 20:7-12, we are given a brief account on a young man named Eutychus, who was with other believers listening to the Apostle Paul preach. As the Apostle's message prolonged past midnight, Eutychus fell into an inattentive slumber that resulted in him falling out a window to his death. Fortunately, the young man was later revived following the Apostle Paul noting that his life was still in him.

As Amting (2022) notes, Eutychus' experience resembles that of a complacent believer, whose familiarity and distraction causes his spiritual life to stagnate and slowly drift into a disastrous slumber. Fortunately, this resemblance extends to the hopeful ending of Eutychus' account, for the Lord has graciously provided us a means by which we can escape this destructive lifestyle. This path to overcoming complacency involves the following:

Confessing our complacency. As with any sin, our first course of action should be to confess our complacency before God and ask for His forgiveness. We should have no fear of this request being denied, for 1 John 1:9 promises that the Lord will always respond to our genuine requests for forgiveness. Thus, our first step to escaping complacency is acknowledging our guiltiness of it, confessing our sin before God, and asking for His forgiveness.
Repenting from our complacency. As Proverbs 28:13 reminds us, our confessions should be combined with repentance, where we renounce our sin and commit to forsaking it. Fortunately, we do not have to rely on our own strength to abstain from complacency, for Romans 8:26 notes that we can turn to the Spirit for strength in our weakness. By depending on His strength, we can truly repent from our complacent attitudes and behaviors.
Building godly habits. Complacency typically causes us to fall away from the habits the Lord desires us to have, such as daily Bible study (Psalm 1:2) and frequent prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Because of this, escaping our complacent state requires us to build back these habits. Again, relying on the Spirit's strength enables us to do this.
Developing a passion for God. Matthew 22:37 states that we should love the Lord with all our being. Because complacency interferes with our passion for God, it is imperative that we continually develop it. We can do this by learning about Him in His Word, communing with Him in prayer, seeking His will, obeying it, and ensuring our love and attention is to Him and not the things of this world.

Although its consequences are detrimental, complacency is not an inescapable trap for believers. Thankfully, the Lord has graciously provided a means for us to escape it, which involves us confessing this sin, repenting from it, building godly habits, and developing a passion for Him. No matter how long or far our descent into complacency becomes, we can be assured that escape is always available and that, like Eutychus, our spiritual life is still in us.

Reference

Amting, J. (2022, March 17) "I'm bored" How to overcome complacency in your faith. Bible Reasons. biblereasons.com/how-to-overcome-complacency-in-your-faith/

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