Fast Faith
Fast Faith:
Escaping the drive thru gospel mentality
Today we’re taking a nice hard look into the depths of our motives. I know, I know, it’s scary in there sometimes but as King David wrote in Psalms, it’s necessary.
Psalm 139:23-24(AMP), “Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart;Test me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me,And lead me in the everlasting way.”
This shows us that it’s important to take inventory of our hidden thoughts from time to time. So, the question I want you to ask yourself today is this: Are you a drive-thru Christian? You’re probably wondering what that means, so before you answer, let me explain.
What Is a Drive-Thru Christian?
The drive-thru Christian is the one that comes to church, claps the loudest, wears out the carpet around the altar, takes everything they can from the Pastor, and takes everything they can from the prayer workers, because they know they gotta get what they need from God now or never. They live their life needing miracle after miracle, and always needing someone else to pray for them because they haven’t established or built their own faith and they don’t know how to use it. They do this because church is the only sliver of actual relationship with God that they have. They have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. (2 Timothy 3:5)
Church Is Vital—But Not the Whole Meal
Please, don’t misunderstand me- Church is awesome! We love church. You need church. You need a Pastor. Don’t stop going to church. But if church is the full extent and measure of your time with God, then you are severely missing out. What happens when we live like this, is we begin to make our relationship with God a drive-thru. We want to live however we want knowing good and well the Bible tells us not to. Then when the consequences of our own actions appear, we want to pull up to the doors of the church and say yes, I’d like some intercessory prayer, a side order of mercy and a little grace on top. As if we are ordering from a spiritual fast food window. And the thing about church and God, is that you get it! Psalm 34:8 says, “taste and see that the Lord is good.” There’s nothing wrong with just a taste. But remember it says, “taste” not “live off samples.”
If you are a brand new Christian, then it’s okay to be a baby in Christ. But it’s not okay to stay that way. Just like natural babies grow, so should we—in the Word, in prayer, and in obedience. Church is meant to encourage us, to help us grow, to give us leadership, vision, and instruction. You need these things. But the Bible calls the Word of God and Jesus our Daily Bread not our weekly snack. Psalm 1:2 tells me to be meditating on it day and night. I don’t know of any 24 hour churches so we’ve got work to do outside of church service.
The Pastor shouldn’t have to spoon feed me my whole life. While I never ever outgrow the wisdom and guidance of my Pastor, I also have the ability to go straight to God myself. Again, I want to say- church is so vital, you need it. But if our lives look one way inside of the church building and another way outside of it, then we are using the church as a drive thru for all the promises of God. Without any of the consecration, dedication, and obedience that comes from a real, and intimate relationship with God outside of it. Church is supposed to give us the tools we need and then we are responsible to go out, use, and develop those tools.
Don’t Starve Your Spirit
Your Pastor can’t possibly teach you everything you need to know in 1-2 thirty minute sermons a week. If that is all the time you are spending praying and reading and studying then your spirit man is starving. Imagine if we only fed our physical bodies two meals all week. We wouldn’t be able to think about anything else except our next meal. We would be so hungry and malnourished that we wouldn’t be able to help anyone else. Would we even have energy to grow?
We as Christians were not called to live like this. Starving and self preserving. We were called to go unto all the world and make disciples!
Matthew 28:19-20(NIV), “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
This says make disciples, not converts. Students of the Word, not just simply church-goers. How do we know that we are being disciples and not just converts? Verse twenty tells us- we obey everything commanded of us.
How’s Your Soil?
I will leave you with this thought today:
In Matthew 13:18-23 we find the parable of the sower. (If you haven’t read it or are unfamiliar I encourage you to go check it out). It talks about different types of responses to the Word of God. The sower is consistent, it’s the ground that determines how much fruit will be produced. I want us to look at one of the examples closely.
Matthew 13:20-21The one on whom seed was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and at once welcomes it with joy; 21 yet he has no [substantial] root in himself, but is only temporary, and when pressure or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he stumbles and falls away [abandoning the One who is the source of salvation].”
It says that because he has no root in himself. It doesn’t say he lacked root in his Pastor, his friends, or his parents. It says in himself. Because of this, the Word of God produces no fruit. How deep your roots are, is your responsibility. We all have the same amount of hours in a day. How we fill it is up to us.
Let’s not use church as our drive-thru window just to barely scrap by. Let’s live lives that grow deep roots. Let’s consecrate our time and attention to being students of the Word. Let’s take a bite of our Daily Bread, today and every day. Let’s live a life that produces eternal reward.