Thinking It Through: God's Kindness Leads to Repentance (Part 15 of 15)

Yo,

Last part. I'm gonna write out a final recap sort of response later.

"15. The kindness and patience of God should lead us to repent: If we are practicing sin as unbelievers, we are living on borrowed time. If it were not for God's intervening patience and kindness, we would immediately be swept up in God's judgement. Paul explains that God's patience and kindness leads to repentance: God is giving unbelievers the opportunity to repent (Romans 2:4).

     You have mentioned that you are now more inclined to worship and pray to God now that you are experiencing this worldly pleasure during this intervening grace period. However, this new inclination misses the point and may turn God's grace on it's head. If you experience bouts of worldly pleasure and happiness during this grace period, the appropriate response is not to praise and worship Him for that worldly happiness while continuing in sin. In that instance, you are not actually expressing thankfulness for God's common grace. On the contrary, this is contempt for God's grace. Continuing in sin is a perversion of what the grace is intended for: You are using God's intervening grace to store up greater wrath for yourself by continuing in your sin (Romans 2:5). By contrast, the one who thinks highly of God's common grace, uses it to repent and turn from their sin. If God grants repentance; praise, prayers and thanksgiving are truly appropriate. I pray that you will think highly of God's grace and repent."

God is not slow as some believe, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish (2 Pet 3:9). Indeed. That overwhelming kindness is one of, if not the largest reason that I had come to faith in the first place. Not only had God made a way for me to be forgiven and to know Him, but He did so while we were His enemies, while we were still in our sin. God saw all that I was and still loved me. While I started implementing regime and structure to make myself better, God said "I've already loved and forgiven you". His grace is overwhelming.

I had mentioned that my soul had felt like it was doing better. Like the weight of silence and emptiness had been lifted. Years of shame and hiding had been removed. I felt so thankful that there is room in grace to make mistakes (if that's what they are). I don't have to be constantly worried and overcome with existential dread at making the wrong choices, and instead never making any choices. I had been firmly stuck in place for fear of making the wrong choices. The freedom to make a choice and adjust afterwards meant I was moving again. Grace leads to repentance yes, but grace also should lead to life and motion and praise and worship. Grace shouldn't lead to stagnation. And I'm not saying it was God's fault for that, but in any case, now that I'm up and moving again I can start to figure out my life again. Everything I have is His. I want to use it wisely. I want to do with it what I can to help others and lead a meaningful life. Living life is something I haven't been doing for the past few years. I've been existing and escaping existence. That's not living. I've been paying the bills and planning so I can afford the next one. There hasn't been anything to look forward to; nothing to hope for; nothing exciting to prepare for. I'd gotten so stuck in where I was and so broken down and hopeless that I wasn't living anymore. And I'm alive again now. If what I'm doing is wrong, I will need to adjust. If what I'm doing just needs minor adjustments, all the better. If what I'm doing is good, most excellent then. But in any of those situations I am happy and glad that I am moving again, that I am looking forward to things, that I've got life back in me that wants things and wants to figure things out even if I'm a bit lazy sometimes and maybe am a bit slower at addressing things than some other people would prefer. I went from overwhelming resentment and guilt at the thought of hypocritical worship, to freedom to praise God and seek Him again genuinely. That's a good thing. I prayed for something to happen to bring me more motivation to love and praise God again, and in the end this is what shook me out of stagnation. 

I look forward to what is to come. I hope and pray that as I figure this out with more details my heart is softened enough to repent and seek His help in all areas of my life. I hope and pray for more days ahead where we can do good things together than help others. I hope and pray that I draw near to God and He to me. I never knew the future, but I'm back to feeling positive about it, and I'm not worried right now.

D.Fa

Thinking It Through: Actions Should Follow Theology not Emotions (Part 14 of 15)

Yo,

"14. It is backwards and dangerous to search for theology after deciding on a course of action: You have decided upon a course of action for the immediate future: you will be dating another guy. From what I understand, your own emotions and desires are driving your decisions. You're open to the idea that your previous convictions are mistaken, yet you have not settled on a methodology for confirming or correcting your theology. There are several problems with this approach:

     First, since the Bible is sufficient and authoritative, then the study of it should be directing your course of action. However, in this case, you have chosen to do what you said you know or have believed (and still believe?) is contrary to Scripture. This reverses the proper roles and perhaps reveals a lack of commitment to the authority of Scripture. If you were committed to the authority of Scripture and you genuinely believed that there is ambiguity about what Scripture teaches, the outcome would be different: you would have erred on the side of caution. This would have meant postponing a course of action until you have studied the Scriptures and received Biblical counsel. How committed are you to the authority of Scripture? Do you believe that there is ambiguity about what it teaches or how it applies in your circumstances?

