Do you often feel that your faith is damaged beyond repair? It is with this sinking feeling inside that many turn to God. Realizing that their faith has been in a state of slow decay for a long time, people hope to be shown that there is still hope to turn their faith around.

God is getting at the root of the slow spiritual decay that has taken hold of the church. Simply put, a faith that is not joined to Jesus’ covenant is life deprived. A world-wide awakening is taking place as God calls souls into covenant with Him. But rather than give the people the apostolic stewardship that would equip them, ministers are again standing in the way, offering to rouse the people for God, to help them seek, but not find.

There are so many examples of a minister’s attempts to rouse faith and stir passion. Let’s look at a few:

– rousing faith through false prophecy

– rousing faith through music

– rousing faith through confession of sins

– rousing faith through fiery preaching

– rousing faith through promises of deliverance

– rousing faith through long hours of fasting and prayer

God is addressing this longtime habit of ministers to rouse people (to help put people in a seeking mode) while denying them the covenant knowledge that would save them. To deny a person the things God uses to connect to Him is to put them back to sleep, even as Apostle Peter brought out in his instruction.

2 Peter 2:17-19

¹⁷ These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

¹⁸ For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

¹⁹ While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

Complacency is a word of knowledge I received from God that goes to the heart of the fearful state of slow decay that has plagued the church for so long. To be complacent about one’s faith is to show no interest in God’s new covenant and to regard His covenant as an unholy thing.

Hebrews 10:29

Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

Ministers habitually define complacency as laziness, so their solution has been to shake whatever stick they can to rouse believers into action. But believers are not lazy, they have been denied the doctrine of Christ, and have been taught a self-serving gospel.

A closer look at the meaning of the word complacent reveals this self-serving mindset that God is targeting. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines complacency as, “marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.”

We see God addressing the dual danger of the complacent mindset. First of all, the self-centered gospel has been very self-satisfying for ministers. As they preached a gospel that is devoid of all the things of Christ that God sanctified, it allowed them to build a system that supported the exchange of their religious aspirations. It brought people into a type of cruel bondage: keeping people in a seeking mode, but not leading them to covenant. We read that in Apostle Peter’s instruction: while false ministers “promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption” (2 Peter 2:19).   

The double danger of the complacent mindset is obvious: ministers are completely unaware of how their doctrines and teachings and truths are empty of Christ and contain nothing that God uses, so it is deficient of His power and presence.

So, the danger of complacency is clear: ministers accept rousing efforts in place of God’s true awakening. God’s purpose for awakening souls and a minister’s motives to rouse the people are two different things. God’s purpose for this world-wide awakening is to equip believers to serve Him anew by accepting Jesus’ covenant knowledge. God is giving the church a new beginning and a new equipping by returning His people to the terms of His covenant they had abandoned.

When rousing the people, a minister’s goal is to make people feel like their faith is living when in fact, it isn’t connected to the things that make it living. A minister rouses hope in a hopeless world by saying things that are true about the state of the world and the state of the soul, and the goodness of God. But denying people the spiritual things of Christ’s covenant that makes their faith living does not change the condition of the soul.

In Matthew 25:5 we read that “While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.”

The danger of complacency is to think that rousing up and stirring up passion for God is the same as God’s true awakening to His covenant. Those seeking God do not recognize that their state of decay has not changed. Even though it was challenged, it remains the same; and as their complacency is given a green light, many mistakenly think that they are in good standing with God.

The veil of ignorance remains over their eyes, and will only be lifted when they are awakened out of their state of slumber to begin anew with God, to take responsibility for their faith and growth in Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:16

Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

There is no disputing the fact that every believer did have experience with the grace of God. The purpose of the grace of God is to awaken the sinner towards their need for Christ. God’s grace draws faith from the heart to accept the testimony of Christ for the purpose of joining to God by the terms of His covenant.

The experience with the grace of God is real at that moment to illuminate and enlighten, revealing our need for God and communicating His love for us to awaken a seeking within the heart. If you stop short of entering into covenant with God and are not sealed with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, your experience with the grace of God will over time fade away, causing believers to seek out ways of re-igniting that flame.

The apostles understood that grace asks of us an equal reciprocation of faith in obedience to God’s terms; as we read in Galatians 2:21 “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” The Law of Moses was given for another covenant, one with physical tools of worship in a physical temple; but Jesus provided a new covenant, one with spiritual tools of worship according to the law of grace and truth. This begins the ongoing work of inner healing and divine transformation whereby the soul takes on the very image and likeness of Christ through fruit bearing.

Unconverted Christians lack instruction in the foundation knowledge of Jesus’ covenant that will equip them to serve God daily as priests at the altar of Christ. Worshipping God must be according to His terms and conditions. Within the covenant of Christ, that is revealed through apostolic stewardship, by which instruction believers receive the blueprint for faith that equips them to be active in their priesthood.

1 Peter 2:5
You also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

I’d like to quote a section here from Apostle Eric vonAnderseck’s Terms Glossary (available within our free online IDCCST Course), looking at the word Priesthood:

The priests of the law could not stand in the presence of God (1 Kg. 8:11), but by a new priesthood, we enter into His presence. This shows us that the new heavenly priesthood we function in today is greater than the earthly priesthood of the law.

Each believer functions in the new priesthood of the new covenant by offering spiritual sacrifices of prophecy to God. Our spiritual sacrifices of prophecy are the testimony of Jesus Christ, as His temple is now in our hearts by the foundation of truth.

We can neither serve God nor worship Him apart from a priesthood. In order for Jesus to be your covering, you must be active in your priesthood. The priesthood is tied to divine reciprocation. Each believer is called to reciprocate to God, first and foremost. And that is why the first thing you learn to do once you have entered into a covenant relationship with God is to offer up spiritual sacrifices to Him.

This is the path of true discipleship; beginning with a believer’s willingness to humble the heart for doctrinal cleansing by being re-educated in the apostles’ doctrine (even as Saul the Pharisee needed to undergo before being able to mature into the apostle Paul).

Through learning to labor in faith with the spiritual tools of the altar of Christ, believers replace the stale faith of past complacency, with a vibrant living relationship with God that works continual increase in Godly wisdom, knowledge and understanding as they become active partakers of God’s Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation.

2Peter 1:3-7
³ According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

⁴ Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

⁵ And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

⁶ And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

⁷ And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.