Chris' Christian Blog

March 19, 2018

"March 19, 2018" 

"Prompt: It's Motivational Monday, write about some good news that motivates or inspires you in your life, your town, your state, your country, or go to Good News Network or some other website and share some good news that interest you."

Anybody who follows my blog at all should know how I am going to answer this prompt! The Greek word "gospel" means "good news and the good news of my life is the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see I was a sinner like every other human being on the planet. In human terms my sin may have seemed a bit worse because humans would consider drug addiction and sexual addictions to be much worse than other sins. However God views all sin the same and He abhors sin. I was eating a handful of pills on a daily basis and I mean twenty plus pills of the same type at every dose. I was committing suicide with every dose and I knew it. I wanted to die and always got angry with God when I recovered. Trying to get clean seemed impossible to me. I only wanted to stay high or better yet die. God had other plans for me though and would not let me die. I would go to church regularly and often went under the influence. I was much too stubborn to give in but something about church attracted me. I would try to surrender my life to Christ but always kept muddling it up by trying to do it on my terms and my strength. Like many I thought turning my life over to Christ meant that I had to be perfectly sinless and live a life that would make the angels cringe in jealousy. I thought I had to walk on water and found that I sank every time I tried. I was "saved" this way so many times that I cannot begin to count them. I would study God's word and did every Bible correspondence course I could find. By the time I was through I had over 200 certificates of completion and five years of college level Bible courses under my belt. I had read the entire Bible cover to cover over fourteen times and could quote scripture and discuss theology with the best of them. Despite all of that I still found myself battling sin on my own strength and discovered that I was losing. God finally led me to a Bible believing church with a preacher who was able to get me to understand that I would never win if I was trying to fight. He taught me to surrender and turn my will and my life over to the care of Jesus Christ. Once I was able to do that I found that sin no longer entangled me. I would still sin and would continue to sin as long as I was in this body. However sin no longer had mastery over me. I began to be guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit and my life would never be the same. I am now a soldier in the Salvation Army (see me in uniform above) and I am the chaplain of the West Virginia Veterans Home where I also live. Jesus guides my footsteps today. I have lived clean of drugs and addiction for over nine years. The desire to use has been lifted from me and I no longer live under condemnation. I now live under the law of liberty in Jesus Christ. Faith and grace are my good news today and I proclaim jubilee for all captives.

Father I thank you for setting me free from the law of condemnation that ruled me for so long. Like a blind man I stumbled along falling into every ditch and every pit. I thought I was a real big man who could work my way into heaven. All I managed to do was stumble my way into a living hell. You sent your Son Jesus to deliver me from my body of death and by His grace I found the solution. I turned my life over to His care and got out of the driver's seat. Now I cruise along on a super highway to heaven and all I need to do is surrender my will to you. I pray that any who read this and yes Lord, the entire human population would do likewise and surrender their will to you. It will not mean we are perfect because we will never be perfect while we live on this planet. However we will be on the right path. I pray that for the whole human race and particularly for my readers. In Jesus's name. Amen.