O.k....I am new here and have been reading over the different things posted here, and I agree with most of the advice given on here. So I am turning to you folks for some advice. I have a problem, and I really need some advice on how to get past this. I have a very long story, one that I may share soon on a diffent post but my question today is this...
I have been a Christian for a while now...and by that I mean I followed after Christ, and have lived a Godly life, I use the Bible as my text book for living, but lately I have fallen away from God due to some circumstances that have happened in my life, which will take forever to begin to explain(I will write in another post), but I have for some reason without knowing it built a wall between God and myself. I want to get back to where I was a while ago...where I knew His voice, and I felt His presence, but I just can't seem to do it.
I guess I feel inadiquite and not worthy of forgiveness, or worthy of His love anymore....Can someone please offer some advice to me that will help me tear down the walls that I have built. I have tried to pray, but maybe I have hardened my heart. Please help.
I posted the following in response to this request:
Wow, my Sister, you are carrying a heavy load! You remind me of the woman who was hiking down a country road carrying a heavy backpack. A farmer and his wife in an old pickup truck came down the road and slowed down next to her and asked if she would like a ride into town. The woman says "Sure!" so the farmer stops the truck and tells the woman to climb into the back. A few minutes later, as they are riding down the road, the farmer looks around to see that the woman is standing up in the bed and holding on to the cab with her backpack still on, so he says to her, "Pardon me, M'amm, but why don't you take that pack off and set it on the bed, than sit down behind the cab and take the wind off your face?" Please allow me to see if I can help you to take that "backpack" off.
It seems to me that there are three primary reasons why people think they have fallen away from God or that there is a wall between Him and them: 1) They don’t understand their status and relationship to God after inviting Jesus Christ into their lives, so when the road gets rocky, they drift away; 2) They think that God is angry with them for something they’ve done or failed to do; or 3) They are mad at God for something they think He’s done, or allowed to happen. (Combinations are possible - and probable.)
First of all, if you don’t already have it with you now, please go and get your Bible. Now, since Hebrews is your favorite book of the Bible (it also happens to be one of mine), lets go there and take a look at a couple of things which I believe will help you with your dilemma.
Let’s start with Heb 2:1: It says, “We must pay more careful attention to what we have heard (the Gospel message), so that we do not drift away.” Today, I think we are experiencing the same problem that existed in the Church at the time this verse was written; that is, we are getting a whole bunch of INFORMATION from various worldly sources concerning Christianity and how to live the Christian life, but we are getting very little REVELATION from the Spiritual Source concerning the veracity and validity of the INFORMATION we are receiving. The result is that we are allowing worldly sources to control how we live our spiritual lives, and that is just like trying to mix oil and water...it just doesn’t work. Jesus use to say to His disciples, especially on really important issues, “Let he who has ears to hear, hear!” The writer of Hebrews is saying the same thing: If we do not take the INFORMATION we hear about the Good News of the Gospel and allow the Holy Spirit to get it into our spirit through REVELATION, so that it is embedded in the heart of our being, then we will “drift away,” because we will still be searching for the answers to the what I call the Big Three questions in our life - Who am I, What am I here for, and Where am I going when I leave here. (Jesus illustrated this in His parable of the farmer sowing seed.)
Now, let’s take a look at what I think is one of the most important Scripture passages in the Bible in terms of helping us to understand the complete “salvation” message: Heb 10:8-18. Before we go on, please take a moment to read that section and re-familiarize yourself with it. Please note that no less than 3 times the writer explains and emphasizes God’s position on the issue of sin with the establishment of the New Will (read, Testament,) which became established with the death of Jesus (ref-Heb 9:16-17).
In verses 8 thru 10, the writer explains that the old will (testament) of God, involving sacrifices and offerings for the punishment due for sins committed by Mankind, were neither desirable nor satisfactory to God, because as long as there was no punishment to the perpetrators themselves, that is, physical death (Mankind was already dead spiritually due to Adam and Eve’s sin; remember, the penalty for sin is death![Rom 6:23]), then the debt was getting bigger, and God’s patience was getting shorter. It was like using your credit card to buy more while still making minimum payments -the debt never gets paid. Then, Jesus came along and established a new will (testament); through the sacrifice of His body, He justified (made holy) ALL of Mankind to God (“...ONCE FOR ALL) by eliminating the punishment due for ALL sin - past, present and future!
Can you see in verses 11-12 that those OT sacrifices offered by OT priests could never take away (forgive) sins, although the Law required them as a temporary appeasement to God? As result, the priests could never rest (sit down) in their duties. But when Jesus provided the sacrifice which was able to take away sin for ALL time, He was able to rest in His duty, so He SAT DOWN at the right hand of God.
