The stories of the prodigal son, the backsliding of Samson and Peter who denied Christ three times shows that there is room for a comeback in the Lord. Scriptures like ‘a righteous man falls seven times and rises up again’ confirms this fact. Israel sinned and were punished a number of times and God gave them many second chances.
To fall as a Christian means to backslide or fall into sin and give up the faith. To fall also implies staying dormant as a Christian and not doing the work the Lord has assigned you to. I use the term loosely to stress the in-activeness of the believer. So, there are those who have fallen who go to church and those who don’t. The typical characteristic with them is that, their life is not in sync with the Holy Spirit.
People have their reasons for falling; some through sin, others through discouragement and some through unfavorable conditions like getting a job that takes all the Christian life out of you (you don’t have time to pray, etc.). When you study new creation realities you will know that when a believer sins, the believer is not disqualified, ‘there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’. Falling is when you turn your back against the Lord and follow your own agenda like the prodigal son. Please don’t limit falling to committing sin alone, it has to do with certain decisions that you would not obey the Lord. For instance, Jonah decided he wouldn’t preach and that was a fall! When you decide to be silent on some matters of the Lord and watch things decay that also could be a fall.
Believers, great and small fall every day. There were times when even Jesus saw the spirit of falling nearer to Him especially when it was time for Calvary; He had to pray to be strengthened. New believers fall many times. They are easily tripped down by the devil. I remember when I first gave my life to Christ, my first prayer was that the Lord should kill me because I didn’t want to commit sin and miss heaven. When David took stole one of His soldier’s wives he fell. It was later that he wrote ‘create in me a clean heart oh God, and renew a right spirit within me’. Samson fell, the whole of Israel fell into sin in the wilderness when Moses went to bring the Ten Commandments and stayed at the mountain top forty days. Sometimes a whole nation can fall!
There is room for a comeback but it is difficult.
The more you stay away for long the more you retrogress. A lot of impediments are built into your path so that you can’t find your way back home. At the initial stages, it could have been a change of mind and just prayer of forgiveness then you are back into the fold; but, when you wait for long you get entangled into many things. For instance, a young girl through disobedience decides to walk away from the Lord and falls in love with an unbeliever and She doesn’t quit but stays with him till she gets pregnant and gives birth. Now she wants to come back to her former life of singing and praising the Lord in the church. A simple prayer would not do anymore. If the guy is not prepared to get married, she would have to sever the relationship before she can have the opportunity to serve the Lord again, but what if she lives with the man and doesn’t have any place to go? This complicates matters. Note that she might have repented in her heart and said her prayer, yet the structures would still be holding her. These are the situations that often keep some believers out permanently. Situations like this occur when people stay too long in backsliding.
It is in the interest of the believer, that if any should fall, that person should not keep long else coming back could be very difficult.
When you keep too long in backsliding, sometimes you would never return to normalcy again!
What are the chances of those who are able to make it?
I like the story of Samson so much! The lesson it teaches about backsliding is enormous. When you backslide, you are sent to the school of university of hard knocks. Jonah was sent to the belly of a whale, David was driven away by his son Absalom and his son slept with his wives on their roof top for everybody to see, Israel did not see rain for three years and there was intense famine in the land, Ananias and Saphira were not lucky so they met untimely death, Daniel and his friends and Israel were sent to Babylon in captivity, the prodigal son ate the food of pigs, Samson had his eyes plucked out and grind corn for his enemies! The list is endless!
But when they succeed in coming back they are toughened! In her book Daughter of Destiny, Kathryn Kulhman returned after 7 years of backsliding and her ministry went worldwide. She was much closer to the Holy Spirit than ever. During the period of schooling in hard knocks university, it is a prison where you have the chance to appreciate your place in the Lord; your convictions about your former place in the Lord are set. If you were not sure about your Call, now you are very sure. Because, where the Lord has not sent you if you go, you would not have his support. So now you can tell the difference between having the Lord’s support and depending on yourself. When you come back your hunger for the Lord is high!
Therefore, for those who come back, they build upon what they used to be. Formerly, they were childish and would not allow the Lord send them to that level but now it is clear to them, so they gravitate towards that. They are like a newly born again believer, only that it is different. This born again knows what matters in the Lord and therefore his growth is in leaps, he knows his way around already. Now, his mission is clear in his mind, because while he was away ‘he thought to himself’.
It is written concerning Samson in the book of Judges that, after his hair grew again and he pulled down the house of the philistines, ‘so the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life’ (18:30). That is to say that he killed more people in one day than he had killed all his life combined! Saul was type of Christian and he realized his was not right because he persecuted the church wrongly. When he repented, he did more than all the Disciples of Jesus put together.
My dear friend, whatever your situation may be, you can make it if you want to come back in the Lord. It is hard when you have been away for long but if you decide to fight judiciously you would make it. The problem is that you would find several walls erected in your path making it seem impossible for you to return. But you can return and the Master would kiss you and say ‘this is my son! He was lost and is now found!’
You have to pray a lot and fast too. Main while just a prayer won’t make you free because you may have been fixed into some sins which it would take time before you free yourself of them. Deal with it wisely. Don’t go telling other believers this is my current state because not all of them are mature. Some might make your life miserable, it is better you seek one or two persons who are mature and can understand and pray with you and trust in the lord to get you out of that structural sinful – the position you may be in.
If you succeed in coming back, ‘though your beginning may be small, yet shall your latter end be fruitful’. Amen.
