Forsaken by God? Can You Find God Again |
Do Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 mean that a spiritually gifted and once-devoted Christian who rejects Christ can never again enjoy a full and glorious relationship with God? If so, I would be damned. After years of anguish, however, I discovered the irrevocable truth of the vast numbers of Scriptures affirming that Jesus died for all sin which, by definition, must include all my gross sins committed after my spiritual enlightenment. |
Introduction by Grantley Morris
I know Christine very well. Her present relationship with God is so special that, frankly, I am envious of it. Not only is the Lord the love of her life, I can only gasp in awe at the way she daily hears from him. She has kindly let me ghostwrite her story.
It is best to read the entire testimony, but it is divided into these sections:
I, Christine, rejoice in the indescribable relief of discovering that I can both believe in the Bible and no longer be haunted by Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10.
Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Hebrews 10:26-29 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
I am living proof that whatever Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 mean, they cannot make a liar out of the God who has promised over and over in the Bible to forgive everyone who, regardless of past misdeeds, repents and puts his/her faith in the power of Jesus bearing on the cross the full punishment for our every sin. Any Christian who returns to Christ can find forgiveness, no matter how atrocious or repeated the sin.
The Spiritual Heights From Which I Fell
At an early age I began a relationship with Christ that would be the envy of many Christians. This, of course, was the grace of God, and not by any means my achievement. I share what I do in this section solely to highlight the extent of my fall and to encourage those who fear their sin against the enlightenment they once had is too extreme for the crucified Lord to forgive.
When I was five, I sat under a cherry tree and asked God if he loved me. He answered with such warmth and assurance that I knew I was loved. From that moment we would talk and play as friends. It was so intimate and powerful that nothing will make me believe that it wasnt God. I would sing to him and he made all the trees rustle as if to applaud. I giggled and giggled. What joy God gave me.
As a child I studied at a Christian school and grew in the knowledge of God. Deeply in love with God, I found prayer and Bible study so exciting that from the age of 14 I joyously devoted a minimum of two and a half hours to it every day outside of school hours. Not only would I pray, but God would speak in my mind with great clarity. Sometimes the sessions were so glorious that I would continue throughout the entire night.
Called of God to be an intercessor, the Lord would give me supernatural visions of critical situations overseas that I would otherwise have had no way of knowing. As I prayed, I was sure that breakthroughs had taken place and later I received concrete confirmation that this was truly God and not a product of my imagination. In one case, at stake was the spiritual destiny of a nation cut off from missionaries. I think it possible that the Lord shared these revelations with other intercessors who likewise prayed, but he nonetheless included me in this privileged responsibility of interceding for situations that were unknown to human minds except by divine revelation.
On many occasions throughout my life I felt the Lord physically hug me. Under the Lords anointing I regularly exercised supernatural spiritual gifts. In addition, I served in the church musically and I was also extensively involved in practical acts of service such as feeding the homeless, helping abused women and children and the mentally ill, and sending off Bibles to countries where Bibles were outlawed.
Children are often taught that their conscience is God speaking to them. Like many Christians, I moved into adulthood with little understanding of what a dangerously simplistic notion that is. A guilty conscience is not always God. If it persists after seeking forgiveness through Jesus, a guilty conscious is the Tempter trying to fool us into doubting Jesus power to forgive. My failure to fully grasp this was a time bomb that finally exploded when I found myself divorced.
For as long as I can remember, I had wrestled with a guilty conscience. Instead of dismissing it as merely an unpleasant, satanically inspired temptation to doubt my Christ-bought salvation, however, I began to take a guilty conscience as proof that God had not forgiven me. I felt condemned over many things, a significant number of which I now know were not even sins, such as being molested by a man when I was an infant. No matter how gross or real my supposed sins were, however, I should have believed that Jesus had cancelled them all by paying for them in his blood, so that I was now innocent and pure in Gods eyes.
Things came to a head when my sadistically violent, continually unfaithful husband refused to live with me anymore. Even on our wedding night the violence and trauma were so extreme that I attempted suicide the next day. I had married because prominent people in my church who claimed to be prophets insisted I would be disobeying God if I refused to marry the man both they and I barely knew. Although I felt nothing for this man romantically, I believed their claims to be better than me in hearing from God, and so, while not yet out of my teens, I married him quickly as they suggested. Soon afterward, he admitted to me that he had only pretended to be a Christian and had married me solely to gain entry to my country. It turned out that he had not even waited until we were married for his unfaithfulness to start and after marriage his affairs extended to multiple partners. Being vehemently opposed to divorce, I begged my husband to at least keep up the appearance of being married while he had his affairs, but he refused even this.
