Ever found yourself stuck in a never ending cycle of abuse, sin, or just bad decision making? I mean in your hearts of hearts your true desire is to do the right thing. It your heart you wanna say no to sex with her, him or them. In your heart of hearts you wanna say no to the alcohol bottle, the strip club, the crack pipe or to stealing or cheating but you find yourself doing the very thing you desire not to do. I know what this feels like because I have been going through the same old thing my friend. You start to question your deliverance, your salvation and some time your self worth. You start allowing your mistakes to be a mirror image of who you think you are. The bible teaches us in the book of Romans about the apostle pauls' own struggles with his will to do whats right but with actions of wrong doing. He clearly stated that the good that he desires to do he finds himself not doing and the evil thing he desires himself not to do that's what he finds himself doing, then he goes on and say who can save a wretched man like me? And his answer was Jesus!!
I know my friend you feel like you are unsaveable, unstoppable and unreachable. I know what you are going through. I have been saved and writing a book about deliverance but still stuck in the same ole vicious cycle of sexual sin. I felt the disgust, I felt and heard the Holy Spirit within me pleading and crying for me to say no to my flesh and yes to his will but like you I found myself doing that very thing I desired not to do. And with that decision, I was back in a place of depression, back in a place of emotional and spiritual turmoil. I cried out to God to forgive me but I was missing a key component and that was true repentance. And in order for me to understand, keep and write about deliverance I had to understand and come to know true repentance. The revelation and understanding came to me right after I had a sexual encounter which led me to write this blog you are reading. I don't care what you or people may be saying right about now but I am trying to win this race with all that's in me and this may negatively effect book sales but book sales are nothing compared to my breakthrough, my salvation. Book sales are nothing compared to me helping you breakthrough and break out of your mess through the blood of the Lamb and the power of my testimony.
Understand that true repentance means I have turned from my old thinking and behavior patterns that led me to the road of destruction. It doesn't just mean you feel bad about sinning that's the definition of emotionalism. Your tears doesn't equal repentance, your hurt feelings don't equal repentance. Those are just emotional manifestations. And so often we confuse the two. Emotional manifestations manifest based upon how you feel and you always end up feeling the same ole way because even though you feel bad about what you did, you haven't done anything to not do it again. True repentance is that not only do you feel bad but you change your thinking, which changes your behavior, which alters your emotions and allows you to not return back to that state in which you found yourself previously in. The feeling bad or remorseful is a sign of conviction or a moral conscious. That feeling is designed to guide you to repent. It is not repentance in itself. The feelings or emotions that go along with that conviction are just emotional manifestations of your inward convictions or your inward conscious, they are designed to help you understand what your conviction is and sometimes those emotions are confused with condemnation.
But until I understood this I was still stuck doing the same ole thing expecting different results. I was behaving insanely!!! I found myself crying and feeling remorseful for what I had done, but days later back doing the same ole thing and experiencing the same ole emotions. I desired to be free from sexual sin but in my boredom I continued to browse sex sites and sex ads, I wanted to stop drinking, but I continued to go to the liquor store. You may desire to stop cheating on your spouse but you still text that sideline person. My point is that until you and I obtain true repentance there will never be a true change. Understand that if you are reading this and you are a recipient of salvation, your soul is saved, your spirit is born again but your mind is still a mess, your flesh can never be saved, your flesh can never be born again that's why the bible teaches us to walk after the dictates of the spirit and not after the dictates of the flesh. And that's what Jesus meant when he told Nicademus that unless a man be born again of the spirit he can not enter the kingdom of Heaven.
We have to learn to renew our minds by bringing into subjection every thought that rises itself up against that good thing in which we are trying to achieve. It is not God's responsibility to correct your thinking because He has equipped us with the resources to change our thinking but it is up to us to utilize those resources. Instead of me going to sex sites or want ads I need to go to the bible, go some online ministries. Instead of you calling up your sideline when you get lonely, you will call your wife and your husband. You may need to seek counseling, call a friend or just pray. Whatever it is that you need to do to change your thinking you must do in order to obtain the ability to do those things that you desire to do.
Let the word of God be your appetite suppressant, let the word of God be your secret lover, let the word of God become your alcohol bottle, your cigarette, your porno...Let the word of God transform your thinking. That's what I'm doing. Because I don't know about you but I am tired of feeling disgusted after I fall back into sin, I am tired of being absent from God, I am tired of leaving His presence and rejecting His will. Aren't you tired of being used by the devil? Aren't you tired of being used by your own thoughts and acts of unrighteousness? Haven't we gone through enough not to say enough is enough?
I challenge you now, I decree it to be so that from this day forward you and I shall walk in true repentance to live out a lifestyle of true happiness, surrenderence and obedience to the will, ways and word of God!!!
"If you change your thinking, you change your decisions and if you change your decisions you change your outcome"-me
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