05 Jul When Christian Leaders No Longer Believe In God. Christian Singer Jonathan Steingard falls away from God.

The lead singer of the Christian music band “Hawk Nelson” says he doesn’t believe in God anymore. Many public figures in the last 5 years have come forward to denounce their faith in spectacular fashion. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. It is met by thunderous applause by many.

It is met with silence by those who belong to the Faith mostly. I have not walked in the shoes of any of these people. I cannot attest to their experiences, their struggles, their circumstances, their doubts, or their heart. The Bible brings each individual believer at a crossroads several times throughout the scriptures.

It can start as early as the book of Genesis, when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. That has caused many to question the righteousness of God. Though God did not allow Abraham to slay Isaac, the thought of him testing Abraham to see if he loves him more than his own flesh and blood, is too much for many to bear.

Then there’s the scripture of the prophet Elisha (2 Kings: 23-24) coming out of the woods with a shaved head. And a group of little boys began antagonizing him over his bald head. God sent a bear out of the woods to maul the small boys. 42 of them! This story brought us to yet another crossroads.

How can this act be justified as righteous? If children are innocent, how can God send a bear to maul the innocent? Where is the sense in that? This story is too much for many people to bear.

The story of Job, which in my opinion is the most sorrowful story in the book excluding the life of Christ, was a depressing read.

Yet another cross road for us to decide whether we are going to continue on this journey, or stop right there. It’s like God is purposely giving us reasons to doubt him. To question him.

Let’s keep going a little further. Joseph who is innocent, is sold into slavery. Whatever our view of God is, the Bible sends it into turmoil. We view God as an ever-loving being that abhors all that is wrong and evil, and only promotes what is good and right. It is not that God is wrong, but our view of him is almost always wrong.

God does not just do good things, allow good things, and promote good things only. If this was the case, there would be no hell. There is a hell, and people and falling spirits are going there.

As we get more familiar with the Bible, we constantly come to points in the scripture that can cause us to question, turn back, or continue to move forward. When we experience certain things in our lives, it can cause us to question if God is there, and if so, where is he in the midst of my circumstances.

Joseph never lost faith, though he suffered many things. Why do some suffer harshly and keep going, while others suffer harshly and fall away? Our life circumstances always presents to us a choice.

Our lives are made up of several choices throughout the day, the week, the year. From one moment to the next we are making decisions. When we come to a crossroads, we must make a decision. I’ve made decisions in my personal life when doubt was lingering in both directions.

When both choices presented unknown outcomes. God is great at telling you the destination, but he is terrible at telling you about all the stops on your way there. Is it because he’s a terrible story teller? No. He’s actually a great story teller, especially of parables. So there must be another reason why he is so frugal with the details.

My daughter never asks me about the details. Not really. If I say we’re going to the park on Saturday, she never asks me about what we’re going to eat before we go there. She doesn’t ask me what is she going to wear; Or how is she going to wear her hair; Or what the weather is going to be like; Or who else is going to be at the park.

She just believes me when I tell her we’re going and that’s enough to get her excited.  When God tells us where we’re going, I think we want to be excited about it, but I think we also want to know how he’s going to get us there.

Why are these things so important to us? They seem to be more important than the outcome itself. How will he do it? Why is this important for me to know?  Because, if I don’t know how God is going to do it, then I can’t prepare myself for when he does it.. If I know how he’s going to do it, then I can prepare for it.  Because we don’t like surprises.

Being prepared gives us a sense of security. It gives us a false sense of control, because the truth is, you can never prepare enough to prevent the things that are out of your control. It is really a false sense of security.

I long for the day I can trust God blindly, as my daughter trusts me, and get back the years of my life I lost worrying about every detail of how my life is going to end up.  I’m guilty of not trusting God every step of the way.  I’m guilty of prodding God for details instead of just trusting him. I wanna know his ways and I wanna know his plans to the letter.

Why am I bringing up the matter of trust so much in this message? Because trusting God when you understand is one thing, trusting God when you don’t understand, is a different level of trust entirely. My daughter is 5 years old. She trusts me. I’m her Father.

Even if I was to try and explain to her all the things I do for her benefit, she would not understand. She understands Daddy and Mommy needs to work. She understands money comes from a job, but she has no idea what the real purpose of money is. She thinks it’s supposed to buy toys and snacks. God bless her heart.

I think one of the biggest problems we have as adults is becoming knowledgeable. God has a hard time working with those who are highly academic. He always has. The more knowledgeable a person becomes, the more they believe they are capable of understanding. But knowledge is one thing, understanding is something different entirely.

I can read every book written on the sport of Basketball.  I can become a scholar on the topic.  I can study all the statistical data, all the historical numbers, and become really astute about the sport of Basketball. But my understanding of what it’s like to be an NBA player, would not have increased one bit.

All my academic knowledge would not have done a thing to improve my understanding. But we constantly and consistently mistake knowledge with understanding. You cannot understand anything you have not yourself experienced. All you can do is hope to empathize.

There are things about God we will never be able to understand. He does not want us to understand some things about him. In order for us to understand him in every way, we would have to be like him and experience what it is to be him. He has withheld that part of him from his children. The way we withhold things from our children.

I have found that when people publicly walk away from God and announce it on social media such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc; they have come to a place in their life, where the failure to understand a series of circumstances or events, has become more important to them, then to trust. This is a crossroads.

You will not understand God’s ways. Ever. No matter how much you read, how much you pray, how much you preach, or how much you fast. God does not share all of himself with us. There are some things he keeps private. We keep things from God also. Come on now.

