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How Can I Recover From Sexual Sin?by Wendi Dear Readers, First, we must divide facts from feelings. Feelings are like the indicator gauges on the dashboard of your car. They should be considered information and not gospel truth! Many of you are asking, �I am a Christian, so why don�t I feel like a new person?� Jesus offers us a new life (fact), regardless of our emotional status (feelings)! �Come now, let us reason together,� says the Lord. �Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow� (Isa. 1:18 NIV). When anyone, regardless of past lifestyle or sexual history, comes to God in faith asking for salvation, they receive this great salvation as an unearned gift. �For it is by grace [unearned favor] you have been saved, through faith�and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God�not by works [human efforts], so that no one can boast� (Eph. 2:8-9 NIV). Secondly, some of you do not �feel� right because you are still hanging on to old friends, habits, and ways of thinking. Paul writes to the Corinthians, �Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers [do not make mismated alliances with them or come under a different yoke with them, inconsistent with your faith]. For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness?� (2 Cor. 6:14 AMP). Some of you are traveling with a lot of old baggage, which is complicating your journey. If you have ever changed terminals at O�Hare International Airport, you can understand how troublesome heavy carry-on bags can get! The Christian life is similar. If you are carrying a lot of heavy baggage from your old life, then it will slow you down and possibly trip you up. In Hebrews 12:1 we are admonished, �[L]et us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easy entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us� (NIV). As a young child I loved to watch a Sunday afternoon television show called Wild Kingdom. I learned that when hunting, a lion singles out the slowest antelope in the herd. If we are toting a heavy load, we will be slow and many times separated from the �herd.� We can easily fall prey to the enemy! You cannot take your old attitudes, habits, and way of life to God�s kingdom. You have to let your old life and friends go to be able to finish the race! Thirdly, some of you are just plain angry with God! You cry, �Life isn�t fair and neither is God!� Jeremiah also asked God , �Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead with You; Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?� (Jer. 12:1 NKJV ). I can remember questioning God�s very character because my grandfather and father sexually molested me as an innocent child. I became self-destructive with anger and bitterness. Job lost all he had and all those he loved and sat questioning God, �The tents of marauders are undisturbed, and those who provoke God are secure . . .� (Job 12:6 NIV). God answers in chapter 38 with, �Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding� (v. 4 NKJV). Can we see through the eyes of eternity? Can we think God�s thoughts? Many of us are more interested in pinning blame on someone or something than we are in being restored. We have found some kind of twisted identity or security as victims�not really wanting to let go and to be healed. Just as Jesus asked the invalid by the Bethesda poolside, He is asking us, �Do you want to get well?� (John 5:6 NIV). Fourth, some of us are unrealistic about how our past relates to us in the present. In one way, sins are all the same�deadly. But, in another way, certain sins are very distinctive in their aftereffects. Some habits, experiences, and practices have more serious spiritual and emotional repercussions. �Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up� (Gal. 6:7-9 NIV). Many of us are feeling the painful consequences of past bad personal choices and behaviors. Some of you do not want to face the consequences of sin and want God to wave a magic wand and relieve you of all pain and responsibility. God can and does answer your prayers for personal salvation and forgiveness, but most of the time you will still suffer the consequences of your sins, such as broken relationships, families, loss of respect and trust, STDs, and difficult habit patterns to overcome by the plain hard work of spiritual discipline! I guess that is why Paul often compares the Christian life to training for an Olympic track event. �No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. �Make level paths for your feet,� so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed� (Heb. 12:11-13 NIV). So, in summary, perhaps you do not �feel� saved or pure because:
Emotional healing most often occurs simply as a by-product of obedient and loving Christian living. � This how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything" (1 John 3:16-20 NIV) * -08/11/01 This article first appeared in Cornerstone Magazine, Issue No. 120. |