Cosmetic Christianity
Hab 2:4 KJV
We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results. - R. A. Torrey
These are these symptoms of a Cosmetic Christianity, we can find the cure through the prophet Habakkuk.
The Book of Habakkuk explores Judah’s cosmetic faith, and the secret of survival in the midst of evil, through Spiritual Maturity.
Habakkuk was a man of God, he knew & proclaimed the importance of living by faith.
He was concerned because Judah’s spiritual life was superficial; their lives were cosmetic in appearance only. Judah’s spiritual development was an arrested.
1. Simply knowing the Law did not produce holiness.
2. Simply knowing the Law did not empower their lives.
3. Simply knowing the Law did not give them spiritual maturity.
4. Simply knowing the Law did not give them Faith.
They were not aware that their actions (or inaction’s) were bringing terrible consequences of self-enslavement.
They were living for themselves, selfishly, and uncaring.
Habakkuk 2:4 KJV "but the just shall live by his faith."
To live by Faith means "to unite," or "to bind." oneself with God
Faith is simply reliance upon God who is trustworthy. Such reliance enables the believer to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen.
Faith is a total reliance upon God.
In short, the phrase here, "faith is the evidence," is parallel in form to our familiar saying, "Knowledge is power."
Today’s Problem: Like those in Judah’s day we can have a cosmetic Christianity, that is we talk good, look good, when life is good, but are no good when we face hardships or are called to service.
One of the marks of spiritual maturity is the quiet confidence that God is in control ... without the need to understand why he does what he does.
1. Simply knowing God’s word does not produce holiness.
2. Simply knowing God’s word does not empower their lives.
3. Simply knowing God’s word does not result in Spiritual maturity.
4. Simply knowing God’s word does not cause us to be faithful.
Sometimes we are not aware that their our actions (or inaction’s) will bring terrible consequences of self-enslavement.
The turning point in our lives is when we stop seeking the God we want and start seeking the God who is
We must come to realize there is Power in Faith, a power to become as God intends us to be.
Spiritual maturity is having confidence in God and knowing he is in control.
Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.
- George Muller.
The spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something.
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
They have a saying in Vienna, Austria: "The situation is hopeless, but not serious."
It’s an interesting contradiction in terms. Yet life is truly a mixture of optimism and pessimism, of hope and despair, of sunshine and shadow. Sometimes the same situation can have both elements in it at the same time!
But faith is finer than optimism. It has none of the distortions of optimism. It is more lasting; less fragile. It’s fine for us to be optimistic but far better to be believers.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Habakkuk had faith, he remembered God and knew his word was true, when facing life.
- Remember the great need you have of the grace and assistance of God. You should never lose sight of Him--not for a moment.
- He knew God’s glory covered the heavens and His praise filled the earth. His splendor was like the sunrise.
- He remembered God is on his throne
- He knew God.
- His statement of faith Hab 3:17-19 NIV
17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.
A lack of faith results in a WILDERNESS WANDERING.
Because of a lack of strong faith, those over 20 were unable to enter the promised land (Num 14:29), but wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.
Satan is a thief, he tries to steal our faith!
John 10:10 NIV
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
Stealing our spiritual treasures that have high value and are of eternal significance.
Our purpose of living.
Our potential
His plan is to steal, kill, destroy
Satan wants to steal our faith away from us.
2 Cor 3:18-4:1 NIV
18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
There is no end to the power that God wants to exhibit in our lives
Worship can increase our faith
Worship has the capacity to transform us, because it focuses our hearts and minds on God
Any revitalization of faith will have to start with prayer, in which we gain a sense of the living presence of God.
The fruits of mature faith
Borrowed beliefs have no power.
2 Tim 1:12 KJV
for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
There is an enormous gap between what we think we can do and what God calls us to do. Our ideas of what we can do or want to do are trivial; God’s ideas for us are grand.
The greatest works are done by the ones. The hundreds do not often do much--the companies never. It is the units, the single individuals, that are the power and the might.
In driving piles, a machine is used by which a huge weight is lifted up and then made to fall upon the head of the pile. Of course the higher the weight is lifted the more powerful is the blow which it gives when it descends. Now, if we wish to impact our age and society with ponderous blows, we must see to it that we are uplifted as near to God as possible.
All our power will depend upon the elevation of our spirits. Prayer, meditation, devotion, communion, are like a windlass to wind us up aloft. It is not lost time which we spend in such sacred exercises, for we are thus accumulating force, so that when we come down to our actual labor for God, we shall descend with an energy unknown to those to whom communion is unknown.
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
What maturity can accomplish with a mature faith?
I have a glove here in my hand. The glove cannot do anything by itself, but when my hand is in it, it can do many things. True, it is not the glove, but my hand in the glove that acts.
We are gloves. It is the Holy Spirit in us who is the hand, who does the job. We have to make room for the hand so that every finger is filled.
- Corrie Ten Boom
