I Need Help

[SearchingForSalvation]

I have done bad things in the past. I have never, nor would I ever physically harm anyone ever, but that aside, I feel as though I am a bad person. My mother is very religious and for that reason I always pretended to be a believer, when in reality it all just seemed unrealistic to me. Recently I've become distraught, afraid of what will happen to me when I die, partially because I've been considering suicide. I've begun praying to God for help, but It's not helping because I want to believe I truly do, but I don't know if the only reason I'm praying is because I'm afraid of Hell or because I believe in God. I'm afraid if I'm not true enough when I pray then I will end up in hell where I belong, even if I don't commit suicide which I know people say is a 1 way ticket to hell. Please help me.

 

[zaksmummy]

You sound like you are in a lot of turmoil. You also sound like you are depressed. It would also account for your feeling like such a bad person. Have you thought of visiting your doctor and explaining how you feel? You might need some anti-depressants to help you with your suicidal thoughts and feelings.

That aside, God is a loving Father - he wants us to come close to him and tell him our problems and worries. Jesus said "Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you" - he was talking about how we get caught up with worries and fears over our lives.

He also said that his yoke (or his teaching) is easy and his burden is light - in other words he doesnt want to burden you with any more problems and in fact wants to take your problems as his own and share the load with you. He said "come to me, all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest."

God does not want anyone, including you, to go to Hell - thats why he sent Jesus. All we have to do is accept his gift of salvation. God knows whats going on in your heart and mind, if you want to believe but feel unable to, tell him, ask him for the faith to believe and the revelation to understand, as I said he is a loving Father and will answer you prayers.

Can I also suggest reading the Psalms - many times King David felt suicidal, and alone, he always turned to God and wrote some beautiful Psalms about how he felt. Heres one.

Psalm 23 - A psalm of David.
The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

 

[SearchingForSalvation]

I do see a therapist, and he helps, but say I deserve to feel guilty. Do you feel as though everyone deserves forgiveness? So often I see the Christians who preach forgiveness in our society pushing for things like the death penalty. While what I've done is much different than something like murder, or theft, or those types of crimes, I still feel like such an awful person and all I want is to be better. Which is why I'm here.

 

[Tempura]

What Zaksmummy said.

SFS, we have something in common. I have also contemplated suicide, don't consider myself as worthy and feel that I can't pray right. Sometimes I even begin a prayer with apologizing my weak faith.

You ask: does everyone deserve forgiveness? I don't know. Could I forgive everyone and anyone? I couldn't. What matters is, God's grace through Jesus Christ is perfect. It's perfect and bigger than any of our doubts, any of our sins. It's beyond what we think we deserve. This is what I focus on the Bible, mostly. None of us are perfect. We all sin. God, Jesus Christ and Holy Ghost - they are perfect. Jesus was perfect for us, because we as human beings cannot be.

You say you want to be better. That's a good thing. But if you only want to be better against your conscience and soul just to get some relief from the thoughts of hell, trying to do it like it doesn't feel right, doing it while cringing your teeth, it probably isn't going to last.

Try to focus not on hell, but Jesus, God, love, compassion, forgiveness, grace with an honest and open heart. These things will grow in you. These things will bear fruit. Fear, desperation or excessive guilt that blinds you, are not from God, for God wants you. You are his beloved child, and He is your loving father. Remember - God knows your struggles. He knows your heart. You are searching for him, and you are not doing anything wrong with that.

I struggle a lot with the issues you mentioned too. My depression, anxiety and my own nature sometimes gets me in a dark pit from where I can't see any hope, but just guilt, self-condemnation, shame and darkness. Still, I continue to pray even I feel that God doesn't hear me, doesn't want to hear me for whatever reason that is supposed to be my fault. We need to believe that God's grace is not dependant on our feelings. We need to believe that even if we feel we are letting go, he won't. God is perfect, has perfect love and perfect grace.

I know it is hard, but our own feelings betray us when we are really down.
You, my friend, do not sound like an awful person. You are struggling, and you're having a hard time. Good thing that you go to therapy. If these overwhelming feelings of unworthiness and guilt continue, please be open to any other kind of psychiatric help, too. I've been some times to a psychiatric ward, it has helped through the worst situations. I also had to try many different meds before I found the one that seems to be doing at least something.

SearchingForSalvation, even if you don't feel it now, you are loved. Even if you don't feel it now, you have a lot of love to give, also.

May God be with you, you are not alone.

 

[Tempura]

Also, you can PM me if you want to talk about things. I may not always be here even if it says that I'm online (I don't usually turn my computer off), but I will answer when I get a chance.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

The first thing yu need to be aware of is the instant you give your life back to God, he is there. As a Christian you live by faith, God loves even small faith. He does not require you to have a big faith. You are saved, if you asked him in. Your faith, it will grow with time, as you get into the word and see what it says about Gods for giveness. I have a whole heap of testimonies of God revealing himself to, and speaking to me directly. But I want include one here (cut and pasted) that explains a story about my lack of faith and God's method of showing me he loved me. I hope it helps you know God loves you too, for he does 100% sure.

