Just As You Have Received Christ

Colossians 2:6-7 (NET)
Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him,
rooted and built up in him and firm in your faith just as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Chinenye accepted the Lord Jesus during her first year on campus. She continued to grow in her knowledge of the Lord through the ministry of her campus fellowship while she was on campus.

When she graduated and started her life in the city, she started attending a church that was much more liberal than the fellowship in which she grew. She saw that in that church, the ladies and young men dressed ‘anyhow’, and were quite careless with certain moral boundaries.
Chinenye started gradually condoning and tolerating certain things she wouldn’t condone before.

Three years passed and Chinenye had blended into this new church quite well. One evening in the mall, she bumped into a lady who she had led to the Lord while on campus. This lady was so excited to meet her again because of the way the Lord used Chinenye to save her and deliver her from many demonic entanglements. When Chinenye got home that night, she wept and wept because meeting that lady made her realize how far she had fallen. Here was a lady she led to the Lord years ago, but she knew her current spiritual state was a shadow of what it used to be. She knew she did not have the power to disciple anyone the way she did back then. Her life was now full of compromises and empty platitudes to appease her dying conscience.

When Chinenye got back to her senses and wanted to be restored back to the height from which she had fallen, she called the person who discipled her on campus. After discussing for hours, they found that Chinenye’s backsliding was due to her attending a liberal church full of indisciplined baby Christians pampered by teachers who didn’t have the ability to raise disciples of Christ because of their love for this world. They agreed that Chinenye would have to leave that Church.

I have found that many times, terrible backsliding happens when believers do not continue to live their lives in the Lord the way they received Him(see today’s verse). People get into serious problems when they try to upgrade their faith and become more modern or liberal. They get into serious pitfalls when they try to ‘fix what is not broken’.

Go into today remembering that the best way to continue in the Lord is just as you have received Him. The creed that was strong enough to convert you from a hopeless sinner into a saint can keep you growing in the faith if your focus is The Kingdom. As you grow, you will realize what is essential and non-essential in doctrine. But remember that any Apostolic work that could convert you from being a sinner should never be despised but celebrated.

Prayer: Dear Lord, please deliver me from pitfall on this my walk of faith. Help me continually grow until I see you face to face. Amen.