Apathy

     People don't care! If they cared, they would listen and respond. Why should you care? For newborn girls, life expectancy is 81 years, and for boys 76 years. They are not mature enough to worry about dying. The age of accountability when one is old enough to understand life and death is taken to be twelve-years old. Those of that age are have a life expectancy of 70 for girls and 65 for boys. As a teenager, I didn't know the numbers but realized that indeed life is limited!
     One becomes an adult at let's say age 21. Adulthood means that one is on their own. The life expectancy at that age is 61 and 56, respectively for females and males. To make it more apparent that life is limited, see the following actuary chart:

Actuary Chart: Social Security Administration

     This chart combines male and female which is suitable for this commentary. I can look at my age which is 69 and see that I can expect to live about fifteen more years. On the other hand, I can die today and the odds are great that I will die in about seven or eight years. As Scripture says:

...now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light (Rom 13:11-12). 

     At age fourteen my life expectancy was down to about sixty years and even though it seemed that I was immortal, in my quiet time God made me realize that my longevity was likely to be about sixty years. Mom had a dream that I would die at 25, thus in my mind I had only eleven years to live. I had to make arrangements for my death so I took out a "spiritual fire insurance" policy to make sure I would not go to Hell. I believed on the Lord and quit worrying about dying as much. You might say that I had faith but it was just enough to obtain my redemption certificate from God!
     Was I all the way "born-again"? Was I fully spiritually crowned from my spiritual birth canal? Maybe I had merely overcome my earlier apathy, that time when death is delayed by ignoring it. That is a first step because it doesn't take great faith to be born-again or coming to the realization that you can't save you but God can, and that His own death was sufficient. I was a babe in Christ but I cared! That is one great step for mankind but one small step for God!
     I care more about living now because I am closer to death. My "salvation is nearer than when I first believed". Fifty-five years closer to be more precise and I have about used up my "night", and the "day is at hand"! Growing from a babe in Christ to spiritual maturity is caring enough about God and our own longevity to "cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light". Darkness is sinfulness. I still sin, and so do you. Any who maintains perfection are liars: 

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (John 1:8). 

     Those who claim to be blameless lie to themselves and God. The notion that one doesn't deserve to die keeps some from eternal life. Those who are apathetic to sin may die forever, or as I call it - forever dying. Of course, eternally dying is eternal Hell. That's from where the notion of fire insurance comes.
     For years, that was enough for me. God covered my sins and I was satisfied with staying spiritually infantile. Neither had I the assurance of salvation. Since salvation comes at the end (76 years old for me), I had little trust that my fire insurance was efficacious because I didn't love God enough to be willing to obey His Will.  I didn't care enough, lacking empathy, to cease in minimizing God's sacrfice for me. Obedience is how those who have repented of past sins to tell God, I care!

If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15). 

     Loving God is hard work! Hard work is required to credit God for His mercy. Apathetic "Christians" don't care enough about God to work hard to love Him. I believe apathy is Christians "taking the Lord's Name in vain" (Exod 20:5). That is taking Jesus's death so frivolously that people continue in sin just as if they are still the old creature who was to be put away. Apathetic people may feel certain of their salvation because of what Bonnhoeffer called "cheap grace" - grace without enough value to demonstrate to God any degree of love.
     Apathy can lead to apostasy - that time when some Christians are so careless that their faith has diminished to nothingness. By definition "faith" is allegiance to God. Allegiance means perpetuity; one cannot have faith for a moment and be secure. Faith is steadfastness in trusting God (Col 2:5). Apathetic Christians are not stedfast in their faith, caring little whether they please God or not! Such "Christians" may be apathetic within but are pathetic to God. Think on that - not appreciating God's death enough for one's own sins that time is not taken to please God by not sinning.
     Indeed, Christians are not apathetic by pathetic. I feel that way when I disappoint God. That guilty feeling makes me realize that indeed I care. With that conviction, unless I live with the guilt, I desire to change by pleasing God. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.