Help please if you can?

[Rucan]

Sorry a little long

Hi: I think I have what maybe a unique problem, maybe not.
I will give you a little background before I get into the difficult stuff. I think I first suffered from depression when I was 7. I remember it vaguely and only lasting a brief time during the winter. Again when I was 11 I felt depressed in the winter and felt so lonely and didn’t want to be alone. I remember asking my mom if I could sleep in her room just because I didn’t want to be alone. She said no but I did not tell her how I felt.

Four years went by and I was now 15 and in high school again it was winter time and very often winter depresses me a bit to a lot. That year I had become saved in January of 1982. I remember being in my basement and saying the prayer with a Christian giving my life to Christ and feeling a great feeling great about being saved. That was the great part. The following was not great, in fact it was much emotional and mental suffering that went on for a few years.

Within the hour of being saved I felt a tremendous guilt and condemnation for some of the ways I had been living and I started to change the way I lived. But what was such a hard time for me was that I was so confused as to what was right and what was wrong. I felt constantly afraid of going to hell. I questioned everything I did. I would read the bible and it was if every verse of condemnation was for me and I FELT IT INSIDE! Every sin spoken in the bible I was worried if I was committing it. Every parable I was worried that I was on the wrong side of what the parable meant. I was a wreck. I remember being late for school so many days that I would get detentions. I was late because I didn’t want to wake up and face the fear in my mind. I didn’t understand scripture and felt very condemned that if I was not right with God I was going to hell. The confusion got so bad in my mind and the fear of going to hell and reading the bible would depress me that I would LITERALLY hit my head against the walls and hard just to try to stop the chaos in my mind.



My parents sent me to a psychiatrist for help. I kind of felt he couldn’t help me. I felt my problem was spiritual. I went anyway. I was really hoping miraculously he could give me a pill that could cure me. I talked to him about my problem but not into any great detail, as I felt uncomfortable talking about it. I saw him three times and he gave me two different types of pills on different occasions but I stopped taking them almost as soon as I started because one made me feel more depressed and the other made me feel like a zombie. Eventually I saw a couple of local priest at the church which over a period of 4 years they would help me answer my questions and that helped me get by. They both thought I was too worried and too scrupulous. I remember one of them told me that I should not read the bible by myself because I was too scrupulous to read it alone. The other priest once told me that God is not a tyrant and that is the kind of attitude I had.



I dealt with things best I could and years went by and I got better, I felt free. I eventually got married and am married to the greatest wife I could possibly get, she is fantastic and supportive. We have been married for 13+ years and I told her years ago that there was a part of me she had never seen. A part that I didn’t want to come back. Well after 20 years of me being ok she has seen it and lived it for the last 10 months.

I had never read the bible completely only very little taking the advice I had received 20+ years ago. A couple of years ago I set out to read it all and bought myself a good bible that was easy to read with a commentary for help. I read the New Testament without problem and I am almost completely done the Old Testament now. But it has been a struggle because I am now back to the same and worse then what I was when I was a teenager. I now feel condemned when I read the bible even when I reread some of the New Testament I had already read before I feel condemned and always worried that I am not right with God. I find myself always questioning myself if I am sinning? am I going to hell? When I read the bible now I get depressed again like it was years ago. I feel so bad over this. It has taken a toll on my family. My wife leaves me letters to inspire me and they bring me to tears when she says she wishes the old me was back. It also breaks my heart that I am not the same father I use to be to my 7-year-old son.



My biggest problem with all this and reading the bible is when it comes to making decisions. I feel when it comes to tough decisions and the area is grey that if I don’t make the right decision I don’t have peace and I don’t know if it is God condemning me or if it is just me or if is Satan. My wife tells me to trust her that what I am doing is right but it doesn’t give me enough peace because my conscience is very sensitive at times.



All of this has brought me to the point that I contemplated rejecting my faith but in that I realized I could never get rid of my faith because I believe so strongly in God and would not want a world without God. Yet I am so afraid of God. Someone might say why are you so afraid of God? And I say because the bible is full of warnings and condemnations for people who will go to hell and suffer forever.



