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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2009 6:44:51 GMT -7
I'm Luke. I've been a professing Christian for about 8 years. I say professing, because I don't know if I really am. In fact, I am so confused about what the gospel constitutes, I can hardly share it with anyone else.
On the one hand, I see the simplicity that is the gospel that is declared by Paul (believe and recieve). On the other hand, I hear a lot of preaching that seems to make it seem that the gospel is hard, something to work at, salvation is not simple or free but something to be worked towards, and these preachers use a lot of scripture to support it.
I've been addicted for many years to internet porn.
I fear now that I am lost, and that God cannot forgive me or will not forgive me for rejecting the light for so many years, and for using grace as a license.
Paul was the chief of sinners, but he found mercy because he did it ignorantly and in unbelief. What about me, who has sinned willfully and knowing the consequences.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2009 8:21:18 GMT -7
Welcome, Luke. I won't pretend knowledge of evangelical theology, but I will certainly say that I spent many years feeling distant and estranged from God, knowing Him only as someone demanding of me something I had found I couldn't do.
But from the moment at which I got into recovery, started seeking and accepting help, really surrendered to God, and began trusting and being honest with God, with my fellow human beings, and with myself, my experience altered completely. I found that all the time that I had been feeling distant from God and judged by Him, God had been standing beside me, loving me, waiting in sorrow until my pain finally grew great enough that I could stop holding Him at a distance and trying to maintain my own control, but could surrender and open myself to see that love.
So yeah, I think God forgives even us.
No doubt others will give you the theory. I can only give you my heart.
Tim M.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2009 12:45:56 GMT -7
Hi Luke,
As I was reading your post I felt great sadness because Satan's ploys seem to be working on you. The gospel, or good news, is that God has already forgiven us through the death and resurection of His Son Jesus Christ. I found that, in my experience anyway, viewing pornography is a sexually stimulating media that is designed by sin to keep good people busy while Satan destroys everything else in our lives. All the good stuff, like self respect, relationships with God and others, just to name a couple. Most of the addicts I've spoken with say the same thing once they've repented and started on the road to recovery. Discouragement is not from God! Don't buy into it! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free! In real terms, I take that to mean that we are set free and that Satan will use any and all means to make us believe that we are in bondage! I found it interesting that while I was using porn and masturbation, I thought I was exercising my freedom, but actually I was becoming more and more bound by it. When God touched me this past summer and basically said that my behavior had to stop, I started out by fighting it and basically was an idiot. Then, little by little as I continued to seek the Lord and ask that my heart be purified and my mind be renewed, I realized that I had been in bondage and wanted out. Through daily Bible readings and prayer God has shown me that He has indeed set us free and that all we have to do is to return to him and be open and honest and ask for forgiveness for each of our particular sins and He will open the door to our forgiveness and give us the strength to carry on. We won't be perfect but God will always be perfect and there for us.
Maybe this makes sense,
Bob
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2009 2:50:48 GMT -7
Hi Luke,
It seems to me that you are confusing salvation with sanctification. Salvation is believing that Jesus paid the price for your sin, asking His forgiveness, and expressing your desire for Him to be Lord of your life. Sanctification is a lifelong process of being conformed to Christ's image, which is only completed in His presence. Our spiritual growth is impeeded by habitual sin, but cannot cause God to reverse His adoption.
TruthSeeker
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2010 18:23:01 GMT -7
Hey Luke, I'm a forty year sex addict, I have been in recovery for since 98, I have found as you have it is sometimes hard to receive forgiveness or accept forgiveness, a saying we have around recovery is ( If you can't love yourself then keep coming here and let us love you until you can.) I have struggled with self hatred,toxic shame and toxic guilt,I felt like I was not ever even a christian at times, thoughts of suicide continued on and off for sometime, the very reason you have come to this site says you don't want to be the person you've been, Romans 7 explains our problem so well, we defy our own moral code of living and can't understand why? Our sin puts us in the same place as any other person, all have sinned and fallen short, But Isa 53. All we like sheep have gone astray but the Lord has laid on Him the sin of us ALL. He don't come to save the good people but the sickos like us, we are the reason He came, Nothing not even the worst sin can seperate us from the love of God Romans 8 in the message, The sin the enemy has used to rob us, can be turned around by God to be our strength in helping others. Be Blessed, You are Forgiven, BigD
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2010 10:08:47 GMT -7
Everyone else has pretty much covered it, but I'll add my two cents anyway. Being human, we can't understand how passionately God loves us, and we can't understand his forgiveness. We look at it, shake it a little, put it under a microscope, and decide it's just too good to be true. But there is no point we can reach in our lives that we are out of God's reach. If we repent and give our lives to God, we are covered by the blood of Christ. And with God, there is no "one last chance." As long as we want to try to get it right, He is willing to forgive us, start over, and help us through it.
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