before you start telling your friends...

about (this righteous blogger you know) flash light night, you should be reminded that i am REALLY good at starting new.....projects...or life purposes (is there a job that will channel this energy?).....and losing steam after a couple weeks. i'm sure there is an exact number of days, hours and minutes that i usually stay focused but i have not taken the time to track this. but here are some recent examples of this behavior exhibit a exhibit b

i've known this about myself for a long time.

when i accepted Christ as a teen, i was naive...and optimistic. i gave Jesus my all for several years. and sure there were ups and downs in my quest for righteousness, but no moral failures that i was embarrassed to tell my accountability group about. until college. i fell. and fell hard. i fell for the promise of love. for temptation. for escape. i fell in my heart before getting out of bed in the morning. i fell again on my way to class. i fell all day long. time after time. and the moral hole i was in was deep. i was unable to stand on my own two feet and was too prideful to ask God to get me out. and i wasn't sure He would want to. i mean...this was MY life, and wasn't there some expectation that I would live the way God wanted ME to live? that i was to hold up my end of the deal?

needless to say, there was a point of desperation at which time the devil said, "i knew you couldn't do it." meaning, there is no way, if left to your own devices, that you would be able to fight the good fight, run the race....the rest of your live. i believed that there was a less than 1% chance that i would grow old as a disciple of Jesus. i just didn't have it in me. desperation led to depression. which led me to a book by Martyn Lloyd-Jones titled: Spiritual Depression. it changed my life. Martyn Lloyd-Jones states that the cause of spiritual depression is unbelief. unbelief that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do....which is to complete the work He began in us (Phil 1:6)

we are to know WHY we are Christians and be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks (1 Peter 3:15) what we believe. he encourages Christians to talk to themselves. to remind themselves of what they know. of what God promises. to seek the truth. commit to it. say, "'i want the truth, whatever it costs me." bind yourself to it, submit yourself to it, come to utter submission as a little child and plead with Him to give you clear sight, perfect vision (of Him), and to make you whole. And has you do so it is my (lloyd-jones) privilege to remind you that He can do it. Yea, more, I promise you in His Blessed Name that He will do it. He never leaves anything incomplete.

this is what i know:

...while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst (1 Timothy 1:15)
He came that we might see clearly, that we might know God. He came to give eternal life and 'This is eternal life, that they may know Thee only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (p 48)
I am forgiven, I am reconciled to God by the Blood of His Son upon the cross. I am a child of God. I am adopted into God's family, and I am an heir with Christ, a joint-heir with Him. I am going to glory. I am what I am by the grace of God. (p 86)
I want to be happy. But more still, I want to be righteous, I want to be holy. I want to be like my Lord, I want to live in this world as He lived, I want to walk through it as He walked through it. (p 117)
Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace, wondrous grace. 'By the grace of God I am what I am.' 'Yet not I, but grace of God which was with me.' (p 132)
For I am persuaded that neither death, not life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:38, 39)

and finally...when i am weary:

How did you get into this Christian life? Here we are in the narrow way, how did we come from the broad way? What as made the difference? These are the questions, and there is only one answer. We have come from that to this, because the only begotten Son of God left heaven and came down t o earth for our salvation, He divested Himself of all he insignia of His eternal glory and humbled himself to be born as a babe and to be placed in a manger. He endured the life of the world for thirty-three years: He was spat upon and reviled. He had thorns thrust into His head and was nailed to a cross, to bear the punishment of my sin. That is how I have come from that to this, and if I ever, even for a fraction of a second, question the greatness and the glory and the wonder and the nobility of this walk in which I am engaged, well then I am spitting upon Him. ....Look at the world and in its evil and sin, look at the hell to which it was leading you, and then look forward and realize that you are set in the midst of the most glorious campaign into which a man could ever enter, and that you are on the noblest road that the world has ever known. (p 200)

'God is in this and God is doing this to me because I am His child, because I do not belong to the world, because He sent His son to die for me and has destined me for heaven. God is in this, and it is all being done for my good.' (p 253)

i could go on. i could type this entire book for you. but my fingers would fall off and i think that's illegal. so if any of this resonates with you....just buy it. read it. love it.