This is a burden on my heart. It
weighs greatly in my chest and in my throat. It needs to come out or it will
tear me.
I am sorry for the drama, but I feel
truly and heavily burdened.
Do you understand what I am saying?
If this is not said, then it will break me. It will finish me. My only desire
is to make it known. I need others to hear it, to see it, and to understand it.
It is great within me. It is beautiful, shining, bright and colorful.
Everything else in comparison is grey and slow. Nothing else matters. It is
all. This message is the most important. It is all important. It is all.
When I was a child I was told I was going to Hell. I was told that if I did
not say a prayer and believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead then I
was going to Hell. This captured my soul and imprisoned it. I was held captive
by the fear of eternal punishment, and it controlled me for years. Even as a
young child, the fear of Hell restricted and confined me.
I was then taught about sin. I was
taught (at least all I remember being taught) the first part of Romans 6:23,
"The wages of sin is death." So sin became my fixation. I feared sin
because sin caused death, and death was Hell.
Then
I was told that I must have "devotions," reading the Bible and
praying. If I did not have devotions it was a sin, and I would not be close to
God. Not having devotions was a sin, I feared sin, and therefore I feared not
reading my Bible and praying.
I would read my Bible every day, but
I did not learn. I would read out of fear because not reading was sin. I would
"pray." My prayer was constructed (it was the same everyday), and it
was full of fear. I was afraid if I didn't say everything just right that I
would be sinning, and that sin would result in Hell. So if I messed up I would
do it again and again until I finished the prayer correctly. If I didn't say,
"in Jesus name I pray, Amen," just right, then I would have to repeat
and repeat until I got it right. I was driven by fear because I had to do
everything right or else I would go to Hell.
My fear of sin was much greater than
this. I had such a deep fear that I was going to Hell, that I was afraid that I
would accidentally sin. I was so afraid that I would think something and that
thought would finish me. Something so evil that Jesus would reject me, and that
I would be going straight to eternal damnation. It was utterly all-consuming.
My life, my religion, my salvation,
and my eternal soul revolved around my fear of Hell.
It was all I knew.
If I sin, I go to Hell.
I cannot emphasize enough how much
these thoughts, fears, and actions controlled my life. How they plagued my
thoughts, and captured my heart. I was truly enslaved by them, and that is the
only fitting definition.
Once I was no longer a child, I was
able to stop fixating on Hell. I am not sure what it was (beyond the grace of
God), but I no longer feared that my thoughts would send me there.
Even so, I still lived my life in the
same manner. I thought that my actions had to be perfect. I would say with my
mouth that it is not actions that saved you, but I would live my life like it
was. I felt obligated to keep every law that was in place. These laws, some
being Biblical, were all placed in front of me by the Church.
Growing up, my church experience was
legalistic. One must follow a moral set of guidelines. They would admit that
this would not save you, but this is all that was taught. The church, its
leaders, and myself spoke mostly of sin, and how to escape it. They emphasized
the importance of staying sexually pure, not drinking alcohol, staying away
from drugs, not cussing, not gambling, not watching "R" rated movies,
listening to only Christian music, going to church, reading your Bible,
praying. We fixated on the importance of rule and regulation, but claimed they
had no ability to save. Even so, I sat up the rules and regulations as my God.
They were the source of my religion and our salvation, even if I claimed
otherwise.
I am saying that all I cared about was
DOING things correctly. Doing what I thought was right according to the Bible,
and that my purpose on earth was to control myself and beat myself into a
moralistic code that would indeed please God, and ensure my place in heaven. I
had no freedom, I had no joy. I had rules, and I was no better than the
Pharisees that Jesus condemned for their utter avoidance of the truth.
This sounds harsh. I am not saying
that this is all that was taught by my church. I believe that our church did
speak truth, but this is all I remember. It may be solely my fault for not
hearing other things, but I cannot say for sure that much else was taught--simply
because I do not remember it.
Whether my church taught truth or not
does not matter for my story because as I have said, I did not hear any. I
would say things that were truth from the Bible, but I would not live like it.
Even as I grew older, I would (figuratively) beat myself into submission. I
would not allow myself to sin or go outside of the moralistic guidelines laid
down by my church and it's leaders. I
would, as I did when I was a child,
fixate on my sin, and feel shame and emptiness.
I would pray and ask God for
deliverance from my sin, but it would not come. I would apologize, stress,
journal, read, hope, memorize, control every aspect of my life so that I may
overcome this sin, so that I could CONTROL my own religion, so that I could
CONTROL my own fate and destiny, so that I could CONTROL and ensure my entrance
into heaven. So that by my actions I may seal my fate and forever relieve
myself from my utter fear of eternal damnation.
