Consumer Driven Spirituality

When the SON of MAN Comes, will HE find faith on the earth?

Fascination with the WORLD & All Its Trappings

The "not in my lifetime" reality has become the background noise that shifts and waters down the urgency of the Word of CHRIST. While technically "believing" the truth of the Word in its entirety, this allows us to continue on whatever road we prefer, deem necessary, comfortable, and important in our lives - freeing us to blissfully ignore its truth and urgency - all while professing to believe and obey. We have succeeded in lessening the impact of what the words actually mean and would actually require NOW - if I actually believed that they applied to me NOW - or frankly, at all - let alone in their entirety and biblical context.

This is precisely why seeker-friendly churches exist.

This is why “Purpose Driven Christianity" exists - looking and functioning more like “Consumer Driven Spirituality” instead. We want it to be easy. We want it to be about us, what we want and however we choose to get it. This is why we are getting drawn into conversations that we - as Christians - ought not to be having - ever. This explains our fascination with the world and all its trappings and why we can have a NOTW bumper sticker, while crass secular music is blaring from our car radios and our pulpits as we eagerly sing along…

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

It’s All About ME

This obsession with ourselves and astounding lack of fear of the LORD lends itself to our illustrious leaders talking of GOD as a "personal genie” and as a "vending machine" whereby we "put in our money, choose what we want, then push the butter and get it." Such scandalous and wildly audacious comments from the platform are commonplace and have come to be expected. We have shifted the narrative to be all about us ALL OF THE TIME. Somehow we have forgotten that the hero of the story is GOD - NOT US. We are so turned around that up is down and down is up in many bodies of believers, particularly in the Western church, right here in the good ole’ US of A.

Bought the T-Shirt AND the NFL Jersey

We have bought the T-shirts (sold in our church gift shops and worship centers) and proudly wear them, while professing to follow "hard after GOD"… Is anyone surprised that the church is floundering? Lukewarm? Angry? Unkind? Worldly? What do we expect? We have neglected to model it after JESUS and His Word, instead choosing to model it after Peter Drucker's business models and "best practices," using worldly metrics and standards to determine the "health" of our churches and the sheep inside them. Matthew 24:14 has become a battle cry devoid of the reality of the context that proceeds it. It has been so watered down that there is hardly any taste left in it at all, let alone salt.

Photo by Ben Robbins on Unsplash

YOU DO YOU…?!?

Church! It is not about politics! It is not about comfort! It is not about best worldly business practices to measure what GOD alone has done! It is not about us!!! TRULY! JESUS IS COMING SOON. Will He find faith on the earth? Or will He find a bunch of “relevant” church attenders wearing NFL jerseys watching Netflix while they play Candy crush on their phones?

Photo by Samantha Sophia on Unsplash

Will HE Find Faith on The Earth?

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of GOD, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. Avoid such men as these.

2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5 (NASB)

Are you ready for the return of CHRIST? Will He indeed find faith on the earth? In your church? In your living room? In your children?

Are you ready? He is coming.

SOON.

B