Yeah, that’s right, raise your hand if you genuinely think your church is cool!
*crickets*
That is what I thought…
Who Died And Made You Boring?
We all know Jesus died and was raised in power to give us the gift of eternal life with God, so why aren’t people beyond excited when they go to church to celebrate such a thing?
Even apart from any heavenly reward, what about all the amazing things we have to thank God for?
- The way our lives have radically changed so that we have overcome all sin and don’t live in bondage of any kind
- Our outrageously God-loving friends, family, and fellow church members who radiate God’s love and righteousness in everything they do
- The overwhelmingly consistent things our church does within our community to end hunger, poverty, and bring others to God
- All the personal conversations with God and daily revelations we experience as we richly dwell in his presence
Mmm, yeah…
I think in most cases, this list sounds more like what our life and church *should* be like, rather than what it actually is
So what is there to get excited about when at church or in our daily Christian lives, the communion crackers, the hymns, the pews or the white-haired old people?
*yawn*
Should We Have Church With The Lights Down Low?
Okay, so I get it, you generally don’t hang out with your friends singing out loud in a group setting, but church should be about the things we are celebrating–maybe we would feel less awkward if the lights were low, so nobody would see us sing?
Kind of funny, but doesn’t that sound like the way live their lives anyway, with our faith and enthusiasm out of sight (provided it actually exists in the first place!)
Matthew 5:16
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven
Hmm, so Jesus told us to shine before men, not just church goers, so that our lives would literally cause people to praise God
*cough*
Genuine Enthusiasm Attracts Attention
When I am out doing things in San Francisco, there are occasions where I go through Union Square and see concerts happening, some of them look interesting enough to stop and check out, but most of them are pretty blah
Who likes being around boring, drab, unauthentic music that the performers aren’t completely passionate about?
But for that matter, who wants to be around Christians who don’t truly know or love God?
*bam*
Church Is Boring Because The Christians Are Boring!
Yikes!
I mean come on, what is interesting about “another” religious group who just follows a set of rules without having a relationship with God?
What makes rule following, boring Christians any different than other religious people in the world–how can we expect people will want to join us if we have no joy or relationship with God that is clearly evident in our lives?
If we have become new creations, and are walking daily with the living God, what reason do we have for not being overjoyed about this, and what are we doing to live in a way that spreads our joy to others?
Well, the truth is, a lot of us aren’t walking with God, and we aren’t new creations, that is just the reality of the way a lot of Christians are
Ouch!
God Doesn’t Make Himself Look Bad, Christians Do!
Both in the old and new testaments, we were given some very simple advice on how to live our lives, which is summarized in saying that we should love God above all things, that is how we create an infectious, enthusiastic, tangible relationship with God–that is where the boredom stops, ie: with us!
Deuteronomy 6:5
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength
Mark 12:30
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength
I am pretty sure that if we won a billion dollars we would get excited, so why not live our lives in a way that would demonstrate the amazing gift that we have been given!?
Amen, brother.
I’m often troubled by my own fluctuating enthusiasm. Perhaps we don’t regard salvation as the gift that it is, because the alternative simply seems unthinkable. We want to think that we can be “good enough” and get into Heaven because God wouldn’t be so ‘mean’ as to throw people anywhere else, if we weren’t really naughty, right? So we take it for granted.
I have to admit to dealing with frequent doubt, as well. I was raised in the church, but got lost to pride, which led, in its good time, to immorality, atheism, and general badness. It wasn’t until, oh, a month or so ago that I experienced a period of existential panic and a personal revelation of God’s grace, that brought me weeping back into the fold. And even now, my brain has troubled grasping what my heart already knows, which leads to all sorts of confusions.
