I grew up in a church that taught that sins are forgiven once confessed to God. I don't remember being taught the need to truly repent or in the Greek metanoia (having a change of mind, or according to the biblical definition, turning from evil and back to God). So although I thought I was a Christian, I still lived in addiction and sin because I believed I only had to confess my transgressions to God every time I practiced sinning. I never knew God could actually free me from sin or addiction (pornography, video game addiction), so I continued this practice of sinning and confessing.
Furthermore, since we were lucky enough to be in the age of grace, our sins were forgiven by Jesus unconditionally after we professed belief. We were children of God regardless of whether or not we were living in sin as long as we had called on the Lord and believed in Jesus. After leaving the church I was confronted with the reality that I could no longer defend the treasured dispensational free grace doctrine that had been instilled in me from my youth. It simply wasn't in the bible given faithful exegesis.
Furthermore, since we were lucky enough to be in the age of grace, our sins were forgiven by Jesus unconditionally after we professed belief. We were children of God regardless of whether or not we were living in sin as long as we had called on the Lord and believed in Jesus. After leaving the church I was confronted with the reality that I could no longer defend the treasured dispensational free grace doctrine that had been instilled in me from my youth. It simply wasn't in the bible given faithful exegesis.
1. Fear of God and his wrath
2. EXTREMELY thankful and worshipful to God that he kept me alive long enough to repent-- there were many close calls in my past where the story of my life could have ended abruptly. I would have likely ended up in outer darkness or hell for eternity since I didn't truly turn away from sin -- looking back at my life I think my guardian angel was very busy.. I think God had mercy on me because I "didn't know what I was doing" I was ignorant of true biblical grace.
I went through a period of complete and abject fear of hell and losing my salvation in cases similar to a piano falling on my head after a trite sin (Back at the time I listened to sermons by Arminian pastors, however nowadays I lean towards Calvinism or Reformed theology, but still of the Lordship salvation kind).
I used to have a habit of turning on the audio bible on my computer every morning before I sat down for breakfast. One day as I did this routine and started chewing on my instant oatmeal, I meditated in my head again about how much I feared God. Immediately the voice of the audio bible in the background quoted 1 John 4:18 -- "perfect love casts out fear". I freaked out because I knew it was the Father speaking to me. He wanted to cast out my fear by experiencing Papa God's perfect love! Right then I felt a wave of God's love wash over me. I experienced Psalms 147:11 - God was delighting in me because I feared him!
Since then God has brought me on a journey to experience just how much he loves and cares for me. I've been slowly brought to a level of intimacy with him that I feel I would never throw away for *anything*. Part of this is from so many answered prayers. I felt so humbled that the creator of the universe would even listen to my prayers-- even the ones I forgot about and that he reminded me of over and over again. The bible tells us to unceasingly pray-- and I like how Perry Stone puts it -- you do this because God loves to answer his children's prayers to show how much he loves them.
I've become addicted to his presence. Yesterday I was able to share the gospel (well I didn't mention Jesus yet, but I got him to think hard about his eternity and gave him a card to my website that preaches Jesus :]) with the owner of an auto shop. He became so excited when I started sharing about NDEs to heaven and the story of Dr. Eben Alexander that he got a pencil and started writing stuff down. I believe God caused someone to hit my parked car just so I could preach to him. One of his employees was supposed to drive me home after I dropped off my car, but it didn't pan out and he personally drove me home in his truck. Perhaps God wanted me to touch him so he could get his whole Auto Shop saved. After many experiences like this I just feel *SO* satisfied by God's presence. I am addicted to it!
I feel like when you are in God's presence the very idea of sin is disgusting because it affects your relationship with him. Last night Carol pointed me to Psalms 51-- a story of what true repentance looks like -- and she was so right!
God accepted David's repentance because he had the right heart. He took full responsibility for what he did by saying "It was only against you O God that I have sinned!"-- he wasn't just remorseful that he messed up bad -- but he was most of all scared that he would lose God's presence, something that he treasured more than anything in the world ! ("cast me not away from thy presence and remove not thy Holy Spirit from me!"). True repentance is turning your heart to the Lord-- or in other words becoming so desperate to restore your relationship with God to encounter his presence again -- or as John Piper would put it "desiring God"!
Compare this to Judas' false repentance that drove him to suicide. He didn't have the intimacy with God that David had, but only had worldly grief that leads to death (2 Cor 7:10) -- in other words shame drove him to suicide. Shame always comes from the enemy and drives us to sink further. We will never experience shame from God because Jesus bore the shame we deserved as he died on the cross. When the Holy Spirit convicts us he always provides us with the grace to repent - Unlike Allah our God is still a good God! Contrary to the most profound wisdom human philosophy can muster, I've only actually experienced God's goodness and love to the fullest after realizing this same God could also cast me to hell, because only then could I experience *just how much* he didn't want me to be there - and that was love!-- does that make any sense? As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than man's.
Or look at Balaam who also shared a close relationship with God in terms of communication that many other OT prophets would have envied. He was close to God, but he was not intimate with him. He knew God loved Israel, he knew God's ways but he never put his neck out there to love what God loved and that was Israel. The whole story of Numbers 22 is a sad tale of a fence sitter who couldn't decide between God and the riches Balaak had to offer. If Balaam truly loved God, he would have also loved God's desire -- and that is Israel. But by his actions he demonstrated that Yahweh was not his Lord, but rather money.
Jesus told Peter that if he truly loved him he would shepherd his sheep. Because Christ loves the church so much, when we love God we will also love what he loves-- the church! Many of us may encounter situations where we will be tempted to choose between the riches of the world and care of his sheep. The only way to overcome this is through intimacy with God.
This possibly explains how God could allow many "Christians" who were close to God in terms of communication and activities (going to Church, small group, reading bible, even praying) but not intimacy to be in for a big surprise when they reach the gates of heaven. If I'm right, isn't it interesting that salvation by faith alone shut these people out? Think about it- If salvation was by works that would actually be easier than having true biblical faith in God which comes from the heart! (Read Matthew 7, people thought their works could save them but Jesus says he never knew them! Think about that!) Perhaps that's why we could only be saved by a faith that God can give us which he does when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us after we open our hearts to Jesus. This sounds harsh but I'm just telling it how I see it in the bible. I'm not trying to be God. If I was God, I'd probably just let everyone in because the thought of eternal conscious torment in hell for even the worst human that ever lived is terrifying-- but God's wisdom is far beyond my own understanding.
God Bless You All! I pray this over myself and my family everyday and hope you will too: "And surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all days of your life and you will dwell in the house of the Lord FOREVER." May we all experience the love of Papa God. Amen.
And here is a song about Papa God's love that I want to bless you all with. It's called "Abba I belong to you":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GeVf1XQOPg
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