Have you ever met anyone who has shipwrecked their faith?

You've likely heard of the "exvangelical" movement. These people grew up in evangelical churches but have since "de-identified" from evangelicalism. They've walked away from their faith.

According to a Religion in Public blog, between four and five percent of the American population can be classified as exvangelical. Personally, I’m weary of reading their stories. What’s behind this trend?

https://religioninpublic.blog/2021/03/01/exvangelicals-a-note-on-size-and-sources/

Actually, it’s nothing new. Paul saw it coming in his day, which is why he wrote in 1 Timothy 1:18,19, “This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.”

For many, the greatest danger in shipwrecking our faith is the presumption that it’s inconceivable. “Not me,” we insist.

But a shipwreck is possible for every one of us! Not just possible, it's probable! Consider: if you are floating in a boat, you are surrounded by that which could kill you! The same is true spiritually.

• The world wants to shipwreck your faith.
• The flesh wants to shipwreck your faith.
• The devil wants to shipwreck your faith.

With all that opposition, how do we avoid a personal spiritual shipwreck? Paul offers three keys in his instructions to Timothy—and us.

Key #1: Prepare to fight (verse 18). We're not called to "love the good rest" but to "fight the good fight." Avoiding shipwreck is a struggle for which we must prepare.

Key #2: “Keep the faith” (verse 19). When circumstances turn hard and answers are few, we don’t chuck our faith. We keep it. We keep holding on to Christ.

Key #3: "Keep a good conscience" (verse 19). We don't violate what we know to be true about Christ and His Word. We stay with the stuff.

Consider: No one ever drifts toward the Lord. We drift away from Him. Shipwreck is not merely possible. It’s probable!

If only there were a warning sign. Or maybe, this is it!

Photo by GEORGE DESIPRIS: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-and-black-sunken-ship-2056194/

It happened at Hogansville.

I refer to the Georgia town 60 miles southwest of Atlanta. From a glance out the window, there isn't much going on in Hogansville, population 3,267. Unless, of course, you're into hummingbirds. Here, Hogansville shines. Since 1998, they have faithfully hosted an annual Hummingbird event, billed as "Midwest Georgia's Favorite Fall Festival."

But it was a sign on a tree—not a bird at a fair— that caught my eye on Interstate 85 as we rolled past the outskirts of Hogansville. The letters popped out in fire engine red on a day-glow yellow diamond shape. There were just three words on that sign nailed to the trunk: "Save Me Jesus."

Not sure it was by design, but I found a certain irony in the wording of that sign. To save us is precisely why Jesus was nailed to a tree.

1 Peter 2:24 declares of Jesus, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree (cross), that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

"Save me, Jesus." Have you prayed that prayer? Have you asked Jesus to rescue you from the self-centered (sinful) lifestyle we all fall into? Have you asked Him to take charge of you—to be your Savior—and to help you turn away from your me-monster lifestyle?

If you haven’t, if all you have is a vague sense of religiosity with a dash of Jesus thrown in—this is your moment, and this is your prayer.

Consider it—your sign.

He was born in a broken neighborhood in East Los Angeles. When his parents divorced, his heart and home were broken. Statistically speaking, Frank would likely never amount to anything but trouble.

Yet God had his hand on Frank. After graduating from a Christian university, Frank sensed a call to evangelism and scheduled a series of meetings in the summer of 1961.

Yolanda remembers. She was 15, babysitting at the home of a liberal mainline pastor’s family. “I honestly don’t think he was saved,” Yolanda recalls.

But Yolanda was spiritually hungry and wanted to study the Bible. When she mentioned that to the pastor, he handed her a flyer advertising a week of evangelistic meetings at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles.

The pastor offered to drive Yolanda and her friends to the school. She smiles, recalling, “It ended up that we had nearly 25 kids and it took several vehicles.”

Speaking that night was a young trumpet-playing evangelist named Frank Gonzales. His music was bright, his message was clear: apart from Christ, there is no hope for salvation.

