Confession

There are times in your life when you wake up and realize that everything you believed and thought about the world is wrong.  Not that the truths you believe are wrong but how you live by those truths is what the problem is.  That is what has been happening to me over the last several months.  As I look back it is quite obvious that God was slowly breaking down all the walls in my heart and mind to bring me to a point of surrender and confession.  That time is now.

Over the last several months I have come to realize some things about myself that I always knew were true, but I never really wanted to deal with.  God has brought to the surface things in my heart that I have been afraid to really talk about and address.  In all honesty I have wanted to talk about these things but felt like I would be abandon and “kicked out” of the groups I was a part of.  Groups that had friends and family members in them that I didn’t want to lose, so I stayed silent.  However, the time for silence is over for me!!!

I need to make a confession!!  What I will share is all true!!!  I pray that if you have been feeling this way that God will give you the courage to confess too!!  Here goes:

I have been living a lie!!!  I am a fake, a pretender!!  I have tried to live a life that is just not livable!!  For too long I have tried to live a life of perfection.  I have lived according to all the rules and regulations that I was told that makes God happy and pleased with me.  I was told that if I lived this way God would bless me and I would make Him happy!!  However, I can no longer live this way!!  I can no longer live like I am perfect or that I will ever be perfect.  I can no longer live under the oppression of so many rules and regulations that I live joyless.  I can no longer live a life of trying to be “good enough” to please God!!!

I am just not going to do it anymore!!!  I AM DONE!!!

Over the last several months, and if I am honest with myself, years.  God has been dealing with my heart about some very important key words.  Words like:

Grace

Love

Hope

Faith

Mercy

Freedom

While at times I thought I understood what He was saying, in all actuality I was missing the mark by a mile!!  The reason I need to make this confession is that I WILL NOT live my life in such a way as to obey rules that Jesus has set me free from!!!  I WILL NOT live a life of perfection when God already sees me as perfect in Christ!!  I can’t be perfect!!  I am a human.  I wrestle with sin.  AND GOD STILL LOVES ME ANYWAY!!!!

I WILL NOT live a life of trying to please God when He is already pleased with me!!  I am His son!!!  He loves me!!!  I WILL NOT live a life of wearing masks.  I am DONE with wearing masks!!

Jesus paid the price I owed for sin!!  I am no longer under the debt!!!  I AM FREE!!!  Because of this I can live in freedom and liberty in Christ!!  God LOVES me SO much that He set Jesus to pay my debt!!  I DID NOTHING to earn it!!!  HE JUST LOVES ME!!  His mercy is forever toward me!!  His grace is ALWAYS enough.  His love DRAWS me to Him, even when I sin and miss the mark!!  The great and wonderful things about this is that, God already knew I couldn’t live up to His standards and He was okay with that!!  He loves me anyway!!

God is MY FATHER!!!  He LOVES ME!!!  There is nothing that I can do to earn more of His love or have that love withdrawn!!!  There is nothing I can do that can separate me from His love.  NOTHING!!!

Since this is the case and I understand where I stand with God.  I am more free then I have ever been!!  I am so full of love and grace!!  I am so thankful for His mercy!!!  GOD IS GOOD!!

While many of you may be thinking, “Shawn, we already know all of this!!”  Let me just say.  Good.  Walk in it!!  Sometimes it takes us religious folks a little more time for us to get it!!  But, I got it!!  I pray that we all can!!!  Until next time.

Grace,

Shawn