It is heartbreaking to watch a believer in Christ drift away from fellowship with the Lord. It\u2019s especially troubling when kind advice is offered, yet there is a refusal to listen.
\nMaybe there is someone here this morning whose light of faith once
\nburned brightly, but now that light is flickering and you\u2019ve grown cold
\ntoward God, other Christians and the church. If that describes your situation, take heart, you can return to the Lord and a life of spiritual joy and victory!
\nThe five marks of a backslidden Christian are:<\/p>\n
1) no interest in Christian fellowship;<\/p>\n
2) no desire to attend church;<\/p>\n
3) no personal or family devotions,<\/p>\n
4) no burden for others, and<\/p>\n
5) no spiritual sensitivity.<\/p>\n
Do any or all of these hit home with you? If so, take the way back today. The first step is to confess your sin to the Lord and ask for His forgiveness. Acknowledge that you\u2019ve been wrong in moving away from Him and confess those specific things that have crept into your life. Why
\ndon\u2019t you do that right now?
\nNow, tell the Lord that you want to live in obedience to Him and
\naccept His forgiveness.
\n1 John 1:9\u2014If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
\nAs you clean out your spiritual closets by confessing sin, you can begin to walk in holiness again. Rekindle your friendships among God\u2019s children, get back to church, pick up your Bible again, and you\u2019ll rediscover that the Christian life is the most wonderful life of all!
\nRemember, God loves you! Though wayward, you are still His child and He wants you to walk in faith and obedience to Him. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Come home to Jesus.
\nBro. Bret<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is heartbreaking to watch a believer in Christ drift away from fellowship with the Lord. It\u2019s especially troubling when kind advice is offered, yet there is a refusal to listen. Maybe there is someone here this morning whose light of faith once burned brightly, but now that light is flickering and you\u2019ve grown cold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunday-bulletin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7z8g1-6K","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemsayers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}