Dangers of Devotional Christianity

Dangers of Devotional Christianity

            Don’t get me wrong.  Daily devotions are great.  Reading your Bible is wonderful.  Praying is essential to the Christian life.

            BUT    

            There are dangers which lurk along the path to Grandmother’s house of blessing.  Devotional Christianity can get you lost in the woods.  And the Big Bad Wolf, or in this case the Roaring Lion (I Peter 5:8), will try constantly to lead you astray.

            BE VIGILANT   

      

            Avoid these dangers.

Danger # 1 - Putting God to sleep.

            I know—God never sleeps (Psalm 121:4).  I know! 

But even God Himself warns us of this danger.  He inspired the prophet Isaiah to warn His people that their prayers and sacrifices, their meetings and feasts had made Him tired.  “I am weary of bearing them.  When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening.” (Isaiah 1:14-15).

            Ask yourself—would you want to listen to yourself pray?  Admit it, we often lull ourselves to sleep by repeating the same words, repeating the same words, repeating the same words, repeating…

Danger # 2 - Armchair Quarterback

            This is the danger of becoming so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.  It happens when our devotional life informs us of the inadequacies of others while blinding us to our own faults.  We become expert prophets of doom, prognosticating the failure of others on the team, but lacking insight into our own lack of spiritual first downs.

            Become alert to this danger when you find yourself thinking that everyone else does Christianity wrong.  Your personal devotions have convinced you that you alone are right and nothing will ever change your mind—not even further truth from the Word.

Danger # 3 - Waving the White Flag

            Satan hates to see us on our knees.   Prayer will be a battleground.  But it is possible to fall into the danger of viewing our devotional life as a spiritual retreat.  We enter our comfort zone when we are alone with God, meditating on His Word and enjoying fellowship with Him. 

            So we stay there. 

Outside of our stockade the white flag of surrender blows in the wind.  Rather than engaging the enemy in real life, we lazily lob spiritual hand grenades from inside the Green Zone.  We grant Satan the space to do whatever he wants in our world as long as we can escape to our retreat and congratulate ourselves on his eventual defeat.

Danger # 4 - How many sermons does it take to change a lightbulb?

            Listening to the preaching of the Word ought to be one of the strongest weapons of defense in our anti-evil arsenal.  We should “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” (Col. 3:16).  The danger comes when the sermon count grows exponentially, and the lightbulb never changes.  It is the danger Paul warned against when he said not to “despise” preaching (I Thess. 5:20).

            The purpose of Bible study, whether private or public, is to transform us into those who are like Christ.  It is possible for the sheer volume of information available in the age of the internet to surround us with a sense of accomplishment simply because we have been exposed so often to the truth.  When that happens we are in danger of substituting the reception of the Word for the transformation of the Word.

            It’s not how many chapters of the Bible you get into every day—it’s how much of the Bible gets into you every day.

Danger # 5 - Bless us four, no more, Amen.

            The tongue-in-cheek, inside-joke, college-age prayer, “Bless us four, no more, Amen,” offered as grace before a quick snack, reminds me of the danger of devotional territoriality.  A prayer list is a great idea, but limiting our prayers to a list can produce tunnel vision.  God wants to open our eyes to the needs of a world (John 4:35).

            Mastery of one important truth from the Word can actually blind us to the acceptance of additional truth.  Knowing that God is Love is amazing.  But it doesn’t negate the fact that God is also just and hates sin.

            Devotional Christianity may attempt to limit God to only what a person already knows about Him.  The corral of human thought is far too small to delineate boundaries for a limitless God.

Danger # 6 - Couch Potato

            Perhaps the greatest danger in devotional Christianity comes from growing satisfied with the reading and prayer itself, rather than allowing our devotional life to impact real life.  Paul reminds us that the purpose of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, and, I would add, personal devotions is “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service” (Eph. 4:12).

            Devotional Christianity can make us fat and lazy spiritually.  Spiritual fat needs to be dealt with in the same fashion as physical fat—get off the coach and get some exercise.

 Put your intellect to work for God.  Create something different out of the raw materials He placed on this earth so that people will be compelled to proclaim the greatness of God. 

Explore your emotions, and express them in unique ways toward other individuals so the qualities known as the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23) will impact positively those in your sphere of influence.

Express your will in choices designed to honor and exalt God.  Abandon your small ambitions and engage in accomplishing the impossible, because “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

The Solution—Creative Christianity

            Look at your spiritual resume and respond to God’s advertisement, “Help Wanted.”

            But don’t limit yourself to only what you see as your abilities.  Consider your interests as well.  Interest will forever be the Tortoise which outruns the Hare of ability.  Imagine what you would do for God if you could do anything you wanted to do for Him. 

            Here are some resources which will be available very soon to speed you along on that adventure.

            Dare to Walk on Water: Treasuring God

Dare to Walk on Water: Serving God

Dare to Walk on Water: Transformed by God

Dare to Walk on Water: Creative Like God

Dare to Walk on Water: The Workbook

            The four Dare to Walk on Water devotionals and the workbook will be useful in any order.  Read the devotionals a day at a time or spend an entire week on each chapter, taking time to put into action the adventures awaiting you as you experience the power of the Word of God at work in your own life.  DARE to move beyond devotional Christianity to creative Christianity, daily transformed into the image of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

            In the meantime I will be sharing other articles with you as these resources become available.  Please share with me as well.  I would love to hear your stories of creative Christianity.

            Feel free to send this article to others, and write to me at:

            robertallen@biblestoryfamily.com

Robert Allen

The Bible Story Family

P. O. Box 28342

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55428-3551