What is backsliding?

Christianity: what is backsliding and how do I recover from it?

What is backsilding? Backsliding is a problem all Christians experience. How do we recognize and halt this backward progress?

Backsliding is a problem all Christians experience. We are on a path to perfection and sometimes we move backwards down that path. How do we recognize and halt this backward progress? Backsliding is defined as turning away from God after conversion to Christianity. (1 Kings 11:9) Its not always a conscious action; in fact most often its a very subtle series of actions that lead us away from what God wants for us. Many times, when we are backsliding, its so subtle that we dont even see it for some time. As we mature as Christians, God demands more and more from us. He asks us very little at first. He lets us grow up slowly, starting by surrendering small things to Him. Early on He just asks for a little bit of effort on our part. If we are faithful in giving that little bit, we begin to grow. We start to become more Christ-like in our behavior and thinking. With His help and our obedience, we gain control of the small sins in our lives, little things that arent difficult for us to give up or change. Once we have a little experience with God under our belt, He begins to ask more of us. Weve learned by this time how to talk to Him and how to listen to Him. Weve learned that He is faithful in taking care us through our Christian babyhood. Now, He asks us to give Him things that are a little more difficult. He asks us to surrender things that we have less personal control over. Perhaps He wants you to quit smoking or forgive someone that you are very angry with. Maybe He wants you to be more patient. Whatever it is, its something that is more of a challenge for you. This is the time when young Christians realize the energy that goes into transformation. Our goal is to let God perfect us and make us Christ-like. This takes effort and obedience on our part and its difficult. This is where many start to backslide. We try to do what is asked of us and find the difficulty in it. Sometimes we succeed and feel holy. Other times, we fail and feel like losers. For example, imagine God has asked you to give up smoking and you do. You feel very good about it and start to feel proud of your new holiness. Then some stress comes into your life and you grab for a cigarette. You smoke one, or several. Then, you start to feel bad. You try to quit again and succeed for a bit. You go back and forth between quitting and starting, and go back and forth between feeling good and bad. Eventually, you come to a point where you surrender either to God or to smoking. Whichever choice is made, its not permanent until there is no life left. There could be a lifelong back and forth struggle. With this example now, take a closer look at whats going on. Problem number one is the pride we feel when we succeed in doing something that God asks us to do. We are assuming that we have done this thing out of our own energy and that the doing of the thing makes us good in Gods eyes. This is pride. (Proverbs 16:18) We cant do anything that will make us righteous. Only Christ can do that for us. What we can do is realize that God is asking us to do something for our own good and that if we ask Him, He will give us the strength to do it. That leads to problem two, most of us will try and do this thing we are asked to do on our own, thinking that is the best way to do it because we are proving to God how good we are by being obedient. The problem here is that God is not asking us to do this thing on our own. Hes asking us to do this thing with His help. When we shut Him out of the doing, even if we are successful, weve lost because we missed the point. The point was that we were to rely on God to do the doing and we were only to be willing. Our only job in the whole process was to continually ask God for His help in enduring and turning away from temptation. Next, look at the battle of good and bad that emerges from trying to do this thing on our own. We succeed at what we think is being obedient and we feel good. Then we fail at what we think is being obedient and we feel bad. None of this had to happen because it wasnt our battle. God was willing all along to fight the battle; He only wanted our willingness to let Him do it. When the feelings of good and bad get mixed up in it, were set up for failure. Weve missed the mark. And that is what sin means, to miss the mark. So, backsliding into sin is at first a matter of not understanding Gods role in our lives. Its a matter of spiritual blindness. (2 Peter 1:9) Once we come to figure that out and we are no longer blind, we still have the challenge of being willing or not to deal with. Lets say our smoker finally comes to understand that all he has to do is be willing to let God fight the battle for him. First he says, okay God, Im willing. And he quits smoking. Things go along fine until some stress comes along. Then comes the temptation. At this point our smoker has a new challenge. His new challenge is to either smoke or ask God for the help he needs to turn away from temptation. This is the next level where forward movement or backsliding can happen. These kinds of challenges will come and go through our entire lives. They are the things that shape us and mold us into Gods image if we let Him work on us. There will be successes and failures but the success and failure are not about the thing being asked, they are about the willingness to let God do them. We'll move ahead sometimes and other times, well slide back. What remains constant is Gods willingness to forgive us and let us try again. Dont be fooled, though, that because God is loving and willing to forgive that He is also going to let us slide without consequences. There are consequences for backsliding. God hates sin but loves us. He wants to help us drive sin out of our lives. To do so, He is sometimes very stern with us. We must realize that when we backslide into sin, we are making a choice. We are choosing the things of this world over what God wants for us. (2 Timothy 4:10) When this happens, He has to withdraw His rewards and protection from that area of our lives. ((Isaiah 59:2) Our unwillingness displeases Him. (Psalms 78:56) To conquer backsliding, we must remember these things: Whatever God is asking you to do, He doesnt ask you to do it on your own. He only wants your willingness to let Him do it for you. When faced with temptation, we must choose to ask for Gods intervention. We must repeat point two over and over again with each new temptation. When we fail, we ask forgiveness and surrender the problem again. We must thank Him for the work He does for us. Backsliding is part of our nature but God has a way for us to conquer it. We must be willing to do His bidding, we must ask for strength and we must ask forgiveness when we fail. Most of all, we must thank Him for His love and the effort He puts into us. He is trying to make us like Christ and thats something to be thankful for.