Do you ever feel "Religiously Dead"?

[Wildstar]

I had the fountain in me turn to fire before, but thats not pleasant.  if thats what you mean?

[1to3]

One of the most important steps for me was to be able to talk about Jesus whom I wanted o get to know better by discussing how He revealed Himself in the bible. Don't remember doing much of that in catholic school,where going to mass was demanded of us,but although we had a vague idea it was very vague and we never learned or discussed Jesus of the bible. Instead we learned to follow the rules,and what were very pleasant rituals. When I wanted to know about my Savior,it needed an American pastor's wife to guide to through the bible,learning and understanding what we needed to be and do as Christians.

After that she showed me how to pray ;to be natural,and to open up to Jesus,to not hold back,and not to be afraid to be awkward at first, as all He wants is a Relationship with Him,then He will take over and has never ever let me down ,although as a human it takes some time adapt to His way ,which is not ours.As time goes on it gets easier,but there have been many 'dry phases',and even angry ones,I'm afraid .

 

 

 

I would like to say, I was born in the catholic faith, attended all through grade school a  private convent school and although we had to attend mass, I never disliked attending mass, in fact I looked forward to it, as it gave me the opportunity to spend time in reflection with God through His only begotten Son Christ Jesus. Also in fairness to my schooling in that private catholic convent school, we had catechism and learnt the stories of the old and new testament. I am glad that for me, I never placed emphasis on the virgin marry or the praying of the rosary, I always spoke to God through Christ Jesus.

 

Also perhaps because of having gone through personal trauma at a young age,I  remember just many times, being alone and just talking to God and asking Him to help me. He was my safe place it seemed when I needed to pour my heart out.

 

I remember fondly the time in class where we had to draw a favorite scene form the stories of the bible. I remember having drawn Paul almost falling off his horse by being blinded by the Light of the Lord, when Christ Jesus revealed himself to Paul.. I also have some memories of some good nuns that told me to ask Christ Jesus or to pray to Christ Jesus.

 

I think God is the one to make the final judgement on who is truly a christian and who is not. I believe God looks a t the heart of a person and also reveals himself through the heart of a person.

 

After my Father passed away when I was 13 years of age, my mother started to attend a pentecostal church and I followed her. My older brother stopped going to church and is till now an atheist.

Unfortunately most of my initial family and relatives are atheist and do not want to know anything about God and demean you if you say that you believe in God.

 

The only Christians that I know where christians in my family, were my mother, father and grandfather and myself. They have now all passed away, I am the only remaining christian in my family with perhaps some relatives in Germany.  I keep praying for the salvation those in ,my initial family that have yet to find salvation in our Lord and savior Christ Jesus

 

Coming back to: at the age of 13 years joining with my mother, attending the the pentecostal church

Through this pentecostal church and through the guidance of a very good christian pastor, I learnt even more about what is in the bible was and how to worship and pray to God. At twenty one I got baptized at that pentecostal church.  The sad thing with the pentecostal church, was that after seven years, they would change around, rotate the pastors and the stability of the church would also declined .  This instability in the church lead me to stray and look elsewhere and also through some of those times of searching elsewhere, I got caught up in the world and also with other new age ideas.

 

So I went through many spiritual struggles as I battled to find my place of where I belonged. And in some of those struggles, I did feel spiritually dead.

But God somehow never gave up on me and guided me back to where to find Him once more. For me it was through taking the Bible and reading it for myself.

 

A good bible that helped me a lot to understand was the living bible as it was written in every day English, like you would be reading a newspaper type of English. I would read that and then go and look to the king James and my understanding just grew and my relationship with God also grew. 

God has worked in me through different experiences, through meeting certain Christians who at the time I encountered them, seemed placed in my way by God just to teach me something else about Him.

 

Today I understand  about the false teachings in the Catholic church, and in a way I feel blessed that I somehow was protected from them as I never never got caught up in them. I never prayed to saints and never prayed to Mary, I always had my emphasis on Christ Jesus.

 

Also my grandfather on my mothers side was a born again christian , found Christ Jesus in a dream in Germany before the second world war and would tell us stories as to how the Holy Spirit of God would guide him and keep him safe, how he carried His bible with Him and shared the good news with whoever he could.  As my grand father got older, he came to live with us, and when I would go and visit him in his room, many times he would ask me to read specific verses in the bible. He told me whatever you do, strive always to have integrity.