Then, I gave up. I stopped caring. I
stopped fighting. I stopped controlling. I decided that I would just stop, and
try to "figure out" my relationship with God.
It is funny because I was going to
figure out God. I was going to "find what I believe." I was going to
start over again.
From 2005 until recently, I began
down a path that would only lead to me. I began to only care for myself. I
began to plan my life around me, and how I would be best taken care of. Even
though I was married in 2008, I would still only think of myself, and this is
evident in the many poor decisions that I made. Out of selfishness, I would
make decisions that still affect myself and my wife to this day. I was utterly
self-consumed. Even in my giving I was selfish--hoping that God would give back
to me, and bless me because I gave to others. Even in my moralistic lifestyle I
loved only one, and that was myself.
I had become the hypocrite. I had
become the Pharisee that I had read about so many times. I had become the one
to which Jesus himself yelled,
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
I became this person--this evil,
greedy, self-indulgent, blind, unclean hypocrite. In fact, I didn't just become
this, I realized that I had always been this. I had read this (or heard it
read) so many times, and I always thought,
"sucks to be them," but now I realize that virtually my entire life,
I was them. I was truly blind.
I was blind and following a
moralistic god. The moral code, or the law as the Bible calls it, was my god.
It guided me, I followed it, and did my best to obey it. The thing about the
law is it cannot save you. The law will not save you, it will only show you
your sin.
The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.Romans 7:10-11
So my fears of going to Hell as a
child may have been well placed because my god was the law. I followed the law
so that I may avoid Hell and find the true God. I was controlling my fate and
my religion. I used the law to remove Hell, just as many may use denial to
remove Hell. Even though the approaches are different, neither the law nor
denial of the law's existence can save one from Hell.
And then the good news…
One night I was in bed and trust me,
I know it sounds weird and crazy, but God came to me. Through his Holy Spirit,
God called me. He tugged and tugged at me, and said submit to Me. STOP trying
to control it, STOP trying to earn it, STOP trying to be perfect, STOP thinking
about you, STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP, and give it all to Me.
Give Me your life. Let Me have all of
you, and I will show you the way. You don't know what you are doing. You are
utterly incapable of doing this on your own. You have been trying for 25 years,
and you are failing miserably. No matter what you try, no matter what you
learn, no matter how many times you change the direction of your life, YOU WILL
NEVER BE ABLE TO GET TO ME. Therefore, Zac, I am coming to you. Please give
yourself to Me. Commit all you are to Me, and I will give you life.
This was the tugging. I knew what it
was He was asking for. Somehow I always knew what He really wanted. I had to
give it all to Him. I had to allow God to be the one and only Lord of my life.
This sounds bizarre in this world we live in, but if we were under a kingship
it would make perfect sense. One in need would throw themselves at the mercy of
their king, and in doing so would commit their life to the king's service. The
king, in his wisdom or lack of wisdom, would choose whether or not to show
grace to his subject. This is what I needed to do. I needed to give up my
pursuit. I needed to stop trying to be good enough. I needed to stop
controlling, fighting, and willing my way into heaven. Because I just can't
freaking make it on my own. I can't do it. I know I can't, and therefore:
I give my life to Christ. I am His,
and now He is mine. I give up. I stop trying, and allow Him to save me. I throw
myself on His mercy, and if He wants to spare me then He will, and He did.
That night I gave up. I stopped, and
I allowed Christ to save me from myself. I allowed grace into my life, and I
finally gained what I had been searching relentlessly for, for 25 years.
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.Psalm 63:1
I desire the Bible, and I desire to
know God's Word. I cannot get enough, and I cannot learn too quickly. I feel
like I have so much lost time to make up for, and all I want to do is declare
my love for God. I want everyone to know of His gift, His grace, and His true
love. I am truly a saved man. I was lost, but not anymore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I want to say that the misguidance of
my youth is no one's fault--not my parents, not my church, not my leaders. This
was, is, and will be my journey. This is God's plan for my life. I didn't choose it to be like this; no one chooses it to be like this; God predestined
it to happen like this, and I am utterly gratefully He has. So do not feel
remorse, instead praise God because He has finally revealed His truth to me.
My statements beg a few great
questions. How then, are we saved? The short answer is by grace through faith. Do
we not have to live according to the law because we now have grace? The short
answer is no. I will try to answer these questions in my next blog post. Also,
for the answers, read the Bible--Romans is a great place to start finding
answers to these questions.
