My devotion today took me to Joel 2:12-17. It talks about rendering your heart and returning to God for he is gracious and compassionate. He just might bless you because of it. Give everything to the Lord because he longs for you. The rest are instructions for what to do, by telling us to gather everyone and ask the Lord to spare his people from scorn to the nations.
I have learned throughout the years that no matter how far I walk away from God, forgiveness is always right behind me. You have to mean it though and you have to let God release you from captivity in your sin and the guilt that it brings. The passage says that God is slow to anger and abounding in love. No one should ever feel as though they have done so many things wrong that God would never forgive them, no one is too bad for God to forgive. He loves us the same no matter what, that is what makes him so great. You might say that you have done everything that is wrong (Drugs, drinking, sex outside marriage, looking at pornography, using his name in vain, being an adulterer, murdered someone, or a combination of these things) but if you sincerely can live for him and ask for his forgiveness, it will be given because we serve a merciful God. He will make your life much more enjoyable and bring peace when you feel guilty and ashamed.
Some of you might wonder how I can speak of this Love that is so great when I do not have any experience running away from God. Well, this is the part where you learn a little about me. By about the time I was 9 or 10 years old, I was addicted to pornography, I was just a kid and yet it consumed my life, whenever I was alone at the house, the temptation was there and more often than not, it prevailed. I battled with guilt every time and going to church just made me feel like I was not worthy enough to be there because I was a horrible person. I felt so lonely and was so young in my faith that I did not understand what I needed to do to make amends with Christ. I did not want to confess to anyone what was going on because I felt that I would be an outcast and be despised. I felt that I could never amount to anything that people expected me to be because I was so entangled in sin. I knew I was in the wrong but it was much easier to just hide everything because then no one would know. This made life much harder and forced me to play the role of "Christian" when I was around people from church and those in my family. I was always told what a great kid I was but people had no idea. I am not going to lie, this problem continued even after my mom caught me at the age of 10. It went through my Junior year in high school when I decided to make a change. At this point it was not completely gone. I struggled occasionally but found when I went to God it was much easier. I have now made a pact to God, myself, and more importantly my future wife to never look at the garbage that once consumed me. My future wife deserves to be loved for who she is and I am already sorry for taking some of that away by my selfishness as a kid and teenager. I am free from guilt because of the grace of God though. He has forgiven me and I hope that she forgives me as well even though I might not have even met her yet. I have wrestled with this for many years and always kept it a secret but God has showed me that I cannot be ashamed of who I have been. I have to embrace it and press on toward the goal. I could not live with this bottled up inside of me anymore because if I did, it might begin to consume me again. For those of you that have known me, this will most likely be a shock to hear this, but it is who I have been and though I am not proud, I have hurt myself and others by this but God has changed me and given me a new passion which will reap great rewards and not temporary ones brought by sin.
I want you all to see that no matter WHAT you have done, God will welcome you with open arms. This is my story, what might yours be?
Working for the glory of God,
Joseph Robinson
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