When The Music Fades

I actually wanted to title this article 'CATCHING FEELINGS FOR GOD' because it beautifully describes what I want to address. Many Christians just catch feelings for God. They go to church to crush on God. Just like the crush people have on TV characters, the feeling is usually very brief but with intense infatuation, and of course, the object is unattainable. Though I believe it is a stage, the painful problem is that many Christians never get to grow past this level. When the music stops, everything fades away.

You can never enjoy your relationship with God and your Christian walk until you grow past the childish stage of intense feeling that you are always unable to sustain beyond the church service or an hour after. Apostle James describes people on this level as those who look into the mirror and observe themselves, and go away, and immediately forget what kind of man they were. When they go to church, they cry, shout, and feel touched by the songs and the messages. And deceitfully, this somehow makes them feel very good and spiritual. But they do not understand walking with God. Just as the service is ending, the whole feeling ends, and everything fades away.

They approach church service the way drug addicts approach drugs: they simply feel high for a short while. They go every Sunday to feel high and afterward spend the rest of the week in the valley. When one pays good attention to the kind of songs and messages that gets these people high, you will realize how poorly schooled they are concerning the things of God. These songs and messages have no real Christian value, they are simply designed and delivered to make people feel good and to give them a false sense of spirituality. Your maturity starts when you grow past feelings and learn how to sustain spiritual things.

Don't be like those whose sense of spirituality ends as the music fades. Subject yourself to study and the practice of walking with God. Learn how to enjoy his presence 24/7. Don't go to church and experience the warmth that comes with fellowship and then spend the rest of the week looking for memes/jokes to laugh over and quotes to post for your enemies. Just like Enoch, learn to walk with God. Learn to stay on God. Learn the difference between substance and lying emptiness. Some have a false sense of worship because they were crying. But most of the time, the songs were about their problems and not about God and they simply cried because of their numerous problems.

Develop the discipline to learn the things of God. Learn to benefit from the church service and learn how to stay spiritual beyond the service and the songs. Learn how to be conscious of your Christian life day in, day out. Enjoy the music and the warm fellowship that happens in the church, receive the message being preached with meekness, but be determined to consciously live the Christian life the rest of the week. Music is very powerful and of great spiritual relevance, but when the music fades as it eventually will, let not the experience that came with it also fade away.

'But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.' (James 1:22-25).