[Reposted at Chad's request, originally written in response to someone who felt he needed to abandon his walk with Christ due to inner turmoil]
Dearest brother,
I can only pray that someday you will return to this thread, moved by curiosity about why it continues in your absence.
Your absence is *felt* -- I never knew you, but I feel it. When a child of God stumbles in the darkness all of his brothers and sisters feel it. We can't name the feeling but it is real. There is the briefest sense of alarm, the barest hint of danger, and it doesn't ever really go away. We all feel it. That wrongness and disharmony pervade our myths and legends. It colors even modern science fiction in tales of a false reality bent over our lives. It creates phony religions full of lost sheep.
"The Church" is not God. Jesus is not "Christianity."
There are many people who call themselves "Christian" who defile the word in the process. There are many churches and organizations that teach a "Christianity" that is hurtful and unforgiving and simply not in accord with anything Jesus ever revealed to man. There are hypocrite fools who pound Bibles on pulpits and scream about the Law, then go home to sin and debauchery. Do not let these horrible liars and fakes take from you the genuine relationship with God that is your promised *right* upon accepting true Salvation. Do not blame Jesus for those who smear evil and call it religion. These people are Satan's strongest agents. Don't let them win you. Don't let them embitter you. Don't let them own you.
You belong with God. You have always known this.
You feel in your heart that God exists. You have tried to ignore Him and you have tried to deny Him. You've played with giving God other names born of pagan imaginations. You've attempted to bind God in the impersonal ramblings of logic and philosophy. You keep searching and scratching from one path to another and every new ride on this cycle just cuts a little deeper.
You can live a Godly life.
You've moved back and forth, up and down, "passed" and "failed" through all of the things in your life that you are afraid you cannot give up for God's sake. You've cried in despair and laughed in rebellion and even shaken an angry fist at Heaven in desperation. You've stalwartly given up everything "bad" in an effort to "Get right with Jesus" ... only to feel shame and horror when you realized after a while that you *want* those things you gave up because they were sinful. And then you were upset that God wouldn't just fix you so you didn't want it anymore. You felt abandoned and betrayed by a God who couldn't or wouldn't just "make it all better."
You are not broken or dirty or evil. Sin is about acts, not identity.
The wanting isn't the sin. It's not a sin to want to be happy. It's not a sin to want to feel good. Everything you want, everything you think right now that you will never be able to put aside, is nothing but a bunch of unhealthy methods to lead you to being happy and feeling good. The trouble is that the happiness is false and the good feeling goes away leaving you worse than before.
God knows this and He understands.
God knows Sin is appealing. God knows Sin is addictive. God undertands all of this and forgives you for succumbing to it. No matter what you have done, no matter what you are doing, and no matter what you may yet do, God has poured out His Grace -- and His blood -- to wash it all away. All you have to do is believe. All you have to do is accept the Salvation that He so freely -- FREELY -- offers. Even if you think you can't understand and aren't sure you believe, ask the Lord to help you with your unbelief and your undertanding will flourish in time.
You will sin again. And again.
God knows this too. It is inevitable until we are made perfect through Him that we will falter and fail on occasion. When He died for you, He took up every sin that you would ever commit from the day of your birth to the day of your death and ended them. They are undone. Paid. Removed. You are washed clean. You don't need to apologize, you just need to believe.
Repentance will come though love...not fear...not pain...not effort or shame.
There will never be enough tears from your eyes to pay for your sins. There is no act you can perform, no thing you can do or no longer do to "balance the books." There isn't even anything to pay. You are already forgiven. Undone. Paid. Removed. Washed clean.
I know it's hard to resist sin. I have fallen back into immorality. Others here have struggled and continue to fight. I know that the more you came to understand God's love, the more unworthy you felt to receive it. How can any of us bare His trust? How can we endure the pain of knowing how we have hurt and defied Someone who loves us so very completely?
The ONLY thing we can do now is love Him back. The ONLY thing we have left, when all our actions are made worthless and all our efforts are refused as currency, is to accept the Grace He offers us and requite the love He pours out to us.
When you allow yourself to feel His love, when you allow yourself to return that love, you will be inspired to be less sinful. Slowly. Falteringly. But it will happen.
