How Do I Move Forward ?

[sunshineforJesus]

First I’d start out by having a conversation with God and express your concerns to Him. I’d start praying each night that God will guide you closer to Him and trusting in His ways. I’ve been where you have been and it’s not fun being like that. I know you want to know God more and the Bible can show you His miracles He has done to others and He can change your life as well. We’re all different but special to God in our own ways we just have to learn to accept and love ourselves for how God made us. He doesn’t make mistakes on anybody, everybody has a purpose in life, you just got to trust in His ways and follow His path.

I was actually thinking of posting pretty much the same thing.

 

[DiscipleOfChrist85]

By and large, God doesn't correct our lives in a single, sudden, radical transformation. He uses a life-long process of change to make us who He desires us to be.

It is God, though, who changes you, not you who changes yourself for God. And God works to do so, to transform you, only as you live before Him in daily submission to His will and way (Romans 6:13-22; Romans 8:14; Romans 12:1; James 4:6-10; 1 Peter 5:6). This is how your relationship with God "works." It's not complicated, but it's not always easy, either. We're so used to sitting on the throne of our hearts that we do so without thinking, pushing the Holy Spirit off of it all the time.

But so long as he is not on the throne, ruling your life, he will not act to change you; for to do so without your conscious consent, which you give by your yielding the throne of your heart to him, would be to make a puppet out of you. There isn't any love in doing so, though, is there? Love and coercion are anathema to each other. But God wants a love-relationship with us (Matthew 22:36-38; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3) as the ground out of which our walk with God grows.

So, if you want to take the throne of your heart and life for yourself, the Holy Spirit, God, will let you, waiting for you to get off of it and give it back to him before he'll begin to change you again. The "trick," then, to Christian living, to walking well with God, is simply to willingly, consciously, persistently give him control of your mind, will, emotions, desires and heart. Then, wait, by faith, on him to transform - OVER TIME - who you are, moving toward him more and more in your living and desires and habits, as He enables you to do so.

The true battle of the Christian life is to remain in submission to God. Not stamping out sin, or fighting off the devil, or pushing down the impulses of your flesh, but when these things confront you, to submit yourself immediately and continuously to God's control. This is the real battle we fight as children of God. The temptation to do the fighting ourselves, to suppress, and control, and change ourselves, is very strong. But if we attempt any of these things without first being submitted to God and moving in His power, the strain of resistance will become too much and failure will soon result.

So, walking well with God is actually pretty simple, isn't it?

I guess it is isn't it.
I always held the legalistic view on the christian life because I always viewed things like love dignity self esteem and salvation as currency to earn and fight and to claw for. You can't truly have these things because those things are conditional temporary and could be lost. I hold such high standards because I feel like I'm always less of a person because of an inner lack and I'm harsh and unforgiving but above all else I'm terrified of losing all I have.
Gods love is a slap in a face for me because I spend my whole life trying to earn my place at the table and God just hands it freely ? With no condition's? My pride can't handle it and I realize how stupid it sounds now but that how I always viewed my relationship of God as something I have to earn.
Man I really do got issues.

 

[aiki]

I always held the legalistic view on the christian life because I always viewed things like love dignity self esteem and salvation as currency to earn and fight and to claw for. You can't truly have these things because those things are conditional temporary and could be lost.

Well, as I'm sure you understand now, we find these things offered freely to us in a relationship with God. We discover in God the greatest, most perfect love there is; in Him we take on a dignity befitting our position as His adopted children, grounded in wisdom and holiness; our salvation, too, is in God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is himself our salvation. You won't find self-esteem, though, in God. In fact, self-esteem - pride, egoism - is exactly the opposite thing God will instill in His own. He wants us to accept who He has made us to be, to be content to be tall, or short, slender, or thicker, brown-eyed and mechanically-inclined or green-eyed and artistic, but holding ourselves in esteem is contrary to the humility and selflessness of our divine example, Jesus Christ. We are called instead to die to ourselves as followers of Christ (Matthew 16:24-25; John 12:24-25), to turn from pride and self-interest, recognizing that the new life we find in Jesus is his life, not ours, and ought to reflect him, not us.

