Rachel has asked me to write about something that speaks to the core of who I am as a human and a follower of Jesus Christ. It's a precious request! How did I find Him? and how do I stay with Him? I don't think either can be answered completely in a life time. Others that know Him, know what I mean when I say it is a romantic mystery; how and why He chooses and chases after us. A mystery that I am so thankful for! Hallelujah! I don't think these posts will be a 10 step guide on how to stay spiritually fit, but Rachel has inspired me to write some of what has been given to me by Him.
By no means am I the spiritual authority on how to be a Christian. All I can do, and what I am happy to do, is tell a little about the many things the Lord has done and revealed in my own life. So, with the Spirit guiding, I am thankful for this opportunity to share part of this amazing story the Lord Jesus Christ has written in my heart. So get comfy, pop some pop corn, maybe grab a snickers bar, some tissue, and even a Bible would be a good idea, it's gonna be a long handful of posts to come!
Repent, Believe, Love, Obey!
If I were to get a tattoo, those words would probably be it. In a circle, on my side, where my ribs are. They have become the theme to so many days in the Word, so many days talking to others, they seem to filter into my consciousness like a warm reminding whisper.
So the next several posts will be my Bananas on repentance, belief, love, and obedience.
Anna's Bananas on REPENTANCE
Confess.
Confession. Repent.
Repentance.
How did I come to repentance?
Luke 3:8a Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
Those words spoken by John the baptists, who was filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born. God sent him on a mission to spread the truth of the good news that was on it's way in Jesus Christ. I believe we must come to a stance of repentance before Jesus can come and do His full work in us.
It doesn't take a sharp eye to see that this world we live in is fallen. I won't insult your intelligence, but let me just list some of the blaring signs of sin in the earth around me. The first one I think of, just because it's been a topic of conversation lately,
the holocaust.
How about the sex slave industry in America? Think about that, sex. slave. INDUSTRY? There is an industry of exploiting, enslaving, and abusing woman and children. Wow.
I know some of you had to watch Oprah as much as I did, think about all those tear jerker episodes about broken families, abuse, dysfunction, at 4pm when you should have been doing homework?
Okay, that gets your mind rolling down a depressing hill huh? It's real isn't it; the darkness that this world seems to rule under?
Fallen, I was fallen. Was. I believed the lies of the enemy, I fell for them hook line and sinker. I could write a book listing all the reasons I was fallen, separate from true goodness, for the sake of this blog I will list the top five.
Number one lie I fell for: Follow your heart. AKA Be Selfish.
Here is an excerpt from one of my journal entries written a few months ago, that I think will help you get what I'm talking about here.
I am now fully
convinced that selfishness is the demise of all relationships and leads people
so far away from Christ that they forget who they are and who He is. Isn’t
selfishness the reason for the “fall” in the first place? Wasn’t it Adam and
Eve, wanting to be like God, themselves? Selfishness, its evil and everyone is
born selfish. It’s so advertised and encouraged in our culture, it’s hard to
recognize sometimes. The devil dresses it up beautifully, and makes it sing a
sweet song to our hearts. Growing up we are told to “follow our hearts,” or to
“listen to your heart,” or “whatever makes you happy,” or “To thine own
self be true" put by Shakespeare in Hamlet. We are almost indoctrinated
from birth to be selfish, to please our selves, and to let our heart lead us.
Do you know what
the bible says about the human heart? Here are a few verses, of many, so you
get a clear understanding.
Genesis 8:21
The Lord smelled
the pleasing aroma and said in his heart:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every
inclination of the human heart
is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all
living creatures, as I have done.
This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny
overtakes all. The hearts of
people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and
afterward they join the dead.
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Matthew 15:8
“‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
“‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual
immorality, theft, murder,
So you get where I'm coming from on that one? It pains me to think of the brothers and sisters I have hurt in the past because of my near sightedness.
Number two lie I fell for: I'm my own god.
 | |
| 2006 in the middle of serving me |
Number three lie I fell for: I am my own savior.
In the midst of all my self worship, I couldn't escape this empty, lonely, sometimes self loathing feeling. In the darkness of the night, alone, victim to my thoughts, I would often go back to the big hurt. The one that I blamed all my problems on. The one that I used to excuse my vanity, and most wrong doings on. My sexuality was corrupted from a young age. A common result of sin for so many. Sister, if you are reading this right now, and you have a hurt that seems so deep, it has become part of your identity, stay with me. Better yet let me just say right now because I feel the urgency to, run to Jesus Christ with that memory, that pain. Run to Him, He can and will wipe away all your tears and make that wrong right. Okay, sorry I just had to get that out of my heart. So yeah, what I would do was lick my own wounds, so to speak. I was subconsciously avenging the corruption of my sexuality, the corruption and loss of my purity. Now things were on my terms, I would never be hurt again like that, it would be my choice, my way or the highway. I was my own protection.
Number four lie I fell for: Love from another human is the answer to my unhappiness.
This also follows the previous deception. So basically I believed (whether I was aware of it or not) that finding a husband, getting married, being loved by a man would make me all the way happy. If I was found to be lovable, (by a man) I would be redeemed. I put a lot of time and effort, and worry into falling in love. A lot of trial and error, a lot of hurting my heart and others hearts. A lot of putting pressure on the one man I love to make me all the way happy. After believing that human love would save me, I found it! Human love was finally mine all mine... but I still wasn't all the way happy. A lot of pointing the finger in my poor husbands eye, trying to get the speck out, while I was hoisting the Titanic around in both of mine. (Matthew 7:1-5). If only he could be perfect, then I could be happy.
