Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.

Peter and John were Jewish. They did not cease to be Jewish because they believed in Jesus as the Messiah. Jewish people who believe in Jesus, do not stop being Jewish, but they may continue to remain strong in their Jewish identity, lifestyle and culture, while following Yeshua. Many Messianic Jews refer to themselves as “completed Jews,” since they believe that their faith in the God of Israel has been “completed” or fulfilled in Yeshua. So we see Peter and John continuing to worship in the Temple, though we know that they no longer participated in the sacrificial system.

No longer participating in the sacrificial system did not make them unJewish. To the contrary, God is the One who defined Jewishness to start with, and He did not re-define Jewishness but instead gave the definition focus and clarity, just as the pictures of the Messiah in the systems of worship were given clarity in the reality of His Son, our Messiah, Jesus. So, to believe in Jesus is not to fall from Jewishness, but to agree with God in His definition of a Jew.

There was great pressure on those Jewish believers in Yeshua to continue in the sacrificial system … cultural pressure, societal pressure and familial pressure. Even today, should a Jewish man or woman receive Jesus as Savior, they face the possibility of being disowned or even considered dead by their friends and family. For the Jewish congregants of this first church, there was a great pressure to backslide or try to ride the fence.

The author of Hebrews addressed those who wanted to have it both ways, continuing in the sacrificial system and Jesus, saying that one of the two has to be chosen and that choosing the sacrificial system (which Jesus fulfilled) over Jesus is essentially rejecting the sacrifice of Jesus. In other words, choosing the insufficient animal sacrifices over the sufficient sacrifice of the Son of God was choosing the picture of Christ over the person of Christ.

When a woman is pregnant and goes for a sonogram, usually she is given a snapshot of the baby from the sonogram that she can keep and cherish. The snapshot is certainly treasured, but once the baby is born, the snapshot is put away and the baby receives all the attention of the mother. So it is with Christ that though we may love and enjoy pictures of the Messiah that we find in the Tabernacle and in the feasts, we do not devote our hearts to the pictures but we devote our hearts to the reality that is Jesus.

These Jewish believers would have felt great pressure to compromise or even backslide. Pressure to compromise and backslide is something every Christian is familiar with. The Christian life is not easy and sometimes we fall or succumb to pressure or temptation. If or when you find yourself backsliding, here are some things you can do to get back on course:

1. Examine yourself … it’s good to stop and prayerfully review whether we are in the faith. Paul addressed this in 2 Corinthians 13:5, saying, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.”

1. Turn back … If you find that you have wandered from the path, turn back immediately. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we can encourage and help one another in this.

1. Go to Jesus daily for cleansing … 1 John 1:9 says that if we will confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1. Seek the Lord daily with your whole heart … you can do this by prayer, fellowship, serving, daily Bible study and worship.

1. Expect difficult times … Jesus told us to expect difficult times and if we do, then we aren’t floored when they come. Instead, we will have prepared ourselves for them by staying in the Word of God.

1. Run the race to win … don’t approach Christian life as a ride, but as a race with a finish line. Don’t forget that there is a finish line and at that finish line there are heavenly rewards far more valuable than anything in this world.

1. Remember what God has done for you in the past … When we recall God’s hand at work in our past, it reminds us that we are not alone in our future.

If you feel that you are backsliding, don’t wait to make changes, because it is better to know that you have backslidden than to be so far gone that you don’t even recognize it. As a Pastor and having led many ministry teams in the past, I have seen certain things that begin happening when someone starts to backslide. Three of those things are skipping church, pulling back from serving and sporadic tithing. As a pastor those are things I see, but there may be other indications such as skipping devotion time or a lack of prayer. If you see those things in your life, then maybe you need to examine yourself and take whatever steps are necessary to get back on the path.