His view of marriage was so low that he did not even care about making divorce official. He was happy to live with other women or even commit bigamy rather than bother with the red tape of divorce. Even more distressing to me was that because he was a cocaine addict and dealer, government authorities threatened to take my baby from me unless I proved my commitment to protect the baby by divorcing my husband. I had already had to lie over our sick baby, taking the blows as he tried to kick the baby. Physically ill with guilt, I felt compelled to divorce; believing that divorce is a gross sin but seeing no other way to protect and keep the baby I had almost died to give birth to.
I tried ever so hard to maintain my relationship with God but because nothing would stop the tortured screams of my accusing conscience, I chose to believe that these insistent guilt feelings meant that God was refusing to accept my prayers for forgiveness.
I was surrounded by Christians who were strongly biased toward blindly denying how impossible my marriage had become. After all, respected prophets had said this marriage was of God. Incited by lies about me spread by my husband, life-long Christian friends turned against me. Entire churches rejected me. Their response satanically inflamed by my conscience that refused to stop accusing me of what I believed to be the gross sin of divorce drove me to the conclusion that if Gods people had rejected me, then God himself had rejected me.
Believing that there was no way back to the God I loved was the most devastating experience of my life, but I needed somehow to survive for the sake of my baby. I felt compelled to live like those who have no God. I found non-Christian friends and grew bitter. A witch helped me get tough. Though she meant well, if it werent for her help I might not have gone through eight years of hell.
Because of the divorce that broke my heart, key Christians in my life mistreated me and rejected me. Concluding that all Christians would likewise reject me, I resolved to become the enemy of all Christians. Politically, I campaigned for every anti-church bill I could find. I discouraged people from going to church, opposed Christian companies, got Christians fired and laughed at mean things done behind their backs by non-Christians. I also campaigned hard for euthanasia, gay rights, and abortion.
For a few years I thought that sex without commitment was fun, but it turned sour. To escape the pain and isolation, I resorted to a fantasy world in which I engaged in sex with imaginary friends. Since I no longer believed in demons I was stunned when it eventually became undeniable that I was actually having sex with demons. Despite me being heterosexual, I ended up regularly having sex with a demon who always appeared as a woman. Not even bothering to appeal to my pride, this demon had the audacity to say that, despite my feminine body, I wasnt good looking enough to take the female role in the relationship, and insisted that I must take the male role. I meekly submitted to this humiliation.
One of my imaginary friends claimed to be a pedophile. As a sexual abuse survivor, I hated child molesters and yet, given the way the other demons had slowly corrupted me, I am horrified to think that had I not eventually returned to the Lord I might have ended up molesting children, just like the people I despised.
Life was miserable. I regularly cut myself with knives. I suffered nightmares and panic attacks. Any hope of ever being loved had died. I felt pain beyond anything I could comprehend. With God out of the picture, I concluded that my life was my own to terminate when I wished. Moreover, since I was going to kill myself, I planned to make the most of it by first murdering some of the people I hated. I didnt want to go to heaven. I was Gods reject. I stopped believing in hell, and just wanted it all to end. I typed suicide in a search engine and found a site about there being hope in God. I dismissed the site and found another that refused to discuss religion. It at least kept me alive.
Years of Failed Attempts to Return to God
Despite everything, I still had fond memories of the beautiful relationship with God I had once enjoyed. So overlapping, and in fact contributing to, my downward slide, were years of desperate attempts to return to God. I had tried to excess to get God to give me a second chance. I prayed sometimes continuing throughout an entire night. I fasted sometimes restricting myself to one light meal a day for an entire month. I studied the Bible to the point of denying myself sleep. I devoted a year to Bible College. I punished myself. I racked my brain trying to discover and repent of everything I have ever done that could conceivably have been sin. I threw away anything I could think of that might offend God (including trashing sixty music CDs that I wish I still had). I tried standing in faith (which failed because I was looking to inner feelings to confirm that my faith had worked). I tried church attendance, tithing, and community service. But despite it all, it seemed the appalling, inescapable conclusion that God had deserted me and that there was no way to get back to him.