Having integrity for me meant no swaying to people please, sticking to what you believe and know is true to your heart.

Its taken me a lifetime to master this and I am still learning. The refinement is a process. He is the potter, I am the clay.

 

But coming back to feeling spiritually dead, for me that would mean going through big test of faith, where your faith is being tested almost to a breaking point, where spiritual warfare is happening.

When this happened to me big time 18 years ago, it happened just before greater understanding in Lord became revealed.

 

Through these different test of faith, always greater understanding of the Lord becomes revealed.

 

The more things are revealed, the more your faith and assurance in the Lord grows.

 

The enemy is always waiting to have a go with you, to instill doubt to make you doubt so to try and snatch you away from your position of Grace with God.

When you know more of what is written in the Word of God, you have the sword of the Spirit with you to conquer all doubts the enemy tries to throw at you.

 

Keep things simple and honest with God, learn to trust in Him, in His word. ask God to show you how. He will, because He loves you and wants to draw you near to Him

with the trust and security that He will never leave or abandon you.

[springforward]

Big difference in religion and relationship.  Spend time with Father's word and in praise and counting your blessings and it builds relationship.  Sometimes it is religion that brings us down. 

Amen! Praise God!

[Rain]

You are lucky to say that you used to fall down on your knees and cry. You absolutely felt that passion. I, sadly, do not know what that feels like. I was raised very conservatively so I keep everything to myself and never felt comfortable reaching out like that. But I can understand how hard it is for you not to get that back. I have to agree with angels4u, in saying that, maybe there is something in your life which is distracting you. I know I have that, and it is very difficult to let go of. I try. So maybe think about what that might be, and if there is something, work on it. Try to figure it out. 

[Earnest]

I was doing a bit of writing this morning about righteousness and though the question my writing answers is not the same as the OP, I think the same answer applies to when one is feeling "dry" toward God.
 

What I wrote earlier today: Our righteousness does not come from obeying God's rules. Our righteousness comes from Jesus, God's Son, and how much we embrace Jesus in our heart and use faith to accept that He loves us enough to accept us just as we are, which He proved through His death, burial, and resurrection.

(This does not lead to dishonoring behavior, as so many argue. They say, “If you believe that then you can do anything and just say Jesus accepts you just as you are.” They are arguing for legalism. They don't understand the deeper things of the Spirit, such as love for God motivates us to turn to Him directly, and the more we focus on Him and His love for us, the less we are drawn by sinful things. They have the cart in front of the horse. Good behavior does not lead to a better relationship with God. A better relationship with God leads to better behavior.)

The more a true Christian believes this, the more the Holy Spirit works in him/her to love Jesus and God, and the more that love moves us to honor God with every part of our life. We don't use willpower to avoid sin and become “righteous”.

The more we understand and believe we are already righteous through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, the more we desire to invite Jesus and the Father into every moment of our life, and the more we want to avoid sin because it makes us emotionally, physically, and spiritually ill.

We don't turn away from sinful thoughts through self righteous willpower. We are so in love with God that just thinking about sin is like opening a septic tank, and actually sinning is like jumping into it. Unfortunately, the more we think about sin (or how to avoid it) and ignore loving God, the more that septic tank looks like a swimming pool. And, being human, we lose focus on God, and often jump or fall in.

That is when we have to remember that God loves us just as we are, and once again we need to admit we fell into the tank again and need God's help to get us out and stay out. (The author bases this upon experience with many sewage pits and septic tanks.) But even then, we need to remember that we do not stay out of the tank through our own self willpower and self discipline. We stay out by keeping our focus on God and how much He loves us, and how much we love Him back.

Obeying God's laws do not help us become children of God any more than doing household chores help us become children of our parents.

Righteousness does not come from obeying the Ten commandments. The Ten Commandments are an illustration of how a righteous person might live. But living like a righteous person does not make him or her righteous any more than pretending to be a cat makes you a cat.

Loving Jesus who is God's one and only Son, and who died for us and rose again, is the righteousness God desires.

