I Will Testify!

I realize that I spend a great deal of energy on this blog contrasting my current life (as a Christian) with my past life (as a pagan). I do find it annoying sometimes and I think it likely you do too. Even with that knowledge I cannot help but to use my experiences (in which I am the sole expert) to give testimony to the truth of The Bible. So even though it seems wearisome, the change that God has worked in my life is the best tool I have to explain how God can work in your life too. Please, don't think that I'm all wrapped up in who I was or who I am because the truth is that I'm all wrapped up in who God is and in who He is causing me to become. That said...

When I finally came to The Lord it was for the purpose of asking Him to remove the crushing weight that I had heaped upon my own shoulders. The weight was and is the result of my own unrighteous choices and the consequences due me. I could bear it no longer and He (God) offered to lighten my load. I took Him at his word and He did what He said He would do.

In that moment began a relationship that defies logical explanation. The more time that I spend with God the more he opens my eyes to the truth of my own heart. The more I understand the truth of my own heart, the more I realize my ever-increasing need for Him. That need manifests itself in my life in one respect as the inability for myself to remove those fleshly desires which my spirit now detests.

I am appalled at how my carnal body clings to unhealthy habits and how my deceitful heart continually tries to get between God and me. I am my own worst enemy and Satan is no less as well. It is there then that diligent and determined discipleship, substituting good habits for bad and bringing every thought under control brings about a conscious pursuit of righteousness. As can be imagined, I alone do not have the power to be successful in this fight.

But I AM NOT ALONE! God has imparted to me His Holy Spirit who quickens my perception of temptation, that fans the flame of loathing even the slightest sin, that gives me the strength and the courage I need to bear up under the trial.

My study today led me to 2 Peter 2 wherein an account is given of how God has preserved the righteous throughout trials, temptations, testings and tribulations, even through horrific destruction. And it was here that I ran into a verse which brings joy to my soul. 2 Peter 2:9 reads...
"if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment." (2 Peter 2:9, NIV)

Though I know not how to rescue myself, God does. In every way that I am weak He is strong. In every way that I fail, He succeeds. It is not necessary or even fitting that I know how this is done. What I need to know is to pursue His holiness, His righteousness in my every-second-life that I may be counted by HIM as a godly man. As this verse states, "the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials..." The Lord knows how to rescue the 'struggling me'.

It has been my experience that God unburdens me of my weaknesses in two distinct ways. By His providence and grace, He has quickly and 'simply' removed certain things from my life; lying lips, cursing tongue, love for money to name but a few. It is as if by his word, in the same way that his word brought about creation, his word has brought about destruction of those things in my life. Other things He has weakened their power over me. Though I am tempted these things no longer have the power over me to draw me into sinful behaviors, into the darkness and into unity with evil.

Make no mistake for I am under no illusion that this work is done. It is a process that will continue till I stand before Him. But as my soul utterly rejects a sin, whether habit, thought or happenstance, God is faithful, in his time, to deliver me from my burden; to dull the temptation, to loose it's power and to pry it's grip from my throat. If, and this is a huge IF, I am done with it (the sin), if I have utterly rejected it as vile and cried out to Him for release from it's crushing weight upon my soul, He hears my cry and in his love, responds. He no more wants to see me (his adopted son) pressed into the dirt under a weight of temptation than He wants to see His Son, Jesus, in the tomb.

I will testify, I do testify to the truth of God and his word, to the power of God's Spirit and to the enabling sacrifice of God's son.

Relieved,
Carl