When every Christian attempt I could think of had failed to convince me that God accepted me, I turned to Buddhism as a way of finding God. This, too, proved fruitless.
God had meant everything to me and now nothing I did could convince me that he cared. I was crushed beyond words. Finally, I could take the pain of rejection no longer. I divorce you! I told my former Lord, heartbroken.
Without realizing it, I had literally fallen from grace. Instead of clinging to the foundational Christian truth that salvation is by grace . . . through faith . . . not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9) I had fallen into thinking I had to win Gods acceptance by works. By reverting to works (reliance on my efforts to gain Gods approval) rather than trusting in the finished work of Christ, I could never know if I had done enough to win God back. So I found myself compelled to wait for feelings or signs from God to confirm that I was saved.
A problem with hoping to feel God was that I was in too much inner pain to let myself feel anything. And the problem with trying to hear from God is that I was too scared to fully listen to God, lest he condemn me. Moreover, anytime the Lord did get through to me by feeling, word or sign, I soon dismissed it, allowing it to be drowned out by my inner pain, fears, guilt feelings, and sickening memories of being rejected by Christians.
But there was an even more serious problem: how could God give me the confirmation I craved, when I had abandoned his way of salvation? By thinking that my own efforts were a critical aspect of salvation, I was no longer putting my faith in Jesus alone. Had I maintained belief in salvation by faith, I would have forced myself to keep believing I was saved, no matter what my conscience said and no matter how distant God felt. Instead, I had reverted to works and waiting for feelings or signs or acceptance from Christians to confirm that I was saved, rather than relying on the immovable fact that Christ died for my sins.
Finally, I discovered www.net-burst.com and returned to the realization that salvation is by faith in Jesus that proof of my salvation rests not in how close to perfection my life is or how I feel or in receiving personal signs from God, but solely in the unchangeable fact that Christ died for all sin.
Slowly and reluctantly my eyes opened to the spiritual reality of my imaginary friends. The prospect of life without the comfort, companionship and sexual thrills these demons offered seemed terrifyingly bleak, but I desperately wanted God. What made expelling these evil spirits particularly scary is that reliance upon them had been my only way of coping with life without God. What could I do if ever again God were to reject me? Initially, though I valiantly kept resisting the demons sexual advances, I wanted to keep in reserve the possibility of returning to them if ever God were to let me down. When the demons saw I wasnt serious about permanently evicting them, however, they were emboldened to keep striving to seduce me. It was torturous. Finally, I determined to be rid of them forever. They tested me a couple of times after that but when they saw the strength of my resolve to cling to Christ and be rid of them, they left.
Then I was faced with the devastating realization that my years of turning to demons rather than God had, on my part, been nothing short of treachery.
I was scared to let God into the dark secrets of my childhood sexual abuse and other sources of fear and shame. I feared not just the pain of facing memories that I wanted to bury forever, but I feared that God would be angry with me because of my past and that he is too holy to want to look upon the degrading sexual abuse I had suffered. My longing to keep things buried proved to be another battleground but slowly I discovered that every time I confessed to God a shameful secret, he not only did not condemn, he was gentle and loving and supportive. Whenever I let him into a dark corner of my heart, he lovingly shone his light on it and soon the scary shadows were revealed as tiny specs that could no longer haunt me. It was so liberating and healing. Full restoration took quite a while, however, because I kept discovering new areas that I needed to involve God in.
I also had to learn that, despite his holiness, God is not cold or standoffish. When embarrassing temptation hits or we feel defeated, he longs for us to run to him, not from him. Even when my failures cover me with despair, condemnation is furthest from Gods mind. Yes, at such times the enemy of our soul fires my guilt feelings to almost intolerable levels, but God is not in this. Instead, the Lord yearns to comfort and uplift me when I struggle with sin and shame. This divine help is essential for my spiritual welfare but too often I have missed it because I have slunk away in fear and shame, not daring to believe that God longed to console me.
Another major problem area was that I was too frightened to let myself fall totally in love with God. The pain of previously thinking I had lost God forever was so horrific that I dont think I could endure a repeat. What if I let myself love him as deeply as I had before and he again abandoned me? Gradually, however, my trust deepened and I realized that even if I were to do the unthinkable and be so foolish as to again run away from God, he would yearn for my return. Like the prodigal sons father, my Heavenly Father would be eagerly awaiting my return so that he could run to me, welcome me into his arms and yet again shower me with gifts. So Ive stopped holding back and Ive let myself fall head over heels in love with my glorious Lord.