We don’t share everything with God. There are some things we keep to ourselves and with our Spouses. I cannot wrap my mind around the concept of eternity. I’ve given up trying. Everything has a beginning and an ending. That’s what I understand. I cannot grasp the concept of a never-ending day.

But God has never seen a next day. He created Adam and Eve today. Cain slew Abel today. He freed the Israelites from Egypt today. He sent Jesus to be crucified today. The Apostles went forth and spread the Gospel today. Everything with God is today, which is why the scriptures commands us to move today, not next week.

Who will be here next week? Only God knows, we are not called for righteousness next week, we are called to righteousness today. In Ephesians 5:15-16 Paul says “See then that you walk ^[e]circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, ¹⁶ redeeming the time, because the days are evil”. Our days are filled with mindless activity.

The Bible speaks against this abruptly. We are the best at wasting minutes and the worst at seizing the moment. We are extremely cavalier with our time. Ephesians says we are to walk circumspectly, meaning we are to walk cautiously and carefully when going about our day-to-day activities because the days are evil!

The days are filled with mindless activity and distraction. We are to be purposeful because God is purposeful. Binge watching Netflix is not walking cautiously, carefully, or wisely. I am guilty of not always walking circumspectly.

We do not know what God has planned from one moment to the next, so we must be in position when God is ready to make a move in us, through us, or for us. I am thoroughly convinced, that we miss out on Gods best when we are not walking circumspectly in our day-to-day lives. I find this to be the biggest of hurdles when it comes to today’s Christians.

Smartphones have become one of the greatest and dangerous inventions of our generation. We have God and the World at our fingertips, and the World is winning that battle with most of us. We must be critical with our time. It is precious. Trust me. Jesus only had 33 years, and he maximized all of it.

This is why he said in John 14:12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father”. Jesus did not say this because we would be greater then he, he said this because most of us would have more time then he.

Eighty years of a Man or Woman walking with God can yield as much as a harvest, or as little as a picnic basket. It can even yield lest then that if you are not wise with your time. People who fall away from God, fit into one of the 3 parables Jesus speaks about in the Book of Mark, concerning the sower.

The Bible said a sower went out to sow some seed. Some fell by the wayside; some fell on stony ground, some fell amongst thorns and the thorns grew tall and choked the seed. I did two-parts of a Four Part series on meaning of the different parables. Please read it if you didn’t already. I really go into detail about it, and it relates to this.

I don’t bombard you with repeated messages that were addressed in previous lessons. Reading those two lessons, will give you a complete understanding of why people fall away from God especially in the last days.

Satan never sleeps. He always coming up with the next plan on how he can stop you. Distract you. Trap you. Dissuade you. Exhaust you. Discourage you. Entice you. Frustrate you. Provoke you. Judge you. Ridicule you. Make you question the things about God that God does not share with you.

My daughter will never stop trusting me as long as she stays a little child. Once she grows up, somethings going to happen. She’s going to start becoming aware of things. She’s going to start analyzing what I say, scrutinizing what I say, and maybe even challenging what I say.

It won’t because I got stupid, it will be because she has become aware. The scales of innocence that children wear when their small, falls off as they age, and they start to become aware. Until they become a fully functioning adult. Where they can think for themselves, make decisions for themselves, and they will come to their own cross roads.

They will either question God, or they will trust God. Those who fell away have stop trusting God. I’m not judging them. Who am I to judge. They may come back. I pray they come back. Some will. Most won’t. It’s hard to reconcile what you don’t understand.

Jesus said to his disciples in John 18:20 “I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews always meet, and in secret I have said nothing”. Jesus has shared everything with us, except the things that make him God. We cannot be Omniscient. We cannot be Omnipresent. We cannot be Omnipotent. He shares some of his Omnipotence with us, but it will never be in full measure.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven”, Matthew 7:21. The will of God begins and ends in the heart. When you step into a position of leadership, whether you are called or if you do it of your own accord, you will be judged considerably harsher than those who follow you.

My heart goes out to anyone who falls away from Christ who was in a position of leadership. NOt only are they lost, but they also cause others to fall away. It is not their salvation only that is lost, but the salvation of many who looked to them for faith, instead of looking to Christ only.

And this is Satan’s design. To set those up in high places, so they can fall to mislead many. Stay vigilante, diligent, and walk circumspectly, and be wise enough to know that what you know is only what God has revealed to you, and what you don’t know is what he has not.

As always be safe.  Love somebody.  Tell someone you love them.  You never know what a person is going through on the inside.  Behind the fake smile.  There can be some tears right behind that smile that they don’t want you to see.  

Take the time to call somebody just to tell them you love them.  No other reason then to let them know how much you love them and care about them.  And I love you!  Were Family, I should be able to say that because of what Jesus did.  

He said we would not be ashamed.  In the end we will all shine like gold.  We should never be ashamed to use his name.  To say his name.  To praise his name.  To speak his name.  To love somebody in his name.  To feed somebody in his name.  To hug somebody in his name.  To stand up for somebody in his name.

Were carriers of the truth, and the truth is his name!  If you feel about Jesus the way he feels about you, then give him praise right now and shout Hallelujah so everyone in your house can hear it.  So your neighbors can hear it.  Let your whole house be filled with his presence.  

Thank you for your support.  It is encouraging.  Leave any questions or comments, prayer requests  you may have.  God Bless you.