Why some professing Christians give up on Christ

Isaiah 46:1-4 "Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.""

There is a sister at the Church that I attend who became a Christian after her boyfriend introduced her to the faith. When I first heard it, I thought that it was great, since she was from a country where Christianity is illegal, and praised God for His providence. Naturally, I thought that this man was a man of great faith, to be able share his faith to his girlfriend and convince her to become Christian. But after a while later, I found out that one day this boyfriend suddenly told her that he is no longer Christian, throwing the sister into confusion no doubt. I was also shocked at this boyfriend's sudden announcement.

Why do some professing Christians give up so easily from following Jesus Christ? Is it because there was not enough discipleship or counselling? Is it because they did not try enough? Is it because the environement around them made them difficult to continue believing? There may be many reasons, but the above scriptures tells us one of the main reasons why professing Christians give up believing in Christ: It is because they never believed in Christ.

Bel and Nebo were famous idols during the times of Isaiah, and God teaches children of Israel the main difference between idols and the only true God. He says "their idols are on beasts and livestock, these things are borne as burdens on weary beasts". He is saying, 'Look at these idols. You need to carry them on your beasts, like burdens". Idols are a heavy burden to carry to its believers. Look at all the religions of the world. What heavy burdens do they have to carry around their gods with them. Their gods do not do anything for them, but they need to do everything for their gods. They need to sacrifice so much and do so much for their gods to be with them, that they may carry them in their pockets like heavy stones. The laws they need to keep, the rituals they need to follow are like burdens that crush them. And they do these for their gods, that their gods may have favour for them. They need to build houses and temples for their gods to dwell in, for they themselves are homeless, and have no arms or hands to build houses for them. Their worshippers must do everything for them. Their gods are like their babies, having to be carried by them, to be fed by them! What an abomination are these things to the eyes of the One true God who needs NOTHING from men:
Psalm 50:9-12 "I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine."

But how many professing Christians carry around Jesus Christ like an idol, as a burden upon them too hard to carry? It is no wonder that they give up Christ, for they try to carry this Rock around in their pockets. Jesus Christ cannot be carried by any man, for it is like carrying a great mountain that fills the whole earth:
Daniel 2:35 "Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth."

Try carrying Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ will end up crushing you and grounding you into powder. You cannot carry God, who is larger than the heavens and the heavens of the heavens. The one who thinks he can carry Christ is one who has never felt the weight of the glory of God. He is one who knows not God. No wonder people stop following Christ, because they become crushed under the burden that is Christ. It is like a gazelle trying to carry a lion. Likewise he who tries to carry his Christianity by his own strength will torn apart and eaten alive by the Lion of the tribe of Judah. We have forgotten the greatness and the terror of our great God. Let us pray that we may have revelation of both.

What is then the difference between Jesus Christ and the gods of other religions? Jesus Christ is the one carrying us. Read what God says: "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you." What God is saying is that He will carry His people like a baby, unto the old age, even unto our death. Read what He says in another place:
Deuteronomy 1:31 "and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.'"
He carried Israel all the way from Egypt, through the wilderness, and carried them all the way into the promised land. Likewise, Jesus Christ will carry His people all the way to the end.

Remeber when Christ said:
Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
And when He said:
Matthew 11:30 "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Jesus Christ's burden is light because He is carrying the whole load. Have you ever carried a heavy load with another person, but the other person was doing all the carrying, and the burden was so light on your arms? That is how it is with Jesus Christ. He not only carries our burdens, but He carries our whole self. Our job is to be carried by Jesus Christ all the way. This is what it means to believe in Jesus Christ. To believe in Jesus Christ is to throw our whole burden of our weight into His arms, and continue to be carried until He carries us to heaven. This is what faith is. It is to give ourselves away into the His arms, and just letting God carry us as a father carries a baby. It is to throw ourselves unto His shoulders as heavy loads unto His strong shoulders.

Why do some professing Christians give up on Christ? Because they never became converted and became little chilren, that they may throw themselves upon Christ. They never trusted in Christ. They never believed in Christ. They try for a season to do this 'Christian thing' with all their might and all their strength, but they become tired and burdened and sick of it, because they realized not that it is not by strenght, nor by might, but by the Holy Spirit. They never leaned with their whole weight unto Christ. Their trust is in themselves, in their own strength of following Christ. These are those who try to be a believer for a while, but realize that it is too difficult to continuously keep up with the boundaries and the high standards. They are those who burn away after a season, as Jesus described:
Matthew 13: 20-21 "As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, 21yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away"
They receive the word of God at first joyfully, but when trouble comes because of the word, they immediately fall away. They feel like Christianity is a restriction to their life. They try to endure for a while in the name of piety, but further trials reveal that they never believed in the first place. Why is this? They have "no root in themselves". They have no root to uphold them. Their roots have not launched deep into the ground to get the nutrients from the earth. They have no Root to help them, who is Christ. They never trusted in Christ, but their trust was actually in themselves. These were not believers of Christ, but believers of themselves. And they fall away.