I have always had a feeling that I was not really saved. Sometimes I want to feel the love for God but I don’t really feel it even though I obey him anyway because it is the right thing to do and I don’t want to go to hell. I have begged God for help to give me the answers I need and the peace and conviction I need. I pray about this 20-50 times a day. I even ask God to give me strong desire to do his will and to feel the love for him as I should have and to be the person he wants me to be but it seems I can’t find answers. It seems at times that God never answers my prayers, even this I think maybe he doesn't because I really am not saved.:o

 

[missionary1]

Sorry a little long

Hi: I think I have what maybe a unique problem, maybe not.
I will give you a little background before I get into the difficult stuff. I think I first suffered from depression when I was 7. I remember it vaguely and only lasting a brief time during the winter. Again when I was 11 I felt depressed in the winter and felt so lonely and didn’t want to be alone. I remember asking my mom if I could sleep in her room just because I didn’t want to be alone. She said no but I did not tell her how I felt.

Four years went by and I was now 15 and in high school again it was winter time and very often winter depresses me a bit to a lot. That year I had become saved in January of 1982. I remember being in my basement and saying the prayer with a Christian giving my life to Christ and feeling a great feeling great about being saved. That was the great part. The following was not great, in fact it was much emotional and mental suffering that went on for a few years.

Within the hour of being saved I felt a tremendous guilt and condemnation for some of the ways I had been living and I started to change the way I lived. But what was such a hard time for me was that I was so confused as to what was right and what was wrong. I felt constantly afraid of going to hell. I questioned everything I did. I would read the bible and it was if every verse of condemnation was for me and I FELT IT INSIDE! Every sin spoken in the bible I was worried if I was committing it. Every parable I was worried that I was on the wrong side of what the parable meant. I was a wreck. I remember being late for school so many days that I would get detentions. I was late because I didn’t want to wake up and face the fear in my mind. I didn’t understand scripture and felt very condemned that if I was not right with God I was going to hell. The confusion got so bad in my mind and the fear of going to hell and reading the bible would depress me that I would LITERALLY hit my head against the walls and hard just to try to stop the chaos in my mind.



My parents sent me to a psychiatrist for help. I kind of felt he couldn’t help me. I felt my problem was spiritual. I went anyway. I was really hoping miraculously he could give me a pill that could cure me. I talked to him about my problem but not into any great detail, as I felt uncomfortable talking about it. I saw him three times and he gave me two different types of pills on different occasions but I stopped taking them almost as soon as I started because one made me feel more depressed and the other made me feel like a zombie. Eventually I saw a couple of local priest at the church which over a period of 4 years they would help me answer my questions and that helped me get by. They both thought I was too worried and too scrupulous. I remember one of them told me that I should not read the bible by myself because I was too scrupulous to read it alone. The other priest once told me that God is not a tyrant and that is the kind of attitude I had.



I dealt with things best I could and years went by and I got better, I felt free. I eventually got married and am married to the greatest wife I could possibly get, she is fantastic and supportive. We have been married for 13+ years and I told her years ago that there was a part of me she had never seen. A part that I didn’t want to come back. Well after 20 years of me being ok she has seen it and lived it for the last 10 months.

I had never read the bible completely only very little taking the advice I had received 20+ years ago. A couple of years ago I set out to read it all and bought myself a good bible that was easy to read with a commentary for help. I read the New Testament without problem and I am almost completely done the Old Testament now. But it has been a struggle because I am now back to the same and worse then what I was when I was a teenager. I now feel condemned when I read the bible even when I reread some of the New Testament I had already read before I feel condemned and always worried that I am not right with God. I find myself always questioning myself if I am sinning? am I going to hell? When I read the bible now I get depressed again like it was years ago. I feel so bad over this. It has taken a toll on my family. My wife leaves me letters to inspire me and they bring me to tears when she says she wishes the old me was back. It also breaks my heart that I am not the same father I use to be to my 7-year-old son.



My biggest problem with all this and reading the bible is when it comes to making decisions. I feel when it comes to tough decisions and the area is grey that if I don’t make the right decision I don’t have peace and I don’t know if it is God condemning me or if it is just me or if is Satan. My wife tells me to trust her that what I am doing is right but it doesn’t give me enough peace because my conscience is very sensitive at times.



All of this has brought me to the point that I contemplated rejecting my faith but in that I realized I could never get rid of my faith because I believe so strongly in God and would not want a world without God. Yet I am so afraid of God. Someone might say why are you so afraid of God? And I say because the bible is full of warnings and condemnations for people who will go to hell and suffer forever.



