The Simple Gospel II

Many of you may or may not know, but here goes: I struggle with sexual addiction. I know it is every man's battle, so I'm no longer ashamed. Satan used to heap loads and loads of shame and guilt upon me (I'm pretty sure he is still trying), but I am battling. I go to a group every Saturday of men who are battling it along side me. Accountability, along with transparency, and obviously God, is the only thing that will allow you to break the chains of sin in your life, no matter what that sin is. I have spoken to friends about this, have publicly proclaimed it, have spoken at men's gatherings, and have called some of my wife's best friends and laid it all down, so that she has someone to talk to about it. God has given me freedom in this area, and has broken the chains of sin that have shackled me since I was 11 or 12 years old. Just so you know, I am writing this with a smile on my face, because Jesus saves! This isn't some dreary, sad story of addiction, this is a joyful and triumphant celebration of freedom in Christ. This due to one simple idea: I am lily white.

Follow me here: Before I knew Jesus, I was my sin. I owned it, it defined me, like I said, I was shackled, any sin came from within, it was who I was, a fallen man in a fallen world. But when I believed that Jesus was who he said he was, I became blameless, I was no longer my sin, my identity, my definition now came from Christ, the sin no longer came from within.

I continued to sin after my conversion, but I was still blameless. Christ did all of that on the cross 2,000 years ago, He bore my sins. The revolution is the fact that now it comes from outside of me, it comes from Satan, from demons, from "spiritual forces of evil." As I mentioned in another post earlier this month, "becoming a believer doesn't stop us from sinning, we still have free will, the revolution is that we are no longer the originator of those sins, we no longer own it. The temptation, the sin comes from something outside of you, it comes from Satan. Ephesians 4:12 says

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

We are no longer an enemy. Our nature is no longer the enemy, our enemy is in a realm we can't even see." So, seeing sin in this context fires me up. I turn into a soldier, knowing that the self-loathing, the shame and the guilt are just weapons that the Enemy uses to bring me down, and to put me in a body bag so I can no longer be the man who Christ has already died on the cross for.