This is to all who claim the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is my confession.

For about 34 years, I have claimed to be a Christian. For a time, I had lots of zeal and felt on fire for the Lord, a brief period at the beginning of my walk. But soon I was living for all the wrong reasons and still claiming to be a Christian. My sins were many. For this, I will say the pride of the eyes and the pride of life. Details are a distraction at this point.

Many Of my friends on Facebook will remember me trying to tell them about Christ while at the same time using very unwholesome language. While claiming to be a Christian, I walked in the counsel of the wicked, I stood in the way of sinners, and I sat in the seat of scoffers. I did not take delight in the law of the Lord but in my ways. I could not understand what was wrong, why I could not do what was right before God. I cried out for God to help me restore my first love. I clung to Psalm 13, How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? (even now this brings tears welling up in my eye’s) How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my own soul (My sinful, broken, tainted soul) and have sorrow in my heart all the day? I searched for something more, did I need more of the Holy Spirit, did I need more grace, did I lack something that I needed from God? I spent most of my Christian life wallowing in this self-pity.

About 2009, I started to see the hope that was in Psalm 13, But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me. At the time, I didn’t know why I just started trusting in those verses. That God, my Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ would not leave me to die this way. In the words of a dear friend of mine, “Anyway make a long story short,” and then he would laugh with a unique laugh that those who know him could identify from a mile away. Here I am in the present I have found a few things out that helped me in my walk, and here they are.

1)    When You’re born again, you have every spiritual blessing. There is no need to seek something else.

2)    Once God begins a work in you, He will not depart until it is finished. It is not finished until we are in heaven and ruling with Christ.

3)    Your Salvation is as sure as your calling and election. This is why I’ve posted a couple of time to make sure of you’re calling and election.

So, You’re probably wondering why I am telling you all of this. Because some of you may be feeling the same as I was all those years, yearning, to be able to live a godly and righteous life. I want you to take encouragement from my testimony. To know that no one can live a sinless life on this side of the grave. That is why Christ had to do it for us. Christ is why we can come to the Father in prayer. The Father does not see our sin; He sees Christ in us. He sees the righteous blood of His Son, making us righteous in His sight. Not because we can choose, but because He did it for us. Not by works that any man should boast. Ephesians 2:9.

This does not relieve you of responsibility, I thought God would do it all; however, once you are born again, you have the responsibility to strive to live in your new state. Just like I could not force my children to walk, they had to learn to walk on there own. I helped where I could, but some lessons are best to learn through trial. 

I am posting this on Facebook and in my blog, but I want you to know that I now have the assurance of my calling and election, of God’s love for me, that I am in Christ Jesus not because of God looking into the future but because of God’s Holy and sovereign decree. I am a sinner until I am released from this body of death; the flesh is exceedingly sinful. But my hope is in the things not yet seen, a new heaven and a new earth, this corruptible flesh being replaced by the incorruptible.

Ask for forgiveness as often as you need and ask God our Father and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to give you the Grace to understand the totality of every spiritual blessing and how to live in those blessings so that you will glorify the Lord with your life.

If you are not born again, then seek the Lord with everything you are until He assures you that you are saved.

May God have mercy on us all.