     Second, if your emotions/heart are driving your decisions, there is a serious danger that you will use your study of Scripture to justify your decisions. On the one hand, it is good to examine our beliefs and actions against Scripture. But, if we are instead committed to the authority of our own emotions and thoughts, we risk distorting the Scriptures to fit our predispositions and agendas. Paul spoke of Churches that would accumulate teachers who would simply tickle their ears: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). These teachers would not simply shrink back from teaching the whole counsel of God, but twisted it to teach what people wanted to hear -- i.e. what would accommodate their desires. How are you guarding against this danger?"

Honestly, at the very beginning of this, I don't even know if I was willing to think that my convictions may have been mistaken. It was more just that it wasn't working and something needed to change. I do think I'm open to the idea that they may have been mistaken now. "It wasn't working" kinda says something was mistaken, either me or the convictions? All I did was postpone action and that got me nowhere. So I jumped in. I probably should have been a bit more methodical. I should have. Jumping in was a little rash. Some people have gotten hurt that I could have avoided by spending more time in research and study first. Perhaps because research and study and logic and stoicism and repression is what got me to where I am now I reacted so suddenly and impulsively and emotionally as a means of finding a different way forward.

Do I believe that the Bible is the ultimate authority? I think God -- creator of all things, sovereign of eternal destiny, sustainer of all things, just and the one who justifies -- should be the ultimate authority, and His word -- as unchanging as He is -- should be taken with just as much seriousness. I'm doing what I can to get back into regular Bible reading and prayer about it. I still want to uphold God and His word. I want good solid teaching. But like none of it matters unless I have a good relationship with God ya? God's gotta be saviour, then Lord, ya? It's kinda like I'm starting over again, trying to realign myself with who God is and what it means for all aspects of me. But I need to know Him more closely again first.

Do I want this to work? Ya. I feel so much more happy and alive than before. Do I understand that God calls everyone to turn away from sins that they cherish and turn to Him with everything they have? Ya. Do I understand that God leads us through difficult times in valleys to get to better pastures? Ya. If they hated Jesus, they will hate His followers. I don't want to just hear things that justify decisions I make. I want to be challenged, I want to grow, I want to be real, I want to be able to stand behind what I believe with passion and conviction. I need to hear both sides of the argument and seek solid research. I very much appreciate that I have a number of people I can talk to about whatever as I figure this all out. But yes, I have made a decision, whether it was fully intentional or not at the time. I am going to be dating a guy. :)

Ttyl.

D.Fa

Thinking It Through: We Either Obey or Suppress the Truth (Part 13 of 15)

Yo,

Here's the short one I knew was coming. :P

"13. We either obey the truth or suppress it: There is no neutral ground where one can say: "I have made my decision, but I still haven't had the time yet to really think about how I will figure things out." This seems like code for "I am suppressing the truth in my unrighteousness, so that I will do what my heart desires" (cf. Romans 1:18). One either obeys the truth or suppresses it in unbelief by disobeying God's word."

So, here's the thing, and I think at this point I've said it like 10 times. The path I was on before wasn't working. What I knew and thought was that any same sex thought or action needed to be deleted, removed, quashed, eliminated. May I become less, and You become more. "Would you please delete those images I've seen from my memories and forgive me for seeing them in the first place." "Help me to not think about this person or that person that way." "Help me to be so satisfied with joy and love in You that I don't even need to think about those things." But I never got the answer I needed. I tried for a long time simply avoiding and ignoring and destroying any option to pursue same sex activity. Simply avoiding negative things almost always led to replacing them with other negative things. After a while I realized that it's much better to replace negative things with the positive alternative. But what is that here? I needed to be satisfied in God if I was to avoid seeking satisfaction in others. But still that didn't get anywhere. 

