5 Areas of Superficiality to Overcome

I wrote last week about a leadership meeting I was a part of with thirty leaders from the prayer, worship, and mission movement where the Lord emphasized the issue of superficiality in the Church and the call to come out of it. In that meeting those gathered identified at least five key areas to address in our lives. I want to share them with you here and challenge you to consider these areas before the Lord asking Him to deepen your walk in each area.

1) Intimacy with God – The fact that we make peace with shallowness and that we don’t live hungering and thirsting for God(Mat 5:6) is a sign of our superficiality. The answer is to depart from distractions and to ask God to freshly stir hunger in our hearts. When we live without spiritual hunger we live complacent and shallow.

2) Depth in the Word of God – One leader pointed out that he’d never seen as many leaders marriages fall apart and even some depart from the faith. The reason is a lack of depth in the word. We must move past a superficial knowledge of the top popular bible verses to allowing the word of God to dwell in us richly (Col 3:16). Depth in the word is the main safeguard to deception and falling away.

3) Boldness in Proclamation – With a depth in the word comes a depth in boldness. One leader testified how he had felt like He had to conform to the culture in his public evangelistic meetings because offering a biblical view on certain topics, like human sexuality, have become so taboo. He confessed that he had shied away from speaking the truth. He then publicly repented and called the rest of us to unashamed, bold, gospel proclamation. As the world gets more and more bold, I believe the church needs to also step up in boldness. Meekness and boldness together are a powerful combination that testifies of the nature of Jesus.

4) Understanding of Success – One leader shared a dream where Jesus confronted his own perspective of success. The Lord exposed his own superficiality about the size of his ministry. In the dream the Lord told Him that He didn’t care about the size of the crowd, He cared about the state of this leader’s heart and His willingness to obey the Lord regardless of the outcome. I’m convinced the Lord has no problem shutting down any of our ministries if we are not building according to His plans and desires. Success in the kingdom is found in loving obedience regardless of the outcome.

5) Depth in Relationships – Another leader identified superficiality in our relationships in church and our natural families. He said unless we’re willing to open our hearts to one another we would lack the authenticity of heart to come out of superficial spirituality. We are meant to journey and grow in the knowledge of God together. Not one believer is meant to live solitary, or worse, inauthentically.

These five areas provide a great starting place to ask the Holy Spirit about in your own life. I encourage you to take these before the Lord and ask Him to speak to you about these areas. And then, as He directs, begin to make the necessary changes to come out of superficiality and into a greater depth in God.