Let us pray that we believers may see what our faith is in. Is our faith in our own strength? Is our faith in our own faith? Or is our faith in Jesus Christ? Only completely entrusting of self to Christ like a child is what will save a sinner. WE are the images made in the likeness of God, who are to be carried by Christ. Here what God says: "I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save." He is the one who made us as His images, and He is the one who will bear us. He is the one who will save us. No other God is so alive and powerful to do this. There is nothing we can do for God to help God. He must help us, or we will all be forever lost. It is He who does everything, and the best thing we can ever do as human beings is to trust in Him. Let us pray that we would trust in Him, and not even in our own faith.

Sean Kong

The Missing Gospel

Romans 1:1-4,15-17 (KJV)
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, [2] (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) [3] Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; [4] And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
[15] So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. [16] For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. [17] For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (ESV)
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, [4] that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

The biggest problem, I feel, facing the church is not immorality, lack of zeal, complacence or love of the world - although these are evident problems. The biggest problem is the neglect Gospel of Jesus Christ. The biggest problem is that we are greatly ashamed of this Gospel, though we think that we are not. Christianity has become anything but about this great Gospel, which has power to save anyone who hears and truly believes it. The biggest trick that the Devil has pulled in evangelical Christianity in the modern era is to either dumb down the Gospel or to present the Gospel as though it is not the most important thing of Christianity. Yet this Paul said the Gospel was "of first importance", and he was ready to preach it to even those were saved.

See, the Gospel is not only for the unbelievers, but it is also for the believer who have known the Lord for the longest time. Paul says in the passage above that he is ready to preach the gospel to believers in Rome; why? Because Gospel saves the believers, he says. But they are already saved! you ask. Salvation is not a one-time thing. Belief is not something we Christians do once. We must continue to believe, from the moment we are saved, until the moment we enter into glory. Faith that believes for a season and falls away is not real faith, but a dead and counterfeit faith. We were saved by the Gospel, by believing in it, and we continue to be saved by this great truth and announcement of God, by continuing to believe.

But the Gospel to the modern church has become something you give only to be unbelievers. 'Let's preach the Gospel to the pour lost souls', we say, not realizing that we ourselves need it every day to live. The Gospel becomes some sort of a ritual that a Christian must go through in order to enter into the Kingdom of God, and afterwards Christianity becomes to be about other things: spiritual gifts, moral living, social justice, etc. But nothing could be further than the truth.

Why is the Gospel so important? Why can't we just have Christianity that puts the Gospel as an accessory? Why can't we have a Christianity like that? First of all, as Paul says in Romans 1:2, it is because the entire Bible is about the Gospel. There was no other central topic that transcends ALL the pages of the Bible. Go back to Genesis, and read the chapters about Abraham, how he almost offered his only begotten son, only to be stopped by God who provided him a Lamb instead to be killed. Read how Joseph was sold and betrayed by his own brethren, and became a slave, only that through his suffering he may save his brethren when God exalted him to be king. Or read Exodus and see how the Passover Lamb was slain and its blood was applied to the door posts that by the blood Israel may be saved. Or read when Israel was bitten by serpents for their sins but was saved when they simply looked to the bronze serpent that was lifted up. How about Samson through whose death did more good than while he was living? How about David, through whose psalms he prophesied Christ's life, death and resurrection? The whole scriptures is about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet what is our problem? That we try to find other things in bible and we teach them. Sure, bible is good for moral and wise instruction and is the manual for living our life. But primarily it does not exist for this purpose. Do we want wisdom in how to be good and successful in this life? Go read other books written by clever men, but don't read the bible. What sets the bible apart from other books? It is that the bible is the testimony of what God has done through Jesus Christ in His Son. Read what Jesus said:
John 5:39-40 (ESV)
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, [40] yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
The bible testifies of Jesus Christ, not of man. The bible is about God. But we the Church has chosen to teach from the Bible other things than Jesus Christ and His good news, as if they were of either equal or more significance. It is no wonder there is no faith among the people of God, since faith comes by hearing the word of God, and this word is about Jesus Christ and His gospel. Let us pray that the Church will begin to see the Gospel, Christ and God in the scriptures, and not the things of man.

