Are You Stagnant in your Faith?

Jared:

I wanted to ask what advice you would give to somebody who feels like they've been in and out of their relationship with God. Or, it feels like they haven't been able to ever quite like commit and just really fall into their salvation and their sanctification. Or, somebody that maybe has been away from the faith for a long time. In your experience, what has been the best things to keep doing that's created success in that area? Does that make sense?

Pastor David:

I think so. Most people will use the word backslide.

Pastor David:

Okay. That's a biblical word. In other words, they're moving in relationship with God, and then all of a sudden they're not. And they're either not moving in the relationship. They become stagnant. Usually when they get stagnant, then they start withdrawing. So, and then ultimately they get cold and next thing you know, they're not engaging God at any significant level. It's a dangerous place, to be honest. So most people backslide usually because of an event, something has happened in their life. Usually in relationship with their faith, but not always.

Pastor David:

Now what I mean by that is that something happened in a church. Somebody didn't talk to them nice. Or, something happened where they felt disregarded, not loved, not appreciated, not valued. Maybe somebody lied about them, lied to them. I mean, it could be an array of things. But sometimes an event happens in life that creates a real God question. Death. A divorce. Some tragic something is usually the real shove, something dynamic like that. So, how do we get them back? Maybe they know in their heart of hearts, "I know God's my answer here, but I just can't get there because it's incongruent with maybe my experience." And I just don't know how to marry the two. And it creates a real problem for ongoing relationship with God.

Pastor David:

So for me, I think that the key to that is being honest with God and yourself. I find that most people that are falling away from God, aren't honest with themselves and they're not honest with God. And what I mean by that is God already knows. So you're not going to tell Him something. He doesn't know. You're not going to surprise him with a feeling or a struggle you're having. Whether it's a sin struggle or a faith struggle, whatever it is.

Pastor David:

You're not going to surprise Him with your issue. Whatever your issue is. And being honest about it, just being real transparent and honest. I find out when you pray honestly about that stuff, it helps your heart open up to healing and open up to solutions.

Pastor David:

You're not always going to get your solution. It's not going to always come in the form of a five word answer or a five sentence answer. It's not always going to come that way because if it did, it would never require faith on our part. And our relationship with God is based on a thing called faith. It's not based on a thing called knowledge. Not that knowledge is not important, but faith is what is important. And that means there's some things we just have to trust God with, even when it seems incongruent-

Jared:

So good.

Pastor David:

... with how we feel about something or what our experience has been. Whatever it might be. So I think that's where you start. I like to h