How about the many young people, too many middle aged and some elderly who are listening to the preaching, thinking that it's good but there is something that is not right about themselves? They sometimes doubt that they are even born again. They experience great difficulty battling their own sinful selves and believe this godly living is something they can't achieve because they know themselves to be especially bad.
These dear ones are not established. Too many times, there is a lack of preaching on belief, full belief, in the Gospel of our salvation. The book of Isaiah says, "If you will not believe, surely you will not be established..."
At the heart of this is real unspoken error, (yes - error). It is the assumption that when you are first born again, you assume full confidence in Christ as your all sufficient One. That is almost never true. Certainly your head might tell you that but what does your heart say when the trials come, or when you come face to face with your own evil self. Have you been able, through belief, to move from the doubt as expressed in Romans 7 to walking in the Spirit as expressed in Romans 8? If not, you cannot be established.
"We need to pray...," is preached. Praying is necessary, but how about praying with faith? We drive right by that foundational need. James says, "...let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him. Only it must be IN FAITH that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind...[For being as he is] a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), [he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything."
So much preaching drives right by this foundation of full belief and moves into right living as if we can skip Step One. We leave behind the ones who are in deep need. They are left to languish in what sounds like a necessity for them to fix themselves and live right. They are driven to look inward for deliverance and don't know that deliverance can't be accomplished through their own strength.
He is enough for this too, and will prove faithful, good, powerful and all-sufficient despite drive by preaching.