So here I am now. I don't have all the answers. But I know I'm much happier. I'm much more free to figure it out. I've been listening to a couple things, and like, I don't know what I think about all of them, but multiple times now the argument is raised that the way the church has gone about dealing with same sex activity has just led to so many people taking their lives or living in severe depression. If the interpretation of God's word leads to death and pain and suffering for so many so consistently then there must be a better way, or like, there must be a way to better address the situation. Or something like that. I don't know what I think about that argument. Something about the fragrance of the gospel bringing life to those who are saved and death to those who aren't maybe (2 Cor 2:15-16)? Still seems like something is broken and needs fixing. So I'm looking to see if there's a solution.

One thing I read the other day though really hit me. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Prov 3:5-6. If we trust in God first and foremost, He will lead us into truth and righteousness. That's what I need to do as I figure this out: not lean on everything I know, but lean into the Lord and follow His leading. I started this whole thing back in June and was incredibly thankful that I could figure it out, that there's grace to make mistakes, or to feel pain and suffering as I sought to fully understand what I need to do. May I be guided into the truth all the more, may the Spirit lead me, may my steps be directed and established by God. I do not want to suppress the truth, I want to figure it out. Something wasn't working. If it can, I want to know how.

D.Fa

Thinking It Through: No Perseverance, No Assurance (Part 12 of 15)

Yo,

Number 2 today. let's go. :P

"12. There is not a sliver of valid assurance of salvation for those who do not persevere in the faith: In the Bible, assurance of salvation is evidenced by faith, obedience and perseverance to the end: See the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:18-23); 1 John. If a Christian perseveres in faith and good works, he has hope of glory. In that case, his hope is not wishful thinking or baseless optimism. It is a hope based on the Word of God -- which is true -- as it applies to the facts in the ground.

     However, if one turns away from the faith and starts practicing sin, there is no assurance of salvation. Any evidence of God's previous work or mercies is invalidated. If one does not persevere until the end, one cannot 'hope' that God began a work in us that he will perfect as per Philippians 1:6 (see Hebrews 3:14). If there is no perseverance, the unrepentant sinner is like the pilot of an airplane who knowingly attempts to take off with wings covered in a thin layer of ice. "These wings were very aerodynamic before, so maybe they will generate enough lift if there is ice on them," he thinks optimistically. But that hope is just wishful thinking; it has no actual basis in reality or experience. this hope actually defies what the pilot knows to be generally true. No matter how aerodynamic those wings once were, the ice on those wings will doom the plane to a fiery crash not far off the runway."

So, I feel like there's a couple things here. First, if our salvation is so rooted in faith that Paul even has to remind the Galatian church that they were saved by faith in the hearing of the good news of the gospel. It was not by their works that they were saved. If it is so rooted in faith, then obviously to turn from faith into practicing one's own righteousness, or even worse, to just completely give up faith in God and in Jesus and the cross, obviously there remains no salvation. Is there room for faith to save in ways that don't look exactly the same? Is there room for God's lavish grace to overcome some works of unrighteousness? 

Secondly, and like here's the thing here. I'm not going back to that old plane. It never flew me where I was expecting to go anyways. It worked until I realized it wasn't working as intended. Is it possible that I'm gonna go try and fly a helicopter now? I'm gonna need to learn some new techniques and methods to fly this very different air craft, but maybe this one will fly me where I need to go.

I don't think all that time and effort before were completely wasted. I do think God started something in me. I don't know what's going to happen in the end, but there must have been a plan of sorts. What will I have learned through this new season? 

An aside, that like I thought I was going to mention in a previous response and I guess I never did. Like, when I came to faith I hadn't even really considered what all this meant. I was most convicted and concerned over pornography use, regardless of the content. God's love expressed through the cross and extended to me through the love and acceptance of the church brought me to a place where I could meet Jesus and get to know Him. That's what began it all. That's where it started. I hadn't really figured out what same sex attraction meant at that time. I knew grace and forgiveness. Over the years I became convinced that I needed to be honest and open about where I was at and ended up more weighed down in guilt and shame despite being more open. So I started closing again. But with more guilt and shame. What was different back then? How could I feel so happy and joyful in God without having everything figured out? Can I just do that again? Can I live in grace and hope and just trust that God's goodness and grace are strong enough for me?

