“I knew you in the wilderness, In the land of great drought” (Hosea 13:5)

I know an old man in the faith who came out of an 18-month dry spell when he realized, “I don’t deserve any better”. Eighteen months before, a series of completely unexpected disasters happened to him, and he felt abandoned by God. He had been saved so long, and gotten so used to God’s blessings, he expected God to prevent disasters as long as he did everything he knew God wanted him to do. This mentality was a return to the way he used to think before he was saved. As crazy as it may sound, in his backslidden state, he felt justified in withholding love from God, because he felt God had not fulfilled His side of the agreement. What agreement? There’s no agreement when God saves someone. Salvation is ENTIRELY by grace.

When a saint takes blessings for granted, he can gradually start to think the blessings are normal payment for faithful service to God. The saint can become “shortsighted, even to blindness”, and forget the basis of his relationship with God is ENTIRELY saving grace, or as the Apostle Peter put it, “he has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (2 Peter 1:9).

When bad things happen, a saint can lose faith that God loves him and begin to fear that God will allow more bad things to happen. He can see God as an adversary that must be placated rather than a Father who is joyfully served with faith working through love. His life becomes a drudgery of dead works (Hebrews 6:1) and he wonders, in a moment of clarity, “where’s the love?”

He had to re-learn that God didn’t owe him anything, and God’s blessings are not payment for good works. Once he realized he didn’t deserve any better treatment from God, his conscience allowed him to love God again and return to being thankful for all things (Ephesians 5:20). He repented of “dead works” (Hebrews 6:1), and the blood of Christ, once again, cleansed his conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14).

By the way, this is the Biblical remedy for what modern Christians call “spiritual burnout”.

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