why my childhood religion didn't save me

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. 

This lasted a very long time--from 2005 until very recently--the end of 2012. I was spiritually dead. I wouldn't admit it, and I had not realized it until just now, but I was empty. For some reason, maybe because they were so deeply ingrained in me, I kept to my moral code. This gave me the sense that I was saved. I thought that since I felt the need to not drink and cuss, that I must still be a Christian, but I was dead. The truth being, I did not know God, and I certainly didn't have a relationship with God. In fact,  I would go so far to say that I did not care about God. My life surely exemplified this truth.

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. 

After I allowed Christ to truly save me, after I had accepted His grace by giving my life to Him, God showed me how He did it. He revealed to me through the Holy Spirit how He saved my soul, and it is truly exciting because it is so much better than what I had thought and practiced for so many years. God has literally turned my life around, and now I seek Him. I thirst for Him. I understand what David meant when he said,

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.

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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.