Yes, I’m still processing my trip to Israel. It really messed with my mind! I’ve told you before how I felt I was truly limiting myself in my Christian walk. I wasn’t living empowered enough to “heal the sick” and “cast out evil spirits” of this world. The blog “Sorry, but you really don’t have an excuse!” went into depth about these topics and more.

What I’m trying to process now is if we are truly ready to grow up in our Christian faith. Hear me out for just a bit. As parents, we give our kids good ideas of what would be helpful for them in their daily walk with God:

1. Go to church
2. Have daily devotions
3. Treat others as you would like to be treated
4. Feed the hungry and poor
5. Take care of your body (God’s temple)
6. Give to your church (tithe)

This is what we teach our children. Yet, pastors in our churches today are preaching this to the adult members:

1. Go to church
2. Have daily devotions
3. Treat others as you would like to be treated
4. Feed the hungry and poor
5. Take care of your body
6. Give to your church

Why are they spinning their wheels reminding us of these things? Aren’t we all adults here? Could it be we are simply playing church to feel better about ourselves? Could it be we truly enjoy being a child and are fine to have our “adult parent/pastor” tell us what we need to do next in our lives? I mean, he preaches the sermon and we soak it in. He tells us to give to the poor by showing a cool video and we respond. We feel guilty when he says we should go to church so we come to church. We are still acting like kids.

Seriously, can we just call it like it is? We are playing church. It’s time to re-evaluate where you are in life. Perhaps the best thing for you to do if you are on the fence about growing up spiritually is to be honest with yourself and stop coming to church for a while. Do you like the person you are without church in your life? If so, you weren’t really a church-goer. You were just playing church. In fact, you were doing more harm to the world going to church because they thought you were the real deal, when in fact you were just “playing church”. Stop leading the world astray. Stop pretending to be someone you’re not; someone in love with God!

When we love someone, we desire to be with them a lot! For our relationship with God, this includes:

1. Go to church
2. Have daily devotions
3. Treat others as you would like to be treated
4. Feed the hungry and poor
5. Take care of your body
6. Give to your church

You see, when we truly love God in a genuine relationship, we can’t stand to live without Him. We ache to go to church to worship with others. We feel a gap in our lives if we don’t have quiet time with Him. When we see people hurting in the world, we know they are God’s child and we know we must help them. We desire to be healthy so we can do as much for God as possible. There is nothing more noble and right than giving at least 10% of  your income to the church because 100% of what you have comes from God.

Jesus gave the church a mission to go into all the world. We don’t have time to “baby” the church members. We need to go into all the world. If you are going to get in our way and keep asking for a bottle, you’d better hire a babysitter that’s not the church. We need to win the souls of those wanting a true relationship with God.

Are you ready to grow up?

What steps do you need to take today to grow up?

© 2015 Susan M. Sims

Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net / Serge Bertasius Photography