Charles Spurgeon stated, "I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church."
It makes me so sad to say that I couldn't disagree with this at all. In my years of "serving" in a church, a majority of what I did was finding things of this world to change or adjust to make the church more appealing and entertaining to those at the church. The preaching had become a lot of self help and motivational speaking. As a matter of fact, the mormon Stephen Covey was used as much in sermons as the Bible. When the Bible was used, there were many times that the verses were taken out of context.
The problem is, we preach about how to be on fire for God, and we pretend while we sing that we are into it, which helps us feel more intimate with Him. The problem is, the church is marketing itself in this World, and through the marketing, they play with the emotions of the attendees through the dimming of the lights or style of music being played or video added for effect. The effect is on the chemical release in the brains of the attendees which makes them "feel" certain ways, in through that feeling, they are lukewarm in their passion for God, but they are on FIRE for these feelings! We want to be HAPPY, and yet, we do not know of His joy or how to seek it.
It makes me sad, as I write this not in a way that I am talking down on others, because I am as guilty of this as others are. The problem is, we need to go after God through spending time in His word and praying to Him. We are too distracted with things of this world, such as movies that are Biblical in name and ideas, but not in true content. We are distracted with popular preachers writing books and use those over using the Bible. We are allowing lukewarm Christians influence us in so many ways, including "Christian" music and "Christian" holidays.
We are allowing this world to influence our learning about God, rather than setting aside the world to learn about Him. I saw a post recently of a site that talks about similar stuff to this, but then proceeded to defend the celebration of Christmas and that it can be done Biblically. I asked for reference to where the celebration of Christmas is in the Bible, to no avail.
Am I saying we shouldn't celebrate Christmas? That is not what I am saying, as much as I am saying we should celebrate Jesus every day, not on a day that wasn't his actual birthday. The world goes in debt and gives worldly gifts in the name of Christ, and is OK with this in some way. Is that Biblical?
Sorry, I tend to rabbit trail fairly easily.
My concern is that this world is doing a great job of creating more distractions for believers to keep them away from spending time in His word and praying. Other movements are created to attempt to justify sin, and through those movements, people take verses out of context to try to be OK with agreeing with the movements. The fact is, we all struggle with different sins in our lives, but it is not OK to try to justify those sins. Rather than trying to agree with a movement, pray for those that struggle with the sin, and seek Him through spending time with Him in His word and praying. Seek wisdom!!!
