The Unbelievable but Nevertheless True … Grace of God ~blog

When we are beaten down by our sexual addiction with our continuous efforts to stop still ending in failure, it is normal to feel overwhelmed with self-loathing.  Along comes anxiety, depression, fear, and a host of other damaging emotions driving us to return once more to escape through the self-medication we find in porn.

This is the vicious cycle of addictive behavior.  We feel bad.  We turn to porn to escape. It completely captivates our brains and our feelings with the exhilaration and rush of chemicals being released into our brains.  We feel energy from the testosterone and get a natural adrenaline rush from norepinephrine.  We are focused and feel good because dopamine is flowing into the reward center of our brain.  Ultimately, we climax feeling joy from the oxytocin rush and the wave of serotonin giving us a deep feeling of calmness, satisfaction, and release from stress.

Then as time passes, we come to our senses or should I say we come back from our senses of false intimacy and back to the reality that once again we have fallen into sexual sin.  We have said we would never do it again.  We have made promises we cannot keep because we are filled with shame and refuse to tell anyone. We are sure we are the worst Christian on the planet and we continue to live a secret life in isolation.

That pretty much sums it up…right? I know because I lived that way for years falling deeper and deeper into sexual sin because what used to be enough was no longer enough.

Yet, the love of God still held me in His grasp as He holds you as well.  Jesus told his disciples in John 10;

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Did not our Father know everything about us before we were saved?  Does not our Father know every sin we will ever commit in our life?  Did He not know that you would become addicted to porn?  And yet, knowing every sinful thought, word, and deed we would every commit in our entire life…He chose you anyway.  He adopted you anyway.  He redeemed you and forgave you and paid the ultimate price so that all your sins could be completely washed away.

This is GRACE.  This is not just giving us mercy and placing our punishment on Jesus.  This is GRACE which does not give us what we deserve but goes infinitely beyond that and gives us everything we do not deserve.  Complete Forgiveness.  Eternal Life. Being Sealed with the Holy Spirit.  Making us new creations in Christ where old things have passed away and new things have come.

I am fascinated by this unlimited Grace of God and know that I am only seeing a fraction of what it will ultimately bring.  Eternal Life in Heaven where there is no sinful flesh in my everlasting body, no sin in heaven, and all demonic influences have gone forever into the Lake of Fire.

Notice what Paul writes in Ephesians 2.  After describing what we were like apart from Christ.  After saying that we were dead in our sins, followers of our flesh in our sinful world, and were by nature objects of God’s wrath for our sins, he writes…

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Did you realize that God has in the spiritual sense already raised you up and has seated you with Jesus in the heavenly places?  It is not what we have experienced as of yet.  However, Paul is so certain of this truth that even though it is in our future he speaks of it as already having happened.  He does not say “He will raise us up” or “He will seat us with Christ.” But because it is so true and so real it is as if this has already happened.

God does not change His mind and then reject us because we fail to walk in sexual purity.  He wants us to stop because sin brings death and painful consequences in life here and now.  Sin does its own damage and our Father wants to spare us the damage and pain sexual sin brings with it.

But He does not change His mind and kicks us out of His family for things we do that He knew we would do before He saved us.  No, He saved us so that He, by the finished work of Christ could have all our sins paid for and washed away.  Then, He seals us with the Holy Spirit so that we might begin to be transformed as we learn to be filled with the Spirit and we get better at walking in the Spirit so that we will no longer fulfill the desires of our flesh.

This is grace.  It seems unbelievable. People say that this grace will allow people to sin all they want and still go to heaven.  I say if you are a child of God’s you will not live with this attitude because you know that in the here and now the wages of sin is death.  So, why have death when the Grace of God offers you Life both in the here and now and forever and ever.

I encourage you to listen and or watch the YouTube video of the old hymn – “O Love that Will not Let me Go”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt69WDtYNLo

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