I have been a Christian all of my life, and have grown up going to church. However, church has always felt boring to me, with rare sermons being the exception. I usually learn about God through reading the Bible, lessons from Sunday School in the past and reading commentaries online from various theologians.
I'm not sure if it's because I never really connected with the church much, but I feel that my faith lacks passion and interest at times. I believe in God, and want to serve him, but I'm not always sure that I love him and have that burning flame. Does anyone have any advice on how to grow in my love for Jesus? I feel that while I have lots of academic knowledge of the Bible and how to live, my practice is sorely lacking.
God says to us over and over again in His word that He will change us, altering our desires, making us holy lovers of Christ, if we'll submit ourselves to Him and let Him reign as God in our lives.
Micah 6:8
8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?
Romans 6:13
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Romans 6:22
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
Romans 8:14
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Romans 12:1
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
James 4:7-10
7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
1 Peter 5:6
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
But, God won't
force us to submit. He deserves to be our Boss, our Lord and King, calling the shots for us in our daily living, all day every day - it's what He made us for - but we must be constantly
choosing His will and way over our own.
Many professing Christians want God's stuff: His power, peace, joy, love, etc., but they don't want Him. These "Christians" want to remain largely autonomous, forging their own futures, following their own interests, gratifying themselves as they like. Oh, they raise their hands on a Sunday morning in worship, eyes closed, singing loudly, maybe shedding an emotional tear or two, but they go off into the rest of their week, fighting tooth-and-nail with their spouse, complaining endlessly about their job, indulging in secret sins, and living with a heart that is far from God. They console themselves in their double-living with the thought that they aren't anywhere near as bad as they could be. All married couples fight. Nobody is perfect; everybody struggles against besetting sin. Only when one is dead do the good things of the Christian life really kick in. These are all lies, of course, by which believers are kept in a perennially compromised, dull, and frustrating spiritual condition.
It's impossible to live the Christian life well, to truly enjoy God, under this sort of self-deceived thinking. God's route for you and I into a deep, rich experience of Himself (the ground out of which enjoyment of the Christian life springs) is through death - death to ourselves, to Self-rule, to acting independently of God.
Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
25 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
John 12:24-25
24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
25 "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.
Galatians 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Romans 6:6-7
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.
We must abdicate the "throne" of our hearts, and allow God to control us. On the far side of death to ourselves, though, is the abundant life, the "Promised Land" of life in Christ Jesus, "overflowing with milk and honey," full of peace, and rest, and joy. (
Matthew 11:28-30; Galatians 5:22-23)
All of God's stuff - the peace and joy and power we want from Him - is ultimately who He is; that is, to want God's stuff is to want God. God is love; He is peace; He is joy. When we ask Him for these things, we are asking for
Him, for
more of Him. But He answers this request only as we surrender our lives to Him. God does not fill us with Himself so long as we rule, so long as we are seated at the steering wheel of our lives because He will never in any measure be directed, controlled, by us.
Seeing how essential it is to a joyful, fulfilling Christian experience, some Christians take up the idea of submitting to God very enthusiastically. They pray all throughout each day prayers of submission to God. But then
they set out to form a life that reflects their attitude of submission to God. They shove down sinful desires; they resist evil habits; they strain mightily to be a holy person. And they fail. Because the moment they set out in their own power, relying upon their own personal resolve,
to transform themselves for God, they cease to be submitted to Him, cutting themselves off from
God's transforming work.
Philippians 1:6
6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
God's way doesn't require us to strain, to try, to force ourselves into the life He has said He will work into us. Our "job" is to remain submitted and then to be moved
by God, subtly, profoundly and naturally, into His will and way. There are no supernatural fireworks, no shivers or tingles, no spikes of emotion, no miraculous and gargantuan leaps forward spiritually, just the growth of a branch connected to the Vine (
John 15:4-5),
imperceptible but constant, progressively enlarging and producing the "fruit" of righteousness. When a believer comes to a crossroads of choice between their will and God's, they simply choose God's will and way, and continue to do so until they find - often with surprise - He has moved them along His "road," away from the attitude, or thinking, or behaviour that doesn't honor and glorify Him.
If there is a battle for the believer, it is to remain submitted to God and to trust, even when it isn't obvious ("the just shall live by faith -"
2 Corinthians 5:7), that in response to their submission, God is keeping His promises to them, changing them, growing them, and making them fruitful. This is God's way to a life filled and overflowing with Himself.
