I was raised in church. A great advantage some would say. Don’t get me wrong I would not change that, but it did cause much mental anguish in my life. I was introduced to a God who was perfect and who demanded perfection. I could not live up to those demands no matter how hard I would try. I was constantly reminded that I was a sinner and that if I remained in that fallen state I would live eternally in hell. My plight was that I took that truth very seriously, and I was blinded to God’s love for me by my own sin, and Satan played havoc with my mind.

When you know that a the way that you travel is sinful and you are living that way; then how can a righteous God love you? I tried, as the Lord is my witness; I tried to please Him. Outwardly I was pure as the drifting snow, a hypocrite, but inwardly I was a mess. Then as a teenager what was inside began to manifest itself outside. I became angry. And I didn’t know what I was angry with; life itself was very scary. Yet I was still trying on my own to please God, and yet I was even further from Him then I had ever been, because I was becoming comfortable with the fact that I would never change. This was as good as I would ever get. It was not that I had not wanted to change into someone pleasing to God. I had at age 9 walked the isle to accept His salvation. I knew that He died for the sins of the world. I knew that only He could change me, but I didn’t trust that He even knew me; He didn’t chose to reveal Himself then. Not because He didn’t want to, but because I didn’t understand His love enough to receive it and use it to love Him back.

You see until I believed that He loved me I could not love Him, and the struggles went on. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I through listening to Christian radio developed a hunger to know all I could about this Jesus, and God began to feed that hunger through His word (the Bible). Yet, I was still there. I had no relationship. I was not born again spiritually. That did come, and you can read of that. On the home page search function, type in: A bit of Testimony.

I found that coming to God must become a burning desire in me. A desire equal to or even greater than my desire to sin. There must be a flame on the alter of my heart which will burn forever for Him.