| Author |
Message |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12924
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, September 05, 2011 - 10:49 pm: |     |
Jim, you have to trust Jesus enough to throw yourself at His feet and give up your "right" to try to please Him. You have to put yourself at His mercy...and let go of all the "shoulds".
I am totally guessing here, because I really don't know you personally, but I'll make the guess that you may be held back not truly at the point of theology but at the point of feeling like personal "failures" in your life were unavoidable, that you tried your best but relationships failed anyway.
When I went through my divorce in my early 30's, I struggled for years to make sense of it all. I kept wracking my brain to figure out where I had failed, remembering how I had prayed through the whole thing, how I had never just tried to please myself, etc etc etc.
It wasn't until I realized with a sickening awareness that I could never honestly consider myself to be innocent in that failed marriage that I realized that God saved me and forgave me.. It wasn't until I realized that no matter how hard I prayed or struggled or rationalized or hedged my bets, I could NOT avoid sinning and contributing to the failures in my life—it wasn't until then that I began to understand that Jesus died to pay for my sin.
I'm guessing, Jim—on the basis of what I know of myself and the tiny bits I've heard of your story—that you still struggle with guilt and remorse and "what if's". Jim, we've all got to come to the place where we give up the struggle, the desperate attempts to figure out what went wrong, to analyze the level of our responsibility—and just ADMIT that no matter what the other people did, WE WERE 100% guilty—not until then is it even possible to experience Jesus' forgiveness and Jesus' life.
We can't hold our lives together, Jim—we can only surrender to the Lord Jesus and give Him the mess in which we find ourselves and ask Him to show us what is real and true, and to give up our feeble attempts to feel some justification. We have to repent of who we are, not merely of what we have done. Only when we realize that we are utterly condemned and hopeless and ask for Jesus to pay for US and to forgive us can we understand that we are free from the law.
Unless we repent of who we are and admit our entire life has been unrighteous because we are by nature sinners—we have no ability to understand that Jesus fulfilled the law.
I'm guessing, Jim, that you feel a lot of shame and guilt...but those are the things Jesus paid for. He didn't just pay for your sin: He paid for the sins done to you; He redeemed your suffering as well as your sin.
Roll the shame and guilt onto Jesus and ask Him to show you who you are in Him. Let Him take that weight off your shoulders, Jim...that weight is what He came to redeem. He doesn't want you to keep struggling to figure out how to please Him. He wants you to give up the struggle, roll the grief and shame onto Him, and accept His blood as sufficient to make your broken heart whole.
Colleen |
Tfelmon
Registered user
Username: Tfelmon
Post Number: 39
Registered: 7-2011
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 06, 2011 - 5:18 am: | |
Jim-
On the LAM site there is a study on the covenants. After reading it, it really helped me understand the questions you are asking here. I had to ask myself, "why in all my life haven't I heard anything taught about the covenants in the SDA church?" You know why? By fulling understanding the convenants would shoot holes in SDA doctrine. Its so simple, yet SDAs are taught that its not so simple. Give the study a read, it may help you understand. It did for me! |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 1293
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 06, 2011 - 5:29 pm: | |
Incomprehensible.
Jim |
Nowhitehats
Registered user
Username: Nowhitehats
Post Number: 43
Registered: 4-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 07, 2011 - 5:44 pm: | |
Jim,
Give this a try:
http://www.andrewfarley.org/andrew-farley
This is some awesome teaching on grace, law, covenants, and making sense out of some passages from scripture I've always got hung up on. And they're in easy listening, short video format.
Just click on the tabs at the top of the page called The Naked Gospel or God Without Religion. each one has video clips to check out.
Peace to you |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 1298
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 07, 2011 - 6:17 pm: | |
Thank you Nowhitehats, I will vist that site.
Jim |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1189
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 3:04 pm: | |
Jim,
What Colleen so eloquently described is what the true Sabbath rest in Christ is all about. We realize how hopeless all of our efforts were, are, and will always be. We set down all of those works and accept His gift. We see that the emphasis is al about what He did, not about what we do. We can quit struggling and truly rest. |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 1309
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 4:22 pm: | |
Colleen,
"He wants you to give up the struggle, roll the grief and shame onto Him, and accept His blood as sufficient to make your broken heart whole."
Sometimes I am not sure what all the struggle includes. It is not just the theology questions and confusions.
It is the displacement effect of a triple loss.
Loss of Church home, Divorce (and empty nest too) and Health problems. All these combined have me struggling to hold onto shreds of familiarity. Struggling to fight against the losses coming at me so fast I can't keep up.
Obviously I turn to Christ seeking answers and healing of my life in general.
I have questioned why so much has happened, who wouldn't? I have tried to restart where I could, taken an honest assessment of my limitations and abilities and I discover on so many fronts, I have lost confidence or come up short, be it emotionally, physically or Spiritually.
Driving to work, I wondered , Is this the way it will be from here on out?
God has blessed me with so much. I am grateful for that, but I still have huge empty places in my life. Rebuilding my faith and my beliefs, discovering truth and finding what is safe to trust is all a part of what I have tried to cooperate with God in doing.
Do I give up the struggle? Good question. What part of no , do I not understand?
What expectation of hope and answers from God's storehouse of infinite possibilities may I hold onto?
Learning to accept the way things are , I guess this is part of it. I just don't think resignation is a part of the answer.
Jim |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12955
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 7:05 pm: | |
Jim, have you thought of finding a good counselor who is a Christian? You have endured an enormous amount of grief in a relatively short time. I think you might need to verbally process your loss with someone who can help to give you perspective and tools for dealing with the disorienting changes.
The Lord Jesus is the unmoving center in these storms. He is there to give you peace and to be your healer and sustainer and provider. He absolutely is holding you. It's sometimes hard to know what is "real" unless you have a person to talk to who is objective and can help you to make sense of things. I would, however, caution against seeing someone who is not a Christian. Their worldview would be completely different.
Colleen |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 1314
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 5:48 pm: | |
Colleen,
I have thought of 1-1 Christian counseling. But financially it is not an option.
I have dealt with the limitations of access for years. I ask myself , what did the world do for the past two thousand years.
They turned to God, His word , His church and fellowship. They turned to education.
I think , if I get back into fellowship, it will go a long way towards healing.
Maybe I will connect to a pastor or elder for feedback. Just making personal Christian friends is a desire as well.
I have held back these past several years because so much flew apart all at once.
I could not even sense a direction to go in.
How can I go anywhere if I am broken beyond commonality or agreement on even the basics.
Mainliners do not understand, they are fearful if you even say the magic label "Former SDA".
This is why, I have been trying so hard to get my basics down, so that I can fit in , so I can relate and so they do not blow me away in my own confusion.
I hope I am closer to a new start than ever before. I hold onto hope.
Jim |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12965
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 8:24 pm: | |
Jim, you are. God will show you where to put your foot for the next step. He desires for you to be in fellowship; for sure, Christian fellowship will be a great help in working through the loss and loneliness you have faced.
Colleen |
Trans4mer
Registered user
Username: Trans4mer
Post Number: 3
Registered: 9-2011
| | Posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 - 9:15 am: | |
Jim, just want to say I'm so sorry for what you're going thru and still seem to be. Hang in there! You're getting great advice here. IMO, if your HMO covers it, see 'shrink'. I've been thru what those on this thread are talking about, and it's a 'trial and error' effort but I believe in modern medical technology. I think that yea, sometimes life is what you make it, but too often you are what life makes you! Keep getting help, professional and spiritual!!  |
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