The Christian church today is struggling, and the younger generations, especially my generation have begun to lose faith, fire, and focus. Our faith has wandered from true and genuine to lukewarm and on display. There are issues with our modern day church, and they have nothing to do with the type of worship music we play on Sunday mornings.
1. Our spirituality has become more about public image than private relationship.
We want our faith to be on display for all to see, but not because of how we act, because of what we say. We forgot to show love to our brothers and sisters when they needed it, but it’s okay because yesterday we posted 1 John 4:11 on Facebook. It’s more important for us to post a picture of our devotional time on Instagram than it is for us to actually learn something from it. Our Instagram feeds, Facebook pages, Twitter bios, and Snapchat stories are filled with our favorite references and picturesque devotions. We spend more time choosing the right filter than allowing the Word to saturate our hearts. It’s almost like we’re in a competition to say “I'm holier than you.” And I am not saying I’ve never done this. My bio has a different Bible verse every week, and I, too, have posted pictures of my open Bible. But, I hope my life reflects the Words I read more than my photo reflects the light shining on my Bible.
2. We have become lukewarm in our attitudes and actions.
Revelation 3:16 says, so, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. And the problem with our generation is that we are neither hot nor cold. (and know that neither one is necessarily better than the other.) We go from "spiritual highs" of being on fire for God after church retreats, killer sermons, or emotionally and spiritually challenging days to being indifferent. We have almost completely rejected the concept of the Holy Spirit and its unfathomable power and ability, and we've watered it down to be something less. We no longer allow the Word to saturate our lives deeply, completely, and overwhelmingly. We read, sing, and pray, but we hardly ever actually mean it, understand it, or put in effort to allow it to overwhelmingly change our lives.
3. Most of the time, we're being fed milk not solid food.
Week after week we hear sermons on the same things--God's love, our failure, Christ's sacrifice, etc. And these topics are good--they're important. But, there's so much more to God, and there needs to be something so much deeper to our learning of Him. When we're new to Christianity, it's okay to learn these surface things, but, as we grow, we need to be challenged to grow in our faith too. And even our sermons have become less Scripture based. We don't know the Scriptures because we're not being challenged--no, pushed--to read them and learn from them.
4. We don't really know God.
We try to learn as much as we can about Him as we read the Word and go to church and pray. And those are great things to be doing. But, we don't actually take the time to get to know Him better. We read the same passages over and over, and never learn anything new from it or get anything different out of it. We try to fit God into a box we've made, but we can't. He is more than we could fathom and He is a mystery, as He should be. But, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get closer to Him and discover more about who He is and who we are because of Him.
5. We have abandoned prayer, or, at least forgotten how powerful it is.
We pray before meals and whenever we need something. But, it should be more than that. It's a vital part of our relationship and a necessary part of our pursuit of Him.We need to stop being lukewarm about our prayer, and it needs to become more than a pre-meal obligation or a lifeline during desperate times.
