Then how do you see a way of improving this?
The church has to go deeper into the truth....and stop doing things on the surface to attract more people in a superficial way. At this time, the churches advertise by tantalizing the self-interest. Getting "saved".....being able to look down on others as "unsaved"....etc. Very anti-love and missing any kind of humility.
The church has become the refuge of those who seek a religious escape from reality. It's the way to get more people "saved"...but is that really salvation? Just because it "feels" right? Yet it is empty. It is artificial...giddy and doesn't stand up to the real challenges of life...in SO many cases.
Faith isolates us with God...makes us unique. Faith brings relationship and intimacy with God. But this is rare. Religion on the other hand brings people under control...it brings people together into a crowd...a crowd that does NOT follow Christ...it is unable as Jesus calls us to come OUT from the crowd. We are to forsake all religious systems and come out of Babylon...the place where men and the devil work together to try fulfilling a self-made utopia (salvation scheme).
Mainly we see religious beliefs in today's churches. People tend to settle for a mass product aimed at the carnal nature in a person. The devil is behind all of this. Faith loves critique because it seeks the truth. But belief cannot love...is unable to be corrected...to admit weakness....to say...I don't see.
So then faith is based on the weakness of the inner man (that attracts God's grace and strength)...but belief on the strength of the natural man (which God resists). (the fact that most people have never heard of this distinction shows how shallow is the knowledge of most people about human nature and themselves.)
When we come to Christ...the "old man" of hostility to God is dead. But do we always act like Jesus after that? What part of us continues to get frustrated...to worry, to sin in general?
What part of us must be crucified so that the life of Jesus might flow out of us? Who teaches these things anymore?
For most believers the cross of Christ is a way out of punishment....as an historical event to put our religious belief into.
But the cross of Christ is the power that kills anything that stops us from being exactly as Jesus in this world. The
power of the cross removes everything that gets in the way of an intimate walk with God. But this is basically unknown. And because of this superficiality the devil neutralizes the church and gets on with his agenda for this world.
The salt has indeed lost it's savour.
Belief: Strong on the outside...but weak on the inside (an empty lamp)
Faith: Weak on the outside...but strong on the inside. (a lamp with oil)
People will opt for what seems like strength....the religious hypocrisy that is so seductive to the "as yet" unspiritual man.
True and living faith brings us to God...then He sends us
back into the world with HIS love and grace. But the crossing point is the cross of Christ.