A Boring Faith

Countless people I know are bored with their faith. It seems old, tired  and pointless. I would like to point out that a bored faith = and absence of faith. The Christian/biblical concept of faith is the idea that one is placing their trust in  a person, a living person, Jesus. It is NOT belief-ism, believing for the sake of belief, a.k.a. blind faith.

Bored faith (at its best) exists because people have an intellectual grasp of what they believe, but have no personal relationship with the person of Jesus. Bored faith sees Jesus as a rock (thanks Jeremy Kingsley). Bored faith treats Jesus as if He is an inanimate object, not as a living person. Bored faith is rooted in the misconception that it fully understands Jesus and Christianity. It fails to see Jesus' infinite value. It fails to understand, or fails in the motivation to grow in understanding to see why Jesus is worth centering one's entire life around Him. A bored faith lies in a lack of love for the Lord, Jesus Christ, because it fails to see Jesus' love.

This is a failure to grasp what He submitted himself to for the sake of His people. It is lacking sight to see what He endured willingly out of love. Boring faith goes on endlessly about what a person should be doing in their life, but never consistently revisits what God has done in Christ for the believer. The truth is we live in light of Jesus' perfection given to us, not out of the obligation of obtaining our own.

Living, genuine, biblical faith thrives in the shadow of the cross and what took place there. It does not move beyond it. Churches are dead, people's spiritual lives are dead not because they are stuck in a bygone era! They are dead because deadness is symptomatic of a failure to passionately cherish Jesus as their greatest joy, thus intentionally existing to glorify God. They are dead because they do not worship (rightly attributing to Jesus His value) in all aspects of their church community which include daily spiritual disciplines, the work week, in the individual homes, in the prayer services, in the Sunday services, and in their programmatic ministries. In everything that a person/church is Christ must be treasured more than anything else. This is vibrant, exciting, and life-changing faith.

I certainly cannot say that I always attribute to Christ His rightful due in a life of daily worship. I have not arrived at some place, which others must be pulled up to. I am an average Christian fighting to keep my faith from going stale. What I know above all else that which prevents my faith from going stale is drinking deeply of Jesus character, person, work in His life death, and resurrection, and His continuing work through the Spirit in my life as I open the Bible. I do not have the silver bullet for to remedy all symptoms for a boring faith, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the heart of a boring faith can only be changed by glorying in, celebrating in, finding our greatest joy in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross, a.k.a. the gospel. Has your faith gone stale?