Are you bored with warming the pews and saying amen when prompted by the preacher? Does your gut tell you there must be more than gathering together on the appointed day to pay, pray, and obey? Do you desire more from your religious experience than can be obtained in the four walls of the "church"?
Those are feelings of divine discontent. God doesn't want you content when surrounded by a lukewarm laity! So don't try to medicate those feelings by merely attending another "revival" or chastising yourself with the latest "fasting" fad. Religious addictions work the same as worldly addictions. You get high and then crash, feeling lower than you did in the beginning. Your tolerance level increases with every fix so that you need the theological theatrics to be more thrilling than before just to feel "normal."
Just as it's dangerous to medicate divine discontent, you dare not seek to suppress it. When you do that, discontent mutates from divine to demonic as you begin criticizing everything and everyone in the church. When God's word inflames your marrow (Jer. 20:9), you better speak up and release the heat. Sharing the gospel is like opening the valve on a pressure cooker (ask your grandparents about that :-)
As E.E. Cleveland used to say, "Impression without expression leads to depression!"
According to the word of God, there are times when true religion means to stop acting pious and get practical (Isaiah 58:5-9; Micah 6:6-8; Matthew 23:23; James 1:27). In other words: "Sometimes the church needs to get out of the church in order to be the church!" Transforming your discontent can be as easy as smiling, shaking someone's hand, and sharing a book that articulates the truth that brought you joy. That's Christian contentment.
Those are feelings of divine discontent. God doesn't want you content when surrounded by a lukewarm laity! So don't try to medicate those feelings by merely attending another "revival" or chastising yourself with the latest "fasting" fad. Religious addictions work the same as worldly addictions. You get high and then crash, feeling lower than you did in the beginning. Your tolerance level increases with every fix so that you need the theological theatrics to be more thrilling than before just to feel "normal."
Just as it's dangerous to medicate divine discontent, you dare not seek to suppress it. When you do that, discontent mutates from divine to demonic as you begin criticizing everything and everyone in the church. When God's word inflames your marrow (Jer. 20:9), you better speak up and release the heat. Sharing the gospel is like opening the valve on a pressure cooker (ask your grandparents about that :-)
As E.E. Cleveland used to say, "Impression without expression leads to depression!"
According to the word of God, there are times when true religion means to stop acting pious and get practical (Isaiah 58:5-9; Micah 6:6-8; Matthew 23:23; James 1:27). In other words: "Sometimes the church needs to get out of the church in order to be the church!" Transforming your discontent can be as easy as smiling, shaking someone's hand, and sharing a book that articulates the truth that brought you joy. That's Christian contentment.
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