Hi, guys! My name is Ben Fitzgerald and welcome to God Today. Today, I am going to talk about a very important subject, it is called backsliding. I know you have heard this saying before. “He is backslidden,” or “She is backslidden.” Or maybe you have backslidden at some point in your life, I know I have backslidden.
I want to share that with you today because it was a powerful truth of the scripture that tells us we can be made completely new. The reality is that we are not all backsliders and we certainly are not called to be.
When I was first saved, God powerfully and radically changed my life. But, when I went through the cross, there were a few things I still held on to. In fact, I remember being delivered on the inside and feeling like I didn’t need to go back to sin. But just out of this desire to or this pattern of where I’d fed, I went back to feeding again on pornography. I had my mind filled with lust many, many times. And I’d say, “I am so sorry, God.” And God would forgive me.
At some point, I came to a crossroads with the Lord and the Lord said, “I didn’t save you so you could continue in sin.” In fact, Jesus said to me one morning, as I woke up out of my bed. He said, “Those who name the name of Christ, must depart from iniquity.” It cut me from the heart. I was like, “I need to depart from this. This thing can no longer be an option in my world. God began to stir my heart and I realized that’s exactly what I had done. I had made an option.
Maybe some of you can relate to that. Maybe it is not pornography, maybe it is just that you get angry at your husband. Maybe it is something like gossip about your boss and you hate him. In your heart, you are not forgiving toward him, and he is not a Christian. It could be any area of life that sometimes we make an option. Such as, I will be righteous enough to be church Wednesday and Sunday. I’ll be around Christians, I’ll be good. I won’t sin majorly, but I will keep an area of my life where the heart begins to backslide because it loses the intimacy and sensitivity to Jesus.
Now, I had this area of my life transformed by God when I began to surrender my sexuality. I said, “I surrender my option to go there, or think that way on a bad day.” I said, “God, you saved me.” And I began to meditate on Romans 6 which says 15 times at least that, “You are dead to sin. Sin has actually been killed by Jesus Your old man was crucified, you no longer live under the law or in slavery to sin, but you live under the grace of God.”
You can have that grace today. You don’t have to be a backslider. There is no area of the Kingdom of God that says, “Here are all the backsliders that are going to come in, and here are all the righteous people.” God calls you to live a faithful and holy life by His strength. But you get, by your will to choose, to surrender certain areas of your will today and come into trust intimacy rather than making an excuse and rather than saying, “I am just backsliding in an area.”
Don’t backslide, slide back to Jesus. God loves you and He is waiting there for you with transforming open arms. Thanks for watching God Today, I am Ben Fitzgerald, have an amazing day.