Batteries not Included
In this Article we are exploring an interesting concept; so here goes, and our Title is the big give-away to where we are going. “Batteries are not included,” so, our, “Going to Church without Jesus is just like a toy without a battery.” We can appear “just right,” wave flags, make great orations, promises and speeches, appear to be the Real-Deal, but if we do not really actually have Jesus Christ living within and directing, powered by the Holy Spirit, then we are about as good for nothing as one can get, just a toy without batteries. We have this verse as found in 1 Corinthians 13:1 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” Our “Going to Church without Jesus is like a toy without a battery,” just totally useless and of no benefit to anybody.
We have this admonition in 2 Timothy 3:5 “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” So does our alleged “Christian Walk” have a form of Godliness? Have we lost the vital connection with God and are just like “a toy without a battery?” Jesus talks to one of the early churches, and this admonition is here declared in Revelation 2:4 “Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.”
Here we have one of the early Churches having taken its eye off the goal; of love, adoration and dedication, so Satan had sneakily given them a replacement “Hologram” as a seeming semblance of their original goal, but it was just as false and as wrong as if they were a toy without batteries. Proverbs 25:14 “Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift [is like] clouds and wind without rain.” Again we have scriptures admonishing us to make sure that we are “the real deal” and not just clouds without rain, of having a form of godliness, of being a noisy sounding brass and tinkling symbols, or just, plain old toys without batteries, useless and ineffectual.
We have this admonition to a Church, so is it like the one we are attending? Revelation 3:14-22 “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, [to hear] let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”
These people have “Forms” and “Ceremonies” but are not the real deal, they are just like a Toy without Batteries, totally ineffective and useless. Promising much, they have lots of potential, but are absolutely powerless. Plug in power and what a massive difference we have, a transformation from useless to amazingly effective. When we come to Jesus Christ, repent and forsake sin, confess our wrongs and then set out on the right paths, the Holy Spirit comes in and “empowers us” just like plugging in the batteries, and our ineffectiveness has passed, behold old things have passed away and all things become new (2 Cor 5:17), and now each new believer can perform just like our Heavenly Father had always intended for them. The Batteries are now included and installed, we become effective and productive.
This can be likened to “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22-26) as when the Batteries are included and working, and my, what a difference that all makes. There is an immediate transformation from ineffective and useless to dynamically effective. Jesus portrayed this concept in “Vine – Branches” from John chapter 15, if there is no connection between the branch and the vine, then nothing happens at all, just like a toy without a battery. In the parable, useless branches are pruned off and are discarded to the bonfire, and they actually do then produce something, heat and ash, and the ash certainly makes good fertilizer for something that is prepared to grow.
Dear reader; why do we so often try to pass ourselves off as the “real deal” and portray, or attempt to portray ourselves, as being complete, yet deep down inside, there is no battery included, we have no living connection to the source of power, a battery, the Holy Spirit, as He is more than willing to come into us and to empower us, and enable us to be everything we appear to be, and then to be so much more indeed. So let each of us become empowered by the Holy Spirit, and become effective. It is so easy to live with a flat battery, point to this as evidence, but never realize our ineffectiveness, so let us each get fresh batteries immediately, and then to keep them well charged up, for always.