My Wonderful Relationship With Christ Now
For years, I had been certain I was Gods reject, cast off forever. Now I know I am cherished as his beloved.
Does feeling loved and forgiven make it more true? Certainly not. Does not feeling it make Jesus any less my Savior? Of course not. Its all so obvious now, but for year after gut-wrenching year, the enemy had kept my mind too fogged for logic to help me. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers (2 Corinthians 4:4). Spiritual truth can only be seen through believing eyes and I had stopped believing. I could believe for others, but not for myself.
I was blinded to the truth of my salvation because I had let slip from my fingertips faith in Jesus power to save all who call upon him (Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13). I had so focused on the greatness of my sin that I could not see the greatness of my Savior. If only I had continually forced my eyes off myself and fixed my gaze on my Savior; let all the guilty screams of my conscious fade and hear only Jesus agonized cries as he paid my debt, followed by heavens thunderous praise as he rose again to claim me as his own . . .
Could I prove myself good enough for eternal intimacy with the Holy One? The burden of proof is on Jesus, not me. It was settled 2,000 years ago. The only way I could be unforgivable when I seek Gods forgiveness through Jesus is if Jesus had not died for some of my sins. And if that were so, it would make a liar out of God, who declared in his Word that Jesus died for the sins of the entire world (Isaiah 45:22; John 1:29; 3:17 2; Corinthians 5:19; 1 John 2:2; 4:14). He put in black and white in Scripture and signed it in the blood of Jesus.
I had so focused on my own pain generated by my mistaken belief that Jesus is less than the Almighty Savior that he is that I had no awareness that God himself was reeling in pain over me failing to accept the reality of his forgiveness and love.
Since unbelieving eyes are blinded by anti-God forces, the only answer was to cling to belief, even while still blinded and while false feelings of guilt and hopelessness were so overwhelming and numbing as to make what heaven calls saving faith seem like off-with-the-fairies wishful thinking. In Jesus name I had to command the forces blinding me to leave. And I had to keep resisting them by stubbornly clinging to faith in Jesus power to save the most depraved, while gallantly ignoring everything within me that was screaming Unforgivable!
I have cussed at God. I have dropped to my knees in pain and sworn at God, telling him, Just leave! Go ahead, reject me. I am nothing. Then, call it a vision or whatever you like, he appeared to me, knelt down in the dirt with me and held me. He whispered in my ear, NO WAY. I will never leave you nor forsake you. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER. I am in love with you and addicted to you.
Since returning to God, I have enjoyed times when I have again experienced every spiritual high that I ever had in my spiritual honeymoon years. Much more exciting, however, is the fact that my walk with God is better now than before my fall because I am no longer dependent upon spiritual highs. What I have is stronger than my feelings and anything that I ever had before. I can have times when I have no indication that God is with me and yet be just as sure that God loves me and will never forsake me as when the Lord gives me special signs or warm feelings and speaks intimately with me. What makes this so exciting is that I now have real security. Im no longer dependent upon fluctuating feelings or special signs from God for me to be certain of Gods love and of the unshakable dependability of his promise never to forsake his children.
What I have now is a war-seasoned faith that God is true to his Word in spite of all the wild and foolish things I have done. I now know that if ever I mess up, the spotlessly holy Lord will humbly sit in the gutter with me, the instant I look to him. Even when Im too overcome by a guilty conscience to feel it, he will warmly embrace me, lovingly clean off all my filth, tend to all the wounds and fears that haunt me, and lift me up to his throne again. He is my faithful friend.
It is not my nature that determines Gods faithfulness; he is faithful because it is his nature. He is faithful because he is faithful. Consequently, he is as faithful to you as he is to anyone in the universe.
Over the past several months since Christine rediscovered Gods forgiveness, I have stared open mouthed at how her spiritual life has mushroomed. All the Scriptures and Christian teaching of her past have been suddenly reactivated. I am reminded of Jesus, knowing that Peter would deny him, and yet saying, And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers (Luke 22:32). This is exactly what Christine is doing. Suddenly, all the hurt and demonic torment she suffered when estranged from God is no longer a waste but is empowering her to minister with astounding effectiveness to other hurting people. Truly, all things even backslidden years work together for good when one returns to the Lord.
