Spiritual Sickness
Just as physical sickness can zap our strength and dim our vitality, sometimes the circumstances of life can tax our spiritual strength and deplete our reservoir of faith.
Just as physical sickness can zap our strength and dim our vitality, sometimes the circumstances of life can tax our spiritual strength and deplete our reservoir of faith.
One potential threat to our spiritual health is our perspective toward prolonged suffering. Life is replete with circumstances that create long-term pain: the diagnosis of an incurable condition or disease; the loss of a loved one; an unfulfilled goal or heart’s desire; unemployment; betrayal; catastrophe.
When suffering persists we naturally ask the question, “What have I done wrong to deserve this? Is God trying to teach me a lesson?” When clear answers fail to emerge, the tendency may be to dig deeper which can lead to erosive doubts: “Does God really love me? Have I pressed Him too far?"
Once “spiritual sickness” takes hold, it has the potential to spread like a cancer, afflicting us with relentless anxieties that shake the core of our faith. The enemy will whisper into our heads: “You’re going to lose your salvation. You don’t have what it takes to hold on to God. If you were really a Christian you wouldn’t even be thinking like this.” Before we realize what’s happened, we find ourselves caught in a web of fear and spiritually paralyzed.
Unhealthy Doctrine, Unhealthy Faith
Part of what causes us to succumb to spiritual sickness is the lack of knowledge or the lack of trust in the basic doctrines of the Bible—particularly the assurance of our salvation. God has chosen us from the foundation of the world and has covenanted to keep us to the end. Prolonged suffering always presents the temptation to doubt this truth.
For the longest time I saw the amount of my suffering as a measuring rod of God's love for me. The more I suffered, the more sinful I must be. The more I suffered, the more God was displeased with me. So when I started undergoing a series of medical problems, and God did not grant the physical healing I had prayed for, I interpreted that as God’s rejection and I became plagued with the fear that I was not saved.
The Road to Spiritual Health
My afflictions brought me to a new place where I had to re-evaluate my deepest beliefs. It all boiled down to one question: Did Christ really die for all my sins—past, present, and future—or didn’t He? Which was it? If the former was true, then I had fallen for a lie.
I finally saw that in setting impossible standards of spirituality for myself, standards I could never attain, I had inadvertently consigned myself to a prison of fear. But God’s word says: “Perfect love drives out fear.” (I John 4:18). Obviously something was wrong with my thinking. If my sin had the power to undo what God had done (regeneration), then my sin had more power than God—and I knew that WAS NOT true.
I finally learned that I could no longer allow my circumstances to define truth. In doing so, I had lost sight of the foundation of the Christian faith: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1).
I like the way Philip Graham Ryken is quoted in the book Assured by Faith by Burk Parsons: “If our salvation depended on us, then we would be about as faithful as the stock market.”
The Faithfulness of God
I finally saw that in setting impossible standards of spirituality for myself, standards I could never attain, I had inadvertently consigned myself to a prison of fear. But God’s word says: “Perfect love drives out fear.” (I John 4:18). Obviously something was wrong with my thinking. If my sin had the power to undo what God had done (regeneration), then my sin had more power than God—and I knew that WAS NOT true.
I finally learned that I could no longer allow my circumstances to define truth. In doing so, I had lost sight of the foundation of the Christian faith: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1).
I like the way Philip Graham Ryken is quoted in the book Assured by Faith by Burk Parsons: “If our salvation depended on us, then we would be about as faithful as the stock market.”
The Faithfulness of God
I found a number of verses confirming the faithfulness of God and began to read them out loud, incorporating them into prayers on a regular basis. In time, the power of God’s living word, the sword, forced the enemy of my mind to retreat.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned so far is that even when we cannot hold on to God, He holds on to us. We do not make it to the end because we have great faith, but we make it to the end because of His great faithfulness! This is the assurance that we have in Jesus Christ. "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. (John 10:29).
"If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. (2 Timothy 2:13).
For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. (John 6:38-39).
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39).
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned so far is that even when we cannot hold on to God, He holds on to us. We do not make it to the end because we have great faith, but we make it to the end because of His great faithfulness! This is the assurance that we have in Jesus Christ. "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. (John 10:29).
"If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. (2 Timothy 2:13).
For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. (John 6:38-39).
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39).
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