This is a bit of a personal story. I once fell in love with a person (when I was first a Christian) and they rejected me big time, which always seemed to happen to me, I got angry with God and blamed Him and told him I no longer wanted to be a Christian, and committed a sin I used to do before I was a Christian. From that time on I was constantly haunted, an still am some times, thinking that I had been rejected by God because of it. For years I went through hell, believing fully I was destined for eternal fire. I was filled with dread, and anger. But over time I started to go back to church, and every where I went pastors, people in prayer lines, and people having lunch would say “I feel this verse is for you” and give me the verse I am about to write, or they would just say it, it was “I know the thought I think toward you says the LORD for good and not evil, to give you a future and a hope”, so I began to get a feeling of hope. So some times latter when my faith had increased some what I would open the bible at random asking God for answers and if I had doubt I would ask, was he still there for me. When this happened my bible kept opening to Eze 18:31-32 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! I kept focusing on the parts, “Why will you die” – it was like God was saying, there is no need to die, I am forgiving, and the part “I take no pleasure in the death of anyone”. It kept happening so often that I began to wonder if these was a crease in the page of my bible, that kept it opening to that page. I guess in my heart I still believed it was God. Then one day I was playing with my nephew in his house, he looked up at me and a thought went through my mind, one of those haunting thoughts, it said “See you are really an evil man, as a young person, he sees right through your deceit”, i.e. the accusation was that I was pretending to be a Christian. On the desk in one of the bedrooms was an old 100 year old bible, I thought I will open it to see what God thinks, and guess what passage it opened to Ezekiel 18. As follows Eze 18:31-32 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

 

[zaksmummy]

I do see a therapist, and he helps, but say I deserve to feel guilty. Do you feel as though everyone deserves forgiveness? So often I see the Christians who preach forgiveness in our society pushing for things like the death penalty. While what I've done is much different than something like murder, or theft, or those types of crimes, I still feel like such an awful person and all I want is to be better. Which is why I'm here.

Are you saying that the therapist says you should feel guilty?

Or are you saying that you have done things that warrant you feeling guilty?

The thing is that we have all done things that make us feel guilty. When we accept that we are guilty in Gods eyes because of our sin and repent from it, that is turn away from that sin and follow Jesus, this is how we accept Gods free gift of Salvation. God then takes away our guilt.

If after that you have done things in your life that warrant guilt, you are able to sort it out. In Jewish tradition this would mean that you go to the people you have hurt and ask for their forgiveness. I know that sounds like a tall order, but in the past God has asked me to do this with someone I had issues with, and after, I felt so free, and the anger I felt towards that person disappeared from my life completely.

It also helped my to understand that there are times that I need to forgive others as well, even though they have done horrible things to me or people I love dearly, so that we dont become bitter, we allow God to sort it out.

This is the freedom that Jesus talks about.

 

[wpage]

Here is a plan...
-Get a Bible and start finding answers for yourself a Gideon Bible has specific helps.
-Pray for help from God
-Find a local church that has a good Pastor that understands the Bible.
-Pray and read the Bible every day for knowledge and communication with God
Once you have done that you will be a new creature. Your life will be new.

God bless you!

 

[paul1149]

Searching,

God's ability to forgive is far greater than our ability to sin. The Creator, who is infinite, is greater than all the finite creation. The Father lacked only the legal right to forgive us, and that's what Christ purchased for us on the Cross. As Jesus died, He declared “It is finished”. The price was paid, and the reign of sin, death, darkness and chaos was destroyed. God's new kingdom was instituted, with a superabundance of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

If you come to Jesus, in no way will He cast you out. This is exactly why He came – to rescue the lost sheep of this world. It's appropriate to have fear of hell before we are saved, but the way forward is to look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our salvation. “For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control” -2Tim 1:7. As we look to Him, we are changed.

In your prayers, you need to put away wanting to believe, and make a decision to actually believe. Don't make up anything you really don’t believe in. Just start where you are, and be honest. Say, "God, I don’t know much about you, but I believe that You answer prayer and that You will forgive me (1John 1.9) and lead me in the way I should go." The Bible assures us that if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us (James 4.8). He loves you enough to accept you right where you are, no pretenses necessary. Then start reading about Jesus, perhaps in the Gospel of John, because faith comes by hearing the Word of God. You will see how lovely He is, and how much He loves you. In this way you will be feeding your faith. Put your trust in Him, and He will deliver you.

One last point. If you place your trust in God, then it no longer is up to you to be true enough or good enough. You've handed the car keys over to Him, and now the driving is His responsibility. You can be at peace, and focus on following Him more closely. This is what it means to be saved by faith rather than works. The more you learn about Him, the more you'll love Him. The more you love Him, the more you'll trust Him. And the more you trust Him, the more empowered you will become to overcome all the circumstances and sin life can throw at you. He will glorify Himself by giving you the victory.

 

[SearchingForSalvation]

Thank you, everyone truly. I do feel better after reading this. Admittedly I have avoided church in the past, but I think I will go this Sunday.

And in response to the guilt question posed by Zaksmummy, I feel guilty, my Therapist doesn't think I should because he says it's human and everyone has their own monsters, but that doesn't keep me from feeling like my monster controls my life more than the monsters of others do.

To FutureAndHope, it sounds like we may have alot in common with the way you describe the way you feel. Would it be cool if I maybe PM'd you sometime?

 

[FutureAndAHope]

To FutureAndHope, it sounds like we may have alot in common with the way you describe the way you feel. Would it be cool if I maybe PM'd you sometime?

Yeah no worries. I pray God blesses you and lets you know his love for you personally, he does love you 100% for sure. Church is a good idea, hope you find a good one.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

Would it be cool if I maybe PM'd you sometime?

I just noticed it is impossible for you to private message me because you have not done enough posts. If you need anything you can email me at robert_mark_palmer@hotmail.com I am quite looking forward to answering any question you may have. May God's love follow you where ever you go.