In a way I'm kinda starting over. I need to see how God's love and grace applies to all of me. I need a new way of approaching God. But I need to know Him. The same one who was and is and is to come. The I Am. Can I find new assurance as I find the gospel applied to all of me? Can I come back to a place where I'm motivated and driven forward because of love for a glorious and great God who loves and forgives and renews me daily?

D.Fa

Thinking It Through: Do Not Turn From Christ to Sin (Part 11 of 15)

Yo,

Good morning. :P G👃D MORNING. ;P SH is so funny and caring. Woke up yesterday to a close-up photo of his face with Good morning written on it, but with his nostrils instead of O's. :P So I sent him one this morning. hehe

"11. The Scriptures warn against turning from Christ and practicing sin: The epistle to the Hebrews repeatedly warns them against drifting from the gospel. "For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (2:1-3). And again, the author warns against unbelief: "Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God" (Hebrews 3:12). And again, the author warns about falling away:

     "For in the case of those that have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful for those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned" (Hebrews 6:4-8)

And later on, the author warns about sinning willfully:

     "For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgement and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has ignored the Law of Moses is put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge His people." It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:26-31).

Finally, the author warns: "See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those who did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will they escape who turn away from Him who warns us from heaven" (Hebrews 12:25). These warnings cause me to tremble and fear the very thought of deliberately turning from Jesus and exposing myself to God's wrath. You mentioned you are not concerned about your lack of assurance. How can that be?

'Neglect such a great salvation'. 'Fall away from the living God'. Perhaps I've been neglectful. The last couple years have been tough. Perhaps I've grown a bit distant from God. I want to reestablish that if possible. I want to love and serve God and feel near to Him. I want to hear His voice. I want to feel His presence. 

If I can have a believing heart, that seeks His righteousness and Kingdom, and abides in Christ, and lives and serves Him, can I do that while loving myself and my boyfriend? Does changing the word boyfriend into the word husband make any difference? If we both live in such a way that encourages each other, points each other towards God, stirs one another on to love and good deeds, that does all things aside from this one, is that enough? He who breaks one sentence of the Law is a lawbreaker and guilty for the whole thing, ya?

I think I just stopped worrying about assurance after a certain point. I had been on the edge struggling to fight temptation, giving in semi-regularly, feeling so broken and helpless and hopeless, attempting to fulfill all my church responsibilities and appear good and ok while at the same time feeling terrible. After a while I guess I kinda gave up on holding onto assurance because my life was so messy anyways..? Would I be saved and forgiven if I'm always falling into sin? If half the time I'm actively pursuing it? I guess I kinda just gave up feeling bad because that wasn't getting me anywhere. It felt like I was asking for help, I was asking for forgiveness, I was asking for strength, I was asking for a solution, and I was getting nowhere. Living a life of constantly sinning while fighting against it versus a life freed to live and love. Can I still ask for forgiveness as I now regularly 'sin' without fighting against it? Is it possible to redefine this? How does everyone else live a life of sin while also having assurance? Jesus died once and for all that sin past, present, and future could be forgiven and paid for for all who would turn to Him, ya? Can I pursue God with my all, and give my boyfriend the leftovers, and claim forgiveness when I mess up along the way? I really don't know the answers to these questions. 

D.Fa

Thinking It Through: Hardening Your Heart is the Wrong Move (Part 10 of 15)

Yo,

:P im on a bus today as I type this. Free buses in Ottawa all December. ;P So thats cool. But I'm on the bus because I accidentally forgot to return the store keys when I went home earlier. :/ Whatever. It was a good day. :) Anyways, 

"10. It is wrong and dangerous to harder our hearts against God in difficult times instead if trusting Him: In Exodus, God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt according to the promise made to the fathers, but judged Pharaoh and the Egyptians. In this deliverance, God displayed his great power and faithfulness. Despite being visibly led by the Pillar of Fire in the wilderness, Israel disbelieved and hardened their hearts (Psalm 95:8). In Exodus 17, the Israelites grumbled against God and even accused Him of having brought them out of Egypt to kill them all in the desert with thirst (Exodus 17:3). Instead of trusting God, they imputed treachery to Him. "They tested the Lord, saying, 'Is the Lord among us, or not?'" (Exodus 17:7). They were a proud and obstinate people. 