Those who are righteous in God's sight – those who sincerely love Him and His Son, Messiah Jesus - will, by nature, become what the Ten Commandments illustrate: a righteous acting person.

This also applies to “feeling dry”. It often happens when we focus on doing right things in order to “feel” closer to God. That is a deceptive feeling and belief. The truth is that once we have accepted Jesus' death, burial and resurrection on our behalf, we are already as close to God the Father as is our Big Brother, Jesus. All we have to do is go boldly into God's presence, in the name of Jesus' love for us (that is, His death, burial and resurrection on our behalf), and start chatting with God our Father.

We can't earn this privilege to call God our Father any more than we can earn the right to call our earthly father, “Dad”.

The way to overcome feeling dry (or any type of sin) is to go to God in prayer right now and start talking to Him, and then keep talking with Him every moment of your life forever. “Heaven” is not a celestial city with golden streets and pearly gates. It is being with God our loving (adoptive) Father, and Jesus, our loving Big Brother. The more we lose focus on that, the more dry, and or, legalistic we become.

I also believe that since God will judge our every thought, He knows our every thought and, therefore, anytime we choose we can address God directly when one is a true Christ follower. Even if we don't feel anything when we address God in our thoughts, it is our faith in God's love for us through His one and only Son, who died for us and rose to life, that gives us confidence to talk to God or His Son, Messiah Jesus.

We can talk to our Father or Jesus in our thoughts no matter how we feel at the moment. So, stop worrying and just start talking to God right now.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Earnest
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[Kan]

“Heaven” is not a celestial city with golden streets and pearly gates. It is being with God our loving (adoptive) Father, and Jesus, our loving Big Brother. The more we lose focus on that, the more dry, and or, legalistic we become.

 

I hope you are not intimating that heaven is not a real place.

[RustyAngeL]

We have all felt at one time or another the way you feel.  But then again I don't do religion.  Religion is man made, Christianity is faith in God through a relationship with Jesus.  Religion is mans attempt to reach out to God, The Christian faith is God's ability to reach down to us through His Son Jesus Christ. 

 

You can rest assured that Heaven is a real place and yes it does have  streets that are pure gold and yes their are 12 gates all made out of one pearl.  But what really makes Heaven what it is, is that God is there.

 

Bury  yourself in His Word.  Praise and worship Him, His Word says that He inhabits the praises of  His people.

 

Don't depend on your feelings they will lie to you.  Go  with what you know to be the truth. Jesus said, "I am the Way the, Truth and the Life." The truth is that  God loves you and that no one will ever take you out of His Hand.  

 

Yes we will all have valleys that we have to go through but we will never go alone.  Grab hold of His Hand and I promise you He will get you to where you need to be.  Praise Be To Our God! 

 

Because He Lives!! RustyAngeL

[RustyAngeL]

Religion is a dead end.  What you need is a relationship with Christ.

That says it all.  It's about relationship. Well done One!

[Nessa1234]

In the past year or so, I've been catching myself in and out of my relationship with God. I know he's my savior and the true God, but every time I go to a service or just have one on one worship with him, I can never get that "flame" of passion for him. I get so distracted during worship and I can never stay focused on God. I have no idea why, but I feel no connection with him. Every Sunday and Wednesday when I would worship him, I would fall on my knees crying, but now I'm lucky if I can even raise my hands.. Do any of you get like this? 

I like your quote.

[Ezra]

I know you feel, I am too struggling most Sundays I find myself watching the clock,planning shopping trips,day dreaming etc. I try to focus but my mind is just not there. Wondering if I'm in the wrong church.

Christians should understand first of all that we are in a spiritual battle.  If we are to worship "in Spirit and in truth" we must (a) prepare our hearts to worship well in advance, (b) focus on God and Christ exclusively during worship, and © bring the "spiritual sacrifices" of adoration, praise and thanksgiving to God.  A sacrifice by definition costs you something, which means in your case a conscious decision as well as a conscious effort to shut out your little world, and enter into the Holiest Place in Heaven, where God is worshipped by all the saints and holy angels. The world must be shut out completely.

 

It is also possible that you are in the wrong church, and they do not really understand the meaning of worship, neither have they taught you to worship.