Hey guys so I've been messing up lately in my walk with God and I've been very hard on myself trying to be just right and very legalistic. I need advice on how to stop self condemnation, shame, guilt and apathy. I need to get more intimate with God and i wish to please God in the things i do but i overanalyze every situation and living like this isn't very useful. Every decision i make feels like my life is on the line and i can't get anything done it seems. Its also been increasingly difficult to meditate on the word because i seem to be jumping from passage to passage searching for answers yet i feel like i found none. I pray to God for answers either he's just not talking to me cause i have been messing up a lot or maybe he already told and im just being disobedient. I have a fear of becoming deaf to the Holy spirit which explain the mess. How can i overcome this anxiety and move on from a very tough time in my life.
This may sound trite and unhelpful at first glance but it isn't: Love the Lord your God with all of your being. (
Matt. 22:36-38) That's the remedy to the sort of legalistic, fearful walk with God you have. Love for God is actually the beginning of, or the foundation for, fellowship with Him. Everything in a Christian's life is supposed to emanate from, or rise out of, a love for God. It's so easy, though, to end up living for God from Self-centered motives. This is because Self-centered motives don't always look, as we act on them, like Self-centeredness. But ask yourself this question:
Why am I fearful? Why am I afraid that God will withdraw from me? Are you afraid for your
Self? Are you prompted by a motive of
Self-preservation? Are you at bottom just trying to protect your
Self? If so, then your motive for walking with God (or, at least, trying to) isn't love for God but love of your Self. No man can serve two masters. You cannot love God and your Self at the same time. If you wish to truly walk with God, you must give up loving your Self:
Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
How do you do this? Well, the truth is,
you can't. But God can. You can't live a life of Self-denial, of Self-crucifixion, in your own strength. God must put you to death; He must crucify your Self. Will you let Him? Not if you don't love and trust Him. How, then, do come to love Him sufficiently to die to your Self?
Consider what I wrote to another poster recently:
So, how do you renew your love for God? How do you go from where you are to the place you ought to be? The Bible has a few instructions:
1. Remember your first love. (Rev. 2:4, 5)
This assumes that you came to faith in Christ in joyful, loving response to the love he displayed to you in his sacrificial death on the cross. Did you? The Bible says, "We love Him because He first loved us." (1 Jn. 4:19) Have you carefully considered the love that God has for you? Have you given yourself time and space to think on just how great God's love is for you?
2. Recognize how completely unworthy of God's love you are. (Lu. 7:36-47)
Luke 7:47
47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."
Jesus said this to Simon the Pharisee who was looking down on a woman who had been washing Jesus's feet with her tears and hair. She knew that she was a terrible sinner in need of a Saviour and she recognized that Jesus could - and would - forgive her of her sins. And so her heart overflowed with love for him. She knew she didn't deserve to be forgiven. She knew her sins were many and very grievous. But her awareness of her deep sinfulness made her appreciate properly the greatness of the grace and love of the One who would forgive her sins. Simon, on the other hand, thought he was a pretty decent fellow. And so he stood before the One who could forgive his sins thinking he had no sins that needed forgiving. As a result, he had no love, no appreciation for the Saviour. Instead he looked down his nose, not just at the woman, but at Jesus, too!
The more we realize just how far God had to humiliate Himself in saving us from our sins and the more we understand just how great our sin is and how undeserving of God's forgiveness we are, the greater our love for Him will be. To whom much is forgiven, the same loves much.
3. Return to the Source of Love. (Ga. 5:22, 23; 2Ti. 1:7)
God doesn't want just any sort of love from us. Certainly, He isn't interested in the sin-corrupted, selfish, human "love" we possess. No, God wants the very best love that there is from us - His own perfect, holy love. And, of course, the only way we can give such love to God is to first get it from Him. We do that by way of His Spirit. God gives each of His children His Spirit when they are born-again. In the Spirit they find all that they need to live as they are supposed to live - including the love God desires from each of us. So, then, the Christian who needs to love God more than he does himself, must open himself to the transforming work of the Spirit who will over time replace his selfish heart with a heart overflowing with a holy love for God.
Your idols are your idols because they satisfy you in some way. You won't give them up for something that is less satisfying, for something you love less, than you love your idols. God must be more gratifying, more of a joy to you, than your idols. You must love Him more than you love yourself. But He's the only One who can make such a change in you. So, in the end, you must follow the instructions of Jesus:
Matthew 7:7-8
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.