What keeps you from being an effective Christian? It’s a question we all ask ourselves at some point in our walk. We want to be more consistent, more bold, and more useful to God in His Kingdom. No one surrenders to the Lordship of Christ and then endeavors to live out their days in mediocrity.
But mediocrity is where so many believers, once full of fire and zeal for the gospel, live their lives. Why is that? What gets in the way of living a life worthy of our calling as disciples of Jesus (Ephesians 4:1)? If we can identify the problems, it can help us be alert to the tactics of the enemy and not fall for His tricks over and over again (2 Corinthians 2:11).
As usual, God knew we would be asking this question and has provided clear guidance in His Word to answer the question and direct our steps (Psalm 119:105; Proverbs 3:5-6). In Matthew 13:1–9, Jesus tells the “Parable of the Sower.” It’s a familiar passage in which Jesus explains four different responses to hearing the gospel, and He relates the hearers to four different types of soil (hard, rocky, thorns, and good). It is the soil full of thorns and weeds that helps us answer our question of, “What keeps you from being an effective Christian?”
After telling the parable to the crowds, Jesus took His disciples aside and gave them its explanation (Matthew 13:18–23). For the seed that falls on the thorny ground, Jesus says, “Others fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them” (Matthew 13:7). In explaining this, Jesus states that “…this is one who hears the Word, but the worries of this age and the seduction of wealth choke the word and it becomes unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22). Mark’s account adds “the desire for other things” to the list (Mark 4:18–19), and Luke adds “worries, riches, and pleasures of life” (Luke 8:14). The complete list then is worries about things in this life, seeking wealth, desiring anything other than God, and chasing pleasure.
That’s a short list that encompasses the things that keep us from living the life God intends us to live. We don’t glorify God because we keep ourselves entangled in the things of this world, focus too much on our financial situation, get distracted by the culture, and spend an inordinate amount of time on pleasure and entertainment. I’m confident we all can find ourselves in that list. We don’t live holy lives because our focus is still on the carnal life (Romans 8:5–6).
What keeps you from being an effective Christian? What items on that list are most problematic for you? Here’s a better question for you, and me… Why do those things keep us from being an effective Christian? Which of them is more important to us than Jesus? He promises to take care of all our needs, so our worries are unnecessary (Matthew 6:31–33). His riches exceed all the wealth on earth, and we are heirs to that fortune (Romans 8:16-17; Ephesians 1:18-19). Nothing is greater or more satisfying than Christ, so the pursuit of anything other than Christ is foolish and misguided (Philippians 3:7–8). After all, a love for the things of this world is proof we do not love God (1 John 2:15–17).
There is nothing worth your life other than Jesus Christ (Luke 9:23–25). When He is the focus of everything we think, say, and do, our lives will be full and overflowing with spiritual abundance (John 10:10; Colossians 2:9–10). If we want to be effective Christians, then we must put aside everything that is not of God (Hebrews 12:1–2). Then we will understand the greatest truth, that there is nothing better than Jesus (Psalm 73:25–26).