It Starts Small

I heard a story about a preacher who saw a pattern. Year after year people would get excited, come to the tent revivals. They would make a tearful confession at the altar. Make a commitment to “change” and after three weeks, the people would disappear until the next tent revival. This was not redemption. This was people who were remorseful about their sin. They had an emotional experience at the altar, and never had a true redemptive experience.

I was pretty sure the pastor must have been talking about me. Except I did not attend church regularly for the past 20ish years. I got caught up in someone’s cycle and it always ended the same. When it started again, it was an emotional religious experience that soon faded in a few months and we were well on our way to another dead end.

Can you relate? I know I am asking you to take a deep introspect of your life, but are you one of those people that get all emotional at the altar, but then within a few weeks or months, the feel good dies and you are back to where you were?

⁴ Their idols are silver and gold,
made by human hands.
⁵ They have mouths but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see.
⁶ They have ears but cannot hear,
noses, but cannot smell.
⁷ They have hands but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk.
They cannot make a sound with their throats.
⁸ Those who make them are just like them,
as are all who trust in them.
Psalm 115:4-8

Honest truth? I could let go of my idol. My idol was a person, and just as this verse promises, my trust in my idol led me to acting, thinking and doing exactly what they were doing. I spoke like them. I even became an alcoholic like them. I gave my worship and devotion to this person. They were first of my day and last of my day. I constantly sought the love and approval of this person. Who this person said I was I believed. The “truth” rest in the words and actions of this person.

I had this really idiotic idea that if I were to turn away from this person, somehow I would lose this person. God did something remarkable. He took me out of the situation so I could finally see that this person had become my idol. For a long time this person had me convinced God removed me because I was the problem, but that was their way of passing the blame and not taking responsibility for their own actions.

God removed me to get me to open my eyes. I had to make a choice to let them go. Redemption is letting go of everything you make as an idol. Redemption is letting go of the sin and secret sin in your heart and make a full hardy commitment to turn away from it. YOu have to come to realize that what you want from God, and what God wants to accomplish in you are not going to be accomplished by doing the same old things, thinking the same old things, and in your own power.

SO what is a true redemption?

First of all you need to have a time of introspection.

²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my concerns.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me;
lead me in the everlasting way.
Psalm 139:23-24

Prayerfully ask the Lord to show you your own heart. You know what sin you have in your life. You know what idols you have. I suggest making a list. As the Holy Spirit brings to your mind your list, look deep into that mirror. Ask Him to bring to your thoughts your sinful behaviors. Look over your list. you need to decide a few things:

DO you really want a change in your life?
Do you want to be who you are, or do you want to be transformed and Christ like?
What does the sin and idols in your life really do for you?
What is missing in your life? Why?
What relationships or people in your life has your sin and idols damaged?
DO you believe it is possible for change?
DO you understand that change does not come from human power but the supernatural power of God?
Do you really want change?

IF you really want the transformation of God, as He promises, you have to confess yourself before Him. That list, start there. Truly confess yourself before God of all these things. Ask Him for forgiveness and His cleansing power to make you whole. You need to confess that you are weak and powerless to change, but God is strength and power to make change in you.

Now the real work begins.

Transformation is not an instantaneous thing. You got yourself tangled up, now it is your job to untangle the mess you made.

Seek Counseling

Counseling and therapy’s purpose is to unlock your thoughts and patterns of behavior. I suggest seeking counseling and therapy, because your patterns of behavior and thoughts can help you unlock what is going on in your heart.

⁴⁵ A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. Luke 6:45

A therapist or counselors’ job is not to fix you. Their job is to walk alongside of you to decode what is going on inside your mind. They can identify anxiety, depression, personality disorders, trauma, fear, abuse etc. They can explain to you what these do inside your brain. How they shape your responses. DO not be ashamed or disappointed when you find out you have issues that are labeled one thing or another. Instead rejoice that you are discovering something about your heart. You are opening the door to understanding your relationship with God.

WHat goes on inside our minds is an indicator of what is going on inside our hearts. Anxiety is the easiest to use as an example. Take anxiety and put it up against the Word of God. Anxiety is worrying.

What does God’s Word say about anxiety?
What does Anxiety reveal about the Character of God?
What does the Word of God say about the effect of worry?
What is anxiety showing you about your relationship with God?
What is God asking you to be obedient in?
What is God’s Promises in direct relationship to letting go of worry?

Dig into the Word of God and ask Him prayerfully to reveal scripture to help you understand your worry. Sometimes worry is a fear being revealed. AS you begin this process for all these things you are discovering in your mind, you have to make a decision. Are you going to trust God to allow Him to work with you through this, or are you going to hang onto that “thing?”