I have always had a feeling that I was not really saved. Sometimes I want to feel the love for God but I don’t really feel it even though I obey him anyway because it is the right thing to do and I don’t want to go to hell. I have begged God for help to give me the answers I need and the peace and conviction I need. I pray about this 20-50 times a day. I even ask God to give me strong desire to do his will and to feel the love for him as I should have and to be the person he wants me to be but it seems I can’t find answers. It seems at times that God never answers my prayers, even this I think maybe he doesn't because I really am not saved.:o

Hi Rucan,

Thank you for sharing with us. I believe without a doubt that our Father is going to use you in these last days before Jesus Christ returns.

He is calling you to be Holy. He wants you to seek Him with all your heart, soul, strength and mind!

Read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, especially the Book of John. Read it slowly and ask our Father for the understanding...

You my friend are going to preach the Gospel according to what Jesus says...

Welcome aboard!

 

[illudium_phosdex]

Hey I don't know if this is going to make you feel better or worse but recently I have been going through something so similar. I could have almost wrote your story. This is the reason I went looking for a forum like this. Unfortunately I don't have any answers because I am still dealing with it but I am very interested to see some of the responses you get.

With me, here lately, it seems that my whole life is one guilt trip after another. I feel guilty because I feel like I am sinning in one way or another. And then I feel guilty because this is causing such deep sadness within me (I am constantly crying) that I don't feel that I am the wife and mother I should be and this causes more guilt. I also have the same questions you have about being saved. I have been told that once you are saved you "just know it." Really? How?

 

[missionary1]

Hey I don't know if this is going to make you feel better or worse but recently I have been going through something so similar. I could have almost wrote your story. This is the reason I went looking for a forum like this. Unfortunately I don't have any answers because I am still dealing with it but I am very interested to see some of the responses you get.

With me, here lately, it seems that my whole life is one guilt trip after another. I feel guilty because I feel like I am sinning in one way or another. And then I feel guilty because this is causing such deep sadness within me (I am constantly crying) that I don't feel that I am the wife and mother I should be and this causes more guilt. I also have the same questions you have about being saved. I have been told that once you are saved you "just know it." Really? How?

Hi atlasshrugged,

These are the last days...We do not know the day nor the hour but we do know the season and it has arrived.

Our Father is calling His children to Holiness!

It is also time for you to seek God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.

Jesus says that if we do not have Faith till the end we will not be saved...

We must have Obedience in order to complete our Faith...

Start reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and practice what Jesus says is important...

Welcome aboard!

 

[9T6]

If it is any help, may I point to a view verses that explain that salvation is not a reward for exemplary behaviour, but is solely due to God's grace. It is belief that God wants from us. Belief leads us to love God, and loving God leads us to obedience. Not the kind of obedience that is simply from a sense of duty or fear, but obedience through loving God so much that doing what pleases Him is all that we want to do - but this is process during which the Holy Spirit leads us to this end.


Jesus says:

"Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"" John 11:25,26

(Note the condition of believing, not just good deeds or sinlessness)

Paul says:

"If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." 1 Cor 3:12-15

(Note this shows good works lead to a reward, but even with poor works, the believer is still saved.)

Paul says of God:

"Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." Rom 11:30-32

Paul also confirms:

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." Eph 2:8,9

Note also what the writer of Hebrews says of those slain in the desert during the Exodus:

"And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. Heb 3:18,19

(So we see that although disobedience was the cause, the cause of that disobedience was lack of belief)

Jesus says that his yoke is light. If we feel unduly burdened by our faith then there is something wrong. Growing in Christ is a process, no one changes instantaneously. Even Paul was some 14 years in the making after his conversion before he actually started his ministry.

I hope this helps

Edit:

I just thought of a couple of other points. Even though Paul was perhaps the greatest of Christian evangelists and never doubted his own salvation, he still wrote of himself:

"I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members." Rom 7:18-23

(I think this describes very neatly the complex conflict that exists within all Christians)

But in spite of this Paul's attitude was:

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Phil 3:12-14

Is that not an admirable attitude and a fine example of positive thinking - i.e. keep your eyes on the goal and don't look back?

