Backsliding, not a Necessity – Charles Spurgeon

IT is regarded by many as a law of nature, that our first love must grow cold, and our early zeal must necessarily decline. I do not believe it for a moment. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day;” and, were we watchful and careful to live near to God, there is no reason why our spiritual life should not continuously make progress both in strength and beauty. There is no inherent necessity in the divine life itself compelling it to decline, for is it not written, “It shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life:” “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Grace is a living and incorruptible seed that lives and abides forever, and there is nowhere impressed upon the divine life a law of pining and decay. If we do falter and faint in the onward path, it is our sin, and it is doubly sinful to forge excuses for it. It is not to be laid upon the back of some mysterious necessity of the new nature that it should be so, but it is to be brought as a charge against ourselves.