The second reason why the Gospel is so important is because the Gospel is concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, as Paul says in verse 3. You can't know Jesus Christ without knowing the Gospel. You can't claim to preach Jesus Christ without centrally preaching He did on the cross and the resurrection. If the Gospel is missing from our churches, that means that Jesus Christ Himself is missing from our churches. Jesus Christ's whole being was consumed with fulfilling the promises made by the prophets of the Gospel. Read:
John 12:27 (ESV)
"Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ''Father, save me from this hour''? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.
The main purpose why Jesus Christ came to the earth was to fulfill word of God, which is primarily His Gospel. His whole life's purpose was to die for sinners and rise again on the third day. The Gospel was who He was, and what He thought about during His 33 years of living on this earth. Christ Himself is our Gospel. See how Paul makes no distinction between Christ and the Gospel. Both are one:
2 Corinthians 4:3-5 (KJV)
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: [4] In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. [5] For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
Therefore if the Gospel is neglected in the Church to be a secondary thing, that means that Jesus Christ Himself is neglected as a secondary thing. The Gospel is what defines who Jesus Christ is. The Gospel is what shows who God Himself is. We will not get a better revelation of what God is like, except through what He did for us on the Cross. Let us pray that the Gospel will again be the centre of our churches, so that Christ, and God will be the centre. If the Gospel does not become the central thing of Christianity, what will happen? As Paul says, there will be nothing but the preaching of men. There will be nothing but preaching about great Christians, but not Christ Himself. There will be nothing but preaching of doctrines of men, made by men, made for man. The Church without the Gospel is nothing but a man-centred institution, existing only for the glory of men. Isn't all this what is already happening now? Why? Because the Gospel is hidden in our churches as much as in the world. Let us pray that the Gospel be revealed in the church, so that God may get the glory in it, not man.

But what is this Gospel? What is the main purpose of the Gospel? As it is written in Romans 1:17, the Gospel reveals how sinful man can be righteous before God. How can a man be just before God's eyes? By working hard to be good? By attending church service and reading the bible and singing worship songs? By giving donations to charities and praying every day and avoiding sins? By going to different Christian meetings and serving in all kinds of ministry? No, these things are all great and good, but it does not satisfy God's perfect standard of righteousness. Even the greatest and most noble works of man are tainted with the putrefaction of sin. And even when our works are done with perfectly selfless motives, our good works do not outweigh our bad. We have committed eternal crimes against an eternal God. We have despised and offended our very Source of life, and therefore we must pay the fine in our death. No good work can conceal our wicked works we have already committed. It rather increases God's wrath against us because we, being blind to the sins we committed, think that we can earn a right standing with God. It is like a murderer, who says to the Judge, 'Yeah, I killed the man. But after I killed him I gave money to charity, went and did years of volunteer work, helped many people and even adopted orphans. Therefore I think I have the right to be cleared of my guilt'. The Judge would have none of it, and sentence him to life in jail. God the Holy judge will not hear the cries of sinners, and sentence them all to eternity in Hell.

How can man then be righteous before God? It is by faith. A man who is righteous before God is a man who lives by faith. But faith in what? Faith in God's righteousness revealed through Jesus Christ. It is by trusting in Jesus Christ as one's righteousness. It is by trusting in the works and the merits of the another Man who has perfectly pleased God. The Good News is that the Son of God became a man to fulfill the righteousness of God that no one could fulfill. Christ came to earth and lived a perfect life of obedience to all the commandments of God. There was never found in Him any sin, but His mind was full of doing the will of His Father. He satisfied God's perfect standard of righteousness. His good works were never tainted with self, but were perfectly for the glory of God and for the benefit of people. Though He was God, He hated self glory, but He denied Himself and never accepted the praise of men. His works therefore were the only good works that God has ever accepted from a man. God never had to show mercy or grace to Him, and all the blessings He received were all perfectly deserved.

Jesus also fulfilled God's righteousness by His death. God laid upon Him all the sins of the world, and He decided to die under the law for the punishment of the sins of His chosen people. He died so that whoever trusts in Him would be justified, as though having lived a perfectly pleasing life, and as though having died justly under the wrath of God. This is the great good news for us. And on the cross God vindicated His righteousness for all the times He overlooked the sins of His people in the past, and for all the forgiveness and mercy He will show to His people in the future. God was showing the world through the cross that though He is compassionate, He is righteous, and that death of His own Son was the ONLY way God could be pleased in forgiving sinners. God's wrath and just anger upon the head of His own Son was the only way that God could be satisfied to forgive us. There is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. But it is not the blood of animals or men that satisfied the wrath of God. But God would only accept the blood of His own Son. How can therefore be another way to salvation for man? God has provided the only way that sinful, murderous, immoral, deceitful, hateful and idolatrous and self-worshipping wicked men to be saved. How can anything else then satisfy God's vengeance against our sins, but our faith in His Son who lived and died for us?

This is Gospel of Jesus Christ that is missing from our churches today. The Gospel of today's church makes sin light and therefore God's glory light. Today's Gospel upholds the righteousness of man, over the righteousness of God. We make much of man's works, but make so little of what the Almighty God has done for us. We speak much of what the Gospel can do for us, and not for what it did for God's vindication of righteousness. How can the churches be saved? By believing again in the Gospel, and trusting afresh in the righteousness of God fulfilled on the cross of Jesus Christ. Let us pray that we have a revelation of God's holiness and His hatred for sin. It was because He despised sin so much that He killed His own Son and crushed Him with full force of His wrath. He was not satisfied to kill ten thousand angels for us, but it had to be His only begotten, beloved, all pleasing Son. Let us pray that we have the revelation of this Gospel which has power to save both from condemnation, and from the power of sin.

Sean Kong