I suggest sincerely repenting. Come before God in humility and beg him for forgiveness and repent (turning away from sin - and repentance is an ongoing thing, meaning to say, we have to constantly repent throughout life). If you are genuine in your repentance, the Holy Spirit will clean out your heart and give you the strength and boldness to resist sinning. I'm sure you will sin on occasion (it's impossible not to) but if you are serious about living a holy life, the Holy Spirit will help you with that.
If you are serious about your fear of hell, then I would hope that would give you the desire to stop the things you now have no desire to stop. However, I don't think the Christian faith flourishes in a person based on fear. It is when you see God as a personality (as apposed to a force) who loves you and who is a friend/father in your life. That is what got me "back" after many years of straying and that is what keeps me living as sinless as possible (I changed my lifestyle drastically in order to cut sin out of my life as much as possible). I, of course, still slip once in a while but I immediately know what I've done wrong and repent and ask Jesus to fill me with strength to withstand that particular thing and to do whatever needs to be done to keep me on the right path.yeah but i just sin again and some things i have no desire to stop. help
Think of it as how a baby acts when he is learning how to walk. We are on a metaphorical walk throughout life. The baby has a parent waiting a distance away, encouraging him "C'mon, you can make it!" smiling and with their arms out. For us, that is Jesus, waiting and the Holy Spirit encouraging us. When the baby falls, he gets back up, and if he can't for some reason, his parent picks him back up and puts him on his feet again so he can continue.
That type of illustration has helped me to keep my focus (sometimes I still get off the path for a bit, but God doesn't let me stray for long) on Jesus. I suggest going on youtube and watching some sermons - there are lots of great pastors... if you want some suggestions, PM me.
When we backslide or whatever, sometimes it is hard to believe that God doesn't hate us, let alone that he still loves us more than we could imagine. Sometimes when I sin, I still feel hesitant to go to him and repent because i feel "not good enough" to talk to God. But that is exactly when we need him the most. That's the key to remaining a christian and not falling back into the cesspool of a sinful lifestyle. That and putting God in the number one place in your life. I personally say Jesus is my life. It's an attitude also.
You say you fear God, but do you LOVE God? That is an important distinction. Before Sept 2011, I honestly feared God, but I didn't love him. Because I didn't understand him. I viewed him as a big scary grump who was displeased with me and my life and who I had better obey (but I didn't) because He said so. Now, I'm sure he was displeased with me, but it wasn't because he was mean and grumpy. It was because He loves me more immensely than I could possibly imagine and he wanted better for me - to be living a life pleasing before him. Learning that difference and learning who God is, broke my heart and the Holy Spirit started to work on my heart. I fell in love with God (agape) and I saw him differently. That's what allowed me to let go and let him completely change me. It was a chain reaction and things started to fall into place in my life. I repented, fully, and got rid of the things in my life which were standing in the way of me having a relationship with Jesus.
When I was younger, about 7 or 8 years ago, still backslidden, and I wanted to be a christian, I started going to church again. But I had the wrong attitude about it. I was doing it in the "because it's good for me" mindset instead of understanding what I spoke about in the previous paragraph. That way of looking at it makes all the difference because I tried to force the issue and it only lasted about 2 months before I was completely backslidden again (that's actually a generous estimate).
Also, if you are a child of God, truly - you have put him first in your life and you see him as absolute Lord and King - He will not let you stray into sinful things. He will keep you on the path of righteousness and discipline you when you do something dangerous/wrong. He will take care of you and help you grow and develop as His child. The important thing is that you (collective you, as this applies to anyone) realize that you NEED Jesus in your life. You are woefully dependent on him for everything you need including life, itself.really, worrying is a sin too??!! great, one more sin to add to the List. ughhh.
But when you realize that and you realize who Jesus is, completely faithful - He will always do what he promises - that you can let go of worrying. Many times throughout the bible, Jesus tells us FEAR NOT, and is almost always (or maybe always) immediately preceded or followed by saying that He is with us. There is a reason he says this constantly. Because we are weak creatures and he knows us, he knows we worry and fear. But he wants us to realize that we have no need to do that because he has our back. God will never let us down and he will always hold us in his hand.
Fear is a tool that Satan uses to keep us from having a relationship with Jesus and if we realize that, and we study and have knowledge and wisdom in Jesus, that fear and worry will be removed. I know this first hand.
I really hope this has helped!
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
I
frequent a christian forum online. One user posted a thread stating
that he was terrified of Hell. This was a response of mine. I'm
posting this in case it may help someone else.
Labels:
by Amanda
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment