Drifting away from God...

What it means to "fall away" or "drift away" from God used to mean something completely different to me than it does now.  

In the past, you'd be accused of "backsliding" or "falling away" or drifting away from God by a church leader or fellow church member if you "skipped church" enough times (usually once was enough) or were thought to be engaging in any kind of behavior or attitude that someone didn't approve of or that was associated with bad things or sin.

This kind of language was leaned on heavily at times, especially during "worship services" - "You might find yourself feeling further and further away from God and you know, today is the time to turn that around and make things right.  All you need to do is step out in that aisle and come down front and ask God to forgive you, etc."

For one thing, feelings have nothing to do with where you stand with God.  Whether it was out of good motives or bad, people who use(d) that kind of language are being manipulative.  No where in the Bible is there "walking down the aisle" to be able to get forgiveness from God and "make things right".

Maybe someone out there has a different experience, but in my experience 100%, of the time people talked like this about "drifting away" it was something designed to get you "back in church" aka showing up every time the doors were open because it was assumed that was the main thing that makes God happy.

I just do not believe that at all.

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Today, at least in my experience, drifting away is when myself or someone else begins floating back into the direction of thinking they can do some good things or start going to church again or clean up their behavior in some way and that they'll be blessed by God for it and/or have some current bad thing happening to stop happening.

For me, drifting away is drifting away from trusting and depending on God and his grace and mercy. "Getting right with God" is NOT doing a little performance for God which usually ends up being mainly a performance for other believers who have been giving you grief over your not being involved in their church stuff.  

You're already right with God, he makes you that way and keeps you that way.  When someone says you're not right with God, it usually means they want you to stop doing something or start doing something.  Their suggestion *might* actually be a good and helpful thing for you, but to suggest that you're "wrong with God" until you do what they suggest is not anything we see in the New Covenant.

Drifting away is moving away from trusting and depending on what God has done for us in Jesus - 100% free and permanent forgiveness and the gift of his presence/Spirit in our life - and moving toward the idea that I need to do things in order to get, keep, earn, or regain God's love and favor.

The only time it's mentioned in the New Testament that a person has fallen from grace is in Galatians 5:4 where Paul says "You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace."  

His point wasn't that a person wasn't saved anymore, but that they had returned to depending on following a law or religious rule from the motivation of "that's what makes me right with God, not what God did for me through Jesus".

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It's probably the most human thing we can do - we react to a threat of harm with what we think will stop the threat and calm the situation.  Usually we act toward God the way we have learned to act toward people.  IF someone is mad at us or has expressed displeasure in some way, we sometimes learn to react quickly with behaviors designed to quench their anger and get them to calm down.

God's message to us through the New Covenant is not like that.  That's Old Testament kinds of stuff and the under the New Covenant, we have actual good news, not just a continuation of the Old.

If you want to read more about it all, spend a little time in Galatians, Colossians, and Hebrews and read it from the point of view of the writers trying to get the believers to step away from continuing in "earning" their right place with God through their religious behaviors/following the Old Law.

When the writer of Hebrews talks about people who keep on sinning having NO more forgiveness available to them, but instead the fear of certain judgment, they are talking about the weird place the Hebrews were standing in trying to sit on the fence between grace and law.

You're already completely and permanently forgiven.  Accept it and move on.  

If you keep going back to the temple, church, religious people to get forgiveness for what's already been forgiven - well, there's no more forgiveness available - Jesus died for it all one time and it's a done deal.  

If you want to live thinking that you have to keep on getting forgiven, you'll just live under condemnation and fear because there's no way to ever have peace under that way of being.

It is for freedom you have been set free.  Be free and don't be subjected to religious slavery.

You'll be fine.

Grace and peace.

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