A “just incase” faith

I am a follower of Christ Jesus. But it hasn’t always been like that. I grew up in the church, familiar with all the customs and doctrines of Christianity. Nonetheless, I officially accepted Jesus into my heart when I was say 13 years old. And it’s been a bit of a roller-coaster since then. I’ve only identified why as of recent. When I first gave my life to Christ, I took it very seriously and I really did fall in love with Him. I was excited about the unconditional love of God and I was in awe of it, I even used to have a pretty Christ-centered blog. The link to that is in the banner at the top of this one (http://okaysophie.blogspot.com/). But even after that, I still fell. And I fell pretty hard to be honest. Recently, the Holy Spirit revealed to me why this was, and I feel like this may help somebody who may be in the same boat. So here goes.

I had a “just incase” type of faith. What is a “just incase” faith you may ask? It’s a faith where you believe in God, and you do want to live for Him, and you are excited about the things of God, but you hold onto some things “just incase”. You hold onto the things you have always known to make you happy. You hold on to things that you have been used to your whole life, to the habits, environments, objects, people, music etc. You do this “just incase” your journey with God doesn’t work out. You do it “just incase” you end up backsliding. You do it “just incase” you end up slipping up and have no choice but to return to your vomit. You do it because you don’t trust God.

When I got this revelation, I was really shocked. Why? Because it was true. I had this faith where I convinced myself in my mind that I trusted God and his ability to make me a new person, but my actions proved that I thought otherwise. My actions showed that I did not believe God was able to change me. I just thought that I could never really change, I was too deep and would almost always inevitably go back to what I knew. (Unknown to me, this was because my faith was in my own ability, rather than in God’s). It comes from a place of fear. You’re afraid of the thought of becoming a new person, despite the fact that this is absolutely necessary if you belong to Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). You’re afraid because you have lived in the safe territory of your own comfort zone your whole life. You have spent all these years building yourself up to who you are now, so to suddenly let all of that go is terrifying. Especially because you cannot 100% know the result of doing this when you first decide to. But we walk by faith and not by sight. We live by believing and not by seeing.

God asks us for a “risk it all” type of faith, not a “just incase” one. Jesus says in Luke 14:33 that “You cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own”. He wasn’t joking at all when he said this. When we follow the story of how Jesus called his disciples, we are frequently told that they “left all and followed him”. This can be found in Matthew 4:20, Matthew 4:22, Mark 1:18, Mark 1:20, Luke 5:11, Luke 5:28. The reason he asks for this “risk it all” faith is because he wants our COMPLETE trust, not 70% of it. Not even 99% of it. Complete trust. Because what you put your trust in is what you love. And God asks us to love him with a complete love, more than we love everything and anything in this life (Luke 14:26). Many of us have been so deceived by the devil into thinking that loving God is boring or restrains us, and this is so far from the truth (John 8:44). Only when we truly and fully love God (a love that is evident through actions, 1 John 3:18), do we truly experience freedom. Why? Because it is literally what we were created to do. We were created in the image of God, and to be like God (Genesis 1:26). God is love (1 John 4:8). We were thus created to be beings that love. And only when we love God can we truly love others, because he gives us his heart of unfailing love (Romans 5:5).

Okay. That was a lot of scripture. But the point is this. The main characteristic of love is giving. When you love someone, you always give. Whether that be your time, gifts, money, trust, something. Where there is love, there is always giving. And we see the prime example of that in God GIVING Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins (John 3:16), so that we could be friends with Him again. As a result, when we want to love God or show him that we love him, we must give. But we must give everything, because He gave everything (He literally gave himself). The reason why you may not fully love God is because you haven’t given everything. This was me. I thought I loved God, but I clearly didn’t. Because I was still holding onto a lot of things, even threads if I had to. But it was only when I decided to trust and let go that I truly experienced freedom. God wants you to experience this same freedom too, but it is costly.

So my “just incase” kind of faith manifested in a variety of ways. It manifested through going to the same ungodly places, but telling myself I wouldn’t do anything ungodly there (which rarely worked out). It manifested through trying to listen to more gospel music, but keeping my secular playlists on clutch (and listening to them far more). It manifested through engaging in certain conversations that did not glorify God, but not laughing at the jokes that were “too bad” or saying anything “too inappropriate”. All of these were evident signs that I was still holding onto my old life, just incase my relationship with God didn’t work out. And this doesn’t please God at all.

