Loved by God Part I
For a long time, I was a “captive of God and Church.” Let me explain. As a child, I was told about Jesus and how He died for my sins, but I was also told how if I didn’t “accept His love”, I would be doomed to an everlasting, burning, eternity in the lake of fire. Being a fairly intelligent child, I knew that was not something that just didn’t sound “fun”, so I accepted Christ. That was a no-brainer to me. I was supposed to go to church, and pray and read my bible cause that’s what God wanted me to do so I would not go to hell. As I started getting older, the fear of hell was there, but there were desires to do things I was told I shouldn’t do. I felt like I was in a constant war with my desires and what I knew was the “right” thing.
It wasn’t until I reached my late teens that God revealed to me His love that freed me from the fear of hell and propelled me into the loving arms of my savior! I not only understood that He didn’t want me to go to hell, but that He wanted to have a relationship with me! This was the beginning of a relationship that will continue till my last breath and into eternity! However, I was still finding that the tight-rope changed from doing the right things so I wouldn’t go to hell, to doing the right things so I could be loved by God. As I made mistakes (which we are going to do because we sinful creatures, prone to sin) I felt less loved by Him, not realizing at the time I was buying into a non-truth that the enemy was speaking into my brain. The burden of “maintaining my salvation” was overwhelming for me, cause I so wanted to please Him and be loved by Him, but I always felt like my faults and shortcomings were keeping me from Him. I was falling into despair in my walk with God and I had no hope.
But God had other plans……
Stay tuned,
Kevin