So, it’s tough for me, at times, to be enthusiastic all the time. I have this confused nest of feelings about God, and how little I understand. People claim to ‘believe in’ the Bible, but cannot answer basic questions–not unlike how many Americans believe in the Constitution, but couldn’t tell you much about it. It’s an empty, blind faith. It’s lazy. As if people think they can just say ‘Yes’ or “No” to Christ’s Salvation Survey, and that’s the end of their obligation. How can you be excited about something you don’t understand? That you don’t really live? It’s like someone from the US getting ‘excited’ about the World Cup. We don’t get soccer, we don’t even call it by the ‘right’ name. It isn’t really ‘our thing’.
I’ve taken to studying the Scripture every day, praying every day (multiple times, mostly, sometimes just trying to listen instead of asking or saying something). I hope that by being an active participant in salvation, rather than a passive recipient (sometimes I think people take concepts like “grace” and “turn it all over to Jesus” as an out), I can feel what you describe, and become the sort of Christian who just radiates it. But arrogance led me into this mess. I can’t just think my way into God. I have to do something.
Glad I came across your blog, by the way. It’s nice to see that there are some high-quality Christians putting out high quality media online. If people can blog about every other silly thing under the sun, why not that which is above the sun too?
Hi Bennett,
“General badness”
Great way of putting it, and I think a lot of times we question our faith during growth periods, especially when we feel like our Christian upbringing may have felt as genuine or truly in touch with God as one would hope
What are the things you are still kicking around now that you have returned?
I went through a tremendous period of rebellion when I was between the ages of eighteen to twenty-four, and mostly left God in a place where I still believed, but I did not respect or fear God at all
When I finally hit a wall after plowing through a lifestyle of drugs, money, bad relationships, etc… I turned to God and said:
“God, the only things that made me happy in life were when I was living according to the Bible, and it affected everyone around me positively as well. If you are real, and what I was taught in my youth was really the truth, I want to come back, but… I have questions”
My questions revolved around things like: if Jesus was the way, the truth and the life, why are there so many different types of Christianity that interpret the Bible differently, why are there are so many different interpretations, why is Christianity “the one true religion” when there are so many other religions/miracles/believers in the world, etc…
I literally threw everything I believed up in the air and started shooting at it from a philosophical and theological point of view, and also reviewed other religions to see what they really believed besides the surface level things that people typically say like “all religions are about being good to people”, etc…
After about two years, I came to the conclusion that what I was taught was about ninety-percent accurate, and that other religions just didn’t make philosophical sense, and when I dug into their theology, they either contradicted themselves terribly or they promoted lifestyles that I thought made no sense either
I was happy to have a personal relationship with God ever since I was young, so I had no excuse for my original rebellion, but it took me through a period of discovery and research that proved to be invaluable
My experience greatly parallels yours. In high school I started getting unenthusiastic about church. You could fairly say that ‘dead faith’ churches, and being dragged to them by my parents, poisoned me against Christianity. These were places where you learned what to ‘believe’ in the conventional, purely ontological sense. As in, believing that apples are red, or believing that Washington was the first president. Not *believing*, as in giving your life over to Christ, and trusting Him.
So my spirit was starving. I wound up wandering into lonely contemplation, and in the process became a pretty bad person. I was a compulsive liar, I stole, I had a serious porn habit and some bad relationships (probably because feeling lustful was about as close as I could come to feeling ‘alive’ without a spiritual life).
After a period of agnosticism (really a fake apathy, pretending I didn’t care if there was a God or what He was like, because it “didn’t matter”–as if there could be anything more important) I tried out Buddhism. Not the mystical woo-woo version, the purely rational, philosophical kind. Which means, ultimately, I was still spiritually dead, because I was trying to find a ‘faith’ that required no faith. A religion small enough to fit me, instead of a God great enough to grow me.
Eventually I couldn’t even sustain that. I wasn’t even a good Buddhist, and my ideal of ‘Buddhism’ was pretty weak tea.
So I went into this period of being just totally faithless again, pretty recently (I’m 26, by the by, so our timelines are similar). And I hit a wall of existential terror, not too long after that. My life was empty. I was going to perish and all that I ever was or had be, all memory and thought, everything I valued, was going to cease. And it didn’t matter. I was a fart in the cosmic wind. It scared me so badly that I cried out, and struck walls, and wept, and was just a mess for a couple weeks.
