You are a professing Christian.... What happens when you no longer have a passion for the things of God?
Have you ever felt like skipping your daily devotional or prayer time? Have you ever wanted to stay home instead of going to church? Have you ever felt numb during worship, almost as if you weren’t actually there? Do you dread the season of the Christ... Christmas? If you have any of these feelings, then you’ve experienced apathy and indifference worming its way into your mind and heart.
Apathy is defined as “the absence or suppression of passion, emotion or excitement.” In our spiritual lives, it refers to a lack of emotion and passion for the things of God... and God Himself.
Indifference and apathy sneaks into our spiritual lives without our even realizing it’s destructive infiltration into our hearts and minds. But the signs of its presence are unmistakable: a lack of motivation and emotion, sometimes accompanied by the sense that we are spiritually drained and have no energy to renew our passion for God. The season of the Christ, Christmas, is more hardship than cause for reflection and joy.
The change occurred so slowly. You may not realize just how apathetic toward God you are becoming... until your passion for God is completely evaporated.
We may not want to believe that a “devoted” Christian could struggle with this condition, but it is a very common problem. Being “Christian” does not shield us from the attacks of the enemy. In fact, “being in Christ” makes professing believers the most vulnerable.
Your attitude towards Christmas can be an early sign of indifference and apathy, or it can be a final stage warning of personal spiritual desolation. Maybe you are feeling indifferent towards Christmas this year. Maybe you just don’t care about the season on any level.
The religious leaders of Jesus time were that way... apathetic and indifferent. When Herod heard the statement of the magi, that they had seen Jesus’ star, the Scripture says, in Matthew2:4... "And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born." In other words, all of the religious leaders of that day who were knowledgeable about the Scriptures and the prophesies concerning the coming Messiah were called together.
These were men who should have cared deeply about the coming of the Messiah. They answered Herod correctly. They told him of the prophecy of Micah, that the true Shepherd of Israel would come out of Bethlehem in the land of Judah. There can be little doubt that these religious leaders understood the significance of what the magi had said. It would seem that upon hearing this news, they should have at least been curious, if not excited about the possibility that the Messiah had indeed been born.
The Messiah was born. The Shepherd of Israel was born. The King of the Jews was born. One would think... that a special delegation of these leaders would have been quickly assembled to visit the site of Jesus’ birth. One would think... those religious leaders would have been falling all over themselves volunteering to be part of a momenteous welcoming event. But that’s not what they did. What did they do? Nothing at all, not a single thing. It seems that they were so indifferent that they didn’t even bother to witness for themselves the birth of the long foretold Messiah. The birth of the Christ, the Savior of the world, went largely unnoticed and unheralded among the religious leaders of that day. One of the most significant events of human history would not have even made the front page of the Jerusalem Post had such a newspaper existed then!
Today, many professing Christians are similarly indifferent to the Christmas message. Why? The problem is two-fold... first, the Christmas message is the Gospel message. The Christmas message is the message about Jesus Christ and His mission. The message of Christ is about His love for us revealed through His incarnation, life, death and resurrection. It is a message which calls us to surrender and submission. It is a message which calls us to a living commitment. The Christmas message is a powerful, passionate, inspiring, compelling spiritual message. It is the message of the eternal Son of God, coming to this earth, to be made a man and live among us... and die for our sin.
Secondly, the Gospel message says that our sin separates us from communing with God. It’s not just the small, obstinate, stupid things we do that get us in trouble. It’s the accommodations we make to get what we think we want, our indifference to others’ pain, apathy towards injustice. When we’re troubled by sin, everything spiritual, seems to become shadowy and unimportant. Spiritual life loses its taste... we can take it or leave it. Major events like Christmas, become a burdensome reminder of our indifference and apathy... caused by our sin. Sin means being separated from the grounding and balance that only God can instill in our lives. It means having an unsettling, disturbed psyche within ourselves, less than Christian attitudes towards our neighbors, the creation and the human family.
God wants to help us find our purpose, rediscover our passion and reconnect with Him through the true meaning and message of the Christmas season. But God won’t do a thing for us... until we’re willing to quit paying homage to our false gods. These aren’t idols of ivory or stone, but they are gods non-the-less. They’re things of the world that distract us and consume our passions. They’re various “isms” or fads we are convinced will make us safer, more desirable, more lovable, and better people.
The Gospel message makes people nervous. Consequently, a good many Christians go right along with making Christmas merely a secular time of the year. The real threat to the true meaning of Christmas comes from believers who have accepted the secularizing and commercializing of Christmas as their primary focus of the season. Christmas is turned into a greedfest, where people are more interested in the gifts they get, than they are in celebrating the greatest gift ever given to man... Jesus, the Christ. It should not surprise us that the season of Christmas breeds indifference and apathy. Not indifference to self-gratification, but indifference to the true meaning of Christmas... the Gospel of Jesus Christ... the Cross... the Resurrection... the promise of Eternal Life.
The Christmas message is the greatest news man could ever hear. When the angels spoke to the shepherds in the field, they were declaring the most exciting event that had ever been witnessed in history. Are you caught up in the so-called "Christmas Spirit" as defined by the secular world? Are you caught up in the commercial aspects of Christmas? Indifference and apathy to the true meaning of Christmas is more normal than we think. Are you caught in this trap?
