“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” ― D.A. Carson
The above Carson quote that Matt Chandler read in
a sermon I was listening to struck me as an incredibly accurate picture of human nature and of the trap that we young believers fall into so easily.
Later in the sermon as Chandler elaborates what he believes "grace-driven effort" entails, he says:
"Grace-driven effort attacks the roots and not just the branches...We have deceived ourselves so that our actions, who we actually are and what is in our hearts are somehow separate. We think that we are not wicked and in need of repentance and we just need to modify this behavior. And so we set out to modify a behavior when in the end, you can’t mow over the weeds...If you have lust issues, anger issues, and slander issues, ten times out of ten what you have is a heart issue, not an external issue." - Matt Chandler
I believe that one of the most crippling "heart issues" that we younger, more immature believers struggle with is that of spiritual laziness. Usually when we think of root, heart issues, we tend towards struggles such as insecurity, unhealthy fear, and the idolization of romance, academics, career, money, etc. Rarely do we actually deal with spiritual laziness, as we convince ourselves that if we dealt with any of these other heart issues, spiritual disciplines will magically become easy. We think that once the "major" sins in our lives have been uprooted, prayer and Bible reading will instantly be more attractive and rewarding, when in reality, it is largely our lack of spiritual discipline that leads to those sins in the first place.
As Carson pointed out, we also believe the lie that once saved, we "drift towards holiness". We believe that spiritual maturity is a guaranteed inevitability and that sanctification is only hard and painful for the initial "big" sins that we also think we'll simply outgrow. Despite Biblical, historical, and and personal examples to the contrary, we believe think that following Jesus always gets easier and easier, making us less willing to immediately tackle the difficult spiritual issues in our lives, waiting for them to somehow resolve themselves. Thus, clinging on to a flavor of adolescent rebelliousness, we reject all calls for holiness and discipline as legalistic, optimistically and naively thinking that simply living longer will eventually yield greater holiness. This causes us to perpetually procrastinate the disciplines that we know we desperately need, convincing ourselves that one day those disciplines will come easily, but up until this point, that day has not yet come.
But we have it backwards. Spiritual discipline is necessary for Christian maturity, not the other way around. And while I think that most people would agree with that statement, it seems like few actually live it out. It wasn't actually until senior your in college that I got a taste of what mature Christian life looks like. I experienced both the richness and rewards and the sacrifice and self-denial of a deeper relationship with Christ as I engaged in multiple consistent spiritual disciplines for the first extended period of time in my life. These included good Christian reading, deeper Bible study, Bible memorization, meditation, fasting, and devoted prayer and intercessory time. I say all this not to brag about myself (there isn't much to brag about, really) but to point out how ridiculously small-minded and immature I was just one year earlier when I patted myself on the back when I remembered to crack open my Bible that day. While this have-you-done-your-devotions-this-week stage of Christian life is unavoidable, far too many of us young Christians are stuck in it for far too long, never making it to solid food.
While we create myriads of excuses for ourselves, refusal to pursue maturity and engage in spiritual disciplines is nothing more than spiritual laziness. It isn't jealousy or hatred keeping you from spending quality time in concentrated prayer, nor is it your struggles with lust that keeps you from spending more time with Jesus in the Word. Academic and social busyness seems like a good excuse for the lack of time spent reading Christian books and in personal reflection until you consider the amount of time you spend watching football on the weekends and Hulu during the week. It's also tempting to commit the Pharisaic error of equating participation in religious activities (such as Sunday service and Bible study) with a real personal relationship with God, but corporate religious activities never nullify the need for private disciplines.
Upon honest reflection, our excuses are just excuses, and for many of us, spiritual laziness is one of
the root heart issue that needs to be dealt with in our lives. I know that it's definitely one of mine. Spiritual discipline takes time, pain, and patience to create and sustain, but we can be confident that Christ will honor those who pursue him.
Hebrews 12:11 -
"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."
1 Timothy 4:7-8 -
"Train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."
