WHY MANY CHRISTIANS OFTEN RISE AND FALL (A Must Read).


A child of God falling back into sinful habits or lukewarmness is as a result of two major things: Careless and prayerlessness. If a child of God goes back into a particular old sinful nature or become lukewarm and cold again, it is not because he was not saved at the first instance, it is not because he has not been delivered from those sinful habits after he dedicated his life to Jesus, and it is not because Christian life is meant to be a rising and falling thing; It is due to one’s carelessness and prayerlessness.

CARELESSNESS
1Corinthians 10:12, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall”

When you are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ or when you rededicate your life to Jesus to start better, He sets you free from sinful habits and gives you His grace and Spirit, but you need to take heed – that is being watchful, so that you don’t fall back into sin and become lukewarm later. Carelessness comes into Christian life through different means:

(i) Overconfidence: You become overconfident when you, knowing by the Word of God and by the warning of the Holy Spirit that something may lead to sin, but too confident in yourself that you will, "take care of the situation" and that it will not lead you to sin. It is a subtle deception of Satan, and against the Word of God which warns us to always take heed. Staying or moving close to the spot of sin, and being confident that you will not fall into sin is overconfidence of carelessness.

Overconfidence has no backing of God's grace; it simply means you are on your own, because it is against God's warning and word. Many have fallen because of self confidence of "Nothing will happen, I am not a baby Christian." And when something happen it become hard to say something.

(ii) Little Foxes: other forms of carelessness are little foxes. “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.” Song of Solomon 2:15. This is a common carelessness that we all need to daily watch against. They are casual habits but cause lots of destructions, they are simple but they sink several Christian fervent faith. Little foxes in Christian life are Inconsistent Bible reading, over-talking, unbecoming jesting and exaggeration in expression, getting involve in worldly stuffs like worldly dress, makeup, worldly friendship, watching worldly movies, listening to worldly music which cannot edify your soul, reading romantic novels, browsing pornographic websites, looking at nude pictures, thinking or talking about immoral stuffs, using worldly materials, watching worldly TV shows like American Idol, African Idol, Big brother Africa, unwholesome TV Reality shows, dance competition, wrestling, etc. These habits slowly drain spiritual strength, hinder spiritual growth and the flow of the fire of Holy Spirit in one’s life, and then make a Christian spiritually week to resist temptation. Little foxes are hard to trace to one’s spiritual downfall, because they don’t cause the damage immediately, but one thing you can discover is that when you get involve in any of those habits, you feel spiritually light and empty.

PRAYERLESSNESS
1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.”
A prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian, period! You cannot stay long in your new dedicated life in Christ without consistent prayer life; you cannot grow in your Christian life without a growing prayer life, and it is biblically impossible to experience and maintain fervent Christian life without a fervent prayer life.

Prayer and Bible reading/study are the only sources of strength, and why prayer is very important is that it takes prayer to understand and apply the Word of God. It is in your daily prayer you ask for daily grace and strength. A prayerless Christian will be too weak to resist temptation of old sinful life. When the Spirit of God wakes you up at night to pray or moves you at any time to pray even you don’t plan to pray, if you fail to respond immediately, it will only leads to falling. Jesus prayed always and instructed us to pray always. In prayer, we take our spiritual weakness and challenges to God for grace and strength.

That is the reason it is mostly important to maintain daily and consistent personal quiet time, devotion. Satan can’t attack you directly, he has to first attack and distracts you on your daily devotion; when your daily devotion becomes inconsistent, and it will not take long time before you find your back on the ground again.

Ephesians 6:18, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints”

We must be watchful, vigilant and prayerful always!

1 Peter 5:8-11, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. 10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. 11 To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.