I have noticed a growing trend among Christians these days. They are an incredibly fickle group of followers. If ever there was a time where we need some adjustment this would be the time. The church is struggling in a lot of areas because people do not want to sell out to following Christ. I call the current trend in Christianity, convenience store Christians.
Pick and Choose What You Want
One of the scariest trends is the idea of choosing what you want in a church, in a doctrine and in your God. I see a lot of Christians who jump from church to church as soon as they are approached about a sin in their life or they are confronted with a doctrine that they do not like. Let me lay out some specifics that I see.
Standards taught different than their personal standards
I see this in two different ways. First is the group of people who have standards that are higher than the church that they are leaving. Even though these standards may not be Biblical (i.e. pants on women, drum beats, mixed swimming). They attend a church and attempt to change the church but once they realize that is not going to happen they abandon or worse yet they destroy the church they are attending.
The second group feels that the standards that the church encourages are too strict. Obviously this happens quite a bit. I am not saying that you should go to a church that is unbiblical in their strictness, but I am saying if the church is teaching the Scriptures clearly and you just are not comfortable with the truths being taught then this is your category (homosexuality, abortion, drunkenness, gluttony, etc.). A lot of “Christians” fall into this category and will leave their church or even the church altogether.
The standards that you should be following need to be based upon the Word of God. The Bible does not clearly define what is right and what is wrong in some areas, but the principles need to be applied. For instance nowhere does the Bible say, Thou shalt wear culottes, but it does clearly teach that there needs to be modesty. Obviously modesty can be accomplished without forcing women to wear the old split skirt. The Bible also does not say that a person cannot drink alcohol (in fact in some places it seems to encourage it, but that is a different blog post), but it does say do not be drunk with wine. So a person can drink and not be sinning, but some people personally cannot drink and not be sinning. In other words if you have established your standards before God as long as they do not contradict God’s Word then you should follow them, but this does not give you the right to force them on others.
We have way too many church bouncers because of this issue.
The practical application of ministry
People leave churches all the time because they do not like the way this is run or that this program is not there. The purpose of the church is lead souls to Christ, disciple them, and equip the saints to repeat the process. The church does not exist to have the world’s largest Sunday School, or to run AWANA versus some other kids program. The choice of church is too often based upon whether or not the church does things my way or if it is possible to do it my way.
The biggest question is whether or not the church is fulfilling the mission that God has given them. If not this needs to change, which does not mean that it has to change to be right in your eyes. Follow the direction of the church, get involved with it and understand and embrace the vision of the church’s practical application.
Pick it up when you feel you need it
Every once in a while I will be standing in the check-out line with someone who has been distracted by the brown glow of the snicker’s wrapper. The next statement always cracks me up, “I really need a Snickers right about now.” Now what changed from your daily routine of living life without a snickers to needing to indulge in one right now? Is the snickers bar the answer for your long term needs or is just a quick fix for low sugar, hunger or junk food fix? The truth is there is some need felt for a snickers and you went to it. This makes sense in the convenience store, but does it work out in the spiritual life.
I am often amazed by the number of people who want to have nothing to do with God’s Word and then when something tragic appears in their life they begin to beg for God to be there for them. What is even worse is when they doubt the validity of God’s existence but then when things go bad they blame God for not preventing this thing from happening. Often they fill their life with a bunch of positive quotes that have no real bearing in their life. Quotes like, God will send a guardian angel to watch over me, or I guess there is a reason why this is happening.
Romans 8:28-29 clearly teaches us that everything in life does happen for a reason, and that reason is to make us to be more in the image of the Son of God. This means that we are striving to be more like Christ and God is allowing situations to push us in our desire. Think about Christ’s life, it was not what we would describe as easy, in fact it was horrible. He was perfect and the people rejected Him as a blasphemer. He came to His own people and they rejected Him. He was beaten for sins He never participated in. He took my disgusting sin on Himself and hung and died the most brutal death that was known to mankind. And we think it is bad when we are faced with our tragedies that we deserve because of our sin.
My whole point is that we need to stop viewing God as our medicine. You cannot just take 6 John 3:16’s and fix all the problems in your life. The goal of the church is to help with your struggles, but also to help you prevent the sin from destroying your life. Don’t view God as something you can pick up whenever you need it, but rather view Him as the substance for your life.
Return it when you do not like it anymore
I recently read about a young lady who willingly disobeyed the Word of God, the instruction of her family, and conviction of the Holy Spirit and fell into a sin that caused her to have long lasting consequences. This young lady was angered with those who would be disappointed with her decision, show her the error of her way, and encourage her to please God from now on. The idea was that if people or God were not going to accept her for who she was then they are unneeded. The truth is God will accept you for who you are but He will desire for you follow His leading. When you do wrong there are consequences for the wrong and unless you submit to those as God’s direction you will have to decide to reject God.
A lot of Christians fall into this trap. They feel that because God or the church is not “meeting their needs anymore” they can return it for a refund. This is not a trinket, it is a life choice.
Maybe you are reading this post (and I know some of you fit this category) and you have rejected the notion of going to church or intentionally growing in God’s Word then let me ask you this question, What is the purpose of your relationship with God? I hope you will consider this.
What did God teach about this topic
Matthew 16:24-26 says,
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?[1]
The picture of taking up your cross was a picture that would have no possible confusion as to what the meaning was. The cross was the sign of death and not just death but of a torturous death. We may think of cute little jewelry figures or of a signal we make in the air, but the picture was clearly of death. God was not suggesting that people merely follow Him on their own terms He was specifically asking them to follow Him through death. You can take this figuratively to mean that He was saying they should die to themselves. They should lay aside all of their desires, dreams and goals in order to please God first. You could also take it to mean that they should follow Him even to the point of death. Both interpretations point to the same concept that God wants us to be sold out to Him. This means in every area in your life. Yet we want to pick and choose the areas we will give to God (like a person in a convenience store), but God says give me your all.
So where do you fit in? Are you willing to stop living a Christian life on your own terms or are you going continue being the driver of your life and tell God to take the back seat.
Christianity is not a part of life, it should be your life!
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