I couldn’t sleep well, and one night, finally, in desperation, I started thinking about God. I had had these little flashes of mortality-angst before, but never so long-lasting, or so crushing. But I’d never had one before I fell out of Christ. I had to backtrack to when I felt secure and purposeful.
The next day, I went out for a long walk, and after tormenting myself–an avowed atheist at the time, someone who had openly mocked religious people as superstitious, someone who had made the arrogant claim that, were God real, I would despise Him as a dictator, or else powerless to stop suffering (all the usual facile arguments that Hitchens and the other “Horsemen” spout off). I had shunned and fled from God, because I couldn’t make Him small enough to understand perfectly. And in my arrogance, I couldn’t accept what I couldn’t comprehend. I wanted to be my own god.
But in a flash, I just started praying. I prayed that God would return to me. That he would come back into my heart, and forgive me for my sins. And I felt Him. I mean, really felt. I had this tortured knot in my chest that just instantly unwound itself, and relief spread through me as a physical sensation. Maybe that was just the relief of giving up and putting it in God’s hands, and maybe it was really the Spirit coming into me. As Jules said in Pulp Fiction, it doesn’t matter whether it was an ‘According to Hoyle’ miracle, I felt the hand of God work on me, and there’s no going back.
Except there’s always backsliding. Especially to the intellectual analyst. I have the same issues as you, wondering how one true path can be the only true path. What would this say about God’s judgement and grace, if people can be damned just for never hearing his word? Or can they truly? Is my ‘faith’ real, or did I merely fall back on comforting deceit because I was scared to die?
Surely, I have lied to myself at some point here. Either I feared God’s judgement before, and so I conjured up a world without Him so that I could behave as I wanted to, and be my own authority, or else I fear a world without me, so I conjure up a God who grants eternal life. One way or another, I’m screwing with myself.
Some questions are still puzzling me, but I’m just starting to be willing to accept some mysteries as mysterious. I try to remind myself that “You shall know them by their fruits.” From all that I can see, belief in God, true belief, makes life richer, fuller, more purposeful. It isn’t about self-denial or suffering or the shallow, mistaken ideas that atheists throw around. And it isn’t about wishy-washy, “everyone goes to heaven as long as they aren’t Hitler” feel-good tripe either.
I remind myself that, whatever my brain might conjure up to throw itself for a loop, I have felt God. On a deeper-seeded, emotional level, God is very real. I don’t understand everything, but not understanding Him doesn’t justify disobedience or disdain.
Sometimes I even wonder about spiritual warfare. The reality of Satan, that is. Not as a convenient out, but I do wonder, sometimes, whether he is real as well, in a tangible, active way. If I stepped out of Christ and he was waiting there with glee, praising me for being such a bright boy. You’re smarter than those sheep, he’d say. You can do whatever you want. Life is short. There’s no consequences. No judgement. Only you. You decide what’s right for you. Anything you can’t make sense of is nonsense. And now that he’s losing me, he wants me back. He wants that foothold. And he appeals to my pride, to my vaunted ‘intellect’, to my baser vices. The high and the low impulses. Confusing me.
Maybe that’s what happens, and maybe I’m not worth that sort of attention and don’t need the help to trip myself up. But I do wonder.
I read a passage somewhat recently that, if you’ve been saved and revert to sin, that you’re double-damned. That there’s no going back, because you broke covenant with God. You saw the truth, and spat on it. You blasphemed against the Spirit. I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t know whether I had the faculties as a child and adolescent to take responsibility for my soul. Maybe I was never truly ‘saved’ until I was lost. I had to see the world without God to appreciate Him in the world. I’m troubled there, too…
But I felt the touch.
So it’s this horrid process of vacillating, between doubt and belief, relief and anxiety. I keep hoping that it’s just growing pains, and not how I’m going to be for the rest of my life, never sure of which story is the comforting deceit, and which is the hard truth.