Number five lie I fell for: Ignoring the truth that there is right and wrong, ignoring the truth of guilt, ignoring the truth of knowing the truth, and ignoring it. Just ignore it!
Okay, I know that is a little lengthy and confusing (in true Anna Banana fashion). But hold on to your pencil skirt and take this crazy ride with me.
Ignoring the truth that there is a right and wrong: I will just be gutsy here and say that everyone has a conscious. Yes, even Hitler had one. Even my 1 and 1/2 year old daughter has one. Why else would she try to hide or be sneaky when she is trying to do something I don't want her to? Why else would she try to be extra sweet and lovey when she knows she has messed up. Right? She knows she messed up, and she has only been on this earth for 17 months. I knew when I did something wrong, before I believed in Jesus, and after, but it didn't seem to phase me, it didn't put much of a road block in my highway to self indulgence.
Ignoring the truth of guilt: just ignoring that feeling in my gut when I did the bad thing, even after I became a Christian, I would just chalk it up to being human but "free in Christ." Yuck, I was so wrong.
Ignoring the truth of knowing the truth, and ignoring it. Deep down I knew something was wrong. Before I became a 'Christian' and after. But knowing and not doing anything, not running to the One Holy God and expressing remorse, that was a lazy acceptance of a lie from the enemy that says,"ignore it and it will go away. It's not that big of a deal" Romans 1:32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. - that pretty much sums up what I was doing.
So like I said, those are just the top five reasons I was fallen. If you look in Exodus 20, you can find those and 10 more reasons I was fallen.
Note: God gave the Israelite the ten commandments after He saved them.
Exodus 20:1-2 And God spoke all these words: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."
God was saying "Hey, I am GOD, the One that made this whole universe. I saved you, here is how you should live, I know because I am God, and as you can see I love you." But they didn't listen and neither did I. I knew Jesus died on the cross, paid for my sin, I knew He called me to follow His commands (Matthew 22:37-40). But I wasn't living like I knew that, and I wasn't following His commands to love Him and love others. If you grew up in church like I did, you know that the Lord is Holy. You know that He is blameless and perfect. You know that He can not be in the presence of anything less than Holy. You know that "we all have fallen short of the glory of God." - Romans 3:23 There is a difference between accepting something in your mind and knowing and understanding something in your mind, heart and soul. Understanding the gravity of the situation when it comes to falling short of the glory of God. Understanding that this life on earth is the fantasy, and heaven or hell is the reality.
The Lord, in His mercy and grace, has brought me to repentance. It took me a while, and unfortunately until I was at the end of my rope. In my darkest time, I saw who I truly was and Who He truly is. I was all five of those sins listed above and everything else under the sun that relates to sin. Me = sin, He = Love.
Deuteronomy 8:5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.
Sometimes when my daughter is misbehaving, I ignore her. This is my way of disciplining her.
Through His loving discipline the Lord brought me to complete and utter repentance by allowing me to ruin myself. I made a mess of my "success," I lost my security in my physical appearance, sin took away human love that I was getting from my husband, sin almost completely took away my marriage. I had nothing, I had made a mess of my life, even though I knew ABOUT Jesus, I was still living in death, in sin, in a mess I had made for myself. I had nothing left in my bag that I could pull out to get me out of this situation.
So I cried out to God, for real this time, with all I had left in my heart. I had been crying out to Him here and there since the seed was first planted in me, but not with my life. This time I fell on Christ, and I fell hard, and it hurt.
Matthew 21:44 "He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."
Giving up everything, admitting that everything I was, was nothing but sin. Calling out to God because He was and still is my only hope. Giving the Lord permission to end my life as I knew it, or save it. Surrendering everything. That's when I came to true repentance.
I think that it's hard for believers and non-believers to come to repentance in America. We have food in our bellies, we have shelter, medicine, clothing. Everything we "need." But man can't truly live on bread alone. (Luke 4:4) A guy at my old job once told me when I was trying to share the truth with him "I don't want to go to heaven, I want to go to hell, because that's where all the people like me will be. We will be having a party while you will be bored with God in heaven." If only that guy knew how serious those words he was speaking are. My husband Josh said it so well the other day, "Satan has convinced Americans that this life on earth is heaven, that's why everyone is trying to live so long."
Matthew 19:23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven."
Why would someone repent if they have everything they need and everyone around them is saying "there is no right or wrong, no black or white, no standard, just do no harm to others and do what's best for you."?
Romans 1:25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen. - that was me, and that is many of us.
I believe only the Lord in His mercy can bring someone to true repentance. He has revealed to me that this life is fading, that we all have a clock that's ticking. The only thing that matters, the ONLY thing that matters, the ONLY thing that has mattered, matters now and ever will matter is whether or not you admit that Jesus Christ is Lord, that the Lord God Almighty is Holy and that you are not. I know I sound redundant, but I have to repeat it because I used to "know" that in my head, but I didn't LIVE like that. I had to come to Him and tell Him "Lord, I haven't been living the way you called me to, forgive me, save me!" When this short life ends that's all that we will take with us, did we say yes or no to Jesus?
That leads me to my next post, Anna's Banana's on BELIEF. I hope this wasn't too dark, too random, too rambling. If it was, try to look past my flesh and just know that I am trying to share my heart with you!
Very well-written and sound!!
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