Gods love is a slap in a face for me because I spend my whole life trying to earn my place at the table and God just hands it freely ? With no condition's?

Not exactly. Salvation is a doorway through which we step into fellowship with God. But, like any person with whom you want a relationship, you can't just start one with them entirely as you decide you'd like to do. You can't, for instance, just walk into your neighbor's house one day, help yourself to food from their fridge, plunk yourself down on their bed and begin eating, inviting them to join you for a chat. You'd get tossed out on your ear! Or arrested. Well, in the same way, we can't just approach God any old way we'd like. He's GOD, right? And as such He dictates to us what a relationship with Him will be like.

God offers to us salvation but under His dynamic, not ours. We cannot earn our salvation from God, but we can't be saved and go on living as we always have. Salvation isn't just escaping hell, but an exchange of life that happens by way of being filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ (Titus 3:5; Romans 8:9-11; 1 John 4:13), and "made new" spiritually, as a result. Our salvation is actually a relationship we have with God through Jesus. The Savior is himself our salvation. (See: 1 John 5:11-12) And Jesus offers to us a relationship with God through him only as we trust in him as our Saviour and Lord (Romans 10:9-10), repent of life lived apart from him (James 4:6-10), and confess our sin (1 John 1:9).

So, there are conditions for salvation. We can't just saunter up to God and say, "Hey. Howzit? Wanna hang out?" He will be treated only as the God He is, with respect from us, receiving from us humility and submission, faith and love. These things don't save us, but they are vital to being saved - like going to the oncologist, being diagnosed with a cancerous tumor, and trusting a surgeon to remove the tumor don't save you. These things are necessary to being freed of your tumor, to being saved from it by the surgeon, but you could do all of these things and, if the surgeon doesn't get your tumor out, you'd still die. The actual saving of you from a cancerous tumor is solely the work of the surgeon to which you cannot contribute at all; you can only receive his saving work upon you as you lie, unconscious, on the operating table. Likewise, we must repent and be converted, trusting in the saving work of Christ on the cross for us and submitting to his Lordship over us. But the removal of our "tumor of sin" is solely God's work to which we can contribute nothing.

My pride can't handle it and I realize how stupid it sounds now but that how I always viewed my relationship of God as something I have to earn.
Man I really do got issues.

We all do. It's being human. But God can change us, make us more like Jesus, and bring us into the life for which He made us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

[DiscipleOfChrist85]

Well, as I'm sure you understand now, we find these things offered freely to us in a relationship with God. We discover in God the greatest, most perfect love there is; in Him we take on a dignity befitting our position as His adopted children, grounded in wisdom and holiness; our salvation, too, is in God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is himself our salvation. You won't find self-esteem, though, in God. In fact, self-esteem - pride, egoism - is exactly the opposite thing God will instill in His own. He wants us to accept who He has made us to be, to be content to be tall, or short, slender, or thicker, brown-eyed and mechanically-inclined or green-eyed and artistic, but holding ourselves in esteem is contrary to the humility and selflessness of our divine example, Jesus Christ. We are called instead to die to ourselves as followers of Christ (Matthew 16:24-25; John 12:24-25), to turn from pride and self-interest, recognizing that the new life we find in Jesus is his life, not ours, and ought to reflect him, not us.



Not exactly. Salvation is a doorway through which we step into fellowship with God. But, like any person with whom you want a relationship, you can't just start one with them entirely as you decide you'd like to do. You can't, for instance, just walk into your neighbor's house one day, help yourself to food from their fridge, plunk yourself down on their bed and begin eating, inviting them to join you for a chat. You'd get tossed out on your ear! Or arrested. Well, in the same way, we can't just approach God any old way we'd like. He's GOD, right? And as such He dictates to us what a relationship with Him will be like.

God offers to us salvation but under His dynamic, not ours. We cannot earn our salvation from God, but we can't be saved and go on living as we always have. Salvation isn't just escaping hell, but an exchange of life that happens by way of being filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ (Titus 3:5; Romans 8:9-11; 1 John 4:13), and "made new" spiritually, as a result. Our salvation is actually a relationship we have with God through Jesus. The Savior is himself our salvation. (See: 1 John 5:11-12) And Jesus offers to us a relationship with God through him only as we trust in him as our Saviour and Lord (Romans 10:9-10), repent of life lived apart from him (James 4:6-10), and confess our sin (1 John 1:9).

