I’ve often heard atheists charge Christians with having an emotional religion with no intellectual aspect, claiming that in our minds we know that God doesn’t really exist. For me, it’s always been the opposite. I have an intellectual confidence and assurance that the God of the Bible exists and that I can trust Him to save me and protect me. The part I struggle with is the emotional side.
Those of you who know me well know that I’ve been having a rough 18 months. I won’t go into detail here, but I will say that it’s been hard to be optimistic and to trust God’s plan for my life. Sometimes He seems to be taking us somewhere, or taking us through somewhere that seems so hard and horrible. I had an absolute intellectual confidence that God knew what He was doing and that I could trust in His plan, but emotionally I struggled with where He had me, and struggled to feel close to Him. I strongly and confidently believed ABOUT God, but believing IN Him was a lot tougher.
As a result, it became tougher to live in accordance with the premise that God was trustworthy to me. I made choices that I know God didn’t want me to make but, quite honestly, in my short-sightedness and haughtiness, it seemed to me that His plan wasn’t getting me anywhere so maybe I ought to substitute my own. That, of course, is sin and the root of sin.
The reality of the Christian walk is that we are enabled to live a holy life by the power of the Holy Spirit, but sin is still in our hearts and can consume us and pull us away from God if we let it. It is unreasonable to assume that a Christian will never sin, but it is also unreasonable to call yourself a Christian and be unwilling to repent and turn back to God.
Furthermore, satan desires to do one of two things with our sin– either make it seem like it’s not a big deal, or to make it seem so big that God couldn’t forgive us. Often, he will lead with the first and when we begin to wise up to the wickedness of our sin, he kicks in with the second. Both pull us away from God and must be resisted.
When God saved us, He knew every sin we would commit, and yet He chose to save us anyway, meaning that if we will repent and turn to God, He is always willing to forgive. Or is there a sin so big that the blood of Christ, God in the flesh, can’t cover it? God desired to bring us into fellowship with Him but our sin was in the way. So God took the penalty of that sin into Himself so we could know Him.
I tell you a little bit about my struggles because I believe that Christians tend to hide their sins out of embarassment. Thus, they feel that they are somehow too sinful for God to save. They worry that they aren’t in the body of Christ because they feel less “together” than other Christians since everyone else in the body of Christ is hiding their sin too! I want anyone who reads this blog to know that while we have struggled and sinned, even as Christians, God is always forgiving and always loving. Christ is willing to take the penalty for every sin we are willing to repent of, and we can’t let any sin get in the way of knowing Him.
So as a human being with a depraved nature, I tell all of my other fellow depraved human beings to confess your sin, repent, and KNOW that Christ has saved you completely. You are not too wicked to save, because Christ is infinitely holy. “Where sin abounded, grace much more abounded” (Romans 5:20).