The severest sin of Christians is a numbing lack of concern, an anesthetized attitude of “I don’t care. I’m in the fold. Why should I concern myself? I have a fire insurance policy against hell.”
When Gideon was through thinning out his frightened and indifferent soldiers, he discovered that only one out of one hundred was brave and really meant business. I trust there is a better percentage of courageous and sincere people in our church membership today.
However, it has been stated that “one fourth of the members of the average church could be dropped from the rolls and they would never know it happened, and the church would be no weaker as a consequence.”
My guess is that the percentage is closer to one half rather than one fourth. Is it a wonder that people are rushing headlong to perdition? While you read these lines, thousands are perishing “dead in trespasses and sins.” It is estimated that 40,000 people die everyday in this world who have never even heard the name – Jesus Christ.
Apathy, complacency, indifference, spiritual drowsiness, and insensitivity are lulling the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to sleep. The unorganized indifference within the ranks of the church members is far more destructive to the work of the Lord than all the organized forces of iniquity assailing it from the outside.
Like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, how often has Jesus checked on you and found you sleeping? Christians sin far more against the Lord by what we fail to do rather than what we do. We grapple more with the sins of omission rather than sins of commission.
Friends, there are prayers to be prayed, sick to be visited, lost people that need taught the gospel, people who need love, young people who need to be encouraged, etc. It is time for the church to be all to this community that God intends us to be.
via Highland Drive church of Christ
Poplar Bluff, MO