A. W. Tozer writes:
The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can.
Quoted in Sacred Path, Gary Thomas, p. 14
Do you believe that? God is a person, and we can cultivate and develop and build a relationship with him just like we develop relationships with family and friends. But all too often, we turn our time with God into a mechanical and spiritless exercise.
Gary Thomas addresses what he calls the “casualties of ‘mechanized religion’” in his book, Sacred Pathways. He says it’s one thing to witness spiritually empty people outside the church. You’d expect that. But it’s another thing, a tragic thing, to witness that same spiritual emptiness inside the church. He gives three reasons for this emptiness. See if his reasons resonate with you.
1. Many Christians have never been taught how to feed themselves spiritually. They live on a spiritual starvation diet and are surprised to always feel “hungry.”
When I was teaching and coaching, I took a group of kids to a Fellowship of Christian Athlete retreat. The first night we brought in a football player from Oklahoma to speak to a room full of athletes about Christ. We should have questioned him more thoroughly before we put him in front of the kids. After one of those, “I was on the third team, accepted Christ, and now I am an All-American” talks, we had a time of questions and answers. The kids asked the typical questions. “What was the most exciting game you’ve played in?” “What’s the hardest hit you’ve ever taken?” Some of the coaches steered the questions back to the spiritual realm and asked the player how important Bible study was to him. After dancing around the question for a while he finally said, “I don’t study the Bible. If I have a question, I just go ask my pastor.” I am reminded of that every time I get a Biblical question from someone. Instead of answering the question directly, I try to use the opportunity to show them how to answer the question from Scripture. It’s the old “give a man a fish…or teach a man to fish” principle.
2. Many people lapse into “routine-devotions.” Same time. Same place. Same method. Same prayers. Boooring! When it comes to “devotions” we are looking for “consistent,” not “same” and certainly not “boring.”
3. Many people fall into a “soul-numbing rut.” Thomas describes those in a rut:
“Their devotions seem like nothing more than shadows of what they’ve been doing for years. They’ve been involved in the same ministry for so long they could practically do it in their sleep. It seems as if nobody in their small group has had an original idea for three years. They finally wake up one morning and ask, ‘Is this really all there is to knowing God?’”
Scripture says that the mercies of the Lord are new every morning. We are told to sing a new song. Our approach to God should be fresh and meaningful. So shake things up! Try reading a new translation. Take a prayer-walk in the woods (you don’t have to close your eyes). Read Scripture out loud. Journal. Go someplace where you can sing your favorite songs at the top of your lungs. Spend an hour in silence. Serve in an area where you’ve never served before. Someone has said that variety is the “spice of life.” And some variety just might be the key to a fresh relationship with the living God.
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