 

[DLX]

Hi Rucan,

I think you need to look up the meaning of the word sin in a Lexicon. Then meditate on thoughts of Jesus and what He did. Do you understand why Jesus died? As you go through your life, you will sin. It is going to happen. But the Bible says that holiness is not being sinless. It is in getting up, dusting off and pressing on. As soon as you sin, brother, you need to confess and then leave it behind. No one is looking back. Another thing you need to realize is that God wants you to grow and mature in His word. I would recommend reading Ephesians chapter 1. This chapter really tells of our position in Christ. Get to know God as the loving father that He really is and let that relationship be evident to your child so that he can grow up knowing God as well.

Old Testament God had a totally different covenant with people than the God of the New Testament did. I would look into studying these covenants and what the difference is. How our relationship with God changed through them.

Lastly, I will pray for you. I would love to hear how you are doing and what you are thinking about now. Do you find that you are overly paranoid about other things in your life? Or is it just this one thing?

Lexi

 

[pockleberry]

When I read you're post it went strait to my heart almost as if God wanted me to read it. I'm not quite sure why cause compaired to all of you guys I'm just a kid. I know what it's like to feel guilt I feel it alot of the time like I'm not a good enough person, to be a christian, to be alive. It got to the stage when I couldn't read the bible at all because it was too hard. To be honest I still can't read the bible all that well but i'm beginning to accept that God loves me for who I am. That's not an easy thing for me to say, for me to admit that there is even a possibility that God loves me but I know it's something that I need to accept and I think you need to as well. 1 John 1 v 8-9 says "8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." I muck up my life everyday I do things I shouldn't, we all do there isn't a single person who has ever lived (apart from Jesus) that hasn't sinned however good or holy a person they try to be. But verse 9 is the verse you and I both need to look at also John 5:24 24"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. If you believe in Jesus which from what you have written I think you do then this applies to you just as much as anyone else. Jesus paid the price for your sin so that you could be forgiven so you don't need to worry about going to hell or that God will condem you for everything you do. You've already been forgiven for everything you have done and everything you will do in the future. God already knows what you're gonna do but you know what he loves you anyway he wants you to be his child. I know from personal experience that this isn't stuff that you can just read and except strait away but there are ppl that can help you. You said about seeing a physciatrist whenn you were younger and not feeling able to talk to them and talking to priests well how about a christian councellor. They can help you to come to understand how much God loves you and maybe even read the bible with you so that you can see what it says without seeing condemnation. Or you could find someone that you could meet together with and talk about the bible with them. I meet up with a friend every 2 weeks or so and often we talk about the bible cause she knows i find it hard to read it myself. Anyway I'm rambling now hope some of what I said made sence...let me know if there is anything I can do to help like pray. Like I said I'm just a kid but I'm willing to help as much as I can.

Susanna x

 

[Jeshu]

I have always had a feeling that I was not really saved. Sometimes I want to feel the love for God but I don’t really feel it even though I obey him anyway because it is the right thing to do and I don’t want to go to hell. I have begged God for help to give me the answers I need and the peace and conviction I need. I pray about this 20-50 times a day. I even ask God to give me strong desire to do his will and to feel the love for him as I should have and to be the person he wants me to be but it seems I can’t find answers. It seems at times that God never answers my prayers, even this I think maybe he doesn't because I really am not saved.:o

Rucan your story sounds so much like mine, with the same fears and attitudes and all -- I suffered hellish agony in the past with my fear of God and the state of my salvation.
However I have learned to understand that God is no control tyrant demanding from us what we cannot give, gladly sending people of to hell for their sins. Rather God the Father in His unbelievable LOVE send Jesus to save us from our sin. This means that you don't have to save yourself JESUS has saved you ALREADY (1 Tim 4:10) The ONLY way you can be cut off from that salvation is not to believe the good gospel of grace. So if you find it in your heart to agree with the Bible - THAT JESUS IS GOD'S ONLY BEGOTTEN SON and that HE is the SAVIOUR of this WORLD, including YOURS then you are saved - no matter what Satan may whisper in your ear.

That you may soon experience God's love in your life again.


