Do you remember the joy when you first became a Christian? That thrill of everything is new and everything is cool and God is blessing you in so many ways? Why is it that so many Christians lose their joy? I’ve seen so many people start off in the Christian life with the passion and excitement of a new Christian but as I watch them, after a while they get a slow leak. As time goes by, it is easy to lose your joy. Why is that?
It would seem to me that there are some killjoys in the Christian life. There are things that will intentionally rob you of your joy and passion for God. It makes sense, that if we can recognize them, then we can take the proper precautions and not fall into their trap and lose the joy of following Christ. I think the most common killjoy in the Christian life is a lack of prayer. When we stop praying we lose contact with God and we are not tuned into what His spirit is saying in our lives. If the enemy can do one thing to us, he will try and get us to stop praying.
The Bible says that God acts according to prayer. Prayer is his program. So if we stop praying, we stop God from acting in our life. The less God acts, the more we are tempted to think we need to live the Christian life on our own strength. This is tiring and this sucks out of us our passion and joy. I know, I have done this too many times in my Christian life. If you are in that place, I am praying specifically for you during the IGNITE spiritual adventure. I hope we are going to IGNITE the prayer life of many people in our church over the next 40 days and six weeks. And when God begins to act, then we will once again know the joy of watching his power move in our life and regain the passion we had for Jesus the first day we meant Him.