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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Return, faithless people; I will
cure you of backsliding.”
“Yes, we will come to you, for you
are the Lord our God. Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hills and
mountains is a deception; surely in the Lord our God is the salvation of
Israel. From our youth shameful gods have consumed the fruits of our ancestors’
labor—their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. Let us lie down in our
shame, and let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the Lord our God, both
we and our ancestors; from our youth till this day we have not obeyed the Lord
our God.”
“If you, Israel, will return, then
return to Me,” declares the Lord. “If you put your detestable idols out of My
sight and no longer go astray, and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you
swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ then the nations will invoke blessings by
Him and in Him they will boast.”
This is what the Lord says to the
people of Judah and to Jerusalem:
“Break up your unplowed ground and
do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, circumcise your
hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will
flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done—burn with no one
to quench it.”
Jeremiah
3:22-25, 4:1-4
This ends today’s reading from God's holy
word. Thanks be to God.
Have you ever experienced backsliding in your faith walk
with the Lord?
I think anyone who was being truly honest with themselves
would say they have.
By definition, to backslide is to “relapse into bad
ways or error.” In other words, one would have had to already have committed
sins before the Lord, expressed commitment to change their ways, and then
revert back to bad past behavior to qualify as a backslider.
Now you know
why I say that everyone has been guilty of this because no one has lived so
perfectly righteous that they haven’t sinned and then never repeated a sin
later after repentance.
The Old
Testament Israelites were certainly guilty of backsliding in a big way. In
fact, I am convinced that this is one of the reasons why God decided He had to
send His Son Jesus to walk among man. It wasn’t just to save us because none of
us stood a chance against God’s judgment unless someone stepped into the fray
to pay the penalty for us. No, Jesus came to show us how to live the way God
expected us to live. This is why those who place their faith and belief in
Jesus as Savior adopt the new title of Christian, because they are supposed to
live Christ-like and the only way to do that is to model the way Jesus carried
Himself during His earthly ministry.
Before God sent
Jesus, His people certainly didn’t grasp living the kind of life He desired,
not by a long shot. Sure, there were glimmers of faithfulness unto their Father
in heaven but those glimmers usually came after He had sent His consequences upon
them in some form. They changed their ways to get back in His good graces but
soon after that, guess what happened?
Yes, you got
it. They backslid once again into sin and as you may imagine, this did not make
God none too happy with them.
As we do the
same thing today, backsliding with the best of them, don’t think for a moment
that God isn’t angered just as much at our behavior and don’t think He will not
send judgment on anyone in the 21st century just as easily as He did more than
2,000 years ago. We had better check ourselves and do it soon, seeking the way
to avoid the very backsliding the Lord despises.
So, how do we
do just that? How do we avoid backsliding in our life and what is the ultimate
cure for this spiritual affliction?
The answer comes within the closing verses of Jeremiah,
Chapter 3 and the opening verses of Chapter 4. Look again at these words here:
“Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.”
“Yes, we will come to you, for you are the Lord our God. Surely the
idolatrous commotion on the hills and mountains is a deception; surely in the Lord
our God is the salvation of Israel. From our youth shameful gods have consumed the
fruits of our ancestors’ labor—their flocks and herds, their sons and
daughters. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us. We have
sinned against the Lord our God, both we and our ancestors; from our youth till
this day we have not obeyed the Lord our God.”
“If you, Israel, will return, then return to Me,” declares the Lord. “If
you put your detestable idols out of My sight and no longer go astray, and if
in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’
then the nations will invoke blessings by Him and in Him they will boast.”
This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem:
“Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise
yourselves to the Lord, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and
inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because
of the evil you have done—burn with no one to quench it.” Jeremiah
3:22-25, 4:1-4
Note here that there is only one right answer to the
question about backsliding avoidance. If one is going to be cured of repeating
the sins of the past, they must first return to the Lord and never turn away
again.
What got the Israelites in trouble?
They always chased back after false gods, turning from the
only true God as they violated His chief commandment to have no other gods
before Him. They had committed spiritual adultery before God and in return
became shamed and disgraced for their actions. The only way back into God’s
favor was to go back to Him with a renewed commitment and devotion, abandoning
the worthless, detestable gods and idols they had been worshipping and turning
their fullest dedication to the Lord. This would require not just a
circumcision of the bodies (for the Old Testament Israelites were still under
the auspices of the Old Covenant law) but also a circumcision of the heart for
as God peered deep within them, He expected to see their hearts fully loyal to
Him as well as His will and way.
Friends, I don’t know how well your spiritual walk is going
but I do know two things:
First, the Lord hates it when we reject Him and turn to sin
but He really hates it when we have sinned, promised to not commit the sin
again, and then turn around and go back on our word. In other words, He loathes
our backsliding. With this, we had better adopt the principles of the second
point and that is that the Lord has provided us a cure for our backsliding
problem and that cure is Himself. For if we turn back to Him and are serious
about leaving sin behind, then He will lead us in His righteousness each and
every day, and there will be no place for sin to enter in because we have said
goodbye to our own desires and the desires of the world to fully seek and
fulfill the desires of the Lord in all we do.
In other words, the Lord will always advance us forward
into right living in carrying out His purposes, There is no moving back with
Him because we are always led to advance His will and way as we carry out His
kingdom work here on earth.
I pray this describes you but if it doesn’t and you fit the
definition of a backslider, today’s the day to change all that and recommit
your life fully to the Lord. You’ll never regret that decision. Ever.
Amen.
In
Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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