There is Hope When Unfaithful

Have you felt good in your belief in God, in Christ and the gospel and then have spurts of doubt and unbelief? Then at times you have sinful thoughts and even act upon them? This is common to most Christians. We all have authentic convictions then at times have doubts and unbelief. Are we lost? Are we then a traitor to our Lord? And thinking, "Am I just playing at this thing called Christianity? It doesn’t really match up to reality after all."

Well, I had these periods also. I was converted from Catholicism while serving overseas in the Marine Corps. I went to Bible college and got a degree in theology. After that I pursued aviation, farming and went through a period of doubting the whole thing, several times. Thank God He brought me back to spiritual sanity. I have documented all this in my book The Obstacle Course.

If you have ever had these thoughts there is hope where I found it — in the life of Abraham. He is considered a hero of faith in Israel and all of Christendom. All of us point to his conversion as the root of theology; "And he (Abraham) believed and God counted his faith unto him as righteousness" (Genesis 14:6). That expresses the foundation of the gospel itself. However, in chapter 16, this same Abraham, now no longer Abram, committed adultery with Hagar which brought forth Ishmael who went on to found the Arab nation and later Islam (the consequences of this has caused havoc and terror throughout the world and even now, Iran threatens to dominate the world because of its hatred for Christ and Christianity). How’s that for a dip into unfaithfulness? Yet, Abraham in chapter 22 had his faith tested as he was called to sacrifice his promised son, Isaac and there he demonstrated great faith, the likes of which very few of us will ever know. In spite of his lapses of belief Abraham is still considered a pillar of faith.

So I with all of my doubts and fears, thanks to God again, I plowed the road back to faithfulness. Why? Because Jesus said, "I know my sheep and no one shall pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:14). If you are born again you love God, and we have this promise: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28). You can be confident in this: "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13) and His mercy endures forever to him He has called according to His purpose.

So Christians, there is hope for our "downs" and for our flashes of unfaithfulness. You may put your hand to the plow and yet be tempted to look back. Don’t do it. It is an ugly mess back there. Just look up to where your Redeemer liveth and He will give us the strength to plow ahead.

Please send comments and questions to coach@chapelfield.org

W.H. (Coach) Spanjer

Solo Christo gloria

Next Friday’s blog: “Trump Shakes Them Up”