Look friend, I get it. Trust can be a major breaking point in our relationship with God. It does not happen overnight. AS you begin to trust, He begins to reveal more and more of Himself to your through the Spirit. If you have a set back, and take your trust back, do not self hate or beat yourself up. Just begin again.

Seek Spiritual Counsel

You do not have to walk this journey alone. Prayerfully ask God to bring one or two spiritually mature people into your journey. Find people you can trust with confidentiality and spiritual mentorship. Someone who is not there to fix you, but help guide you when you get stuck and are not sure where to go in God’s Word.

Seek Him First

Make loving God and seeking Him first an intentional act. Decide that God is the most important part of your day. Set time to get up a little early to pray. Prayer is coming into the presence of God and speaking directly to Him. Be honest. Come to Him with the intent to hear from Him. Bring all your cares and burdens and lay them at His feet. Make God the first in everything you do. Invite Him into your job. Invite Him into every aspect of your life.

Dig In the Word of God

Everyday, when you intentionally open the Word of God, expect it to jump off the page at you. Open your spiritual ears and listen for the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Find a year long plan, topical studies, or a devotional book. Get a concordance and/or a lexicon Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic translation guide. Challenge everything you think you know about the Word of God. You have heard the story of David and Goliath a million times. Read the scriptures and be expectant for the Spirit to show you something new about it you had never seen before.

Where are you in the story?
Where is God?
What promises or consequence is being revealed?
What sin is being revealed?
What character of God is being revealed?
What command is He giving?

Most importantly, what is God asking you to be obedient in?

Stop Isolating yourself

Sometimes God will set us apart from others. It is not because we are bad and deserve it. It is His chance to get you alone with Him. He wants to teach you to be completely dependant upon Him. It is not a punishment, but an opportunity for transformation to begin. However, God does not want us to isolate ourselves from community of the body of Christ, society, or our families. Community helps keep us accountable. Community helps when we have fallen and need help standing. Community is God using others around us to help meet our needs. You can not do this on your own without God or others.

This is not a Sprint

Learn to give yourself grace! Take your time with the matters of your heart and God. This is not a sprint. It is a journey. The path is not linear, but a circular spiral. You are going to stand at the bottom of mountains and the top of peaks. You are going to mess up, but the journey does not stop. It is opportunity to discover something about you and allow God to use that discover to transform something in you that stumbles you. Take your time. Rushing is only going to get you back where you started.

Unlocking your true Identity

There are three battles I had to overcome. The first was forgiveness. I had a lot of forgiveness to work through. The next was confronting the patterns of behavior and allowing God to help me rewrite the destructive patterns of my thoughts, behavior, and emotions. The last was the hardest. I had to let go of my shame. My shame held onto what my old nature identified myself as. I was still letting my old nature say who I was and there was a struggle between my old identity and my new identity.

I believe this is the number one reason why people are stuck in completing the full circle of redemption. Why they experience remorse and not a true redemption. Redemption is going to expose exactly who you are. It is going to expose what has happen in your life. It is going to expose things you have done. Not just expose it to you, but those around you. Fear locks our pride in place and we determine that our self preservation and the false life we live on the outside is worth more to preserving that risking people see me for who I am, what has been done to me, and what I have done to others.

Friend, if you take the steps to walk with Christ and let your life be Christ, those things that hold you in shame become someone else’s hope. AS Christ transform your heart He begins to work a transformation in your life that will attract people to you and there is a very real possibility that something that is hidden in them, a struggle, a shame, a hurt, is something you can confidently speak about because, you have been there, and there is a real hope.

When you speak about the pit God pulled you from, people know you speak truth because your life will start to produce fruit. People may be shocked, may judge you, or all together decide to reject you. That is ok. As Christ transforms you through the Spirit, the fruit that comes is the testimony and power of what redemption is. You become Christ’s living, breathing, walking testimony. The authenticity of Christ is measured by how we speak, act, and if we are truly walking what we speak.

Does your walk match your talk?

What is Christ like in your walk. Others will learn quickly who Christ is by your testimony, be it Christ like or worldly. Can you be accused of being a Jesus follower or is your testimony before others I am just one of those “christians.”

Friend, there is no quick fix to transforming ourselves from the old nature to a new creation. No quick fix sticks. I pray today that you take the courageous step to deciding that today is the day enough is enough. Stop running and chose to turn around. Look upon the face of Jesus. He is waiting patiently for you because what he starts in you, he promises to finish!