Habakkuk 2:4b — The Just Shall Live By Faith (2)

Habakkuk 2:4b — The Just Shall Live By Faith

The foundational truth at the heart of the Gospel is that God desires a personal relationship with you. The Creator of the universe knows your name, Christ died for your sins, and His Holy Spirit dwells within you. He is a personal God, and your walk with Him is personal.
But over the past several decades, a subtle and dangerous shift has occurred in the Western church. We have taken the glorious truth that our faith is personal and twisted it to mean that our faith is private.

Let’s be clear on the difference. A "personal" faith means you have direct access to the Father through the Son. A "private" faith means you do the Christian live alone, isolated, hidden, and disconnected from God's people. A hand has a deeply personal connection to the brain that commands it, but if you sever that hand and keep it private, it dies. The New Testament knows absolutely nothing of this disconnected Christian.

So, how did we get here?

Part of it is cultural. We live in a time with a warped sense of individualism, where truth is treated as a subjective, internal feeling—a creeping influence of New Age philosophy that says spirituality is just "me and my truth." But the greatest enabler of this private Christianity is something much more common: technology.
With the rise of endless Bible apps, podcasts, and church livestreaming, many believers have bought into the illusion that they can have a true relationship with Christ from the comfort of their living room. They read the Bible on their own, have a personal devotion time, pick a flavor-of-the-month church livestream to watch on a Sunday morning, and call it for the day.

As a church, we are incredibly grateful for technology. We provide a livestream and post our teachings online specifically for the edification of those who are sick, homebound, or traveling. If you physically cannot make it into the assembly on Sunday or Wednesday, the livestream is a blessing.
But ... if you are watching church services from home simply because you do not want to get dressed and drive somewhere, you have stepped into a form of idolatry. It is the idolatry of convenience.

When we choose the couch over the congregation, we are not just showing lack of commitment to Christ; we are spiritually starving ourselves and robbing the Body of Christ. You cannot fulfill the "one anothers" of Scripture through a screen. You cannot weep with those who weep, bear someone else's burdens, or serve the body in the comment section of a video.

The writer of Hebrews makes this abundantly clear:
"And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Notice the prerequisite for assembling together: considering one another to stir up love and good works. You cannot stir up a brother or sister in Christ from a distance. Proximity is required for discipleship.

Furthermore, the Apostle Paul tells us that we must be "walking worthy of the calling with which you were called" (Ephesians 4:1). What does a worthy walk look like? He explains it a few verses later, describing the church as a body "joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share..." (Ephesians 4:16).

If you are a Christian, you are a joint in the body of Christ. You have a specific supply—a spiritual gift, a word of encouragement, an act of service—that the rest of us desperately need. When you privatize your faith and stay home, the rest of the body limps because you are not there to do your share.
Your relationship with Jesus is wonderfully personal. But He saved you to be part of a family, a flock, and a body.

If you have fallen into the habit of "private" Christianity, let today be the day you step back into the light of fellowship. Find a Bible-believing Bible-teaching church. Be faithful to your God by attending, serving, giving, and witnessing.
The Church needs you, and you need the Church.