So, there are conditions for salvation. We can't just saunter up to God and say, "Hey. Howzit? Wanna hang out?" He will be treated only as the God He is, with respect from us, receiving from us humility and submission, faith and love. These things don't save us, but they are vital to being saved - like going to the oncologist, being diagnosed with a cancerous tumor, and trusting a surgeon to remove the tumor don't save you. These things are necessary to being freed of your tumor, to being saved from it by the surgeon, but you could do all of these things and, if the surgeon doesn't get your tumor out, you'd still die. The actual saving of you from a cancerous tumor is solely the work of the surgeon to which you cannot contribute at all; you can only receive his saving work upon you as you lie, unconscious, on the operating table. Likewise, we must repent and be converted, trusting in the saving work of Christ on the cross for us and submitting to his Lordship over us. But the removal of our "tumor of sin" is solely God's work to which we can contribute nothing.



We all do. It's being human. But God can change us, make us more like Jesus, and bring us into the life for which He made us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thank you I understand now I know what I must do. I have to do things God's way and submit too him and let him do his work.
To be honest I'm quite tired do things my way and my last thread opened my eyes to how harmful my prideful ways are and I need to change even if it takes a lifetime.
Thank you and Merry Christmas.

 

[newlightseven]

This has been a very long and tiring year for me. Because of God's infinite love and grace, my life has changed so dramatically that I have been struggling to cope. As a result I fell back into my old habits of intense self loathing whenever I feel stressed and overwhelmed. This of course led to me almost abandoning my faith due to my deep depression.
Fortunately, for me I serve an infinitely loving and patient God who has helped me understand that he is not going to give up on me. That being said I have to ask how do I move forward toward God ?
It's clear by the last thread that I posted that I have a serious need of a relationship with God, but I have no idea how to do that and I need help.
What should I do ?

We must examine our situation. Yah puts us all in situations for our learning growth, and so that the messiah may be glorified thereby. Jesus said that he came to mend broken hearts. So recognize your situation and ask Yah to send Jesus to mend your broken heart. And count it as being DONE, by faith you are made whole. Continue on knowing that Jesus has already delivered you and mended your heart. God Bless you!

 

[Hazelelponi]

Thank you I understand now I know what I must do

What you have to do is forgive yourself.

God can forgive us all day long but we have to forgive ourselves in order to accept forgiveness.

I've asked similar questions about why would God forgive someone as horrible and unforgivable as myself... The answer is because it brings HIM Glory.

Anyone can forgive a good man a small thing... It takes a wholly different being to forgive an actual enemy, and not only forgive, but to take those enemies in as son's and daughters.

When the world sees God forgive people like us, they glorify Him and His Name for who He is and what He's done. We are walking examples of God's actual love on full display in front of mankind.

God forgives us, because we show His true nature to mankind. For that reason we can forgive ourselves. God allowed us to go so far and no farther, for His Own Glory.

That is our purpose. That's the reason. Forgive yourself, and accept God for what He is... For He is mind-blowingly truly Good in a way mankind can never be.

 

[aiki]

I need to change even if it takes a lifetime.

Yes, you need to change. But it is God who will do the changing of you as you submit to Him doing so throughout each day. You just receive His work, remain in it by faith, and reflect His work in your living. You're just a vessel, a sort of conduit, in and through whom God communicates Himself. Stay submitted to God, then, in faith patiently trust that He is at work in you in response, as He promises in His word He will be, even when you can't see that He is. As you do, like a branch growing out from a tree trunk, subtly, naturally and powerfully you'll become a living extension of Christ, fruitful and strong in him.

Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Ephesians 3:16
16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

John 15:4-5
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

 

[drstevej]

"Yes, you need to change. But it is God who will do the changing of you as you submit to Him doing so throughout each day." {Aiki}

I agree with with this vital insight.