In Luke 5:37-39 Jesus says “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”

This verse relates heavily to what is being said right now. A wineskin back in the day was an animal skin sewn up and used to store wine. It essentially played the role of a bottle/container. Now what Jesus is saying here is this. Nobody adds new wine to a container that already contains old wine. If they did, the container would burst from the pressure of having too much volume in an enclosed space. Doing this would ruin the container and both the mixture of old and new wine would pour everywhere in a mess. But no, instead, people put new wine into new containers. Kapeesh? Now here’s the breakdown of what that means for us. This ‘new wine’ Jesus is referring to is your new lifestyle when you accept Christ, and the ‘old wine’ is your old lifestyle. If you try to just add this new lifestyle on top of the way you are already living because you are not ready to give up your old way of living, you will be a mess. In fact, it would have been better for you to not have added the new lifestyle at all than to try and mix it. Instead, what should be done is a doing-away with of your old life and an acceptance that you are now a new creation. It should be a new way of living PERIOD, not some sort of weird concoction. But Jesus adds at the end that noone that drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. They are comfortable just the way they are. And that’s how some of us are. We get so used to our way of living, even with its problems and pain and sorrow, that when an offer for a new, more fulfilling, more wholesome kind of life comes along, we say no. We deceive ourselves and say “the way I am living is just fine”. We refuse the opportunity for something better. How sad.

If you want to grow in Christ, you have to let go. It’s not an option, it’s a must. If not, you are not a true disciple of his. Simple. God had to really pattern me about this, because I was very stubborn to let go of my attachments to the things I loved. I was scared that he wouldn’t be able to give me the same joy that those things gave me. And guess what? I was right in that. He isn’t able to give me the same joy. He has instead given me so much more. I was very reluctant to let go of my old way of life, with the partying, gossiping, drinking, music, sexual immorality, ‘living for myself’ type attitude.. But God said it’s a must. And now that I have decided to walk away from all of those things, I feel so free and so full of joy. But it only comes when we decide to put our total trust in God. And believe me, He is worth putting all your trust in. Please remember this. You are only a fragment of this entire universe, and He created every single bit of it. He knows the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end. He is eternal. He is the “I Am”. He created the very concepts of joy, peace, happiness, love, humour, so why wouldn’t he be able to give you all those things and more? Jesus says in John 10:10 that he has come so that we may have life and have it ABUNDANTLY. Meaning he has come so that we can literally live our best lives (but not society’s definition of living your best life pls).

If you can identify with what I’m saying here, I pray that you just take the risk. Go before God in prayer and honesty and ask him to give you the strength to drop everything for Him. Then be intentional about it. Don’t just pray and say “well I’ve prayed so it’s up to Him now”. Faith without action is dead. As you have prayed, start to evaluate the things you need to give up i.e. the things that you know are not pleasing to God. And start seeing the ways you can begin to do this. If you don’t even have the desire to give things up, pray that he gives you that desire. Remember that he is the one who provides us with the desire to obey Him, not ourselves.

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” (Philippians 2:13)

Remember that so long as you have a “just incase” type of faith, you will always fall back into your old habits. You need to reduce the chances of this happening as much as possible by letting things go. Remember that this journey is not meant to be easy. Christ says that we must take up our cross and follow after him. But the reward received both in this life and the life to come far outweighs everything (Luke 18:29-30). Also remember this. There is no point giving up everything and not replacing it with something else. You would then just be an empty place, and will inevitably go back to what you know. Instead refill refill refill. Fill yourself with the Word of God. Make Psalms 119 your life. Pray that God makes it your life. Replace ungodly music with music that glorifies God, replace ungodly conversations by befriending people who are trying to get to the same place as you, replace fear with love, find new fun places to go to that don’t glorify sin. Ask God to help you in this replacement process. He will. He helped me!

And lastly, if you don’t know what I am talking about at all here or are confused as to many terms I used or on just what the big deal with this Jesus guy actually is, PLEASE feel free to message me. I urge you to dm me asking me to elaborate. It’s not weird or awkward. I am more than glad to explain. No I won’t be trying to convert you, that’s not my job anyways, but the Holy Spirit’s if he wills it. If you just want to have more knowledge on what this God thing is all about, no matter who you are – friend of mine or not – please message me on Instagram or any other way you wish. I would love everybody to know the truth that I know. Because this truth set me free, and it can do the same to you if you open your heart to it.

Anyways. Have a lovely day and do meditate on what you’ve read here. God bless guys.