"We are unlike the Christians of New Testament times. Our approach to life is conventional and static; theirs was not. The thought of safety first was not a drag on their enterprise as it is ours. By being exuberant, unconventional and uninhibited in living by the gospel they turned their world upside down, but you could not accuse us twentieth-century Christians of doing anything like that. Why are we so different? Why, compared with them, do we appear as no more than halfway Christians? Whence comes the nervous, dithery (nervous confused condition), take no risks mood that mars so much of our discipleship? Why are we not free from fear and anxiety to allow ourselves to go full stretch in following Christ?"
J. I. Packer, Knowing God pg 269
The answer to Packer's question is that we are afraid, we are ignorant of the cross and what Jesus did, we are not confident in our relationship with God because we are trusting in ourselves, we try to avoid the implications of following Christ, we are trying to live the American dream instead of kingdom living, we think the risks of discipleship are too great and were not going to do it, and we don't want to hear it so we avoid gospel preaching and settle for "Your best life Now".
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