     I have been wondering whether you are similarly giving an ultimatum to God, perhaps thinking: "Well, if You, God, don't give me what I think I need, I am going to provoke you to wrath by deliberately living a sinful and unbelieving lifestyle. Let's see if you are with me or against me!" Now, I don't know if that is what you are thinking, but I suspect it may be. If that is the case, though, please let me warn you: Such an ultimatum would be a transgression of Deut. 6:16: "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah." The Psalmist warns against such a behavior: "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me. They tried Me, though they had seen My work. For forty years I loathed that generation, and said they are a people who err in their heart, and they do not know My ways" (Psalm 95:7-10). the Psalmist highlights the result, "There I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest" (Psalm 95:11; see Hebrews 3). Beware, testing the Lord may be an irreversible and fatal error!

     Have you witnessed God's goodness in your life? If so, are you hardening your heart against Him in this way instead of trusting Him?"

I don't think that I am intentionally going out of my way just to spite God or to incur wrath. I do think I had mentioned that in the time leading up to choosing to activate the dating app, that led me to my boyfriend, I had felt like God was super distant and that I needed Him to show up if there was going to be hope of me being remotivated to pursue Him and lay any thought of same sex relationship to rest. I was getting nowhere. I was fed up. I was tired. In January I had prayed asking that God would do something. I said I would do what I could to continue to hold off for 6 months and try my hardest to pursue what I had thought was the path God had wanted me on. But in that time I had felt like, nothing. Just emptiness. Just silence coming from God. And in the end, while running on an elliptical at the gym sith like 20% battery left, I opened the app that I had downloaded a year prior and started setting up a profile. 

I don't think there was malicious intent. I don't think I was doing anything to target God. I was just tired of doing the same things and getting nowhere and feeling like crap. So I took a leap. I opened it. And one thing led to another and it felt like I needed to be where I was to properly figure this all out. Admittedly I got a little caught up in it and haven't spent as much time actually thinking, so much as just enjoying it, and loving him, and being me. It's been a great 4 months. There's been some days where I felt a bit guilty for my choices, but mostly I've felt so much freedom and love, and felt more real than ever before. I feel like I have much more perspective and am much more able to love myself. :) 

Have I seen God's goodness? I do think I have. I've been a lot of places. I've done a lot of things. I did not get concussed that one time I had my bike accident. I have a great family. I've had so much support from friends over the years. God brought me to Himself. I got that co-op job interview right after praying about it. I've felt 100% convicted by the Spirit, wrestled with Him, and felt 100% relieved when I made a good decision. I've felt purpose and value and love. 

Am I hardening my heart right now instead of pushing through and wrestling with trusting Him through whatever else I might be called to? I don't know. I've asked for a softened heart a few times over the past few months. I don't want a hard and calloused heart that is unable to respond to God's call on my life. I want to be directed and feel purposeful and want to do good things. I don't want to miss out on all that. So, what now though? What should I do? Have I not been asking for a softened heart and to be directed? Have I not been asking for faith, for greater love for God, for more motivation to do His will, for more understanding on what to do. I do not want to cut God out. I want to be real and I want to figure out how to love God and others as myself. Maybe my ears are a little harder of hearing than before? Maybe my eyes are a little more blurry. But I want to hear and see what God has for me. I want to joyfully serve and love others while living a life free of shame.

I do not want a hard heart. 

D.Fa

Thinking It Through: In the Cross, God is Good. Period. (Part 9 of 15)

Yo

I've had quite a day. :P Finally asked my housemate to not wake me up at 6 am every day and he basically just yelled at me. So I went to the gym, came back, cleaned the whole bathroom, then went and hung out with SH before work. Whatever. :P Things will get better one way or another.

"9. There is no ground for sinners to question God's goodness in view of the Cross: Paul was assured of God's love in suffering in part because "tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope..." (Romans 5:3-4). This is the Biblically based hope for believers that we will enjoy God's glory after Jesus returns. This hope is definitively grounded in the Holy-Spirit-given-conviction that God loves us (Romans 5:5). And this love is definitively established by and seen in the cross of Christ:

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Romans 5:6-10).