Hi Bennett,
As Nathan’s wife, I’ve read through every comment on this site and I have to say that yours are not only the most notable comments I’ve read, but they are some of the best writing I’ve seen, because of your raw honesty and genuineness.
I wanted to say thank you.
Amy
You’re very kind to say that, Amy. Having had a real loose relationship with honesty in the past, particularly. I felt a little badly going on at such length, like I was hijacking y’all’s space, when I saw how long it had rambled. So I’m very glad that they were meaningful to someone other than me.
So thank *you*, very much. And thanks for putting your witness out there, it’s nice to have a community on the cold, dark internets.
–Bennett
Hi Bennet,
Some interesting points, and I would say that if you know God to be real, know that satan, along with all the rulers and authorities that serve him, is just as real
Jesus referred to satan, and evil spirits, Paul referred to the same, and they are both mentioned throughout the Bible both in the OT and NT
1 Chronicles
Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel
Job 1:6
One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them
2 Corinthians 11:14
And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light
Revelation 20:10
And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning
sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will
be tormented day and night for ever and ever
Based on the Bible and the active things that satan did in it, to say that satan other forces exist is really logical–unless Jesus tempted himself in the desert, etc…
The scripture you are referring to regarding losing salvation is:
Hebrews 6:4-6
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have
tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are
crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public
disgrace
I wrestled with this a lot as in my youth I had walked really closely with God but turned away, and it became a subject that continuously gripped me with fear after I had gotten get closer to him again
Based on scripture, I stand by the fact that Christians can lose their salvation, as well as never attain in it in the first place (roll out the welcome mat for that one!), so I knew that God had a cutoff point, but it was also tempered with mercy, love, and a desire for every one to turn to him
Matthew 7:22-23
Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your
name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Micah 7:18
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy
After I started to see past this, the main thing that I kept coming to in my mind, was that this was an easy game for satan to play, as I already suffered from low self-esteem issues that resulted in my inability to accept that I could do something wrong and God would actually forgive me
It was almost as if I resented God’s forgiveness because it meant that I couldn’t just be ugly and have his love go away, or, as I subconsciously saw it, erase the opportunity to be both vulnerable and accountable to not only myself but to God
This is a good book:
http://www.amazon.com/Screwtape-Letters-C-S-Lewis/dp/1557481423/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1315380976&sr=8-2
It covers the mindset of evil spirits as they work to tempt us
Also, one of the best things I have found that brought me to a place of maturity was reading the Bible in a way that honored the life contained inside of it, ie: with no distractions, not with the mindset that it is a chore, and with full expectation that God will reveal mysteries as we grow into an intimate relationship with him
Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him
Psalm 25:14
The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them
Thanks, Nathan
I think you’re right in what you say, especially about the attitude with which to approach scripture. I will say that one remarkable thing that I discovered, after talking with my pastor, is that in times of real doubt or anxiety, when I feel that Satan’s influence may be upon me, I can call him out.
Like, literally, out loud, tell him to get lost, that he’s lost me and I’m not turning back. That I follow Christ now, and forever. And it gives me not just a sense of relief, when he flees, but is often followed by a feeling of righteous anger. In the wake of being plagued with depression or anxiety, when I’ve told off the source, I actually get mad at knowing that I was being influenced.
Of course, that could be my imagination, but I’ve seen plenty of scripture (I’m sure you could pull up several passages, I’m not as learned yet), indicating not only the potential for such malign, subtle influence, but also the Christian’s right and ability to “claim” the Devil. That is, to say that as I am in Christ, in His name I can tell that bastard to get himself back to Hell. He keeps coming back, whenever he can sniff a weakness, he’ll always come back around. But he can be beaten.
Getting to talk to you and read your thoughts has been enjoyable and enriching so far–I was lurking for a bit before I really dipped my feet in. I hope to keep up a dialogue in the future.
Hi Bennett,
It is certainly enjoyable speaking with you, and I am glad you decided to say hi!
Long response incoming!
