There may be a million and one
reasons for their drifting away, or just not wanting to have anything to do
with church or Christians. Some just got fed up with all the gossip and nasty attitudes of those around them, and others walked away after being wounded
through breach of confidence and personal prejudice.
Others drifted off after some failing in their personal lives, or just gave up on God because they were overcome by temptation and sin. Still more just walked away because they were despised, mocked, judged and condemned by church members and church leaders.
They just wished to become invisible, and buried themselves in work and other
occupations.
Deep down in many of their hearts
they still hold dear their previous knowledge of Christ and the good times that
they once knew. They will not deny Christ or blaspheme his name, but know that even if God could forgive them, the other ‘believers’ would
never forget or forgive their mistakes.
Never mind 'them other believers'. Let them stew in their own pot of soup. As they judge, they will be judged. As they forgive, that is the extent to which they will be forgiven.
Many church-goers and even the platform staff have no clue about the unlimited and fathomless grace and mercy
of God; for he specializes in restoration, in re-planting, in rebuilding, and reconciling. He does not cast off nor damn his children, not even when they have blown it and ruined their record.
It is time for the wanderers and ‘outsiders’ to come back home. I do not mean return to the church or your previous denomination, (that may not have gone anywhere either since you walked out of the door).
I mean, it is time to come home to where home really is, and
that is God’s house which is not a man-made building, but the door by which the
lost, the lonely and the rejected can find everything they need, and more than they lost.
“I am the door”, says Jesus. “By
me, if anyone enters, they shall go in and out, and find all that they require to
be all that they can be, through my grace and strength.”
God really does specialize in rebuilding the ruined places which men and women look down upon with disdain and mockery.
‘Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that which was made desolate:
I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.’ (Ezekiel 36:36)
He can take the most unimaginable
situation, the most backslidden and sinful existence, and rebuild that soul for
whom Christ died, and transform them to become more than they ever were before.
There is nothing too hard for God. The church may sneer, the members mock, the hypocrites cry out in horrified objection, but God will take the ruined and wasted places and work a miracle of grace. He will build a citadel where there is only the rubble of a sad and troubled history.
He is going to bring his people back to himself, not to some man-made religious institution, but back to the family who all once were sinners, defiled in his sight; but now clothed in white garments, in praise they unite,
singing, ‘Unto Him who has loved us, and washed us from sin; Unto Him be the glory forever, Amen!’
God will take the failures, the
let-downs, the nothings of this world, and raise them up beyond all their
personal history, no matter how bad it may have been. He will lift them up with admiration in front of all those who think
themselves better, and say, ‘Behold my treasure!’
A now word for all those who may have fallen, got messed up, backslid and waked away:
Backsliders, come home to God, and ‘take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say to him, Take away all my sin and backsliding, and receive me graciously: so will I give you the best that I have and the praise of my lips.
This world cannot save me; I will not say I can
save myself: neither will I say any more to the work of my hands, (the efforts
and achievements that I have made), you are my life, even my gods: for in You alone, O
God, the fatherless find mercy.’ (Hosea
14:2-4)
And God answers, and says, ‘I
will heal your backsliding, I will love you freely: for my anger is turned away
from you.’
Of course, I have transliterated these three verses to help in understanding, but God here promises restoration if we will but make our way up the path to his house.
It is not very far from any one of us if we would just stop what we are doing right now, and come back to Him. He never stopped loving us even when we sinned and forsook his ways.
The devil is a liar and the father of lies. Stop listening to him.
God's mercy is higher than the
heavens and knows no limits.
If you take the time to read
Zechariah chapter three, you will see how God can lift even a backsliding
preacher and pastor into the right place, fully cleansed, fully restored,
and fully recommissioned!
Your life is not too hard for God
to do something amazing with, and to do better unto you than at your
beginnings.
Just come home.
JGM 2022
