Losing Face With God

Life’s Like This — All too often in our Christian walk, we lose sight of what it means to be in Christ. I am not speaking of the stumbles in life that are part of the Christian journey all of us are certain to encounter, but rather the blatant and willful acts of sin that can cause us to lose face, not only with ourselves, but with God. In China, as in other cultures, losing face can mean that one has lost his dignity, social standing, honor, and trustworthiness with someone that may have once held them in high esteem. In a spiritual sense, when we engage in blatant and willful sins, sins that we know go against God’s Word, we can find ourselves in a quagmire of self-deception where we think that there is nothing we can do that can cause us to lose face with God. But when we adopt that mindset, when we let ourselves get caught up in blatant sins, we can then become so enamored by those sins that we find it extremely difficult to abandon them. It’s not that we don’t know right from wrong, but rather that we choose to engage in willful disobedience to the laws of God and His purpose and direction for our lives. Freeing ourselves from the clutches of sin — finding the will, the courage, and the moral fortitude to break the hold of sin over our lives then becomes a spiritual struggle that we sometimes feel we must do on our own because we think we have lost face with God.

Rising Above Our Sin

Life’s Like This — Someone that has truly stood face to face with God in their heart and their spirit, will find it very hard, very nearly impossible, to turn back from that revelation of Him in their life. They may suffer setbacks; they will fail in certain areas of their life; different things can creep in and dilute life at times, and their may be certain times of wavering. But if you look back over a long span of time, you’ll find them always progressing. Somewhere in their heart and in their life they are growing and they are even learning from their failures. I remember as a child, about the age of eight, that I first came to know about Jesus. I did not have an epiphany, as some people do, but through Sunday School lessons, and my mother’s faith, I came to know Christ and the gift of salvation that He gave, not only to me, but to all of mankind. It was a gift that I had accepted by asking Jesus to come into my heart, to forgive my sins, and to help me live my life for Him. But if truth be told, I did not fully understand and appreciate, at that young age, the magnitude of suffering that Christ paid on the cross for my sins. I did not, at that age, even comprehend the significance of sin in my life and the hold it will have on my behavior and the consequences that would follow me all through my life as a result of living a life riddled with sin.

Sharing Our Faith

Life’s Like This — In an ideal environment, all our relationships would draw us closer to the Lord. However, we live in a fallen world with sinful people. God wants us to influence those who aren’t walking obediently with Him, but unless we’re careful, we could easily end up following them. Being a faithful Christian is a challenge for even the most devoted man or woman of God. But for those of us that are weak in our faith, who lack the spiritual countenance to weather the storms of life, our faith and witness to others can be sorely tested and we can easily find ourselves following the footsteps of those that have not yet come to know Christ. As much as we may want to reflect Christ-like behavior and attitudes toward others, unless we take on the armor of God to shield us from the sinfulness of the world, we will fail in our Christian walk and our ability to influence those that God calls us to lead to Him.