Okay, I know I’m going to fire up some of my readers with this one but God has put it on my mind for the past few days so here goes!

Recently, I’ve run across a few people who have decided to leave Christianity. There are a variety of specific reason that include:

  • God is responsible for not intervening in their lives because He is sovereign and could have intervened if He really wanted to
  • Christians are unloving, dogmatic, and full of diatribe instead of being caring
  • Their mental health has improved by not feeling the pressure of Christian judgment
  • Christians can’t answer the life’s basic questions
  • They can’t do anything right for God so why try

Now let me say from the very outset that I believe all these feelings are legitimate; the people who feel these ways very much have arguments to make and I respect their positions.

I just strongly disagree with them.

I have to be honest and tell you that when I hear someone say they were a “Christian” but left the faith the first thing I think of is, “Really? You were a Christian?” That may sound harsh but hear me out.

I got my own wake up call on this when I was interviewed for a segment on the 700 Club. The producer of the shoot – who later became a friend of ours – made the comment that I wasn’t really in the faith in my younger life. I was really offended by that! I had always believed in God. I had always believed that Jesus was my personal savior. I had always prayed. Sure, I hadn’t darkened the door of a church in 25 years but that didn’t mean I wasn’t a believer!!

Well, in retrospect I think she was right. James says in 2:19, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” Demons recognized Jesus as the Son of God but they were not followers. Turns out belief in God is VERY different than being a disciple of Jesus.

My younger life was pretty much a testament of that. I believed but I still drank and partied, I still swore like a sailor, I still manipulated people, I still hated people (and I mean hated people), I still was unkind, I was still self-centered and selfish, I was still angry, I was still abusive, I was still all the things that proved that I was not a new creation in Christ!

You see, when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior there is as massive change that happens in your life. Scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, “So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” This is what Jesus meant when He told Nicodemus that you had to be born of the spirit – born again! (John 3:3)

Just this morning someone sent a note to my blog calling me “a brat” and telling me, “You DO NOT get it.” Well, I may be a brat but I certainly get it. You see, I’ve been that guy that Jesus talked about in Matthew 7:21-22:

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

That is why I question people saying they were in the faith but left because they’re expectation of God or God’s people were not met.

Here’s the most controversial thing (perhaps) I will say:

If you were born again of the spirit and became a new creation in Christ indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit then there is no way in God’s green earth you would ever leave the faith.

Why? Because when you become that new creation and the old is gone you stop looking at your life as though you are the center of the universe and start looking at it through God’s eyes. You get supernatural, Holy Spirit driven insights about God, His Word, creation, your own sinfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, holiness, justice, righteousness, the spiritual fruit (Galatians 5:22), salvation, eternity, and just how much God loves you and is involved in every moment of your life!

My buddy Jeff and I go back and forth on one particular issue that really gets to the crux of why a lot of people are mad at God. He and  have discussed this at length in private emails and honestly, I doubt either of us will change the other’s mind. But it’s worth noting here because Jeff isn’t the only one who feels this way.

Jeff’s point is valid: If God is sovereign than all the suffering and bad thing that happen don’t have to because God could intervene if He wanted to – if He really loved us – to ensure we don’t suffer. Because God does not intervene than it means He truly doesn’t love us and allows us to suffer horribly in His sovereignty. Hope I got that right, Jeff.

If there is anyone who could agree with Jeff it’s me! I have suffered in life. Here’s just a short list:

  • Physically, emotionally, and mentally abused as a child – a 9 out of 10 on the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) chart.
  • Homeless as a child and adult
  • Dad in prison most my youth
  • Mom in nursing homes with MS all my youth
  • Lived in 12 different homes growing up
  • Significant case of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
  • Physically disabled with chronic pain (arthritis in all major joints), removal of half my stomach, migraines, and PTSD. (100 percent disabled veteran)

When I was younger, I was like Jeff asking, “Where was God when I was being beaten? Where was God when I was homeless and starving? Where was God when my mom got sick? Where was God when my dad went to prison? Where was God when I was suffering?”

To be honest, while all this was happening I didn’t see Him. Why? I was too busy looking at myself – honestly just trying to survive – instead of turning to God. I was angry at God for allowing all this to happen to me – an innocent child who didn’t have a say about being born, having the parents I had, or any of the circumstances into which I was thrown.

Then I grew up. Sure, it took me until my mid-20s to start to submit to God and actually until 40 when I finally fully submitted, but I did submit. Here’s what I learned:

  • God was there the whole time – it would have been a whole lot worse had He not been there
  • I am not the center of the universe; Jesus is
  • God is not made in my image, I am made in His thus He owes me nothing and I owe Jesus everything
  • I am a sinner who has done a lot of wrong and deserve to spend eternity in Hell. Jesus saved me from that
  • I’ve done it both my way and God’s way and God’s way is MUCH better than my way.
  • Being a Christian in HARD! In this world we still have trouble (John 16:33) but Jesus is with us in the midsts of our circumstances.

Could God have intervened in my circumstances? Sure. Why didn’t He? Because we brought all of this on ourselves as the human race due to our rebellion, sin, and rejection of God! We simply are reaping what we sowed. But take heart, Jesus tells us, because He has over come the world and there is an eternity for those who believe!

Paul addresses people leaving the faith in 1 Timothy 4:1, “ The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.”

That may sound harsh but think about it: What is Satan’s job? To turn you away from God! What’s the best easiest place Satan can focus your attention? Yourself!

Jesus teaches us to die to ourselves, humble ourselves, and serve others.

Satan teaches us to live for ourselves, exalt ourselves, and serve ourselves.

So, you leave the faith because God disappointed you somehow. Who do you really think you are? Are you God? Does God owe you an answer? If you think He does why would you think that? Scripture makes the point in Isaiah 45:9, “Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’?”

I find a lot of people believe that God is like us. I think it comes from sloppy teaching from the pulpit where pastors preach about how we are made in God’s image and the implication is God is like us. So, if God is like us then He would have to think like us. And if He thinks like us then He is being extremely unreasonable in how He acts.

I would agree with all that if God were actually like us.

But He’s not.

He is other than us.

The only thing we share in common with God is the attributes of emotion, intellect, and will. That’s it.

God even tells us that He is other than us:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

So, yeah – you can say you were a Christian and left the faith. I would say you were a Christian the same way I was a Christian back in the day – someone who like the demons believed in God but did not submit himself to God’s sovereignty. You see, you can’t have it both ways – you can’t say God is sovereign but didn’t act so He’s bad but then deny God’s sovereignty by not submitting yourself to that sovereignty.

If God truly is sovereign then it means we submit before His authority and have faith in His attributes of holiness, mercy, goodness, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, grace, and love.

If God is not sovereign or if He is made in our image than He is no God at all.

My advice for all my friends out there struggling with the faith is this: Test the spirits. Believe me when I tell you that Paul is right in Ephesians that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against demonic powers doing everything they can to get us focused on ourselves and away from Jesus.