What God Opened My Eyes To This Week 3/16/25

This week for "What God Opened My Eyes To". I am really going to focus on American. And the churches and Christians in America. Now this does not mean that Christians in other parts of the world will not find this as useful for them and the setting they are in. Also to note a lot of this information comes from Moody Radio, and in particular it comes from "In the Market with Janet Parshall". Now I can remember the guess who was talking, but he was a Christian researcher. Who was talking about trends he sees in the Christian world here in America. The whole show was highly interesting, and I learned a lot about what is going on here in America. Which is a good thing for Christians to have somewhat of an understanding of. It shouldn't completely drive our lives, because God is still most powerful being in the universe. So, he is always in control and has a reason for everything. But it does show us as Christians how we should adapt. How ever there were two trends that were really eye opening. So, for this week I will share what those were. What it tells us about the God, Jesus, and the Christian faith. Why I believe God opened my eyes to these things. And how we should react and adapt to these trends. Now before I go on, the people in these are those who claim to be Christ followers. So, there is not much information on how long they have been Christians, or what their spiritual life is like. All we really know is they are above 18 and confess they follow Christ.

The first trend the researcher talked about is about how many American Christians actually read their Bibles. According to the researcher only 39 percent of Christians read their Bibles outside of church. And when I say reading, I mean any sort of interaction with the Bible. That includes reading a physical Bible, using an app to read the Bible, or even listening to an audio Bible. But the researcher goes on to say that a large number of Christians do not interact with the Bible at all outside of Sunday services. Basically, they go to church on Sunday and read the passage of scripture that the sermon is on and that's it for the rest of the week. This is disturbing because if as Christians we say the Bible is the true word of God. Then we should be in the word more than just once a week. Now reading your Bible is not what saves you. It is by the grace of God and accepting what Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And the true is, there are some atheists that know the Bible better than I do.

However, as Christians we should be encouraged in to staying in the word. I'm not saying we need to read the Bible everyday. Now I would strongly encourage any believer to be in the word daily. But that is side the point. We need to be reading the Bible for ourselves. As I said the Bible is God's spoken word to us. "16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[a] may be complete, equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV). As Paul says in the scripture above. Everything in the Bible comes from God. And so we should know, understand, use it, and teach it. To be able to do this means, we need to be in the word and know. So we have to have our own study time to be able to do this. Besides it is job as Christians to know when their is a false teacher, or when our pastor is teaching something that doesn't come from the Bible. But again we can't do this if we don't know scripture. So it should be simple, since it comes from God and in many ways a part of God. We should/ need to know scripture.

Another thing about reading the Bible, is it's one of the best ways to get to know and build your relationship with God. The Bible tells us exactly who God is, there are some mysterious about God that we can't fathom. But the Bible does show us some important attitudes of God. For example, is shows us God's never-ending love, or tells of God's grace. Which are important things to know. The Bible also gives us commandments to keep like the 10 commandments. As well as tell followers of Christ how we should act, and what our mission is to be here on this earth. So, there are highly important things in the Bible that Christians should know. This is why reading, studying, and knowing the Bible is so important.

Which actually brings us to the second trend that the researcher saw. This is that in America only 1 out of 10 Christians are actively discipling someone. Matthew 28:18-20 says, "[18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (ESV). One of the final commands that Jesus gave his disciples was to go out to make disciples. However, in America we just don't have many Christians actively discipling someone or actively being disciplined. I do think for the most part we are sharing our faith in a real and effective way. But I believe there are three reasons why we are not making disciples. The first reason is because we are not reading and studying our Bible enough to know that making disciples is a command. I won't stay to long on this point because I discussed it in much detail above. However, this is one of the reasons reading the Bible is so cruel. That way we know that we need to go out in to the world and make disciples of all nations. The second reason I believe we are not making disciples is because no on disciples us. A popular sayn in evangelism is, you get them as you makes them. Which means that if we win someone over with the true gospel, then they will share the true gospel. But if we win someone over with the prosperity gospel, then they will believe and share the prosperity gospel. So if we win someone over and do not disciple someone then. Then they might share their faith but mostly will not make those people into disciples. Helping people grow and build their relationship with Christ by becoming a true disciple of Jesus. The third reason I believe that we are not making disciples is, because a lot of times there are many people who think it is the job of a pastor to do all the disciple making. And this is not a knock on anyone. But it is a real thought that a lot of people have. Pastor should be the one to make all the disciples. This is a thought that is not biblical. The Great Commission says that every follower of Christ should make disciples. This is the only way to win as many people as possible for Christ. It's all of our duty and pleasure to be used by God to make disciples. Helping them understanding the Bible and who God is. Discipling does not have to be a science, it's just helping someone grow in their faith. For example, it's as simple as doing a Bible study with them. But we need to do something to make disciples. And again it's just being put in position to be used by God to make disciples. He'll do it, we just need to be willing to go when He tells us to.

So, in closing how do we as believers in Christ change these growing trends. First in everything we need to pray. There is true power in prayer. Secondly, we need to start reading the word outside of church. Start slow, read for five minutes a day. Then grow from there. Thirdly, we need to look for opportunities to share our faith and make disciples. Again just start slow by looking for friends and love ones who don't know Christ or who are young in their faith. Lastly, we just need to do it. There will always be reasons why we shouldn't do something. But we have one reason we should. God encourages/ tells us to read His word and make disciples.