You can go into any grocery store and find hundreds of boxes of sugar filled cereals for sale. Back in the mid 1900’s as people began to study the mass produced sugary products that now fill the cupboards of almost every home in America, they found that many of these products were nothing more than a bunch of sugar and left over grains and fillers that had virtually no nutritional value, and some people even went before congress to have something done about this. Of course the companies that produce these cereals laughed at the thought of stopping their production – they make millions of dollars off these cereal products and it doesn’t matter to them that they are of little nutritional value. Someone even suggested after testing some cereal products on lab rats, that the rats were better off eating the boxes the cereals come in instead of the cereal products inside the boxes. And of course, there are some cereals that do have more nutritional value than others, but there are still those that make us feel filled up and satisfied after eating them, when they actually probably do more harm to us than good – through tooth decay, blood sugars, etc., yet we keep eating them and feeling like we’re getting a good breakfast from them because they “satisfy” us or so we are led to believe.
The same can be said about many churches and Christians in America today. People attend services and are entertained by the music and other “christian” entertainers – and they walk away feeling satisfied. However, their life is never changed. They have no ill feelings about participating in the sins and fleshly activities and events they’ve always participated in. They have no burning desire to become more like Jesus, if they even know much about Jesus in the first place. They feel no desire to witness and share the Gospel with others. They are very satisfied with their luke-warm versions of Christianity, although in reality it’s not true Christianity because it doesn’t change their hearts and lives. And they are even convinced that everything is perfectly fine because their church is growing by leaps and bounds, thousands of new people come each year, and they are just doing what everyone else who they know claims to be a Christian is doing.
Look at what Jesus said about this kind of worthless Christianity in Revelation 3:15-17 “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”
J. C. Ryle wrote in the 1800’s “A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing! A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will provide in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.” It costs something to TRULY follow Jesus. It costs us EVERYTHING ELSE! Just like the cereal industry makes way too many millions of dollars in profit off of nutritionless cereal to even think about changing the way they make them, so many people who claim to be Christians, enjoy their sin and worldly pleasures WAY too much to give them up and follow the One Who DIED for us! And in the end many will be turned away from the Gates of Heaven, because they don’t KNOW the Savior.