How to Make Christianity Mean Something
Many people struggle to find meaning in Christianity.
Attending church is frustrating. It is all show with no substance. Church doesn’t offer anything that can’t be found elsewhere. Preachers use big, incomprehensible words that sound intellectual, but are void of meaning.
People are told to read the Bible, but the Bible is hard to understand. The Bible was written in different languages, in a different culture, and in a different time period. It appears to have no relevance to life in the 21st century.
Prayer is touted as important and beneficial. Most people understand that praying is talking to God; however, many people feel like their prayers hit the ceiling. They are not sure there is anyone up there listening.
Some Christians have attended church for years, but they aren’t sure what they believe. Even worse is they don’t know why they believe what they believe.
Church attenders are often told to share the gospel with family and friends. However, the fact that they aren’t really sure what they believe and why they believe it is a big obstacle to sharing their faith. They are petrified they will be asked a question that will stump them at best, or embarrass them at worst.
As people look around at people who attend church, they often don’t see any difference between church attenders and those who don’t attend church. They don’t see any value in spending the time, money, and effort to be involved in a church if going to church doesn’t make people any different than the world.
Bible Mountain is for people who want Christianity to mean something.
One of the reasons church is so ineffective is that many churches today focus on making people feel good and putting them on an emotional high. Many church services are nothing more than entertainment. When pastors go to the Bible, they use it to generate heart-warming experiences.
However, that is not the purpose of the Bible. The Bible is designed to change and mold people. The Bible is full of truths that conform us to God and instill a Biblical worldview.
How does Bible Mountain help?
Bible Mountain is a daily scripture reading that starts with an assessment of how things are or how humans want things to be, and then uses the Bible to show how we should think and act. Bible Mountain is not designed to put you on a fleeting emotional high. Instead, Bible Mountain focuses on gleaning substance and truth from the Bible and making it relevant to life today.
Since Bible Mountain is a daily lesson, each year you will take 365 steps toward Godliness, a Biblical worldview, and confidence in what you believe and why you believe it. Over time, those small daily steps will accumulate into a life-changing, fulfilling journey. Your prayers will be effective and you will be able to share the gospel with confidence.
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Here are some examples of the daily insights found at Bible Mountain.
Matthew 3: Positive or Negative:
The trend in many churches today is to sugarcoat the Bible and only preach positive, uplifting messages. Many preachers refuse to talk about controversial or negative topics. They don’t tell people about repentance, confession, sin, eternal punishment, or the lake fire. They also present Christianity as something that is easy and pleasant.
However, the third chapter of Matthew shows us that, from the very beginning of the ministry of Jesus, the gospel message has included negative concepts. When John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord, he spoke clearly about the need for change and the reality of judgment by fire.
Matthew 4: What is a follower of Jesus?
When Jesus called His disciples, He told them to follow Him. Therefore, it has been a common practice within Christianity to tell people that in order to be saved from eternal punishment, they have to follow Jesus. The term Follower of Jesus has long been a synonym for Christian. Unfortunately, social media has changed the advisability of using that term.
Before the advent of social media, being a follower meant being an adherent or devotee of a particular person, cause, or idea. That was a great definition when calling people to be followers of Jesus.
However, when social media became popular, many people began using social media to track the ideas and activities of business competitors, political opponents, or other people with whom they did not agree. When that practice started in the early days of social media, people would often state in their social media profile that just because they followed a person or organization did not mean they agreed with that person or organization.
Today, people no longer feel the need to post that statement because social media is so ubiquitous that our definition of follower has changed. Now, being a follower means tracking a person or organization. Most people intuitively understand that just because you follow someone on social media does not mean you agree with them. Everyone knows that social media is being used to track competitors and opponents. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to state that you don’t agree with everyone you follow.
Unfortunately, the use of the word follower in social media has changed our culture’s concept of being a follower of Jesus, and not in a good way. It is no longer a given that being a follower of Jesus means being a devotee or adherent of Jesus and His teachings. Especially in a culture that believes there are many ways to heaven, many people equate being a follower of Jesus with someone who merely wants to know about Jesus.
The fourth chapter of Matthew records the origin of the concept of following Jesus. If we are going to use the term follower of Jesus, we need to make sure we are taking the time to communicate what the Bible means when it talks about following Jesus.
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In order to subscribe, enter your email address, click subscribe, and then choose between the monthly plan ($5 per month) or the annual plan ($50 per year). If you are not happy with your subscription, you can cancel within 30 days and receive a full refund. Your email address will not be sold, nor given away.
Matthew 6: Modern Life Is Safer Than Ever, But Anxiety Is Skyrocketing.
The amount of anxiety felt by people in the developed world has skyrocketed in recent decades. People are spending massive amounts of money to get treatment for stress and worry.
If you think about it, the opposite should be happening. For thousands of years, humans lived without refrigeration, retirement accounts, insurance products, and modern medicine. Famine was a real risk. Losing everything you owned was a constant threat, and many health issues were untreatable.
However, people in the 21st century have the best health care in history, and refrigeration makes it easier than ever to have access to food, making famine very unlikely. Furthermore, today we can buy insurance against just about any kind of threat you can imagine, meaning there is much less chance people will lose everything they own.
It used to make sense for people to worry about life. Today, with all the protections we have as we go through life, worry should be declining, but it isn’t.
Something that is even more concerning is the number of Christians who are anxious about life and spend massive amounts of time worrying. That is problematic because Christians have promises from the Creator that He will take care of us, and He commanded us not to worry. Those promises and commands are mentioned in Matthew 6.
Matthew 9: Modern Healings Lack the Credibility Generated by Jesus.
There are pastors in the world today who claim to have the ability to heal people. They have events in their churches where people are brought up on stage, appearing to be crippled or suffering some other ailment, but then they walk off the stage supposedly having been healed by the pastor. Then the crowd celebrates this supposed miracle.
Naturally, many people question whether these healings are real or fake. There is doubt because these events happen in a church building where the pastor who claims to have the gift of healing controls the environment. He presents people and then claims to heal them. How do we know the people are not faking their ailments?
Jesus healed people in a very different manner. Jesus did not heal in an environment where He presented people and then healed them. Instead, the ill people went to Jesus when He was amongst a large crowd, traveling from town to town. Unlike today’s pastors who claim to heal people, Jesus did His miracles in a way that everyone knew for certain that a miracle had truly taken place.
Bible Mountain brings meaning to Christianity.
Bible Mountain is not designed to put you on a fleeting emotional high. Instead, Bible Mountain is a daily scripture reading that starts with an assessment of how things are or how humans want things to be, and then uses the Bible to show how we should think and act. Each year, Bible Mountain provides 365 steps toward Godliness and a Biblical worldview. Over time, those small steps will accumulate into a life-changing, journey.
Subscribe Now.
In order to subscribe, enter your email address, click subscribe, and then choose between the monthly plan ($5 per month) or the annual plan ($50 per year). If you are not happy with your subscription, you can cancel within 30 days and receive a full refund. Your email address will not be sold, nor given away.