Now here’s the really good part...Verse 14. It says, “because by one sacrifice (Jesus’ death on the cross) He (Jesus) HAS MADE PERFECT (no blemish or fault) forever (for eternity, everlasting) those who are being made holy (you and I - born again receivers and Believers of the new covenant). Verse 15 thru 17 says that this is what the Holy Spirit testifies to us about in the prophesy in Jer 31:33-34 (also reproduced in Heb 8:8-12). Verse 17 reads, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”
Finally, here’s the cherry on top of this sundae of “good news” about sin: Verse 18 says, “And where these HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN (at Calvary), there is no longer any sacrifice (punishment, penalty for sin.” Welcome to the new will (testament)! In 2 Cor 5 Paul puts it this way: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us a ministry of reconciliation: THAT GOD WAS RECONCILING THE WORLD TO HIMSELF IN CHRIST, NOT COUNTING MEN’S SINS AGAINST THEM.”(verses 17-19)
All of this section says one thing: Whether people like it or not, accept it or not, or believe it or not, the fact of the matter is, there is no more punishment or penalty for sins required by God from mankind, either physical or spiritual. If there were, than Jesus’ suffering and death was not enough to get the job done as claimed in this section of Scripture. Some people say that teaching this fact is just a license for people to go and do anything they want; my observation is, people don’t need a license to sin - they do it anyway! Look, you may suffer the consequences of your actions in THIS world (for instance, if you break a man-made law by stealing, you may go to jail or have to make restitution by some other retribution), but if you are born again, the only ones left to judge you, condemn you and punish you for sinning are Satan, other people and yourself. If you still don’t believe me, check out the last 2 verses of Romans 8; maybe you ought to make THOSE your new favorite verses!
Do you know what I do when I behave sinfully? I don’t hurt the Father or Jesus - they already experienced all the hurt they were going to experience 2000 years ago; our FELLOWSHIP may suffer, but our RELATIONSHIP remains solid...It’s unbreakable! I do grieve the Holy Spirit (“...with whom you WERE SEALED for the day of redemption” Eph 4:30), because He is with me and in me all the time. But the biggest problem with bad behavior is that it hurts my ability to witness to others about the love, grace and mercy which lives in and through me as a result of the re-creation of my spirit with the Spirit of Jesus Christ and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It’s difficult for God to attract unbelievers (those who are spiritually dead because they have not been made alive with Christ - Col 2:13) through me when I am acting or talking like the devil.
At the end of the day, though, I can’t be good enough to make it into heaven (although it may affect my accommodations when I get there!) or bad enough to make it into hell (ditto!). The ONLY thing that matters is am I spiritually alive (born again, recreated with the Spirit of Christ) or am I spiritually dead (without the Spirit of Christ). And just as after I was born into this world there is no way to separate my parents’ genetic contribution to my physical body, even if I wanted to, so also there is no way to separate Christ’s Spirit from my spiritual body after I become born again: That’s what it is saying in Heb 10:14 and that is what it is saying in Rom 8:38-39.
Living a life based on what YOU are DOING is mostly about “sin consciousness,” that is to say, is what I have done, am doing or will do a sin? And if so, how does that make me “feel” about myself and how does it effect my “fellowship” with God? In other words, my whole status in life is based on whether I am living in sin or out of sin.
On the other hand, living a life based on “relationship” is about having WHO YOU ARE determine what you do in life. According to the teachings of the New Testament of the Bible, there are only two choices of relationship which matter in life: Either you are a child of your Father God, or you are a child of your father Satan. You cannot be both - you are either alive to One and dead to the other, or visa versa. In other words, the Christian life is not about whether or not you are in or out of sin; it is about whether or not you are a child of the living God! It is NOT your “works” or your performance that determines your fate in the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven ...It IS your RELATIONSHIP! If you are a born again Believer, God cannot make you any more worthy of Him and His love than you already are: You are a Princess in His Kingdom, an adopted child of the Father (Rom 8:16-17) and a sister of the Prince of Peace.
As for being angry at God for something He did, something He failed to do or something He “allowed to happen” in your life, please consider this: God is not in the business of hurting you or allowing you to be hurt...Satan IS! Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief (Satan) comes ONLY to kill, steal and destroy: I come that you may have life, AND HAVE IT TO THE FULL.” My Sister, may I suggest that if the problem is that you are mad at God, you should redirect your anger to the real culprit of your problems - the devil. What is it that John says in chapter 4 of his first epistle...”the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”(1 John 4:4) In his exhortation for us to put on the “full armor of God” in order to stand against the devil’s schemes, Paul tells us “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.(Eph 6:11-12). Finally, Jesus Himself gave us a “Big Stick” to use against the Devil. He said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” We just need to learn how to use it, along with all the authority He gave us over the evil one.
Frankly, (and I say this for information, not condemnation) when we think there is a wall between us and God, it is Satan and Mankind (including ourselves) who are providing the bricks and the mortar to build it. The good news is that Jesus doesn’t care much for walls; last I read, he demonstrated to His disciples that He just walks through them (John 21:26)!
