Beyond Cliché Christianity: A Call to Deeper Faith

I don’t want a faith that is merely cliché.

I want to be moved by the power of God. I want to be changed by the power of God. I want my life to reflect His glory. I want my words and actions to continually tell others about this great love story.

God loved us so much that He demonstrated it by miraculously, making a way for you and me to be saved and set free from the bondage of sin so we could spend eternity with Him.

These are not empty words to me — they are my very life and breath. I want to live fully and completely for Christ alone.

One thing that’s become clearer to me in a season of deep uncertainty is that there is a God who loves me and an enemy who hates me, and I must choose who I’m going to believe according to what they say about me and how that aligns with what my faith informs me about the world around me, my humanity, and ultimately, eternity.

The enemy has one goal and one goal only — destruction. Scripture says he comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). He works through lies, deception, shame, confusion, and defeat. He can only tear down. He never builds up. If you feel trapped in hopelessness, condemnation, chaos, or despair, those things do not come from a God who loves you, but rather from an enemy who hates you.

God’s desire is completely different. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, God is making us whole in Him. Where the enemy destroys, God restores. Where the enemy divides, God unites. Where the enemy condemns, God redeems. Where the enemy hates, God loves. His love was strong enough to defeat death when Jesus was raised to life again, and His love is still at work today defeating the enemy of our souls who is constantly trying to deceive, destroy, and defeat you and me.

So, who will we believe? The enemy — the father of lies whose lies lead to death? Or God — the voice of truth whose truth that leads to life?

I'm not sure about you, but the choice is clear to me. Jesus says in John 14:6:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

He not only declares it here in this passage, He demonstrates it over and over again throughout scripture.

The enemy tells us to strive endlessly — do more, prove more, be more. But because he is a liar, the harder we chase fulfillment apart from God, the emptier we become.

God tells us to surrender — to rest in the finished work of Christ. He does not ask us to save ourselves, but He lovingly invites us to trust the One who already has. The more we surrender to Him, the more complete we become, because God, unlike the enemy, is not trying to destroy us — He is transforming us.

The Gospel is not self-improvement. It was a divine rescue mission to literally save our souls and make us whole, and yet we continue to believe the lies of the enemy which will forever leave us empty.

This truth feels more urgent to me than ever.

Probably because the wrestling match between the enemy’s lies and God’s truth seems more intense than it has even been for me personally.

I think many of you, like me, may be grieving something we can’t fully explain. Many of us genuinely loved God growing up. We went to youth groups, worship nights, camps, conferences, and Bible studies. We learned how to chase emotional experiences with God, but many of us were never taught how to remain rooted in Him when life became painful and He felt distant.

I’m almost fifty years old. I've been married for nearly 28 years. My husband and I have raised four sons and have one daughter-in-law. I gave my heart to Christ at a young age, and, like many of you, I have continued on in my journey of faith through the highs and lows of every day life.

There are days marriage is downright hard, parenting feels next to impossible, prayers seem powerless and pointless, anxiety wreaks havoc by hijacking reality. And it is smack dab in the middle of those hard times, I must remind myself, and you must remind yourself too, that faith is so much more than wise words or good thoughts.

Spiritual warfare is real, and there is a battle for souls being fought every single day.

Hard times call for hard truth. The Bible describes the cunning lies of the enemy in Ephesians 6:16 as “flaming darts of the evil one.” And just prior to that, Paul gives us the weapon we can wield against those deceitful darts — the shield of faith.

“In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;”

The shield of faith implies depth of faith, not a shallow faith. Yes, Christian, I think it’s time for depth. If God’s love for us has the magnitude of depth Paul describes in Romans 8:38-39, surely our reciprocated love and gratitude can respond by seeking to understand a little more deeply this great love He has for us…

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

When we truly study Scripture for ourselves to deepen our faith, we can more easily practice discernment, persevere through suffering, and stand firm when culture opposes Christianity. Too often, we build our faith on feelings, self-fulfillment, and the idea that Jesus simply exists to make life better.

Faith costs something. Christ defeated death by giving up His life. The least we can do is give up ours to follow Him. Let’s fight with Him from that position of victory in Him to defeat the father of lies, the deceiver of minds, the very enemy of our souls.

I feel this so incredibly deeply lately. As I get older I ask myself what kind of faith I’m passing down to generations to come. I don’t want to model a feel-good Christianity that crumbles when life gets hard, or that’s based on a weakened version of the Gospel that bends and twists fit more comfortably in this warped world, or that offers cheapened grace that minimizes the power of God.

I long to be rooted in Scripture, and I want to be able to share it and defend it in word and deed. I desire to know truth so deeply, it oozes out of me when I am faced with the lies of the enemy in the form of discerning wisely, enduring consistently, loving deeply, and standing firmly even when the world hates it.

I think many of you want the same thing, too.

Something deeper.

Something steadfast.

Something strong enough to hold when feelings fail.

Because clichés will never convey the power of God, and feelings were never meant to be the foundation of our faith. Christ alone took on that responsibility. Ours is to know Him more deeply by walking with Him more closely every single day from now until eternity.

In so doing, we can continue to defeat the enemy. Yes, he was defeated once and for all through Christ, but we need to continually remind him of that truth — and remind ourselves in the process, too!