If you believe.
If you accept.
It is not too late. It was never too late.
Dearest brother,
I can only pray that someday you will return to this thread, moved by curiosity about why it continues in your absence.
Your absence is *felt* -- I never knew you, but I feel it. When a child of God stumbles in the darkness all of his brothers and sisters feel it. We can't name the feeling but it is real. There is the briefest sense of alarm, the barest hint of danger, and it doesn't ever really go away. We all feel it. That wrongness and disharmony pervade our myths and legends. It colors even modern science fiction in tales of a false reality bent over our lives. It creates phony religions full of lost sheep.
"The Church" is not God. Jesus is not "Christianity."
There are many people who call themselves "Christian" who defile the word in the process. There are many churches and organizations that teach a "Christianity" that is hurtful and unforgiving and simply not in accord with anything Jesus ever revealed to man. There are hypocrite fools who pound Bibles on pulpits and scream about the Law, then go home to sin and debauchery. Do not let these horrible liars and fakes take from you the genuine relationship with God that is your promised *right* upon accepting true Salvation. Do not blame Jesus for those who smear evil and call it religion. These people are Satan's strongest agents. Don't let them win you. Don't let them embitter you. Don't let them own you.
You belong with God. You have always known this.
You feel in your heart that God exists. You have tried to ignore Him and you have tried to deny Him. You've played with giving God other names born of pagan imaginations. You've attempted to bind God in the impersonal ramblings of logic and philosophy. You keep searching and scratching from one path to another and every new ride on this cycle just cuts a little deeper.
You can live a Godly life.
You've moved back and forth, up and down, "passed" and "failed" through all of the things in your life that you are afraid you cannot give up for God's sake. You've cried in despair and laughed in rebellion and even shaken an angry fist at Heaven in desperation. You've stalwartly given up everything "bad" in an effort to "Get right with Jesus" ... only to feel shame and horror when you realized after a while that you *want* those things you gave up because they were sinful. And then you were upset that God wouldn't just fix you so you didn't want it anymore. You felt abandoned and betrayed by a God who couldn't or wouldn't just "make it all better."
You are not broken or dirty or evil. Sin is about acts, not identity.
The wanting isn't the sin. It's not a sin to want to be happy. It's not a sin to want to feel good. Everything you want, everything you think right now that you will never be able to put aside, is nothing but a bunch of unhealthy methods to lead you to being happy and feeling good. The trouble is that the happiness is false and the good feeling goes away leaving you worse than before.
God knows this and He understands.
God knows Sin is appealing. God knows Sin is addictive. God undertands all of this and forgives you for succumbing to it. No matter what you have done, no matter what you are doing, and no matter what you may yet do, God has poured out His Grace -- and His blood -- to wash it all away. All you have to do is believe. All you have to do is accept the Salvation that He so freely -- FREELY -- offers. Even if you think you can't understand and aren't sure you believe, ask the Lord to help you with your unbelief and your undertanding will flourish in time.
You will sin again. And again.
God knows this too. It is inevitable until we are made perfect through Him that we will falter and fail on occasion. When He died for you, He took up every sin that you would ever commit from the day of your birth to the day of your death and ended them. They are undone. Paid. Removed. You are washed clean. You don't need to apologize, you just need to believe.
Repentance will come though love...not fear...not pain...not effort or shame.
There will never be enough tears from your eyes to pay for your sins. There is no act you can perform, no thing you can do or no longer do to "balance the books." There isn't even anything to pay. You are already forgiven. Undone. Paid. Removed. Washed clean.
I know it's hard to resist sin. I have fallen back into immorality. Others here have struggled and continue to fight. I know that the more you came to understand God's love, the more unworthy you felt to receive it. How can any of us bare His trust? How can we endure the pain of knowing how we have hurt and defied Someone who loves us so very completely?
The ONLY thing we can do now is love Him back. The ONLY thing we have left, when all our actions are made worthless and all our efforts are refused as currency, is to accept the Grace He offers us and requite the love He pours out to us.
When you allow yourself to feel His love, when you allow yourself to return that love, you will be inspired to be less sinful. Slowly. Falteringly. But it will happen.
If you believe.
If you accept.
It is not too late. It was never too late.
