The Next Battle: The Answers for Yesterday's Pains

There were definite periods of time in my life when I felt this intense pain, this awful sense of shame.

When my mother left me at the airport when I was fourteen years old.

When I realized that my parents had not told me the full truth of the Gospel, that we are fully justified from all things that we could not receive in the law of Moses.

That my father did nothing while his wife abused me repeatedly as a kid, with religious perversions and distortions.

The chronic sense of fear that I faced every day, convinced that I had to hold the world together in my head.

The bitterness of being abandoned - that did not go away.

The sense of hurt and anger was so strong, and the shame that I tried to get away from. . .

I have lived so much of my time on this earth trying to take away a sense of "feeling bad"

Today, I know that Gospel, that I have been made the righteousness of God, in Christ.

It has nothing to do with my feelings, but everything to do with the fact of what Jesus did at the Cross, and what He does today at the right hand of God the Father.

Lately, though, a slightly different line of attack has assaulted my heart and mind.

Actually, just my mind, since today I know that I have a new heart.

So, the mind still gets attacked from time to time.

I remember the pain and frustration and desperation of years past.

Then I would get scared -- "What do I do if I start feeling that way again . . .?"

That question in itself shows a lack of understanding about rightesousness. I am righteous because of what Jesus did for me at the Cross.

Yet I did not believe that. I was going to Celebrate Recovery, which actually makes a mockery of the resurrection, as though what Jesus did at the Cross was not enough, and we have to do "our part" to make it all work.

Such anger takes over sometimes. I am outraged at the lies that many people are submitting to in our churches. People are hurting out there, and the only thing they are hearing is more man-centered shame and condemnation. There is no hope there. None.

The relief has emerged a few times in the last few days, though.

The problem was that I thought that I was wrong, or that I was doing something wrong, and therefore I had to do something in the first place.

"What am I doing wrong?" was the wrong statement to make.

I have been justified from all things, and I simply did not believe that. There was that "I" which had suggested that something more needed to be done.

Wrong.

I have been justified from all things, and that is "the faith", that Jesus has taken care of all things for us.

For too long, I had believed that I had to be saved by faith and feelings.

I had to feel saved, in other words.

Wow!

I am not kidding you. I actually thought that God was far away because I felt that He was far away. That was never the case. I had created that silly rule. It simply was not true, at all.

At all.

Yesterday's pains are answered with the eternal truth of the Gospel, that in Christ I am justified from all things, from which I could not through the law of Moses (Acts 13: 38-39)