Self: The Key Difference Between Mature and Immature Christianity
Are half of U.S. Christians actually Deists convinced God created the world and then left us all alone?
A new Gallup poll shows only 42 percent of Americans (about half of Christians) agree that “God hears your prayers and can intervene on your behalf.”
The other 58 percent picture an un-powerful, uncaring or unbelievable God: 28 percent said God “only hears our prayers” but can’t intervene for us, 11 percent said God couldn’t hear our prayers or intervene, and 17 percent don’t think he exists.
Look at that divide among believers: 42 percent say God acts in our world while 38 percent doubt his power, like the young Christian writer convinced “I disagree with the deterministic ‘God-controls-everything-and-everything-happens-for-a-reason’ theology.” If God isn’t in control, we might ask, who is running the Universe? Us? No wonder some people are so anxious.
In the book Jobe Syndrome, Eugene Haussman writes Americans have a long history of believing God isn’t around or in control. America’s Founding Fathers (like the 38 percent who doubt God’s power) were Deists.
Deists “believe in a creator God who made the universe and its natural laws so perfectly that it continues in existence and harmony forever without the need of any intervention.” So we’re really on our own? In total control?
“Perhaps 90 percent of the time, Christians experience the universe like the Deists — everything seems to proceed according to predictable natural laws,” he writes. “But Christians hold on to the memory of the great miracles of the Bible and especially to the great intervention of God.”
Mature Christians with a Biblical worldview believe God still answers prayers and intervenes in their lives and world events because they “hold on to the faith that their prayers make a difference in the world.”
The critical difference between mature and immature Christians
Social media and the internet are about projecting how good we are, assuring the world we live extraordinary lives and are good people. But the Father, mature Christians learn, sees, and cares about everything — even what you do in secret.
“This marks the difference between the mature Christian and the immature Christian,” our pastor, Mathias Thelen, taught us. “Remember, the Father is gazing upon you at every moment with great love. Therefore, it’s more important to please Him than it is to please your neighbor of your family.”
And yet, we continue to cherish the self, believing life is all about us. Americans love songs like “I did it my way” and “I’ve gotta be me.” But is it better to be known as a good person or to be a good person? We all want people to say great things at our funerals when we die.
But we must ask: Do we love and value people's praise more than God's? Jesus warned:
“Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1, NLT).
There’s a danger in focusing on doing things because we worry about what other people think about us, our focus on self:
“The great danger is the good things we do can be tainted by self-interest,” Thelen says. “A lot of the people who seem very generous, very holy, and very devout, perhaps they see it all as part of a show, pretending. Because in reality, they didn't do this for the sake of God and His glory but because they wanted other people to think they were good.”
Jesus asks us to die to the desire to be thought of well by others. The Church calls pride the most significant sin, with Thelen saying, “Let us allow our pride to be crucified.”
“The Father is the one who delights in you regardless of what happens in your life,” Thelen adds. “The gaze of the Father is the way to free yourself from worrying about what other people think of you.”
