Condemnation is a tool of the enemy. Satan will come along behind our sin and try to strangle us with it, and drag us down deeper into sin. He’ll say, “You can’t serve because (blank)”. Your history, your past, your choices, your mistakes, where you come from, the enemy will tell you, you can’t serve God with this baggage. We are also not free from the consequences of sin. Yes, we may have to live with broken relationships, divorces, you may lose custody of your children, you may have to serve prison time, community service, you may have physical consequences from living in sin, but that doesn’t mean God has forgotten you left you, or forsaken you to die in that sin.
Believe me, I am no stranger to this feeling, being saved at 26, that’s two and a half decades of bad decisions, juggling consequences from my bad decisions, blaming others for my bad decisions, nursing my hurts, hang ups, and habits, while hurting others, all the while having this sense of knowing that I needed to clean up act and be an adult. The best way I can explain my life before Christ is a cycle of pain, depression, guilt, and self-medication. This was a vicious cycle. Often these negative emotions would feed self-medication, self-medication would then lead to negative consequences, hurting others, and then the guilt would come. That gut-wrenching, soul-splitting guilt that induced severe depression that would come out of not being able to stop. I was to the point I would rather die than keep up this cycle. The enemy was twisting conviction into condemnation.
This is where conviction comes in. This is a tool of God. Conviction is God-based, it is that uncomfortable feeling of unrest in your gut, that tells you you’re better than that. Some call this your “Conscience”, I call it the Holy Spirit. That nag in your soul that tells you need to reconcile. It may feel like fear at first, but under that is a sense of responsibility, and hope that you can make up and reconcile-you made a mistake, but you’re not a mistake. God comes along, lifts up out of that sin, and tells us, “No you can’t do it, you can’t serve on your own, you could never be enough, but with me, you can. I am making a way for you.”
The beautiful thing about God’s grace is that God will take those consequences of our sin, those same tools Satan is trying to use for evil, and make those work for good. The Spirit will work ALL things together for our good, when we are loving and serving Him. We must make a choice to submit and follow God, and we will be able to find Him in the midst of everything in our life. Not just the good choices and mountain tops, not just the bad choices and the valleys, but all things together, the whole tapestry of our lives, can be used by God to serve a purpose.
In the midst of my struggle and turmoil, I turned to emotional crutches, things that did not help me, but numbed me day to day so I could function and pretend everything was fine. The trouble with these crutches is they start off “helping you”, or at least feeling like it, but in reality, this is an in-road for Satan. Next thing you know, a crutch becomes a weapon, and the Devil is beating you with it. You submit and turn to this vice, this thing that was supposed to help you feel better, hoping that this time it will be different, but it’s not. It’s never different, this crutch becomes your partner, and you become the victim in an abusive relationship. Every time you are hurting, you think, “Just this once, I’ll use again. It will be different; I can stop whenever I want.” But you can’t. Each and every time you use, you are allowing Satan a foothold in your heart. That foothold becomes a stronghold, the stronghold becomes a stranglehold, and next thing you know, you are cursing this crutch while not being able to let it go. You hate it, you hate yourself, what it makes you do, yet you can’t bear to let it go. Crutches become really dangerous when you can rationalize and put a religious/spiritual sticker on it, as I did.
I had a genuine yearning for God, but I didn’t realize I turned my vices into a god without knowing it, and then wondered where God went. He didn’t leave, I pushed Him out. I kicked Him off of His throne in my heart. This vice worship turned into seeking for God in all the wrong places; from different religions to different spiritual practices to pouring myself into others, losing sight of myself and yearning for something or someone to fulfill me. I became addicted to porn by adolescence, a sex addict by my teen years, and an alcoholic by my early twenties. I spent my formative years lying, orchestrating, and manipulating. No one knew my secret, because I wouldn’t let them. I had this carefully built house of cards, and I would not let anyone threaten it. I had my own world that no one could see, and I hated it, but I was scared of rejection at the same time. You can’t get hurt if you don’t allow someone in, but you also can’t experience the love, peace, and joy that comes from companionship if you are isolated in your fortress. My prayer for you is that you find the courage to take down these walls and learn to love again. I wasted too much time hiding, and I missed out on my childhood and half of my twenties because of my issues. Don’t make the mistake I did. Ask Jesus into your heart and allow Him to heal you from the inside out.