First Church Of The Couch Potato

At some time we need to grow up and get involved in the work of the Kingdom of God. We have to stop playing like children and get serious with the Lord, but some people never get deep enough into God’s Word, and never get involved enough to be much of a blessing to other people. They just love to be a “spiritual couch potato” and soak up the blessings without ever giving anything back. God wants his children to grow up!

Hebrews 5:12-14, "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

Spiritual couch potatoes are everywhere. They are in every church. You can know they are there by just looking for the signs. You can tell when someone is a spiritual couch potato because they will begin to develop a lot of symptoms that easily visible. Much like a man who is a real couch potato, lying around eating nothing but junk food and not getting any exercise, these spiritual couch potatoes develop some pretty serious problems.

First they develop Spiritual hardening of the attitudes –Their ability to think and rightly divide the Word of God becomes clogged with confusion. Sometimes they develop personal convictions that are based on wrong beliefs and they get a confused mind because we listen to too many of the wrong voices

Then comes the Spiritual blockages – If they lay around long enough on the spiritual couch, spiritual muscles begin to atrophy and soon we don’t even have the faith to serve the Lord at all.

Spiritual heart murmurs – we begin to doubt our own salvation.

Spiritual laziness – we just don’t have time to serve the Lord anymore between all of our other commitments. Every once in a while, maybe once a month on a Sunday, I’ll “bless the Lord and the church” and show up during a commercial break.

Spiritual strokes – a physical stroke is a very dangerous thing. It can paralyze all or part of the body. It can even bring death. How many people have laid around on their spiritual couch so long that they appear to have had a spiritual stroke? They forgot how to pray. They can’t bend their knees anymore. They can’t “see” what God is doing anymore. They can’t walk in victory like they once could and stumble easily over every little pebble that Satan can throw in their path.

Spiritual Heart Attacks – After a while the body will get weaker and weaker; the arteries get worse and worse, blockages continue to form, the “fat” keeps building up, until finally the heart gives out. We aren’t seeing so many people have “spiritual heart failure” because of fear, but because of lack of activity.

What are the signs of a physical heart attack? How can we relate these signs to the spiritual heart attack?