As I was praying last week, God began to break my heart for the spiritual apathy that is over this nation and has crept into the church. I began to cry out to God in repentance for the times when I had, and indeed the church had, chosen to sit back, or hide the message or remain silent when God had been moving.
My heart has been stirred and disturbed by this apathy that I see infecting the hearts and lives of Jesus disciples.
Apathy can be defined as a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest or concern to emotional, social, or physical life. They may also exhibit an insensibility or sluggishness.
As I began to delve a little deeper into this issue I discovered that the concept of apathy became more well-known after World War I, when it was called “shell shock”. Soldiers who lived in the trenches amidst the bombing and machine gun fire, and who saw the battlefields strewn with dead and maimed comrades developed a sense of disconnected numbness and indifference.
I believe we at times have become shell shocked by the state of this world and the condition of people’s hearts. It has shocked us as the church to the point where we have become ineffective and numbed from responding with the mission God has called us to.
I thought we were meant to share the love and hope and truth of Christ to a hurting world. I thought we were meant to shine the light of God in the darkness. I thought we were meant to lead the change.
We have a decision to make and we must choose. People’s lives are at stake.
We as the church, as God’s disciples, have been sent on the rescue mission.
I felt the Lord prompt me to repent – we must repent on behalf of… apathy towards God and His church, towards each other, towards the mission, towards injustice, towards the orphans and the widows, towards leadership, towards those who need salvation!
When will we wake up?
I want to see a church that embraces the lost, the broken, the hurting, that stands for the truth and fights for the justice on God’s heart, advocates for the widow, parents the orphan, restores the prostitute, reforms the addicted to power and money, is a voice of hope and truth to the desperate and depressed, rescues those going to hell and tells them about salvation…
It all starts with our apathy or passion in our relationship with Jesus
People who are passionate about their relationship with Jesus – change the world…
