The Perfect Christian, Spiritually Starved

–By Rob Golding

Many Christians feel spiritually lethargic and weak, but they are unsure how they arrived at this state. They are surprised to feel so little desire for God when they have been doing, in their own estimation, pretty good spiritually. They aren’t watching sin-enhancing television. Their recurring sins are in check. They aren’t giving into gluttony, selfishness, anger, or anxiety. They may avoid every sin that they usually give in to, yet they feel spiritually dry. This is a perplexing situation because we tend to link our avoidance of sin with our nearness to God. Indeed, there is a connection between these things since sin can’t dwell in the presence of God. This is why heaven will be a sinless place—God is fully manifest there. Yet, to merely avoid sin is not sufficient to experience God. God isn’t present in the vacuum of human activity. If He were, the best thing we could do would be to medicate ourselves into a paralyzed stupor.

Just like the body, merely avoiding things leads to starvation. If sin is like junk food, it is not enough to avoid it to be healthy. Indeed, if all we do is avoid bad food without eating healthy food, we will die. It’s the same in the spiritual life—merely avoiding sin can still lead to spiritual starvation. But the solution isn’t to just go to church more and to read the Bible every day.

Many Christians feel spiritually starved, and they are surprised because they sin so little, at least when compared to their non-Christian friends. The solution to this predicament is not only to recognize that mere avoidance is starvation but also to reprogram the mind to understand where spiritual vitality comes from. This is why the Bible says, “Do not be conformed to the world [that is, avoid the bad] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind [that is, feed on]” (Rom 12:2a). Yes, sin distances us from God, but only God brings us close to God. When we begin to understand this, growth occurs because we not only avoid sin but we pray constantly.

Continual prayer is the only way to prevent spiritual starvation. We must be connected to the vine of Christ through communion with Him. We must hear Him in His word and respond to Him in prayer. It’s quite possible to passively receive the word by being half-asleep at morning devotion or in church. We often read pages in the Bible absentmindedly and think, “What did I just read?” But it’s impossible to pray without hearing what you’re saying, even if what you’re saying is a jumbled mess of words. Therefore, prayer is the only thing that ensures we are connected to God when we are engaged in it. On the other hand, we might avoid every sin, read the Bible every morning, go to church twice on Sunday, and still be spiritually starved because we’re merely around the spiritual food, not eating it.

By this, I do not mean saying rote prayers. I don’t mean a listless repeated prayer before dinner every night. I don’t mean citing something you memorized or repeating the exact same thing you “prayed” yesterday and the day before. I mean an actual communication between you and God. Not a recitation. True prayer isn’t a performance but a painting, each one unique from the last. True prayer conveys to God genuine gratitude (thanksgiving), true adoration (praise), and hopeful request (supplication and intercession). Or, it is a heartfelt admission of a lack of these things (confession).

This does not mean, of course, that all we need to do is pray. Prayer that is not fueled by the Word of God becomes nothing but sinful utterance. We need the Word and Sacraments, but without prayer, these things are not digested. We can starve on the Word and Sacraments without the absorbing influence of prayer. Many Christians are extremely diligent in their sanctification and attention to the things of God, but they’re starving like an anorexic chef—constantly avoiding junk food and looking at food but never actually eating. We haven’t eaten the bread of life if we haven’t chewed on it in prayer. Therefore, when we don’t pray—though we avoid all that is bad and partake of all else that is good—we starve.

Ironically, a Christian in this position can appear to everyone else as perfect. They hear him cite Bible verses, see his Instagram pictures sporting open Bibles adjacent coffee cups, and see him twice on Sunday at church, where he is a lauded leader, and he never yells or, gets drunk or eats too much. He’s slim and trim and spiritually slick. But he’s really emaciated and sick. The worst part is that no one knows it. When he is blind to this fact as well, spiritual death is soon to come. He leads and teaches and appears to be an example to hundreds or thousands. Yet, one day, his closet swings open, and the skeletons of a dead faith burst forth. He looked good, just like a dressed-up and painted corpse. But when the true test of spiritual strength emerges—the opportunity to commit an anonymous sin and the enjoyment of secret pride—he reveals himself to have no more strength to push away these sins than a dead body does a coffin lid. The “perfect Christian” who does everything right but doesn’t truly pray is a dead man walking, and great will be his fall. Why? He is starving his soul by failing to pray.

We must abide in Christ, the vine, through prayer. Jesus says, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:6).

-Rob Golding – Pastor, First Artesia CRC