How many seemingly powerful, firm, spiritually strong Christians have you came across in life and then after just a few years or even months they left you to wonder if they are the same persons that you spoke to or observed? How can a Christian so greatly admired, fall back on GOD?
Well, the devil does set his cunning traps for every Christian. He has this way of seeping into our lives just to corrupt and influence our thoughts so that he can change the way we not only think but the way we live. And then he sometimes goes as far as trying to douse our desires for God and anything that relates to him like church, Christian fellowship and so on. Yes, he does this really subtly and to every one of us. But although the devil is so cunning and sly in his traps, the reason for backsliding isn’t entirely his fault but has a lot to do with the person involved. What I’ve realized (and can also personally attest to) is that the only way the devil can touch us (get us to the point of backsliding) is if we distant ourselves from GOD, our creator. We’ve often heard the scripture that says “resist the devil and he will flee from you, draw near to GOD and he will draw near to you” (James 4: 7-8) and this is the perfect scripture to support my thesis. I’ve always thought these two phrases werea part of one verse because no one quotes one without the other and they seem to always leave out the words before and after this statement. What I understand from this scripture is that they are two main things you need to do to prevent yourself from backsliding (yes, formula B stands for formula for backsliding) 1. Stay Close To GOD and 2. Resist The Devil. I also realized that these two strategies are connected; it is not possible for us to stay close to GOD if we are not resisting the devil and it is not possible for us to resist the devil if we are not drawing close to GOD. So both are important in our Christian walk and both are dependent on each other; meaning we cannot accomplish one without doing the other and expect results.
We often call God all these names: our ROCK, our SHELTER, our PROTECTION and so on but these names aren’t effective if we are not close to God. We have to be standing on or directly behind the rock; we got to be in his shelter and lastly we have to be under God’s Protection. All these verbs that I’ve bolded suggest a certain intimacy, true? So what I’m saying is that if God really becomes our rock, our shelter, our protection and all these other names we call him there is no way the enemy can trick us into any of his traps. When he sends all his temptations, his “weariness” and thoughts such as “you’re sleepy, just tell God thanks for the day and go to sleep” or “You don’t have to read your bible now watch some TV and read it later”, When he sends all these things to us we can resist him because we know that it’s just a trick to distance us from our savior so that he can get us back into his grip. I don’t know if you understand this… But as long as the devil can take away that closeness you have with God, if he can get you to lose your relationship with the creator he can tempt you with ANYTHING. Ask anyone who has backslidden how their relationship with God was days… weeks prior to when they fully backslid and I’m almost confident that their reply wouldn’t be “It was AWESOME!”
I just explained part one of this thesis; the fact that u have to stay close to God. But now for part 2: Resisting the Devil. Nothing upsets me more than a Christian saying “I’m just human, every human makes mistakes”. Now tell me if God wanted us to be “Just Human” why would he put his dearly beloved on the cross?? The cross as we know unleashed a certain victory that we could have never have experienced, it gave us power over sin… Before Jesus died on the cross it would have been impossible for us to resist the devil, but thanks be to God and his Grace!
Let me now draw a “before-you-were-saved-scenario”: we all had our weird, crazy, sinful habits, true? Whether they were done in secret or out in the open they were still sins. I’m pretty sure you realized that you are sinning and you’ve attempted to stop but that only ended in failure and you ending up committing the same sin over and over again, but when you got saved the struggling against these sins vanished totally or faded. Think back this has happened to me and I’m certain you experienced it too. Resisting the devil is easier and becomes almost natural when you’ve established a relationship with God.
So in conclusion don’t ever use this formula (Formula B). Don’t ever allow yourself to become distant from God and don’t ever stop resisting the devil because, well, the results will truly be catastrophic.
Well, the devil does set his cunning traps for every Christian. He has this way of seeping into our lives just to corrupt and influence our thoughts so that he can change the way we not only think but the way we live. And then he sometimes goes as far as trying to douse our desires for God and anything that relates to him like church, Christian fellowship and so on. Yes, he does this really subtly and to every one of us. But although the devil is so cunning and sly in his traps, the reason for backsliding isn’t entirely his fault but has a lot to do with the person involved. What I’ve realized (and can also personally attest to) is that the only way the devil can touch us (get us to the point of backsliding) is if we distant ourselves from GOD, our creator. We’ve often heard the scripture that says “resist the devil and he will flee from you, draw near to GOD and he will draw near to you” (James 4: 7-8) and this is the perfect scripture to support my thesis. I’ve always thought these two phrases werea part of one verse because no one quotes one without the other and they seem to always leave out the words before and after this statement. What I understand from this scripture is that they are two main things you need to do to prevent yourself from backsliding (yes, formula B stands for formula for backsliding) 1. Stay Close To GOD and 2. Resist The Devil. I also realized that these two strategies are connected; it is not possible for us to stay close to GOD if we are not resisting the devil and it is not possible for us to resist the devil if we are not drawing close to GOD. So both are important in our Christian walk and both are dependent on each other; meaning we cannot accomplish one without doing the other and expect results.
We often call God all these names: our ROCK, our SHELTER, our PROTECTION and so on but these names aren’t effective if we are not close to God. We have to be standing on or directly behind the rock; we got to be in his shelter and lastly we have to be under God’s Protection. All these verbs that I’ve bolded suggest a certain intimacy, true? So what I’m saying is that if God really becomes our rock, our shelter, our protection and all these other names we call him there is no way the enemy can trick us into any of his traps. When he sends all his temptations, his “weariness” and thoughts such as “you’re sleepy, just tell God thanks for the day and go to sleep” or “You don’t have to read your bible now watch some TV and read it later”, When he sends all these things to us we can resist him because we know that it’s just a trick to distance us from our savior so that he can get us back into his grip. I don’t know if you understand this… But as long as the devil can take away that closeness you have with God, if he can get you to lose your relationship with the creator he can tempt you with ANYTHING. Ask anyone who has backslidden how their relationship with God was days… weeks prior to when they fully backslid and I’m almost confident that their reply wouldn’t be “It was AWESOME!”
I just explained part one of this thesis; the fact that u have to stay close to God. But now for part 2: Resisting the Devil. Nothing upsets me more than a Christian saying “I’m just human, every human makes mistakes”. Now tell me if God wanted us to be “Just Human” why would he put his dearly beloved on the cross?? The cross as we know unleashed a certain victory that we could have never have experienced, it gave us power over sin… Before Jesus died on the cross it would have been impossible for us to resist the devil, but thanks be to God and his Grace!
Let me now draw a “before-you-were-saved-scenario”: we all had our weird, crazy, sinful habits, true? Whether they were done in secret or out in the open they were still sins. I’m pretty sure you realized that you are sinning and you’ve attempted to stop but that only ended in failure and you ending up committing the same sin over and over again, but when you got saved the struggling against these sins vanished totally or faded. Think back this has happened to me and I’m certain you experienced it too. Resisting the devil is easier and becomes almost natural when you’ve established a relationship with God.
So in conclusion don’t ever use this formula (Formula B). Don’t ever allow yourself to become distant from God and don’t ever stop resisting the devil because, well, the results will truly be catastrophic.
