Jesus is my identity. Through Him I live and move and breath -- and find my purpose.
I am passionate about freedom -- from sin, from addiction, from anxiety, from guilt, from fear, from all of the forms of bondage that Satan uses to hold us back and bind us to him.
I was in bondage to Calvinism throughout my life. That is, until I realized that when 1 Peter says to "be holy as I am holy," it meant it literally. Struggling with sin (pornography, bitterness, and anger, to name a few) and desiring greatly to be free of it, I was constantly thrown back by the Calvinist belief that we are inherently sinful and can never be free of sin. There was intense conflict in my soul as I struggled to become righteous while fettered with the belief that I never would be. Guilt became my best friend, and I relied on her to guide me through the toils of life -- listening to her chastisement and obeying her unreasonable demands.
Calvinism disregards all of God's statements about the conditional requirements for salvation that are absolutely abundant in Scripture. It is clear that when we believe in Jesus' death on the cross to atone for our sins and trust Him with everything, we can be transformed from a fleshly human into one that trusts, obeys, and seeks Jesus -- if we are willing to put to death our own self-will and fully trust Him to empower us to resist and turn away from evil.
I was set free when I realized that death to self is a requirement for salvation and the ability to do so was enabled by the choice of our free will to accept the power of the cross.
Now, as one who has given all to Christ and daily, hourly chooses to die to my self-will, I have freedom and liberation in God. By His mercy and deliverance, I have forsaken sin and given Him my humanity to mold and shape into the woman He wants me to be. Instead of relying on guilt to guide me, my trust is in the power of the Holy Spirit to guide, lead, and comfort me as I live to glorify and obey God.
My faith is child-like. I trust Jesus. For everything. I obey Him, because He knows what's right and best. I follow Him, because He is good and just. I proclaim Him, because He is truth. He will never let me fall while I am clinging to His neck. And in this way, I can truly rest in His arms and have confidence in His love.
Still, in my own humanity, I struggle with anxiety and feelings of guilt and the perpetual "I'm-not-good-enough" syndrome; all of which require and demand from me a humble attitude of faith in the promises of Jesus to accept me as I am, if I'm trusting in Him.
I also struggle with overeating. I've struggled with this for years. Food has always been my "drug of choice," if you will. I chose to overeat to numb the anxieties of life. I still do sometimes. But as the Lord gives me liberty, I am seeking to be free of that as well.
This is the whole reason and purpose of my blog. It's not to entertain you or to make you smile. It's not even to make you think that I'm a deep person or even that I'm deeply spiritual. It's to proclaim the freedom in Christ that I have found, and continue to find -- after a lifetime of bondage.
