Lies I Tell Myself, Part 1 can be found here.

There was a Sunday not long ago, where before the choir sang one of the Associate Pastors asked everyone to close their eyes and reflect and meditate on what Christ went through for us as he described in vivid detail the suffering Christ endured for us, from Gathsemane to  his cry of “It is finished!” People all around me were weeping. Throughout the congregation there were people going to the altar to pray.

I stood there listening and picturing it in my mind and it began to nag at me that I was not “moved” as much as those around me.

I began to ask in my head,

What is wrong with me?

Do I not love God enough?

I felt very empty.

As the choir filed out, heading to their seats among the congregation, I stepped into a classroom to pray and take these questions to God, the only one who knows all the answers.

I sat there with my head down. A friend came and sat by me and began to pray aloud, that God would give me peace and surround me with His love and to help me see and feel it.

Later that day, I sat reading through Psalms. The Lord kept showing me verse after verse about how He is faithful to hear when we call out to him and a verse in Isaiah jumped off the page at me.

“He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” ~Isaiah 40:29

While sitting there on a pew in a quiet hallway, the pastor who had given such a vivid description walked by and stopped to talk. I shared a bit about the struggle I was facing. He gave me a cd of a sermon by Paul Washer titled “Assurance of the Believer”.

That sermon, on the book of 1 John was exactly what I needed. In the last five minutes of the sermon the preacher tells of a time he found his godly mother with her Bible in her lap, tears streaming down her face, questioning her salvation. His response to her was exactly what I needed to hear. A Word from the LORD.

“The mere fact that you are in God’s Word and see your sin is evidence that you are saved. The mere fact that you struggle with the fact that you don’t love God enough is evidence that you are a believer. The fact that you look at your life and you are not as holy as you’d like to be and it bothers you is evidence that you are saved!”

 “Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.

Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!“~Psalm 31:18-19

This isn’t the end. Part 3  is coming is now here.

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It has been fifteen days since I last posted.

I was in a dry season. No leading by the Lord to write about anything in particular.

Do you ever feel like you can’t write?

That you don’t have anything to say that would benefit anyone?

I began to seek God and ask if I should just close this space down. If I am supposed to keep this blog going I needed Him to give me something to say that, without question, was from Him.

Not only was I having a sort of writer’s block, I also questioned whether I was worthy to continue writing here.

Do you ever have times where you are so distracted by an internal battle it consumes your thoughts and hinders peace?

That is where I’ve been in the last month. I had an internal battle raging, that sometimes showed through to the outside. Seen by others through my lack of joy. Stress and tiredness ruled my days and my countenance.

I had very little peace.

When we don’t have peace, we need to stop and ask, “why?”.

Seek the Lord for an answer.

I have been a Christian for over twenty years now. Why was I having a battle over my salvation? Why was I questioning whether I was saved or not? My head was filled with loud, nagging, and condemning thoughts. Doubts were caused by dwelling on what wasn’t true.

Lies swirled in my head.

“If I am truly a Christian, I wouldn’t have a struggle with this or that. So I must not really be saved.”

Yet, I know that I am not in any way saved by works, it is only by faith and trust in Christ Jesus.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith;

and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

~Ephesians 2:8 & 9

However my critical-self would read;

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,

which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

~Ephesians 2:10

and I would beat myself up that “I am not walking in good works”.

My perfectionist-self condemning myself.

I had convinced myself that the Fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23 weren’t evident in my life.

Truly what does salvation come from?

FAITH.

Placing your total trust in the finished work of Christ.

But I know I am trusting in the blood of the Lamb, that which Jesus shed for me on Calvary, to cleanse me of my sin.

Was I not trusting Him enough?

Did I not love Jesus enough?

When it comes down to it, you either accept Christ or you knowingly reject Christ.

There is no “enough”.

“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed:

blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

~John 20:29

This isn’t the end of the story…

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Linking up with Kristi and Michelle today.

**edit: Part 2 is found here. Part 3 is found here.

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