The other day I was thinking about backsliders.  I asked myself, Why is it that people leave God as often as they do?  Most times it is simply because they want to live an immoral lifestyle.  They know the truth, but don’t want to live that truth.  Sometimes, however, it is because they never had a strong intellectual commitment to Christianity as truth.  They were Christians because of their experience, or because Jesus was meeting their needs.  When people are Christians for these reasons, typically they do not remain Christians for long.  When their experience fades, and when Jesus doesn’t meet some felt need they begin to doubt the Christian religion, or their particular denomination’s version of the Christian religion.

This underscores why Jesus said we are to make disciples of all nations.  The life of the mind is of the utmost importance in the Christian religion.  If people are not persuaded that Christianity is true their faith will never be firmly established in Christ.  But when our minds are renewed according to the truth of God it will be impossible to reject the truth of Christianity.  We may choose to ignore the truth so we can follow after our own sinful desires, but we will not be able to walk away from the truth as the truth.