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Apathetic=Pathetic

Every since I can remember I have been a Christian.  I was raised in the church and was saved at the age of seven.  I went to church whenever the door was open (how cliche is that?), and always knew the right answers to all of the profound Sunday School questions that I was asked as a child.  I tended to think that I was some kind of church all-star.  The longer I was in church the more I understood the church code and when to say words like sanctification.  It became a game that I played, and a game that I won. 

While I was earning my badges and honors in church, I was being destroyed by the number one killer among "church kids", apathy.  I didn't care about what the Bible commanded or what God expected me to be.  I was saved by grace, and that was all that mattered.   I did the very thing that Paul commanded against, 
  
1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
 Romans 6:1-2

I was much more concerned with knowing what I could get away with, than what could I do that God would be pleased in me.  My apathetic attitude and irreverence to who God was, was making me miss the entire point of God's grace and gospel.  I knew what the Bible said and could answer questions as to what it meant, but when it came to applying it to my life it wasn't happening.  So what was I missing, what did I not understand?

The Gospel.

I understood that I was suppose to believe in God and Christ so that I could go to heaven, which is very much a part of the gospel, but I was missing one key ingredient in my recipe for Jesus All-Star and that was love.

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
                                            
1 Corinthians 13:2

The gospel is nothing without love.  If I don't understand the love that Christ has for me then it is impossible to live for him.  His love for me should dictate my every move, knowing that the creator of the universe cares about me should make me care about nothing but Christ.  This love then should move me to love others, because I want them to experience the love that I have.  

When I get to this point of understanding God's love and showing others love then maybe I can become some sort of LeBron James (or Dirk Nowitzki) in the Christian world.  But I won't care because my focus is to love God and love others.  I have to start caring about God and his children, not how I can wow the Sunday school audience or my twitter followers. 
  
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22:36-40   


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