I honestly thought I was saved. Then after about 18 years I fell into serious sin. This opened some horrible doors. I tried hard to repent but seemed unable to get back to God. For the next three and a half years I was haunted by tormenting thoughts that I had become an apostate. I was convinced that I was guilty of the unpardonable sin and that Hebrews 6:4-6 clearly dictated that I had crossed the line and was now damned.
For all those three and a half years I never felt the Holy Spirits presence. I would read Scripture but only felt convicted by it. Then one day I felt the Holy Spirit at a Prayer Meeting. I felt my heart soften and I begged God to forgive me. Since then I go to Church and Prayer Meetings and feel the Lords forgiveness. When I am alone and depressed, however, Satan still tells me that I am not a real Christian, am damned, have committed the unpardonable sin and am beyond Gods redemption. Even though I know it is Satan, I start to believe him.
I read an Internet article by a person who claimed he had committed the unpardonable sin and graphically described what he went through. I was terrified. Much of what he went through was similar to what I had experienced. The Lord showed me, however, that this isnt scriptural, as nothing like this is in the Bible.
Once, after a very rough weekend, I was ready to give up when I felt the Lord telling me to just trust in Christ.
Quoting Scripture helps me, such as the ones saying that Satan is a liar, Gods mercy endures forever, God is love, and so on.
Ive learned that no matter what I go through, the only truth is the Bible. God loves us and desires to show us mercy. This is Scriptural and so is true. The Bible affirms if we ask God for forgiveness, through faith in Christ, he will forgive us. The Bible also says that Satan is a liar, hates us, and wants to condemn us. Christ died a horrible death on the cross to forgive us, as graphically shown in the movie The Passion of the Christ. My sin killed Jesus Christ but he defeated death and sin by rising from the grave. To get Gods forgiveness, all I must do is believe in my heart that Christs precious blood cleanses me from my sin and allows me to receive full and unconditional forgiveness. Again, this is from Scripture and must be true because God cannot lie.
If you feel you are lacking in this area of belief, remember than you can pray about it. Scripture tells us that we can go to God about anything in prayer. Not admitting our sin to God will open the door to Satans attacks.
Extreme fear that I have truly committed the unforgivable sin still sometimes pounces on me but nevertheless the truth is that, like Christine in the above testimony, I am forgiven by sincerely believing that Christ shed his precious blood for me. Ive discovered that godly repentance is simply having faith that after confessing your sin, Christ will cleanse you and forgive you. It is that simple. All we must do is ignore satanic attacks of irrational fear and keep fighting the temptation to doubt. We know that even Jesus was tempted, so lack of temptation is never a sign of spiritual maturity. Like fighting any strong temptation, clinging to the belief that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin and resisting the temptation to doubt is sometimes far from easy but I do it, and so can you.
If you need a break from reading, now is a good time. If your spiritual need is genuine, however, it is important that you dont lose this web address and that you return when you can and read more.
Condemned by Hebrews 6:4-6
Not to be sold. © Copyright, 2006, 2007 Grantley Morris. Not to be copied in whole or in part without citing this entire paragraph. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings by Grantley Morris available free at the following internet site
www.net-burst.com Freely you have received, freely give.
I suggest you follow the above link but if you want a change of pace, the following is here for you.
The Beginning The only way to not miss any of this feast of uplifting webpages about false guilt is to start at Feeling Condemned? Theres Hope! and follow each link. You wont regret it!
Feeling Rejected by God An important part of this series of webpages
Unforgivable? The part of the series that deals with the unforgivable sin
Testimonies They thought they were unforgivable
Scriptures Some of the vast number of Scriptures proving that you can be forgiven
How Much Does God Love Me? How to Get Your Own Revelation of Gods Love A separate, very important series
Demons The beginning of a series of webpages
Dealing with Depression and Discouragement
God & Suffering Coping with fears that God might be harsh and unloving
Becoming a Winner Breaking addictions and besetting sins
Encouragement When You Feel Defeated
Index to Entire Site A treasure trove of stimulating, compassionate, often humorous, webpages for Christians by the same author on a vast number of topics. This website is enormous!
[Much More!] [ [My Shame]