In Love With Indifference | Northstar Church

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” – Philippians 4:8-9.

“Whatever” — pronounced “WHAT’-ehv-errr” is a slang term meaning “whatever you say” or “I don’t care what you say.” The term is used most often to dismiss something somebody said, signal apathy or express indifference during a conversation. It is also annoying as a poll found out. The poll found “whatever” to be consistently disliked by Americans regardless of their race, gender, age, income or where they live.

The question is do we ever find ourselves saying “whatever” to God? Every follower of Jesus Christ will go through a time of spiritual indifference. It is difficult to keep one’s excitement and enthusiasm at a really high level. We all hit a wall or get distracted, plateau, and temporarily lose our spiritual passion.

We cannot and should not expect that spiritual indifference is anything more than a short period of apathy. The shorter the better. If our goal in life is to bring glory to God, we cannot accomplish that by being indifferent, even though there will be times when we feel like our apathy and lethargy are justified. But if we spend a few moments thinking about it, we will come to the conclusion that there is no real justification for taking Jesus Christ for granted, for indifference.

Can we really say “whatever” when Christ redeemed us on the cross, when we have been given the Holy Spirit, when we have victory over sin, joy, a purpose in life, peace, to name a few. There are so many more privileges and/or benefits to being part of God’s family. When we are “indifferent” we are saying that we are taking everything God has dome for us for granted. Jesus says this to the Ephesian church in Revelation 2:4, “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!”

We should never lose sight of the overwhelming sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf. In addition, God is a God who can be known, and the more we know of Him…and the more time we spend with Him…the less likely spiritual indifference will creep into our lives.

Discussion Questions:

Do you ever say “whatever” either intentionally or unintentionally to God?
What can we do this week to find and eliminate any indifference in our lives?