Repenting is a difficult subject for me. Life has always seemed a cycle of doing things I knew I shouldn't followed by guilt and then a crawling back to Jesus. There were several times during the Gospels that Jesus said to those he had just healed to go their way and sin no more. The truth behind that statement is that it is possible to do...with God's help that is. So why were there areas of my life that I simply felt like I could not overcome?
Upon meditating upon the answer to that question, I think it boils down to three things. First, there is a lack of faith that God can help change those situations into those that can glorify Him. The prayer Jesus taught us said in part, "Deliver us from evil." Jesus would not have taught us that prayer if God was incapable of helping us do that or if we were incapable of allowing God to have that victory. We...I...just did not have the faith enough to trust him.
The second thing is a lack of prayer and praise. If we were continually in prayer combined with continual praise, then the Holy Spirit keeps us closer to our walk with God and can lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil. The less I pray and praise, the less I allow his Holy Spirit to work with me and through me to keep me from deviating from the path that I should be walking.
The last thing is that the devil really is dogging us and waiting and trying to trip us up at every opportunity. That snake does not want us to walk with God and feel good about ourselves. His aim is to keep us from staying close to God so that He can become our focus and keep us from falling.
Since my road trip redemption a month ago. I have had some victories. One is pornography. Oh! That dirty little secret! I am convinced that more Christian men are tripped up by pornography and the masturbation it leads to than anything else. The world has made it so easy now. Instead of skulking into a video store when we think no one is looking and risk being caught, it is now at our fingertips and free all over the Internet. I know, because I have been addicted to it for years.
Is this hard to admit? Not really. After all, part of the world's seducing is that everyone snickers at pornography and says everyone does it. How can it be bad when everyone does it? Well, it is. It takes our energy and attention from our loved ones and it puts thoughts in our head of what our intimate life should be like.
And men are seduced via the eyes. No wonder that Jesus said that if your eye offends you to pluck it out. It is a scientific fact that we men see a pretty girl and our heart rate quickens, our pupils dilate and our physiology changes. And the world and Satan knows that. So on every sports page on the Internet, there are pseudo stories about photo shoots of pretty girls to entice us to go and look. Then we are not satisfied with that and on and on it goes.
I am grateful to God that since our road trip together, I have not had one urge to go to a porn site and I have not fallen that way once in the last month. That is not a boast on my part because if I boasted, I would get my ego involved and allow Satan to come in and trip me up. It is to God's glory that he has given me true repentance in this area. I can only do this through Him. And if you knew my secret life, you would know that a month is an incredible amount of time to be away from what was a daily occurrence.
God has also given me a victory on how I view people. I was getting very cynical about people and was always looking for the bad. Now, through God, I view people with more love than I have ever experienced before. This whole redemption act began because I wanted to know that I would spend eternity with God. From that experience, I have come to again know that God desires none would be lost. He sent Jesus to die for ALL of us.
One victory I still need is my addiction to cigarettes. I was introduced to cigarettes when I met my first wife in college. She smoked and when we went to party, I would try it and after a while, I was as smoker too. She grew up in the church and soon after our marriage, she went back to God and quit smoking. I was saved soon after and I remember coming home from work and telling her that I couldn't do it, though I tried. She then asked me a very important question. She asked, "Did you ask God to help you?" I did not.
The next day I quit cold turkey and did not smoke again for twenty years. It was only after things fell apart and I started walking away from God that I started smoking again. And I have been at it for sixteen years since. I hate it really. I hate the way it makes me feel and I hate the way my mouth tastes and feels. But I am addicted.
I have tried twice since my road trip conversion and have failed twice. I still need that victory. It will come. God will help me. I just haven't let Him yet. I report here first when the victory comes.
Like most Christians, I am a work in progress.
Oh victory in Jesus, my savior forever.
He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood.
He loved me ere I knew Him and all my love is due him.
He plunged me to victory
beneath His cleansing blood.
Amen.
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