Drifting From Your Faith?

September 26th, 2025
by Lance Waldie

Hebrews 2:1 We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.

Jesus made it very clear that those who come to Him in faith will never be cast out (John 6:37, 39). Christ’s sheep (those who trust in Him) hear His voice, and no one will snatch them out of His hands (John 10:28). They are secure in their faith with the full assurance that they belong to Him. Clearly, believers are promised eternal life through faith in Christ (1 John 2:25).

Now it is possible to claim faith in Christ yet not have saving faith. Sadly, wrong versions of Jesus are preached all over the world. Many receive a pseudo-Christ and go away calling themselves Christians. But without true saving faith in the true Christ of Scripture, these pseudo-believers will fall away. Typically, it happens when the trials of life become too much to handle, when persecution cramps one’s style. It is then that the pseudo-Christ that these pseudo-believers trusted in is exposed for what he is: a false Christ, a wrong version of Jesus. The Apostle John warned of such apostates (those who “fall away”). He wrote, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).

Jesus spoke of such people in His parables. First, He warned of those who hear the gospel and respond positively, seemingly receiving Christ with great joy (Mark 4:1-20). But Jesus made it clear that not all who receive Him are true in their faith, for they drift away and end up shipwrecking their faith. Second, Jesus warned of those in the church who look like and act like Christians but who are actually sons of the devil (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43). Although they are virtually indistinguishable from God’s true children, they will be exposed and judged in the end.

The author of Hebrews was primarily concerned with those who claimed to know and love Jesus but who were teetering on abandoning Him and reverting back to the legalistic lifestyle in their former way of life in Judaism. In Hebrews 6:7-8 the writer says, “For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.” His point is that false believers are exposed for who they truly are through a lack of growth, a lack of maturity in Christ. Now this can certainly occur all at once through someone saying, “I’m done with Jesus Christ!” But it can also occur slowly, through a slow drift from one’s Christian faith. This appears to be what was happening to the audience the writer of Hebrews was addressing. The remedy? Pay closer attention to Christ.

Food For Thought
Perhaps the most telling way that professing believers expose themselves as frauds is through a steady decline of church attendance, the decision to stop giving financially, and finding that they just don’t have time to read Scripture anymore. Nothing dramatic, just a slow drift away from spiritual disciplines. Life gets busy, sermons get boring, and financial desires end up taking the place of eternal investments. O how important it is to attend a church that challenges you—to learn doctrine, to invest for eternity, and to worship our loving Christ! Without a good church to challenge us, we might all drift away. How about you? Perhaps you’ve become overfamiliar with the Bible and bored? Perhaps the trials of life have soured you and caused your love to turn cold? Maybe you’ve just become too busy to care about the worship of Jesus Christ? Or, maybe your health has deteriorated to the point that you can’t think of anything or anyone else but yourself? Take heed, and renew your faith today. Do not let yourself drift so far away that your faith is exposed as fraudulent. Read Matthew 7:21-23 and be warned.