[Luke_Warm]

Recently I decided to read the book, Crazy Love, by Francis Chan. Ever since reading it I've had extremely strong convictions on my life and strong doubts in my salvation, faith, and God.

Basically, I feel like I have grown extremely cold towards God. I was raised in the church and it feels like I take Jesus, the cross, and sin for granted because I have been exposed to it all so much. The way this ties into the book making me think so much is that it talks about really loving God and not being a lukewarm christian. I also keep getting Mathew 7:21 in my head.

I'm honestly terrified and questioning everything I thought was true. I feel like all of my church attendance, bible reading, and such have just been acts of obedience. I don't know that they come out of a genuine love. It seems interesting to me to even love God. I find that it is an extremely hard concept, because I've always felt distant from God. To me, he has always been up in heaven and I've been down here on Earth. I've always tried to do what he says, and thought I was right in doing so, but now I feel like all I am is a self-righteous, heart-of-stone christian.

What makes it even worse is the fact that I've done very little to share the gospel, and have had very little interest in doing so. I want to want to, but I just never have. I brought maybe one friend to church in my life, and have always been somewhat scared to admit I was a "christian."

I feel like I have absolutely no passion for the ways of Christ. I try to remind myself that it's faith that saves people, but then I worry about my motives too. If I want to be saved because I don't want to go to Hell, want to lead a meaningful life, and want to know that I have a purpose am I really right in my heart? I keep thinking of a John Piper quote that says:

"The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—
is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the
friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and
all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties
you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no
human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with
heaven, if Christ were not there?"

That actually sounds VERY much like me. I'm extremely scared, because I don't WANT to be this way. I want to be happy with just Jesus, but I'm not. I want to have a genuine love for him, but I don't. I want to see and know Jesus, but I can't get myself to that place. I can't change my heart to truly desire God. Does this mean I'm just going to die and go to Hell? Is there NOTHING I can do to change the way I am? I've even heard people say that I can't, but I can go to Jesus and he will change me, but I'm not even sure of how that works. I'm extremely scared, and in need of some serious help.

[Luke_Warm]

and for more background: I am 19 and thought I was truly saved until very recently. I have a lot of church background and know all about Christ loving us and dying for our sins. I know that it is a "free" gift and everything, but I've recently become aware of the "heart knowledge vs. head knowledge" issue. I have always intended to follow God and do his will, but I never thought about the importance of my motives, or actually knowing him. I even heard the lingo of having "a personal relationship" with Jesus, but always thought that just meant reading the word and praying, which I do try to always do. Now I see people like Francis Chan and John Piper talking about loving Jesus in this sense and I think I might be missing something huge.

[athanatos]

I see two things in your post that might help what I see in your situation, and I'll offer two things for ya to consider.

1) Your post seems to communicate that you don't feel the emotional expression that others have. Am I mistaken? If that's true, well. That's okay. Sorta. I think emotions come out in different ways naturally, and thus my question is what is going on internally. Or rather, my question is more like, are you expressing things that normally accompany emotion? Thanksgiving, awe, satisfaction, etc. These things result from depth of understanding who we are and who He is, and what we each have done.

2) Now, your words seem to communicate also that you don't really value your relationship. That you've been distant. That you don't love God. But isn't the fact that you are typing such a long post, wrestling with these topics, wrestling with yourself, and feeling a need to draw closer...proof that you actually do have a relationship, that you care about Him, and just don't feel it is enough? Maybe not the healthiest, but it certainly doesn't seem like you have no relationship, since you aren't just indifferent.

a) I wonder if you feel like I have felt so often. It is the idea that we are just juggling all these concepts and speaking the lingo, but there is no life change. That is a serious problem. I think if you focus on the basics -- repentance, evangelism, prayer and Scripture, you're going to see important things change. It is hard to be emotionally dead if you see people's lives change because you shared the gospel to them. Do you share your faith? It is hard to not love God if you see how wretched you are and what seriousness payment for your death is. Do you inspect how morally corrupt and indebted you are, or do you focus more on the behavior and the beliefs?

b) Keep wrestling, and bring this up with your friends, keep bringing it up to different people until you find others who can relate. It will help you handle it, because they will share how they cope and how God changed them. Also, it will involve you more with a deeper aspect of community, which many churches really lack. There is no room for pride in a church, so please have the guts and the humility to share these struggles. Maybe you have, and maybe this hasn't been a help. Let me know what you think.

[Luke_Warm]

Thank you for your reply. I will try to elaborate more on some of the things you mentioned.

1.) I think what I'm really trying to say is that I actually feel a lot of apathy as of late. None of the things of God seem to amaze me anymore. I take a lot of what I have for granted and am not nearly as thankful as I should be. The part I feel MOSTLY apathetic too is kind of the most important part: Christ dying for us. I guess I just kind of take it as a fact because I've heard it my whole life. When I try to stop and get "into it" emotionally, I always seem to be unable to or get distracted. (I have always kind of had this weird thing where I've brushed Christ's suffering to the side because I feel like he knew he would be in heaven so shortly anyway...and I KNOW that is wrong.)

2.) It's not so much that I don't value my relationship as that I don't really know how to define it/doubt that I even have one to begin with. I struggle with this because spending time with God doesn't feel the same to me as spending time with a person. Spending time with God to me generally feels like reading, or speaking my innermost thoughts to God. I often forget to remember that he hears my prayer, and feel like sometimes I'm just talking my inner monologue out.

a.) I think you have me pinned here. I have always had an embarrassingly hard time sharing my faith. I tend to be shy around people in general, so talking about such serious things has ALWAYS been a struggle for me. I've honestly kind of fallen into the trap of the "let my lifestyle" be a witness, but because I have often spent time with people not even knowing I WAS a christian it never did any good.

I do very much try to repent, and read scripture, but I have problems with both. When I read scripture, it doesn't tend to move me the way it should. I read it, and don't really get what I'm supposed to be seeing. I have tried slowing down, journaling, meditating, etc. but a lot of passages don't show me much.

Now as of late, repentance has made me feel like I was just trying to do things because God said without really understanding his love for me. I never used to feel like this, but lately I've felt BAD about repenting. Mainly because I've just begun hearing a lot about the self-righteous. Now when I repent I tend to feel like I am being that way.

I also don't see much of a grand scheme life change. A few things are different, but I don't feel like a completely different person, and I still see a LOT of sin in my motives and sins of omission. There are a lot of things I should do that I don't, sharing my faith being the perfect example. I also don't give or care much about the poor. Both of these feel like a HUGE heart issue. It's like I don't care that people are suffering, dying, and living without God. Which is proud, self-centered, and horrible. I know, but I don't know what to do to make myself care. I feel like if I just gave or shared the gospel because it was what God wanted then I would still be sinning in my heart.

b.) I will definitely try. I have a lot of believers I can turn to, and hopefully they will be able to help me. I also hoped that posting here would be the first step to that, because I won't see any of those people until after the weekend.

Again, thank you for reading and sharing. I know I type fairly huge posts, but I like to elaborate as much as possible.