Regarding areas that cause us depression, anxiety or other emotional turmoil, I look at these in the same way as the more “standard” temptations like lust, greed, lying, etc… as they both follow the same pattern of us being hit with well-crafted attacks on our emotions and thoughts, which are designed to do one simple thing: provoke responses that separate us from God
Depending on the nature of the attack, these responses could come in the form of outright actions, or sometimes they serve to plant or nourish seeds of doubt, pride, fear, etc…
When we see things this way, Christians who don’t go around actively “sinning” but still have joyless, ice-cold spiritual lives, are just as likely to be overrun and beaten down by evil spirits as those who are going out of their way to pursue death in a more aggressive fashion–being captive to depression, pride, and fear will rob us of our salvation just as much as the 2am fapping sessions (I would know on both counts!)
It almost seems hard to imagine because of the way sin is typically characterized, but when we are too depressed we probably aren’t out doing everything we can with our lives to show that our faith is real
James touched on this with no small amount of vigorous language:
James 2:14-20
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?
Yikes!
The statements of “…if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?” and “You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?” are extremely potent, and each person may have their reasons for why they do not do things that reflect the heart of a servant–but they all result in the same thing, a dead faith which lacks the power of salvation
James 2:26
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead
Also, at a time when I was taking a serious look at my fear of rejection a number of years ago, which manifested in all sorts of relationship trouble, God was really clear about something:
Revelation 21:8
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death
Uh, the “cowardly” won’t make it into heaven?
What?
This made sense later when God showed me how selfless and brave we have to be in order to truly love people, forgive our enemies, stand up for what is right, walk away from personal gain when it would require us to compromise our morals, and other scenarios that require courage, but the most important thing is that we have to be brave enough in our spiritual development to tackle sin head on, with complete honesty, and not be a slave to it–that is the key to our salvation
James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective
Also, back to the point of being mad at satan, he is described as “death’s firstborn”, and you can imagine that now, just as much as he did with Adam and Eve, he wants to take as many people down with him as possible–purely out of spite and a sense of vengeance, since he can do nothing against God other than hurt him by leading us to sin, and ultimately into death
Job 18:5-13
“The lamp of a wicked man is snuffed out; the flame of his fire stops burning. The light in his tent becomes dark; the lamp beside him goes out. The vigor of his step is weakened; his own schemes throw him down. His feet thrust him into a net; he wanders into its mesh. A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare holds him fast. A noose is hidden for him on the ground; a trap lies in his path. Terrors startle him on every side and dog his every step. Calamity is hungry for him; disaster is ready for him when he falls. It eats away parts of his skin; death’s firstborn devours his limbs
He is one bad dude, to put it mildly, and waits for us to make even the slightest mistake, though I admire his work ethic, as if we were even one quarter as vigilant, I am sure we would all be Super Christians!
1 Peter 5:8
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour
Also, he is pretty fearless when it comes to tearing us down in front of God, and even tries to tempt God himself!
Luke 22:31
Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat
Revelation 12:10
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down”
Matthew 4:1-3
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[a] by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Job 1:7-11
The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
Wow!
If you look at the outright war that satan is willing to wage directly on God, and also against us personally, you have every right to be mad!
Just remember that Jesus faced the same level of temptation, directly from the source no less, and overcame it, so we have the same power!
Matthew 4:8-11
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him
James 4:7
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you
Although, one thing that is a real corker, is to consider forgiving the demons, and satan himself, who do so much to torment us
1 Corinthians 6:3
Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!
How do we know if a period of spiritual growth is real? I had one about two years ago, I felt like I was genuinley growing closer to God, but at the end of that I found that I had walked right into a horrible situation that led to huge regrets, the destruction of a relationship, and a six month rebellion period against God. I’m coming back, but I still don’t know if this is a legitimate coming back or not.
Hello,
The most tangible times of spiritual growth are like having new senses growing in places they never existed, with new wisdom staying with us in a way that impacts our lives in a lasting, meaningful way
It doesn’t mean we can’t fall backwards anymore, but it means that we have tasted or learned something that was previously beyond our grasp