Can you lose your faith?

Mark 4:1 - 20


For centuries theologians have argued this point. Smarter people than I am have wrestled over this point. Some believe once you decide to be a follower of Jesus, regardless of the way you keep your faith you will enter into heaven. The other extreme is that you may come to Jesus but every time you fail you break connection to Jesus and are in danger of spending eternity in Hell. Personally I do not believe that either of these extremes are proven in the Bible.

In this story, Jesus tells the story of the farmer (sower) spreading what is ultimately God’s knowledge that leads to more of God’s love and relationship. In the story some of this love is taken before any decision can be made, others takes root in people’s lives and then is choked out because of some level of persecution. Family pressure, people at work any thing like this could cause people to feel that a decision to follow Jesus was a foolish one. There is a cost to be a true believer in Jesus, laying down your life or desires and your purpose and picking up His life, desires, and purpose. When people really desire to follow Jesus it can some times cost them relationships. If the relationships with people are more important than a relationship with God it is easy for the “seed” to die. A similar thing happens when others decide to be a Jesus follower but then develop a selfish heart and get caught up in what they want rather than what God wants and their “seed” dies.

The “seed” really represents faith in God to become a true Jesus follower. Christianity was not meant to be a religion in the sense that we call religion today. Instead Christianity is all about relationship. In any relationship you will hit bumps and rough spots, it is with each of these that we make choices to continue to follow Jesus or begin to walk away. Like the rocky soil or the thorns it is not a quick, “you’re dead” it takes time for a plant of rocky soil to wither and die and time for thorns and weeds to choke out a plant. At any point down the road you can say, “Yes” to Jesus again and gain your strength.

Can you lose faith? I believe you can. It is much harder than you think. God loves us so much, that He continues to give us opportunities to turn back to Him. He wants us to walk with Him and at every bump he is drawing us back to Him, leaving to the choice to us whether we will follow Him or not.

What choices are you making today? Failure on the first bump is not necessarily going to make you break relationship but not dealing with it will open you to compromise in other areas which may make you walk away? Deal treacherously with sin in your life, keep your relationship solid with God.