Saved...Ish
Hi, my name is Deb and I have a problem remembering that I am a saved.
*Hiiiiiiiiiii Debbbbbbbbb*
Tell me I’m not the only one? Who worries like the world worries, tries to “relieve stress” like the world does, or simply tries to fit in as if God didn’t create you to be set apart?
I thought there was something wrong with me. After I got saved four years ago, God spent a good amount of time opening my eyes and revealing my sin, His saving grace, and how to walk with Him. It was the hardest, most influential time of my life. I learned more about myself and God than I had ever even thought I could. I felt like how the Israelite felt as soon as they crossed the Red Sea, I was feeling myself for real, like, “What’s the world to a new believer like me?” alla dat. I was quoting scripture hard and knew all words to the recent P4CM poems...
Y’all know I was about to get humbled.
It was one day, in the midst of my own busy-ness with school and people and work and graduating and life, that I just…forgot I was saved. Now, we know that being a true believer in the world is like trying being a thriving tree in the desert...it doesn’t exist. Everywhere I was, people were living life according to what they knew, but I knew Jesus. Somehow I found myself mimicking the same things I saw them doing, as if I didn’t know there was a whole Yahweh, a whole Jehovah looking at me like “What is my daughter doing?” Now I know y’all are probably like, “Whoa, she’s trippin. She forgot?! How can that happen?,” but I challenge you to look into your own life for a second.
What is the first thing you do when life gets hard? Do you go to straight to God, or do you go to two or three friends and then go to Him? Or what about when you’re stressed and your friends want to go out to the bar after a long day, do you go just to get a lil sippy sip too, instead of looking for peace in the Word? Just to ease your mind and complain about all the terrible things that happened instead of praying?
Or what about when you’re tight on money so you think, “God won’t mind if I don’t tithe this time around, He knows my heart and my bank account.”
Whenever you find yourself lacking or just struggling, where do you go?
It doesn’t seem like a big deal when we look to other things before we look to God since they are just tiny little situations. But God wants us to come to Him in everything.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
But when we begin to compromise His standards for our comfort and convenience, instead of remembering that He calls us to look to Him first, in everything, we begin to operate like those who have never had an encounter with God.
It was only by the grace of God that the Holy Spirit was convicting me, telling me to check myself and when He did, He led me here:
“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them [aka those situations pulling you from Him], for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
1 John 4:4
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses,made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 2:1-6
The Holy Spirit had to snap me out of the pit I was falling into because sooner or later, if I had continued in walking like the “sons of disobedience,” I would have become lukewarm. We know what God does to those who are lukewarm (Revelations 3:15-16). The Holy Spirit was warning me that I was going back to my old ways of living, reminding me of Proverbs 26:11:
“Like a dog that returns to its vomit, is a fool who repeats his folly.”
I was acting how I was before I got saved! And more than it hurt God, it hurt me. He showed me through my continued stress and anxiety with work, feelings of unworthiness, and seeking and never being filled by things like alcohol, TV shows, and going out that I would never be satisfied, because my spirit man was craving something so much more: Him.
I got too comfortable spending basically no time with God. Not reading my Word, praying to Him, worshiping Him, or just talking about Him, my heart was hardening towards Him and my environment didn’t help either, but it’s no excuse. We must resist in the things of the world and cling to God, because its the only way we can survive. As you guys can see, the world is getting worse day by day, and it is up to us, the Church, to be guarded up in the Spirit so that any nonsense the devil throws our way can just bounce of our armor (Ephesians 6:11-24) so that we may be preaching the Word, making disciples, and waiting for Christ to come back.
So I encourage you to remember these verses if you ever find yourself sinning and not repenting, or looking to other things before you go to Him.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5:17
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
And if you ever get discouraged, remember 2 Peter 1:3-8; 10
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ...Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”
