A beginning... ending yet unknown

Encouragement for those stumbling, recently stumbled, or about to...

It's been four years since I realized my life was not my own. At 17 1/2, I got my first taste of True Love and knew instantly the cheapness of my boyfriend's version. Counterfeit love. Purity became my strongest conviction; Christ washes us clean, but we never find our lost innocence. Oh, if I could inspire even one girl to save herself for her husband! To enter the covenant of marriage with untainted wonder and awe at that sacred intimacy!

I'm reading R.C. Sproul's Chosen by God for a recently-formed Bible study, and just finished the third chapter: Predestination and Free Will. "Every Christian has some desire in his heart to obey Christ. We love Christ and we want to please him. Yet every Christian sins. The hard truth is that at the moment of our sin we desire the sin more strongly than we desire to obey Christ."

Ouch. But true. Thursday night I desired to make out with the guy I'm seeing more than I desired to obey and please my dear Lord and Savior. My precious Christ. FOUR YEARS I grounded myself in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus, being specifically grateful for His cleansing and purification of past sexual immorality. Four years I remained single because I waited for a godly man who would also treasure purity and want only holiness for me and himself. Yet, here I find myself having stumbled and sinned in the one way I felt sure I never would. Perhaps therein lies my downfall: confidence in having "learned the hard way," rather than confidence solely in Christ and complete knowing of my own corruptibility.

Corruptibility. Original sin. At the same time, I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit and I have been given the ability to NOT sin.

Saturday night I opened my Bible to Hebrews. It is a very good thing to study the Bible in context. God teaches us much that way. There are also lessons we learn from selections that in and of themselves seem to reach out and identify exactly what we need identified. Such was the case here. Hebrews 10: 26-29. The essence that seized my heart: To sin willfully is to "trample Christ underfoot;" to count that precious blood as a "common thing;" to insult the Spirit of grace. It is to spit in the face of Jesus as He hangs on the cross. It is to say He is a fool. It is the ultimate dishonor to God. How easy it is to indulge our selfish lusts and forsake our Creator who never forsakes us; our Jesus who was faithful unto death.

And then Hebrews 12: 1-16, 25-29. Basically, the whole chapter. Here is the encouragement part. :)

The essence:
Pursue holiness. Endure trials and temptations; when you fall or grow weary, be strengthened and get back up. Keep going! Remember the prize you are running towards - the prize that is Christ! You will sin; God will rebuke you. Accept His chastening and learn from it! Don't be discouraged. Repent and become stronger, purer, truer; and continue on. Heed the Word of the Lord and hold fast to Him, for the time WILL come when He will prove His Kingdom. Be consumed by His LOVE now (love includes discipline and rebuking, forgiveness and acceptance), lest you be consumed by His fire later.

He is a good God that we serve and love. This path we walk is not easy. It is the narrow way and every day, every moment we make the decision to keep following along it. We will fall off, but what matters is that we get back on and keep following.

side note: I'm no longer in that relationship.