Denying Ourselves.
Heyyy, hope you're all doing well.
Being saved entails a lot of things but first and foremost we have to accept that Jesus is our Lord and savior and His blood is enough to wash away each and every single one of our sins, guilt and shame comes with understanding that sin is our enemy, understanding that with every sin we commit we are hurting God but we shouldn't let our guilt deceive us into thinking that Jesus isn't enough, that Jesus' death was for nothing. Jesus did not die in vain, He died for every single one of us, someone died for you, shouldn't that be enough for you to make a change in how you live your life, make His death worth something, His blood will wash away every single one of your sins, Jesus has power over every sin, He doesn't care what you did or who you are because He can change you, He will make you the best version of yourself only if you're willing to make the change. No guilt or shame should ever make you feel like God won't forgive you, He will forgive you and He will welcome you with open arms. Jesus is God, do you believe that? Check your hearts because if you don't believe this truth then you are not saved. It's not easy being Christian but for God it will always be worth it, our walk with Christ isn't always going to be a straight path and it's definitely not going to be easy but it's not a walk you're doing alone, Christ is willing to take this walk with you, He wants to lead you to heaven, ask for help and you'll get it whether it's from the Holy Spirit, your congregation or even random people on the internet, God is trying to reach out to us, He wants us in heaven but is that what we want. I thought I'd delve deeper into the topic of forgiveness by clarifying that repentance is more than just apologizing for a sin you're going to commit the very next day, repenting means getting rid of temptation and turning away from that sin, don't apologize if you don't mean it. Show God that sin isn't more important than Him, it should be harder for you to sin than for you to have a relationship with God.
We all chase worldly things, we are so consumed by our desires that we don't realize how we put these things before God, we make our desires more important than God and this inadvertently means God isn't first in our lives. We diminish His presence in our lives so much that we start to believe He isn't there. We chase after the things of this world yet they won't satisfy us and to be honest, we all subconsciously know that we'll never be satisfied, no amount of money or fame will ever satisfy us, if that was true then rich people would actually be happy. Our greed pushes us to an unhealthy obsession with anything but God, all these things will never make us fulfilled, we'll always desire more and more until we have more than we need and we're still unhappy. We make idols of everything around us and the smallest things become a priority in our lives, it can be as simple as an app or even our friends, you see, we give all these things more time than we give God and still have the audacity to complain about how God doesn't speak to us of how He doesn't show us any signs, that is how believers turn into non believers and honestly speaking, it's not God's fault, it's ours. Being a Christian isn't always fun, it's hard and scary changing your entire lifestyle to one that glorifies Christ and it's not going to magically whisk away all your problems in fact it may amplify some of them but the difference is you won't be alone and it'll all be worth it in the end. So let's make God a priority in our lives because I promise this isn't something you'll regret.
Re-evaluate your decisions and your opinions because as humans we base a lot of our decisions on what it can do for me not what it can do for the people around me or what can I do for God. God gave us free will because without we would be slaves, we wouldn't love God on our own, we would be forced to love God, that isn't real love. God wants us to choose to be with Him or without Him. He won't force us to do anything so it's up to you, live for Him or live for this world only one of those decisions is meaningless. Sin hates you, it only wants to pull you to hell, God loves you and He wants you in heaven so why are we picking sin over God everyday.
"Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin."
John 8:34 NIV
xoxo
M✨