Why I Struggled to Believe

Religion is bad for you.

There is no nice way to put it.

As long as we believe that there are certain rules which we  must keep in order to be accepted, then the power of God's unconditional love can never work in our lives.

Without the knowledge that God loves us, no matter what we say or do, or rather that we are loved in spite of who we are, we can never rest assured in our walk with God.

We must realize that we as in Christ, not in ourselves, or otherwise we will keep seeing our brokenness, our weakness, our emptiness in and of ourselves.

Alcoholics Anonymous not only scams members with this false notion of choosing one's own conception of God, but then levels people with a set of demands destined to keep members forever inadequate and bankrupted.

Religion for all of us, because God did not send His Son to give us a bunch of rules, but rather He sent His Son so that we can receive His Life, and through Him we can live and have life more abundantly.

I was learning about the Gospel of Grace for a long time. Yet at the same time, I was attending Celebrate Recovery meetings.

We cannot walk by faith in God's grace if we disdain the truth that He has paid for everything through the death and resurrection of His Son.

As long as we are convinced that the sin debt in our lives is not paid, then we will keep on trying to pay off that interminable debt with our thoughts, words, deeds, obsessive habits, compulsive behaviors, and every other religious trapping.

Why did I struggle to believe that all my sins are forgiven? I was still working these outrageous, unending, useless Twelve Steps.

We are called to rest in His Finished work, to trust that He has taken care of everything, regardless of how we feel, or what we think, or even what we do, or have done, or will do.

We accept this wonderful gift when we accept that we are not just bad people who need to be good, but rather dead men and women who need life, and this Life we find in one Person: Jesus!

This beautiful person we cannot know through our own empty, hollow intuition, for faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ (Romans 10: 17)

Yet when we believe in our hearts and confess out our mouths that Jesus is Lord, then we are saved (Romans 10: 9)

We receive His life, and all other things freely with Him, too!

Why I struggled to believe all of this? I was raised in religious, pushed through the Twelve Steps from my youth, plus a household where my father had placed the Ten Commandments, the Ministry of Death and Condemnation, on our walls in our house. We are not justified by the works of the law, but by the hearing of faith.

Law speaks also of demands, and any kind of demand placed on dead flesh will only bring forth death, sin, and bondage.

We who are called to be adopted sons and daughters of God through Christ are not called to live in the flesh, but rather to walk in the Spirit, resting in the truth that every sin has been purged, and that sin in our flesh has been crucified forever in the Body of Jesus Christ!

We will struggle to believe if we do not realize what God has called us to be, and that He wants to live in us!