That very night, Yolanda received Christ, as did ten of her friends. As for Frank Gonzales, he went on to share Christ with people all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala.

But the remarkable thing about Frank was that he didn’t do this ministry alone. He assembled teams of college-aged kids (like Yolanda) to travel with him and sing and share in week-long outreaches that included sports, door-to-door witnessing, and evening concerts and preaching.

Notably, many of the team members Frank took only be described as broken. They came from troubled families, were former drug addicts, or had social issues. Frank loved them and discipled them all.

Team members attended class every morning. My wife Diana, who traveled with the ministry for three years, recalls. "We were taught theology, Scripture memorization, and personal evangelism. Frank was absolutely committed to our growth."

By the time Frank died in 1994, he had discipled more than 4,000 young people, and many thousands more were saved at churches and other meetings where he spoke and played.

The world said that Frank would never amount to anything. But God whispered otherwise.

Maybe you feel broken at this very moment. Broken emotionally, relationally—maybe spiritually. You might have a broken past, a broken track record. And every voice you hear seems to say, “You’ll never amount to anything.”

But God whispers otherwise. Search the Scriptures and you’ll discover the undeniable: Christ loves to use broken people.

Just ask the thousands of people touched for eternity by the broken boy from the broken neighborhood in East Los Angeles.

Six-year-old Emma possesses a charming urge to give gifts. As a nature lover, her gifts are often like the one she presented me last week: a leaf.

But leaves don’t last, and that’s a hard lesson for little ones to learn. I suspect it’s a reality most of us adults struggle with, as well. Whether we’re blessed with little—or a lot—we want the good stuff to last forever. But…

• Leaves don’t last forever.
• Flowers don’t last forever.
• Looks don’t last forever.
• Dream jobs don’t last forever.
• Health doesn’t last forever.
• Houses don’t last forever. 
• Spouses don’t last forever—not in the earthly sense.

These are all wonderful gifts. But we love them too much when we love them more than God and insist they never go away.

We seek a “forever” quality in our gifts, but will find it only in the Giver. Consider, we are pilgrims passing through, not hoarders hanging on.

Our misshapen hearts, deformed by the fall, seek fulfillment in stuff that doesn’t last, rather than a Savior that never leaves. And the whispered refrain of our Heavenly Father is to love the Giver more than the gifts.

You want forever?

• Heaven is forever.
• Christ is forever.
• Souls are forever.
• The Word of God is forever.

Let’s learn to long for these—and not lesser gifts. 

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!   

–2 Corinthians 9:15

It was barely six o’clock in the morning, but the sun was so high—and the humidity with it—sunglasses seemed to beg for their own wiper blades.

Humid or not, Jack launched into his Scripture memory work. In his hand, he held a laminated card featuring the text of Psalm 27. He was working on verse eight:

When you said, "Seek my face," my heart said to you, "I shall seek your face, Lord.

Again and again, Jack worked that phrase over as he hoofed his way toward the office: “I shall seek your face, Lord. I shall seek your face, Lord.” And then a distraction seized his view—a very young, very trim jogger lady whose too-few clothes were too tight.

Jack said, “Immediately, this verse seemed to shout at me: “When you said ‘Seek my face,’ my heart said to you, ‘I shall seek your face, Lord.’”

Rather than linger or leer, Jack turned away and quoted the verse—out loud. And he did so again and again until the jogger had passed. Looking back on that moment, he quipped, "Ya know, it’s hard to quote Scripture and gawk at a jogger.” 

He's got a point! But not just ANY point. Jack was using the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God! It's for moments exactly like this that God has given us the Scriptures.

Ephesians 6:17 urges, "And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." We would not need a helmet or a sword if there were no battle. But fight we must because the war is on.

While it’s nice to celebrate Jack’s win, one victory is hardly the end of the conflict. Jack will surely need to reach for his Sword again. And so will you and I.

I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

Psalm 119:11

Photo by Ricardo Cruz on Unsplash