What Could Be (Avoiding Spiritual Apathy)

Key Text: Ephesians 2:1-10

God wants us to live an inspired life. In other words, God wants us to be spiritually energised as we pursue the calling He has placed on our lives. And yet we all go through seasons of feeling the opposite. Apathy rarely appears overnight. It’s usually a slow process that leads to feeling distant from God and unconcerned with pursuing Him. Spiritual apathy can happen to anyone.  Good news is there are ways we can avoid it. So if you want to energise your faith and take steps to draw closer to God, this message is for you

Scripture makes it clear that we have a part to play in overcoming our apathy. For example, Paul exhorts, Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in (the) spirit, serve the Lord. Romans 12:11  The implication here is that zeal the opposite of apathy can be cultivated. So, how do we find healing from crippling indifference? Resolving our apathy begins when we acknowledge the causes of our indifference. While there may be many causes (and many permutations of causes) Here are three questions for the apathetic

1.Am I living in Unconfessed Sin?

One possible cause of spiritual indifference is the choice to walk in sinful disobedience to God in some area of life. If we are unremorseful or unrepentant about our sin, we will likely find ourselves feeling cold, distant, and disinterested. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Psalm 51:3 - 4 Our experience of apathy, may be God allowing our fellowship with Him to cool in order to snap us out of our sinful stupor and draw us to Him in repentance. Again David writes, Psalm 32:3 - 4

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer

David interprets the emotional, physical, and spiritual exhaustion he feels as the result of his silence regarding his sin. In a similar way, the source of our listlessness may not be as mysterious as we might think. Those who are cold toward God are allowed by Him to grow still colder. If we sow to satisfy our sinful desires, we should not be surprised to find ourselves feeling distant from God.

Apostle Paul echoes this scriptural connection between sin and deadness when he cautions, ‘Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.’ Galatians 6:7–8 If we sow to satisfy our sinful desires, we should not be surprised to find ourselves feeling distant from God and less enthusiastic about what matters to Him.

This is not to say that sin is always or even often punished with apathy. But we must remain open to the possibility that wilful, unconfessed sin may be blunting our passion.

2.Have I Neglected God’s Means of Grace?

Sometimes we make spiritual growth overly complicated. It seems we are regularly trying to find the secret key that unlocks closeness to God and power in our spiritual lives. Yet in our search for that key, we often neglect the basics. What are the basics? Here’s one: Read your Bible, pray every day and you will grow, grow grow.

In other words, hear God’s promises and commands, and then respond to Him. Hear and do — this will make us more like Him. Dallas Willard writing about Christian formation wrote:

We can become like Christ by doing one thing by following him in the overall style of life He chose for Himself. If we have faith in Christ, we must believe that He knew how to live. We can, through faith and grace, become like Christ by practicing the types of activities He engaged in, by arranging our whole lives around the activities He Himself practiced in order to remain constantly at home in the fellowship of his Father.

 What did Jesus do? He prayed, studied and meditated on God’s word, and regularly served others (among other activities). Those are the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life. They are some of God’s means of showering His life-transforming grace on us. If we neglect these, is it any wonder we are growing dull to God? Remember, it is those who meditate on God’s word day and night, those who make this a disciplined practice — that are like … a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.Psalm 1:2

The less time we spend with a beloved friend, the less likely we are to have Him on our minds and in our hearts.

3.What Fills My Mind Daily?

If God is not filling our thoughts and occupying our attention daily, then what is? The reality is that we are always being formed. We are being shaped by everything that holds our gaze, whether we realise it or not. The problem for us is that we are regularly beckoned to fix our eyes on things that really don’t matter much.

We are in a culture where the peripheral and irrelevant are presented as meaningful and worthy of our attention. This is a problem for anyone wanting to maintain spiritual zeal. We have become a trivial culture where triviality numbs us to the meaningful. In a world where everything is seemingly significant, what are we really supposed to care about?

Apostle Paul exhorts us Colossians 3:2 “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth”  In doing so, he calls the Colossians to continually carry with them the distinction between the trivial and the meaningful, and to set their minds on the latter.

The problem with making everything important is that everything might become equally important. It becomes increasingly difficult to feel the grandeur of something that really is a big deal. If not guarded we can be amused into indifference.

At a time when everything is posted, liked, commented on and retweeted, we are slowly being conditioned to treat worthy things unworthily or, worse, to stop caring about anything. - Does this describe you? It may also be the case that apathy is the symptom of a bigger issue. Even so, view these questions as a launching point for further reflection

 Overcoming Apathy

If the issue is unconfessed sin, own the sin before your Lord and before someone else. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

If the issue is a lack of spiritual disciplines, start small, but start somewhere. If Bible reading has become stale, shift gears and try listening to an audio version.

If praying has become repetitive or you don’t know what to say, pray the Psalms or grab a hymnbook and pray those songs as if they are your own heart’s desire. Shake things up. But start somewhere, anywhere. These are just small ways to ‘Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.’ 1 Timothy 6:12

If the issue is filling your mind with too much triviality, consider fasting from social-media platforms or even your phone (for a short season).

Seek to cultivate a sense of meaning by only reading articles or books that require you to rest, reflect and respond

We are in a crisis of meaninglessness and we exacerbate it by being less reflective and more reactive. Give yourself the time and space to be ‘renewed in the spirit of your mind’ Ephesians 4:23

As with most parts of the Christian life, the solutions may be straightforward but not easy. This is especially the case for the apathetic, for whom motivation is the main issue.

So, let me repeat: start small and then ask Holy Spirit tol enable you to take more steps forward and sustain you in continuing those steps. …for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13