“What do you do when the preaching of the Word no longer impacts you as it once did?”

That’s the question I was asked by an earnest young man recently who appears to be sincerely seeking the Lord.

Many of us can identify with the question as we’ve been there ourselves. We remember the impact sermons made on us in the past – deep impressions, piercing convictions, powerful drawings – but now we feel like cold lifeless statues as we listen to the same preachers preaching similar sermons. What’s gone wrong? This will vary for different people, but let me suggest a few possibilities.

1. Tiredness
The main cause for unprofitable hearing of the Word is fatigue, even exhaustion. We work too long and too hard throughout the week. We sit down and sit still for the first time on Sunday morning, and surprise, surprise, our eyelids begin to feel like lead, and our bodies start sliding down the pew. An extra hour of sleep each night can revive our souls.

2. Distraction
Saturday afternoon and evening are a good time for tying up the loose ends of the week and preparing for Monday. If we don’t do it on Saturday, we’ll be doing it on Sunday in church.

3. Indiscipline
If we are not reading our Bible and praying in a regular disciplined way throughout the week, we can’t really expect to be spiritually tuned in and sensitive on Sunday.

4. Sin
As unrepented sin forms a barrier between us and God, we need to make sure that there’s nothing major in our life that is blocking God’s blessing.

5. The Preacher
it may be that the preacher is preaching a series of sermons on a book or subject that doesn’t fit your spiritual needs at the moment. Although this tests our patience, taking a more long-term view can mitigate our frustration. No, you don’t need these truths/this series so much right now, but you can store it up in your mind and heart for when you will need it in the future. Maybe we can also mortify our selfishness by praying, “Lord I’m not getting anything from these sermons, but I’m thankful others are and I pray for your blessing upon them.”

6. Sovereignty
God may be testing our faith by allowing us to experience a period of coldness under the Word. Will we walk by faith even when there are no feelings to help us along?  Will we listen, trust, and obey, even when we’re not being inspired and moved by the preaching?

7. Humbling
God can also use such periods to humble our hearts and show us how much hardness remains within us. “I’m listening to the most beautiful truths and it leaves me stone cold. The preacher is pouring his whole heart into this and I can’t even be sure I have a heart.” Such painful experiences reveal how much sanctifying work remains to be done in our hearts.

8. Encouragement
The fact that we are upset about our spiritual coldness is a reassuring sign. If we are unmoved about being unmoved, unconcerned about our lack of concern, that would indeed be worrying. However, the very fact that we feel this, and grieve over this, should encourage us that God has worked in out hearts. We can remember sitting under the Word without an ounce of spiritual life and it didn’t bother us in the least.  That it bothers us now, and makes us pray for a changed heart, reveals a heart that has been sovereignly changed.

What do you do when the Word leaves you cold?

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Here’s a new website on biblical spirituality being started by Brian Najapfour, a PRTS student from the Philippines. Brian graduated from PRTS with a ThM and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Biblical Spirituality under Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This is what Brian says about the website:

We have launched a new website called biblicalspirituality.com especially devoted to the study of biblical spirituality (Puritan, reformed, and evangelical spirituality in particular).

One purpose of this website is to provide unpublished papers that deal with the subject of spirituality for researchers. Thus, if you have written any paper on the subject that has not yet been published, we encourage you to submit it to us, and we will have it posted here, so that others can also benefit from your work. The paper can be e-mailed to Brian G. Najapfour at najapfour@gmail.com

The ultimate goal of this site is to cultivate holiness in the lives of the believers, especially of pastors. We are convinced that the greatest need of many churches today is the holiness of their pastors. As Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843) says, “My people’s greatest need is my personal holiness.”

Please join us in this endeavor. Your contribution will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks!

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One of the most difficult passages for me to preach has been Romans 6v1-11. I find it difficult to understand and even more difficult to explain. The difficulty is summed up in verse 11: “Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” How do you explain that? Especially when it seems so contrary to our Christian experience.

Well, believe it or not, I think a journalist has just shed some light on this for me. Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project quotes David Dunning’s book, Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself. Dunning said:

[People] can argue anything. If asked to argue that some assertion “A” is true, people can do that. If next asked to argue that the opposite of “A” is true, they can do that, too, often with the exact same ease and effectiveness…When testing a hypothesis, people tend to emphasize evidence that confirms the hypothesis over information that disconfirms it.

Rubin comments: I’ve been applying that observation as a happiness-project strategy, and it’s astonishingly effective.

When I catch myself thinking, “My husband isn’t very thoughtful,” and my mind starts kicking up examples of thoughtlessness, I retort, “My husband is very thoughtful” – and sure enough, I think of lots of examples of thoughtful behavior. When I think “My daughters squabble a lot,” I answer, “My daughters get along very well.” I can actually feel my opinion shift. It’s almost uncanny.

If I make positive statements, I’ll tend to convince myself and other people of a positive view of things. If I make negative statements, I’ll do just the opposite. For example, if I say, “Wow, that was such a great meeting,” people are prompted to think that the meeting went well. If I say, “Wow, that meeting was such a drag,” people are prompted to think along those lines.

As Goethe observed: “I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather.”

So, I’ve decided that the more I regard myself as dead to sin, the more dead to sin I will be. And the more I think of myself as alive to Christ, the more alive to Christ I will be. The next time I am tempted to sin, I will say, “No! I can’t because I’m dead to sin, and alive to Christ!” Thus I will die to sin and live to Christ.

It’s worth a try, isn’t it?

PS. Please don’t turn this monopod into a centipede. Monopod = the way we think about ourselves will impact our behavior. Centipede = I also believe that everything’s relative!

Picture: 2006 © Leonid Nyshko. Image from BigStockPhoto.com

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