Is "Going Deeper" a code phrase?

What I'm about to share may sound harsh and intense, but I want to begin this post by saying these words are merely words God has been speaking into me over the last few weeks, so please know that my desire, but more importantly God's desire, is for you to love Him more and overflow that love to the people around you. So here it goes...

You've maybe heard or even said this phrase before (I have both said and heard it)... "I want to go deeper into God's Word." Perhaps you've heard someone say "This church/class isn't deep enough for me." Before I breakdown these statements, let me clarify a couple things...

1) We need to dig into God's Word. The only way we discover God and who He wants us to be is by first studying His Word. We need and must read the Bible!

2) We have to move beyond John 3:16. At some point, we must begin to wrestle through the various teachings found within the Bible. I'm not against studying the more intricate parts of Scripture.

However, I believe in most cases that in our desire to "go deeper" we've completely missed the point. In our churches today, we've given the impression that more Bible knowledge equals more life transformation. We've acted in such a way that people would think we believe our theological debates about predestination and the end of times will make people more passionate for Christ.

Look, there is a time and place for intense Bible study and discussion, but when will we simply begin to live out the core of our calling? When will we truly be transformed by the fact that God loves us and He desires for us to love Him back and love the people around us?

I've discovered in my own life and within our churches that phrases centered around "going deeper" are usually hiding the fact that we aren't willing to learn about God ourselves and live out what we already know. If the people in our churches, myself included, would simply take action on a tenth of what we already know about God, the power of God would be much more evident in our cities!

So, I'm not saying we should stop studying the Bible or even stop studying the Bible in-depth, but I am saying that at some point we need to put more energy into living out God's Word than we do into "digging deeper," reading blogs, and talking about all that we know.