“But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”
Matthew 10:33
Recently, several high profile Christian leaders have renounced their faith and have said that they no longer consider themselves to be a Christian. Because of their status or visibility they have also done so very publicly. It makes me wonder why they chose to make a public announcement about it. Why not just step down from leadership, take a sabbatical, or just take some time to pray and rebuild their relationship with the Lord? Have they really given up on God? Has all of their time and effort put into ministry really caused them to doubt God and His promises?
I’m sure many Christians sometimes stop going to church, question their faith, or lack the zeal for the Lord they once had. That has happened to me on occasion as well. Faith is a journey that has many ups and downs. It is not always smooth and going forward. In life there are struggles that we all face (John 16:33). In those times we sometimes falter or go backwards in our faith. But it is often temporary until the Lord brings us back to Him again.
Most Christians don’t go public or have a platform they use to tell others about their fall away from faith and the Lord they once served with great devotion. Instead, they generally keep it to themselves or reach out to others in confidence for counsel and assurance. And if they do somehow lose their faith they do it quietly. They just stop going to church and disconnect from church relationships and activities. Sadly, sometimes the church doesn’t even notice.
Our faith and relationship with God is like a marriage. As a matter of fact, Jesus referred to himself as the bridegroom and the Church as His bride in the parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1). When we meet someone we think might be a good marriage partner, we spend time with them, try to please them, and eventually discuss joining our lives together in marriage. Once married, we begin to build our lives together and have children. But sometimes marriages fall apart and end in divorce as the two that earlier had become one drift apart and go back to living separate lives.
So when someone falls away from faith it is like divorcing God. The person no longer has the love for God they once had, they don’t feel the love God has for them, or they simply drift apart because they don’t spend time together. Thus, they want out of the relationship. Divorce in our secular world is often very messy, complicated and ends up hurting many people. Divorcing God has the same effect. And the more public the divorce the more people it usually hurts.
Faith, like a marriage, is built on trust and a focus on the other person in the relationship. If we don’t trust God or we stop doing things that please Him we can easily find ourselves questioning our faith and our relationship with Him. Faith, like a marriage, needs constant work for it to be successful. Taking that relationship for granted or not putting the time into it that’s needed often results in a broken relationship. In our world, either person in the marriage relationship can ask for a divorce. But with faith, God will NEVER divorce us or break that relationship. Only we can divorce God!
So how do we keep our relationship with God strong and avoid divorcing Him from our lives?
In order to have a healthy relationship with God we must focus on 3 things. Jesus told us what they were when asked what the greatest commandment was. He replied, “Love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)
So first, we are to love God with all of our heart. We must have an emotional, heart-felt connection to God because of what God has first done for us (1 John 4:19). That means we must love Him by worshiping Him and doing what pleases Him. If we don’t feel His love for us in our own heart then we are less likely to give our heart to Him in return. When we truly love someone we feel an emotional connection to their heart. We hurt with them, we cry with them, we rejoice with them and we laugh with them. Without that heart-to-heart emotional connection we are far more likely to drift away in that relationship.
Second, we must love Him with all of our soul. We must have a spiritual connection to God as well, and that comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us. It is His Holy Spirit that gives us faith (1 John 4:13). But we must also develop that spiritual connection by talking to God (prayer) and letting His Spirit guide and direct us in our actions. We cannot do this on our own but only through His Holy Spirit. As the Lord said to the prophet Zechariah, “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord.” (Zechariah 4:6).
Thirdly, we must also love him with our mind. That means we must read His Word and meditate on it so that we gain His wisdom (Proverbs 4:7). We don’t just accept God in our heart and soul but we also accept Him in our mind. It is logical to have faith in God, even though we cannot see Him. His Word makes sense to us because He created us and it is the Truth. He created us in His image and so we have the capacity to believe His Word and place our faith in Him, even though we can’t understand all of it. But when we earnestly seek Him, He will help us to understand (Amos 4:13).
In many marriages there are always outsiders who tell us to get out, that we’re better off on our own, and that the other person isn’t holding up their end of the marriage. With faith, that person is Satan, who continues to lie to us and tell us that God doesn’t love us or that He isn’t doing what He promised. Satan tries to convince us that we’re not getting what we want or desire from God. Satan always puts the focus on us and never God. So we must be on our guard against his schemes and attempts to separate us from God (Genesis 3:1, 1 Peter 5:8).
It saddens me greatly when fellow believers fall away from God or divorce Him from their lives. We must walk beside them to encourage them to “stand firm in the faith” (1 Corinthians 13:16) and “to trust in Him and lean not on our own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5-6). We must tell them that if they draw near to God, He will draw near to them (James 4:8). We must remind them to persevere and to finish the race so that they will receive the crown of eternal life that God has promised them (James 1:12). That’s His promise and God always keeps His promises!