HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, May 30, 2025 – It’s difficult for us, as born-again believers, to hear about people who’ve turned their back on God. I’m talking here specifically about people who once claimed to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and then at some point decided they didn’t believe it anymore. This is not a new phenomenon—people falling away from what they claim to have believed. Jesus himself, during his ministry years, had to deal with people falling away from following him.

For me, as someone who shifted from atheism to belief in an instant, falling away is not something I anticipate ever doing. My belief (as is yours, if you genuinely believe) is a spiritual guardrail and safety harness designed to keep me from falling away. My belief (as is yours, if you genuinely believe) is external to me and separate from me; not something of me but something that’s taken up residence in me. My belief (as is yours, if you genuinely believe) doesn’t come from me; I didn’t self-will it. Temporally, my belief preceded the “I” in “I believe”.

You cannot be born-again and not believe, because genuine belief is a manifestation of the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus pointed this out when he told Peter that no-one but the Holy Spirit could have revealed to him that Jesus was the Messiah. Genuine belief is a revelation and direct evidence of God’s Holy Spirit working through a believer. You cannot truly believe in God and truly be a follower of Jesus unless God’s Holy Spirit dwells in you, which only happens through genuine spiritual rebirth. People who say they believe but who aren’t genuinely reborn don’t really believe, as their belief is self-generated, self-willed, and doesn’t come from God. Belief that is self-generated, self-willed, and doesn’t come from God is weak and therefore will not last. This is why so many people who claim to believe ultimately fall away.

Genuine belief is not something you have to work at achieving; it’s the state of being spiritually reborn and precedes the consciousness of both the belief and the rebirth. I believed before I realized I believed, just as I was reborn before I realized I was reborn. First came the rebirth and the belief; then came the consciousness of the rebirth and the belief.

The trend of people falling away from God has been accelerating in recent years. Scripture tells us that the trend will continue to accelerate until the only believers left here on Earth will be genuine ones. It’s nearly impossible for us, as born-again believers, to imagine falling away. Most of us are like Peter, insisting that we’d never betray Jesus, though even as the words leave our lips we know we’ll be tested on them. Just like Peter was tested, we’ll be tested, and some of us won’t do so well, just like Peter.

Still, no matter how badly we fail and how spectacular our faceplant, Jesus will be right there with us, offering to pull us back on our feet if we want him to. Like God, Jesus will never leave us or betray us.

May we never leave or betray them.