Fraud

Do you feel passionate? A genuine deep love for the Lord? Or, or do you feel dry and empty? Maybe, if you are like me, you have felt dry and empty. You know you should feel some "love" towards the Lord, but you don't have it in you. You sing the songs in church and wonder if the words of adoration you are singing apply to your heart. You wonder if you are a fraud before the Lord. The truth is that recognizing that you are not where you should be or want to be does not make you a fraud.

Love is more obedience and service than it is feeling. It is easy to have feeling for someone and continue on doing nothing for them. Likewise, one can serve with obedience without the feelings. So, if you are in a season short on feeling, it doesn't mean you are short on love. Nevertheless, there are other things you have that you can bring to God when you sing, pray, and live out your life:

• Come with faith in God.
• Come with a spirit of faithfulness to God
• Come with hope that He is growing you.
• Come with a hunger for more of Him.
• Come with a thirst for His presence.

Come near to God and he will come near to you. -- James 4:8 NIV

Whatever you have and by whatever measure you have it, bring that to the Lord. When you sing and pray with a heart that brings what you have, you are not a fraud. And, if all you have are tiredness and desperation, bring that, because, if you do that you are brining faith by trusting that God can heal the desperation.

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" -- Mark 9:24 NIV

The man in Mark 9:24 wanted Jesus to heal his son. Jesus said he had to believe and he responded with what faith he had and an acknowledgment of the faith he still needed. If you lack passion, come with what passion you have and acknowledge that which you lack. Come with whatever you have -- in truth.

It does not make you a fraud to lack something, nor to pursue that which you lack, nor to assume, in faith, the identity of a child of God. Just be careful of going through the motions with nothing in your heart and believing that means something. Be careful if your heart is consumed with selfishness and apathy without a recognition and a desire for change. Consider, that if you are concerned about this, you aren't completely apathetic. You do care and hunger and thirst.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. -- Matthew 5:6 NIV

Recognize yourself and who you are, and face it. Recognize who you want to be, and pursue it. Seek it. Ask for it. Be willing to look into your own weaknesses with humility. Do that and you have taken the first steps to beat apathy and cast off selfishness.

There is a cliche, "fake it until you make it." It doesn't sound very genuine, and it's not if your heart isn't in it. But, if you put in whatever you do have, all it means is to have faith and try. God does see that.