Chapter 13 opens up with a quick little analogy of how Groeschel and his family, while on vacation at the beach, managed to drift away down the shore and lost sight of their cabin they were staying in.
This chapter is dealing with drifting from our values.
If you’re a Christian, you know that getting sidetracked from God is easy. Most do. It’s perfectly normal. And you’ll find lots of outside help for your heart to wander, lots of things to distract you.
Groeschel adds that eventually we’ll begin to question whether or not it’s even worth it to follow God. “It may seem like not many other people are following Him.”
Perhaps worse, it seems like the people who do follow God are, well….honestly, weird.
Matthew 7:13-14 says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Satan has an “explicit mission.” His mission is to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10) It is because of HIM that we even have these sort of thoughts.
If you allow your enemy to steal your faith, he can destroy your life and ultimately kill your relationship with God. He’s the great deceiver, the father of lies, (John 8:44) so we need to be wise to his tricks. (2 Corinthians 2:11)
He plants the smallest seed of doubt in our minds. Remember Eve in the Garden of Eden? Satan “planted the smallest seed of doubt in the ready soil of her mind.” “Did God really say….(Gen 3:1)
Then the lie comes. Satan essentially calls God the liar and that God was “keeping something from her. In other words he weakened Eve’s faith by questioning God’s authority.”
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:3 “I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”
Groeschel’s concern is the same for us. “If you’ve been close to God in the past but feel distant from Him now, isn’t that exactly how it’s played out?” “…somehow you woke up one day and found you’d drifted. You’d been led astray from your faith in Christ.”
Lose Your Faith in 5 E-Z Steps!
Learn the Ropes
Now What?
If you’ve drifted from God, Groeschel says he has an honest question for you: Do you care? Or are you like the church in Sardis–dead, just pretending to be alive? (Revelation 3:1)
Have you gotten used to shaking off whatever the Holy Spirit tries to say to you?
Or are you like the church at Ephesus? “You have forsaken your first love? Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent and do the things you did at first.” (Revelation 2:4-5)
This is your chance, Groeschel says. The Holy Spirit is talking to you, urging you to return to your first love.
Repent. Turn away from the things you have been doing that are drawing you further away from God.
If you’re “really, sincerely, genuinely wanting God back, he hasn’t moved. He’s still there, just like always.”
Jeremiah 29:12-13 says “You will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Come back to Jesus! He’s waiting for you with arms wide open!
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