Gerry

 

[NewSong]

Realization of the hope we have in God.
He encourages us to “call upon [Him] in the day of trouble; I will deliver you” (Psalm 50:15). Hopelessness is one of the hallmark symptoms of depression. The grace of God in Jesus Christ is the sum of all hope (Colossians 1:5-6, 23, 27; 1 Timothy 1:1). Paul, a man who had more than his share of tribulation and suffering, proclaimed, “We have placed our hope in Him that He will deliver us again” (2 Corinthians 1:10b).
Restoration of the joy of salvation.
We live in a fallen world, one in which good things may come to an end. The tragic dimension of life will be present until the kingdom of God comes fully in Jesus’ return. The joy of salvation comes from realizing, again and again, that our sins have been forgiven and that we will live forever with the eternally happy God, who desires that we share in His joy. We should never “get over” the gospel.
Active love for God and others.
Love for God and others is essential because depressed people often find themselves sucked into a vortex of morbid self-involvement, which keeps them from following the heavenly prescription given by the Great Physician, the medicine that many depressed people need above all else (Matthew 22:36-40). When depressed people begin to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and demonstrate love for and to others, their depression often begins to evaporate

 

[Mayflower1]

Sorry a little long

Hi: I think I have what maybe a unique problem, maybe not.
I will give you a little background before I get into the difficult stuff. I think I first suffered from depression when I was 7. I remember it vaguely and only lasting a brief time during the winter. Again when I was 11 I felt depressed in the winter and felt so lonely and didn’t want to be alone. I remember asking my mom if I could sleep in her room just because I didn’t want to be alone. She said no but I did not tell her how I felt.

Four years went by and I was now 15 and in high school again it was winter time and very often winter depresses me a bit to a lot. That year I had become saved in January of 1982. I remember being in my basement and saying the prayer with a Christian giving my life to Christ and feeling a great feeling great about being saved. That was the great part. The following was not great, in fact it was much emotional and mental suffering that went on for a few years.

Within the hour of being saved I felt a tremendous guilt and condemnation for some of the ways I had been living and I started to change the way I lived. But what was such a hard time for me was that I was so confused as to what was right and what was wrong. I felt constantly afraid of going to hell. I questioned everything I did. I would read the bible and it was if every verse of condemnation was for me and I FELT IT INSIDE! Every sin spoken in the bible I was worried if I was committing it. Every parable I was worried that I was on the wrong side of what the parable meant. I was a wreck. I remember being late for school so many days that I would get detentions. I was late because I didn’t want to wake up and face the fear in my mind. I didn’t understand scripture and felt very condemned that if I was not right with God I was going to hell. The confusion got so bad in my mind and the fear of going to hell and reading the bible would depress me that I would LITERALLY hit my head against the walls and hard just to try to stop the chaos in my mind.



My parents sent me to a psychiatrist for help. I kind of felt he couldn’t help me. I felt my problem was spiritual. I went anyway. I was really hoping miraculously he could give me a pill that could cure me. I talked to him about my problem but not into any great detail, as I felt uncomfortable talking about it. I saw him three times and he gave me two different types of pills on different occasions but I stopped taking them almost as soon as I started because one made me feel more depressed and the other made me feel like a zombie. Eventually I saw a couple of local priest at the church which over a period of 4 years they would help me answer my questions and that helped me get by. They both thought I was too worried and too scrupulous. I remember one of them told me that I should not read the bible by myself because I was too scrupulous to read it alone. The other priest once told me that God is not a tyrant and that is the kind of attitude I had.



I dealt with things best I could and years went by and I got better, I felt free. I eventually got married and am married to the greatest wife I could possibly get, she is fantastic and supportive. We have been married for 13+ years and I told her years ago that there was a part of me she had never seen. A part that I didn’t want to come back. Well after 20 years of me being ok she has seen it and lived it for the last 10 months.

I had never read the bible completely only very little taking the advice I had received 20+ years ago. A couple of years ago I set out to read it all and bought myself a good bible that was easy to read with a commentary for help. I read the New Testament without problem and I am almost completely done the Old Testament now. But it has been a struggle because I am now back to the same and worse then what I was when I was a teenager. I now feel condemned when I read the bible even when I reread some of the New Testament I had already read before I feel condemned and always worried that I am not right with God. I find myself always questioning myself if I am sinning? am I going to hell? When I read the bible now I get depressed again like it was years ago. I feel so bad over this. It has taken a toll on my family. My wife leaves me letters to inspire me and they bring me to tears when she says she wishes the old me was back. It also breaks my heart that I am not the same father I use to be to my 7-year-old son.



