Failing in your Faith

Ever feel like your faith is failing?  You know, you don't pray anymore, you have no desire to read your Bible, you allow all those old sinful habits to creep back in and wreak havoc in your life...  You still goto church every week.  Not only do you go, you serve.  Heck, you're the pastor!  

All the while, the hypocrisy bites at you.  The smile on your face feels like a 1,000 lb weight around your neck.  It's too heavy to carry.  Slowly, that smile slips away.  Your eyes don't light up anymore.  You don't sing your hymns with sincerity.  Even the sermons become "for someone else."

Apathy sets in.  Your attitude towards everything becomes jaded.  Your behavior around your family degenerates to annoyance and irritation.  Everything is abrasive.

You try to find help. You go to counselors, support groups, you give accountability a shot...  Surely, the problem is you.  If only someone could help you identify and validate your character flaws, you'd stop being you.  Walking away from the faith seems tempting.  I mean, its obviously done nothing for you, but you can't shake those early days of walking with Christ.  Everything was so new, so liberating...  You had a sense of freedom, hope, and purpose.  It wasn't fake.  You just don't feel it anymore...  It's all just about politics, arguments, and grinding through another day.

What happened here?

After 10 years of walking with Christ, this is my story.

I'm the jaded one.  My whole world is filled with apathy.  I bark orders at my children.  I show no affection for my wife.  I feel no sense of purpose.  I am angry at institutions.  I don't read my Bible, nor pray. 

I know exactly what happened...

Have you ever noticed that your church teaches a lot about you (how you're supposed to act, what you're supposed to be doing, what you're supposed to refrain from, what you're supposed to believe about yourself, etc...)

The emphasis is self improvement. 

Sure, there is a sprinkling of God in the mix.  There is the acknowledgement that transformation only comes through the intervention of Christ and His Holy Spirit. 

But what if you're not transforming...  What if you started out okay, but you're failing in your faith?  Is it because Christ and His work are ineffective?  

You may be tempted, as I am, to think so...  But of course we would be mistaken. 

Rather, we are conditioned to presume this transformation because its the only thing we talk about anymore at church.  We run sermon series on our good works, we preach about our new identity in Christ, we fixate on all the things we ought to be getting out of our faith or contributing.  

This is egocentric theology.

I love that old contemporary Christian song, "The Heart of Worship."  I think its the most honest and powerful contemporary song I've heard.   It's worthy to still be sung...  The part that sticks out is "I'm coming back to the heart of worship,  because its all about you, its all about you Jesus... I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it, because it's all about you, its all about you Jesus."

Ladies and Gentlemen, do you see what has happened...

When your faith, like mine, seems to have failed and your outlook is pessimistic and perverted, are you sure that the faith you have been practicing is not misguided?  Was the trajectory of your worship skewed just enough so that over time you would miss the mark of the heart of worship? 

I wouldn't admit it then, but I see clearly now.  I replaced Jesus with books, with preachers, with essays, with church plants, with ecclesiology, with arguments, with self help, and of course with my sin...

Isn't it easy for sin to creep in and deceive us to apathy when our worship is skewed?  Our focus has not been on the Savior, it has been on the things about our saving...

When we go to church and hear the endless sermons on what we ought to be and what we ought to do, rather than what we are (incapable sinners loved endlessly by God through Christ) then we will be met with bewilderment and frustration when we live out Romans 7 or Galatians 5:17.

And when we do experience our rotten flesh waging war against the Spirit, and when we ultimately flounder in our sin, we will throw our hands up in surrender and presume our faith has failed.  Why?  Because its all about transformation right?  The validity of my faith is signified by my ability to change right?  But I'm not changing, so I must not be saved...  But I've walked the aisle, I've prayed the sinners prayer as often as I've heard it.  I've repented as best I know how!  So if Christ is who He is, why am I who I am?  

It must all be a facade...

Right?

Well...  Perhaps.  Perhaps the teaching we have sat under for so long has been a masquerade. Perhaps the expectations we have placed on ourselves to be these gleaming, smiling, beacons of joy and pollyannism has been a charade.

Because these are the things we've made it...  It's not been about you Jesus.

We have stroked our own egos.  We have flaunted our own righteous deeds.  We have celebrated our humanity over your divinity, that is, until it ultimately failed us.

Leading us to believe our faith in Christ has failed.

Our faith in Christ has not failed.  It has been subverted.

Sure, we sing a couple songs and pray the prescribed prayers at the beginning of our services...  But then we launch into "7 Easy Steps for a Godly life."

When was the last time the congregation collectively knelt in repentance, in prayer, in expectation of the Spirits movement to expose and extract the sin from our frail hearts?

No... We don't do that.  That doesn't fit into the order of service.  Someone is bound to turn the sanctuary lights on us at 12:00pm.  

From there its Ruby Tuesday, football, and vanity...

Then it's work, crying children, bickering spouses...

No wonder we lack a sense of purpose and peace.

We have been worshipping at the wrong altar!

Maybe its just my being jaded that inspired the publication of this post... While I'm sure God has allowed me to experience these emotions for my good, I believe He allowed me to endure this misery to see that its "all about you, Jesus."  

Your faith in Christ has not failed.  Give it another shot.  Pray to Him! Its about Him! Confess your sin to Him!  Fast and mourn before Him!  Don't read your Bible to pass a test, read it to know Him!  

He's been missing in my life because I have been worshipping at the wrong altar.  Stupid me... "I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it."