Getting Back in the Race: The Cure for Backsliding
As common as it is terrible. As easy to overlook as it is dangerous.
Backsliding is the worst thing that can happen to anyone claiming faith in Jesus.
Learn the diagnosis. Experience the cure.
The Christian life is a race. Through the gospel,God summons us to sustained and persevering effort. He empowers his children by grace—free and undeserved blessing through Christ. But he does not carry them to heaven on flowery beds of ease. Faith is a living, athletic grace. God’s mercy motivates Christians and energizes them to press on and overcome great obstacles. Christ blazed the trail before us. He now calls us to follow Him to the end (Hebrews 12:1–2).
Looking unto Jesus—that is how we persevere. In him is everything we need. But realistically speaking, Christians are not always pressing forward. Sometimes they wander off the narrow path, slip, and injure themselves. To the confused and injured runner, this book says, “God can help you. You can finish this race—and finish it well.” Drawing from the wisdom of the Scriptures and aided by the insights of godly Bible teachers through the centuries, Getting Back in the Race addresses the age-old problem of backsliding.
Backsliding is a season in the life of a professing Christian when his sin grows stronger and his obedience to God declines. The beginning of the book uncovers signs of sliding into a spiritual rut, for this is often more subtle than falling into scandalous sins. The rest of the book shows that there is hope for the backslider. God is so amazing! Even though our backsliding insults him, dishonors him, grieves him, and pushes away his love, still He calls us to return to him. When you grasp hold of God’s methods by faith, you discover that Christ has grasped hold of you. Our spiritual Physician has potent medicines to heal his people from their injuries and get them back on track to finish the race. This book is a wake-up call to careless Christians and an encouragement to all believers to keep running to the Lord.
Top Highlights
“Backsliding from Christ is thus a serious matter. It dishonors God, disregards Christ as Savior, grieves the Spirit, tramples God’s law underfoot, and abuses the gospel. In other words, to backslide means to depart from the Word and the ways of the Lord. Nevertheless, in every age it has been, and remains, a sin as common as it is terrible.” (source)
“Thomas Vincent (1634–1678) warned that God preserves his people through their motives and their efforts to use the means of grace God provides. We must avail ourselves of the grace that God grants us.” (source)
“There’s the key: ‘looking unto Jesus.’ The more we fix our eyes on the glory of the one who died and rose and now sits at God’s right hand, the more we will press on to meet him.” (source)
“God has loved us with an everlasting love, forgiven all our sins, embraced us as his children, and blessed us with every spiritual blessing. To backslide even once merely in thought would be more than sufficient reason, in human reckoning, for God to withdraw his love from us. But the real state of things is worse—much worse. Hosea says we are bent—inclined, directed, habituated—to backsliding, despite the immeasurable depth of God’s love. If left to ourselves, we will continually backslide from the Lord. Is this not as true of you as it is of me?” (source)
“Remember, it’s relatively easy to begin ministry in the church; the challenge is to maintain it—to persevere in zeal for it.’” (source)
Product Details
- Title : Getting Back in the Race: The Cure for Backsliding
- Author: Beeke, Joel R.
- Publisher: Cruciform Press
- Publication Date: 2011
- ISBN: 9781936760374
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