Subject: Flesh or Spirit |
Bible Note: Hi, WOS. Though I haven't had occasion to interact with you much, I read your posts with interest and a keen appreciation of the obvious evidence that you think, a precious and fairly rare commodity in our easy-believism world these days :-) ...... Yes, there is such an entity as back-sliding, especially if you extend the definition to include any sin that a Christian commits -- and Christians do sin. And with each and every sin the Christian commits, he does, in some degree, back-slide: he certainly doesn't slide forward when he sins, does he? His sin doesn't cause him to progress in sanctification or thereby grow more Christ-like, or does it? Perhaps it can. Perhaps it does. Can we say that King David's sins, grievous though they were, may have served to bring him to his knees, prostrate and penitent, before the Holy One of Israel? Was Peter made a stronger follower of the Lamb of God in the wake of thrice denying Him? Can we deny God's power to build strength from weakness, faith from doubt, obedience from disobedience? ...... I'm a septuagenarian -- not to be confused with Presbyterian, although I was a Presbyterian at one time, but now am a Southern Baptist -- and I used to think that old folks had somehow out-lived the tendency and probably the ability to sin, but now that I am, by any sane measure, numbered among the senior citizenry -- a euphonism meaning that I am now a grumpy and decrepit old codger -- I recognize full well that "sin lieth at the door" of both young and old, of both rengenerated and unregenerated, and that so long as breath remains in these vessels of clay, the soul that lives within them will continue to sin, but thanks be to God. the blood of His Son cleanses us from all unrighteousness. ...... I once heard a minister, a man who I have every reason to believe was truly a redeemed man of God, confess candidly and unabashedly that he was at best only a part-time Christian. This stark admission rather shocked me at first, and my initial reaction was, was he trying to be funny? Flippant? A wise guy? But he went on to explain what he meant, and what he said made a great deal of sense to me then and makes sense to me still. Some days, he said, he really didn't feel much like a Christian; he thought things and said things and did things that clearly weren't very Christ-like. Sometimes, he continued, his faith was as weak as a sick kitten, his zeal for Christ as limp as a wet noodle, and he concluded that if his salvation depended on his feelings, his merits, and his woeful and abject failure to live a perfect life, he had no hope of eternal life. So now you see, he told his audience, why I say that I'm only a part-time Christian and, in essence, a dismal failure. Then he rebounded strongly and with a shout of unadultered joy, But thanks be to God, I am not saved because of my merits, of which I have so few, but by the grace of God which He showers on me in so great an abundance. ...... It was a blessed sermon that I heard on that fine day. I took it to heart, tucked it away in my mind, and think on it even now. I think that it is one I will never be able to forget. Or want to. --Hank |