Too many who claim Christ lack confidence in their faith. They believe in Jesus... but they don’t truly know the why or what behind what they believe. And when life gets tough, they’re uprooted, responding no differently than those who’ve never heard the message.

We’ve embraced the idea that doctrine and theology are boring or irrelevant—and it’s cost us dearly. This mindset has produced people who profess Christ but lack the truth about Him.

Without good doctrine and theology, faith can become a fragile, emotional experience rather than an unwavering devotion.

And the evidence of the cost of this shallow faith is staggering:

• 70% of evangelicals believe Jesus was created, rather than eternal.
• 51% see the Holy Spirit as a force, not a personal being.
• 37% say religious belief is just a matter of personal opinion, not objective truth.
• Despite over two-thirds of Americans claiming to be Christian, only 6% demonstrate a biblical worldview or consistently apply biblical principles.

...In other words, we’ve created a generation of people who profess Christ but possess little of the truth about Him. We need deeper roots.

These numbers aren’t just statistics; they reveal a theological crisis. A faith built on half-truths cannot stand in the face of trials. Without firm roots in sound doctrine and theology, we hold on to flimsy foundations when the storms come.

So how do we respond?
The Bible calls us to pursue being firmly rooted in Christ and established in faith.

It's time to deepen our roots. 

“The doctrine of the Trinity is to the Christian experience of God what grammar is to poetry—it establishes a structure, a framework, which allows us to make sense of something which far surpasses it. It is the skeleton supporting the flesh of Christian experience. The Christian experience of God was already there, long before the doctrine of the Trinity was formulated, but the doctrine casts light on that experience and helps us to understand who it is that we are experiencing. It interprets our experience of God as experience of God” (pp. 147–48).

SOURCE: Alister E. McGrath, Understanding the Trinity (Kingsway, 1987)

“Everything depends on our retaining a firm hold on this doctrine in particular; for if this one totters and no longer counts, all the others will lose their value and validity.”  - Martin Luther

“If Jesus rose, then this gospel is what it professes to be; if He rose not from the dead, then it is all deceit and delusion.” - Charles Spurgeon

"There are three things which the true Christian desires in respect to sin: Justification, that it may not condemn; sanctification, that it may not reign; and glorification, that it may not be."
Author: Richard Cecil
 

• Justification is “an act of God whereby He pronounces a sinner to be righteous because of that sinner’s faith in Christ.” We are justified, or declared righteous, at the moment of our salvation/decision.    
• Sanctification refers to a separation from sin and the world; and a separation to God and His word. In Sanctification we are saved and being saved from the power of sin. 
• Glorification refers to that final change and redemption of the body.  In Glorification we are saved from the presence of sin in us and in the world.