My biggest problem with all this and reading the bible is when it comes to making decisions. I feel when it comes to tough decisions and the area is grey that if I don’t make the right decision I don’t have peace and I don’t know if it is God condemning me or if it is just me or if is Satan. My wife tells me to trust her that what I am doing is right but it doesn’t give me enough peace because my conscience is very sensitive at times.



All of this has brought me to the point that I contemplated rejecting my faith but in that I realized I could never get rid of my faith because I believe so strongly in God and would not want a world without God. Yet I am so afraid of God. Someone might say why are you so afraid of God? And I say because the bible is full of warnings and condemnations for people who will go to hell and suffer forever.



I have always had a feeling that I was not really saved. Sometimes I want to feel the love for God but I don’t really feel it even though I obey him anyway because it is the right thing to do and I don’t want to go to hell. I have begged God for help to give me the answers I need and the peace and conviction I need. I pray about this 20-50 times a day. I even ask God to give me strong desire to do his will and to feel the love for him as I should have and to be the person he wants me to be but it seems I can’t find answers. It seems at times that God never answers my prayers, even this I think maybe he doesn't because I really am not saved.:o

Dear Rucan,
I have time to listen! Please don't be so guilty on yourself, for all fall short of the glory of God. John 3:16 says that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life." No matter what you do, if you believe you are a sinner and believe Christ can heal you and cleanse you of your sin, you are saved. If you don't believe this, then please question your salvation and get it straight with God. A good prayer is this:
Father, I know I am a sinner and I do so many things that I feel so guilty for. I believe that you died on the cross for my sins and rose again... I also know that if you come into my life, I will still sin but I won't lose my salvation for I am saved by faith and not by my own works. I believe in you with my whole heart and I just ask that you come into my life, my heart, and clean me inside out so that I might feel free from this guilt in my life. I will fail Lord, but I want to follow you because I love you and I want to do good. Father, thank you for giving me this free gift of salvation because I know I do not deserve it by any means. Thank you for loving me Father so much... In Jesus name, Amen.

- If you pray this prayer and you mean it, then you won't have to feel so guilty anymore. If you do know and believe that you are saved by grace alone already, then you just, maybe, need to sit down and just pray a prayer to God of just plain thanks. Anything that comes to mind. I have depression attacks a lot where I do feel so unworthy and like a hypocrite... and I feel urges to cut myself so much, but I just started now, to just pray to God, thanking Him for anything that came to mind and it has opened up to me a whole new world. All have sinned and fell short of the glory of God Rucan, but He is so just and ready to forgive you. He loves you no matter what you have done, no matter if you have done every horrible thing imaginable... if you are His child, He will never allow you to burn. Some will enter heaven with no reward, but they will still have life and eternity with God! Also, your sins can't be worse then mine... I had the same experience before. Even after one is saved though... I just found that giving God thanks is the best solution. Please, don't bog yourself down... We all make every mistake in the book. I hope this has helped in some way. I am only nineteen and I am still growing by God's grace. I just know what God tells me in His word though. There is hope and you can know for sure you are going to heaven! Best of Wishes, I will pray for you. Lily00

 

[VickiY]

Dear Rucan,

First....Have you spoken to an MD about the winter depression? You may have SAD.

Second: Knowing that one is "saved" is not the point of being a Christian. The point of being a Christian is to strive in everything you do to be like Christ, and to place your faith in Him. Christ Himself condemned the over-scrupulous Pharissees, who knew the letter of the law but not the spirit of it. Christ IS love, and if you govern yourself according to his two greatest commandments, you will learn to have love for Him. If everything you do is filled with "Would Christ, who loved us, do this?", then you will be acting according to His word.

Salvation is an ongoing process, not an instant thing. It begins with accepting that Jesus is God, and believing in Him, but continues with wanting to do those things that will allow you to show everyone by your actions that you are Christian...those things that He mentioned when discussing the judgment...visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, etc...

Remember that Christ knows the striving that is in our hearts, and will judge us according to both our ability to understand His word, and how we followed what we did understand.