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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Passionless Complacent Christianity

Have you ever been disillusioned? I'm sure you have. We have all had hopes that of been crushed, or even expectations that didn't come to pass. The Word of God says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Many, if not all of us, have been 'heart sick' with disillusionment. 

Disillusionment brings with it lots of other things with it too. One of those things is a discouragement. Discouragement sometimes then develops into a loss of passion, and before long that loss of passion slips into complacency.

That's where most Christians seem to live, in passionless complacency.  It’s easy to get there for sure, but not so easy to pull out of.  I, for one, am sick of the status quo. I long for more!  I can't seem to be satisfied with a life of no passion, and it seems that’s all I see around me.  If we do have passion, it’s often for things other than God or His kingdom. Where is the church’s passion for Christ?  Where is our passion for lost souls?  Why are we settling for passionless lives and hearts sick with disillusionment?

The other day at a soccer game I heard a group of parents talking passionately about sports at their children’s schools.  One woman became so enraged that she couldn’t concentrate on the current game that was taking place, because she was focused on a scenario that had played out for someone else’s child at a different school. 

Isn’t that like us?  Sitting on the sidelines, no interest in the current game, certainly not personally involved in the game, and passionately complaining about something that doesn’t really even concern us?  I think it is. I also think that, in the Christian life, it’s a trick of the enemy to draw us away from what’s important right now.

So how can we shake this complacent nature we’ve allowed into our lives and into our church?  How can we once again regain the passion that drives us to accomplish God’s purpose and God’s vision for us?  How can we shake the disappointments in people, ourselves, or even in unanswered prayers?

Disillusionment most often comes when we feel let down by someone else or even by our own abilities. It’s a sure sign we are looking to the wrong things or to the wrong person for fulfillment.  I believe the cure for disillusionment, brings with it the cure for loss of passion. So then, we need to find the cure for disillusionment.

It happens that we will lose our complacency, and regain our passion, when our focus is shifted off of everything else but God. All of our failures, all of our crushed dreams, all of the people that have let us down, cannot continue to be our focus.  God must be our focus, our life!  He never fails!  He never lets us down.

The cure for passionless complacent Christianity happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to ‘revive’ us, and animate us for His purpose, and stop pursuing our own purposes.  It happens when we stop sitting on the sidelines complaining about what someone else is doing, and get in the game ourselves. 

I for one am tired of passionless Christianity. I’m tired of disillusionment. I’m tired of complacent Christians.  And... I’m certainly tired of all of those things in me. 

In this “Year of Pursuit.”  If you’ve let up on seeking God and started looking to other things for any kind of fulfillment, change that focus back to Him because we need a revival of passion in the church.