A Confession

As I was growing up, I had the opportunity to learn about God and to know His ways. But even in my young life, I understood that loving God and following Him meant that I was going to have to die and that’s the reason why I resisted the idea of becoming a Christian.

The Scriptures tell us that we are to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). What I heard the Bible telling me was that I had to be consumed or obsessed with God. Everything about my life had to be centered on God—my whole universe had to revolve around God.

Along with this Scripture, I heard Jesus continually saying things like, "If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). I understood Jesus to be saying that loving God and following Him meant I’d be His prisoner and I couldn’t live my own life. If I couldn’t do what I wanted, when I wanted, or how I wanted to do something, I thought I may as well be dead. So I took my life and chose a path away from Jesus.

This doesn’t mean that I chose to live a bad life. And even though I didn’t do anything horrible in life, like murdering someone or committing a felony, I found that I was isolated and alone. I also found that life was meaningless, empty, unfulfilling, and unsatisfying without God. Ironically, I felt dead.

Later on, I learned that a life apart from God is one that is not only a life that is estranged from God, but it is also a life that is in rebellion to God and a life that is dead in sin. The more that I read and hear about this, the more I realize that I am like an adult child who understands how much pain, grief, sorrow, and suffering I caused my parents in my wayward youth. But now that I have I surrendered my life to God—to love Him and follow Him, life has not been the same—Life’s been good!

Having said this, I still don’t love God fully. I still have my moments and I still fight with God because God says some hard things. A lot of times I think that He’s too demanding and He expects too much. Other times I think that He’s unreasonable and just doesn’t understand. There are still times that I still am in rebellion to Him—I’ve got a t-shirt that has a picture of a child with folded arms and the words, “I won’t do it!” under it. And like my t-shirt, sometimes when I hear His word, I still fold my arms and say, “No, I won’t do it!” And there are other times when I can’t even like myself, I wonder, “How in the world can God love me?”

But no matter what my mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual state, the LORD has a way of bringing me back to the foot of the cross and reminds me of His heart as seen in the face of Jesus. This is where Jesus continually speaks to me. One of those things is what He said to the Church at Ephesus. “You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent...” (Revelation 2:4-5a)

The Apostle Paul adds, “…Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that [Jesus] died for us all, we also believe that we have died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead they will live for [Jesus], who died and was raised for them” (II Corinthians 5:14-15, NLT).

Then I hear John saying, “We love because He first loved us” (I John 4:19).

Finally, I hear John say, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the Children of God! And that is what we are!” (I John 3:1)

Having heard these words, I find myself confessing with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. [I] believe and know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69).