It boggles my mind that anyone can actually question God's love, with the cross of Christ screaming loudly right at us. We deserve eternal conscious torment in the full fury of God's unimaginable, eternal and terrifying wrath; but despite how totally evil we have been - and often are - the Righteous One laid down His life to save us. No matter what God painfully withholds and inflicts on us in His Fatherly discipline in this present age, we cannot question God's goodness when we are not receiving what we actually deserve. (In fact, if God treated us according to our sins, He would certainly be good - that would be pure justice!) But in His rich grace towards us, God paid the ultimate and infinite cost to save us - His enemies! Jesus bore the wrath we deserved, so that one day - when we see Jesus face-to-face - we can fully experience God's eternal glory and everlasting happiness. If you find yourself doubting God's goodness in moments of suffering and frustration, ask: what do I deserve and am I receiving my dues now? Only the truly self-righteous question God's goodness. Do you think more highly of yourself than God does?"

The thing that consistently makes it difficult for me to comprehend God's love (one of many reasons), is that eternity is so far off. I've been asked lately what my next years look like, or even weeks from now, and I don't generally look that far ahead. The furthest I tend to look ahead is to the next day to see what time I have to wake up to do the things that are scheduled for me. I don't spend time thinking about tomorrow. I've got so much to think about today. So take that, and scale it up past my current lifetime; past my average life expectancy; past the age of my country; past the age of written history; past the age of the planet; further than that even. How can I grasp eternity? How can I understand and compare the present, which I'm always living in, with the distant eternal future? So, then, it becomes hard for me to truly grasp what eternal punishment, or oppositely, eternal glory and joy look like. If I deserve constant eternal suffering, how do I comprehend that? How do I compare that to suffering I keep being told is insignificant and yet takes up the majority of my day and feels like it will never end?

I have many times in the past been annoyed that God gives us such readily available grace; that we don't see immediate consequences to our actions (or at least, we don't personally experience the negative sides of sin). Like, it feels like if I were to commit a small sin now, it would make sense to get a small punishment to help me realize I should avoid those things. Is that not the discipline we need? Instead, God is gracious and merciful and through the cross has forgiven such an infinite amount of transgressions that that grace just overflows. We take advantage of that grace. I take advantage of that grace. And so I have on many occasions forced punishment upon myself. Which, is the opposite of what that grace should do. Instead of a negative reinforcement (punishments for sins), we get positive reinforcements (God's grace and forgiveness making us more grateful for His goodness and more willing to reconsider our choices next time?).

Objectively: Is God good based on Him sending Jesus to the cross in our place, making a way for us to know Him and a way to be purified and forgiven, when we truly deserve eternal punishment for rebelling against an eternally worthy God? He not only bled in pursuit of holiness. He was obedient to the point of death on a cross. Jesus was good to the end. God, in providing a sacrifice in our place, has also done an amazing thing. Even while we were 100% not trying to live a good life, and ignorantly living lives blatantly in opposition to His rule and worshipping anything other than Him; He died in our place. Incredible. 

Do I think more highly of myself than God does? Never. "I am fearfully and wonderfully made". All my days were written in Your book before even one of them. None of my ways are hidden from you. Psalm 139. In God's eyes, through the cross, I can be an adopted child of God, part of His family, His Kingdom, His plans. Me on my own merits? Not even close. What do I have that was not given to me from God? What is my own that I earned and deserve? Nothing good. Can I do good for others? Only so far as I have been given goodness. Can I receive goodness from others? Only so far as that goodness has been given to them. Apart from God goodness will run dry.

Is God good? sure. Does how I feel about Him matter? Objectively? Probably not too much. But in reality, probably quite a bit. If the ultimate goal is to be in a relationship and experience joy in knowing Him and experiencing His glory, I need to feel good too. If eternal hope satiates that need, good. If not, what is the answer? How can I feel God as good while feeling like I'm suffering needlessly? I need a daily understanding that God's goodness is tangible; that His plans are good even when I don't see the end of the journey; that He is in control and works things for good. I need more faith in Him.

Hmm. May He grant me more faith.

D.Fa