Even the Mighty Can Fall
My previous post has stirred up conversations in my small groups regarding falling, or as many Christians like to call it, “Backsliding,” and how humanity, no matter how led and filled by the Spirit they are, can fall.
Often we judge people who fall into the old. We whisper in our circles about that person, and no one, absolutely no one, ever thinks that one day they too can be tempted or tested and fall into the old. The idea that if you are filled with the Spirit continuously it is impossible to sin, is simply unbiblical. In my opinion, Christians truly need to come down from their high horses because looking down on someone simply because they struggle with something God delivered you from, or because they struggle with something you have never had to struggle with, is one of the reasons many people do not run to the Church or to Christians for help.
I was having a conversation with someone and they made a statement that bothered me. The statement was, “If you are filled with the Spirit of God, it is impossible for you to sin.” They quoted Galatians 5:16, which says, “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of flesh.” They understood this to mean that a Spirit-filled believer cannot sin. When I tried to understand by giving an example, I was simply told that if you sin as Spirit filled believer it means your salvation is not complete.
I was dumbfounded.
Now, I am not calling myself an expert on the Holy Spirit or on salvation, which we have received through faith because Romans 10:9 says “if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” But the idea that once you sin as a Christian your salvation should immediately be called into question had me tripping because… what do you mean?
I know the Bible speaks about sins that lead to death, and I know there are warnings throughout the bible about living in unrepentant sin. But this person was saying that any sin means your salvation is incomplete. I simply cannot reconcile that with the whole counsel of the bible.
And so, what does the Bible say?
We are taught to look to the Bible for instruction and guidance on how to live, so let’s do exactly that.
Paul, who wrote a large portion of the New Testament, made this honest confession in Romans 7:15 which is shared in our last post, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” He continues in verses 18-19 by saying “for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out…. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, I keep on doing” (NIV).
Paul is showing us that it is possible to know the right thing, genuinely desire to do the right thing, and yet still stumble.
Peter denied Christ three times, David committed adultery and went on to try and hide this by killing Uriah while Elijah after calling fire down from heaven at Mount Sinai wanted to die. This is not to say that sin is acceptable and that there are no consequences for our actions, the point is that, greater man than you and me have fallen before us, therefore even we ourselves can become backslidden. The Christ like journey is not about pretending that we are beyond temptation, but rather if you find yourself tempted there is grace.
My falling may look like losing someone, and in that grief cursing God, while the next persons sin may look like having sex before marriage after years of walking in purity. One is inward while the other outward, but just because my sin is unseen does not make it any less before God. This holier-than-thou mentality is why as Christians we lack empathy when someone has fallen. Instead of praying for them or praying with them, we opt to whisper, judge, condemn and unknowingly join the devil, whom Revelations 12:10 calls “the accuser of the brethren.”
Of course grace does not give us license to sin, nor does it erase the consequences that come with actions. The truth is, none of us is above falling or backsliding and so what matters is that we become people who extend grace and compassion, one to another, rather than condemnation. Because one day, the person needing that grace might be me or you.
Jesus commanded that we love one another, and so may be known not for how quickly we expose the fallen amongst us, but rather how we helped them back onto their feet.
Continue to be blessed.
TRENDING
