The Spirit of Apathy

What would you say is the greatest enemy of the Christian faith? Many of us would point to Satan, or to the moral decline of our nation, or to society's influences that diminish the role of God, as our greatest enemies. However, I believe that our most dangerous threat doesn't come from outside the faith. Instead, our greatest enemy is complacency and apathy in the hearts of believers. Apathy is the enemy that is destroying the church.

A man once sat down with a pastor and said, "I'm considering joining your church. I want you to know I don't have time to attend regularly or do any work for the church. My talents are kept busy elsewhere, and I won't give any specific amount of money. The pastor said, "Sir, the church you want to join is down on the corner." The man said, "But there's no church on the corner." The pastor said, "Yes, there is. It's the old First Church." The man said, "But it's been closed for years." The pastor said, "That's the only kind of church that needs your kind of commitment."

The spirit of apathy has to be the most destructive thing I can think of when it comes to our daily lives. It causes us to be depressed, stunts our spiritual growth, and drains our energy. It is one of those things where if we are not careful it can completely take over our lives.

Apathy can affect all areas of a person's life, from the value placed on health, nutrition and exercise, to time spent with family, to cleanliness of the home, to the condition of ones financial state, to ones responsibility to their fellow man, the church and to God Himself. We have become apathetic towards the one person who gave us life, hope and a reason to live. We have forgotten whom we are to be pleasing.

So, what can we do to change this feeling of "church complacency and apathy?" If I may, I would like to offer a couple of suggestions:

First, to avoid living complacent and apathetic spiritual lives, we must make a commitment. As Christians, we must not only make a decision to follow Jesus, we must commit our lives to Him. When a person makes a commitment in the New Testament, it is a fully devoted commitment. We cannot be partially committed, or sort of committed. We are either committed or not committed.

Second, to avoid living complacent and apathetic spiritual lives, we must recapture our zeal for spiritual living. Zeal is an enthusiastic and diligent pursuit of God and His will. We should be so excited and thrilled to be children of God, that we crave and desire to fervently serve Him every day of our lives. Amen! In (Jn. 2:12-25), Jesus became upset with some people who were turning God’s House into a market place, so He drove them all out of the temple courts. He got rid of the sin and corruption that were polluting God’s House. It was Jesus' Zeal for God and spiritual living that motivated Him to cleanse the temple.

I wonder how many of us, after seeing the sin and corruption in the temple courts, would have just walked on by and did nothing? I wonder how many of us would have just ignored the situation because we didn’t have an interest or a desire to deal with it? Just as Jesus was zealous for spiritual living and for the things of God, we must be zealous as well.

Scripture Readings: Acts 5:42; Romans 12:11; Psalm 42:1,2; John 2:17

The Bible says, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Have a blessed day!

Jennifer