A Story Of Grace And Restoration: Redemption (Part 3)

March 6, 2019

by Jennifer Moodie

   "God, I can't take this any more! I hate my life and my marriage. I don't know if I believe in you. I feel powerless to earn your love and favor, and I feel too wicked to be forgiven. My sins are too great to ever be forgotten by you! I feel beyond your redemption and grace and love. I can't keep living like this! I can't be good enough for your salvation! I am too far gone!" I cried out while attempting to fold my laundry through the tears. My earbuds were in and music was playing as I was pondering what I had just read on the medical side of the crucifixion of Christ. I had grown up in a Christian home, heard the stories of the cross, and watched The Passion. I knew it in my head. My tender heart toward other's suffering had made hearing/seeing those things difficult, but it had never seemed to apply to me, to my sins, because I had never seen myself as a truly sinful person. Sure, I disobeyed my parents, but they were in my mind unreasonably strict and the rules were always changing and I felt justified in my disobedience. Nothing I had ever done had been that bad. My sin was not that big of a deal. As long as the sins weren't really bad- like sexual sins, murder, homosexuality...you know, stuff like that- then sin wasn't really against God; it was just against those who had made the rules. My sin in my life had mostly been against my parents. They said it was against God, but I knew it was really against them. God only cared about the really big sins. 

Which sins I had now committed. Now, God cared. 

   My open marriage- my sexual sin, my sin of adultery- had (in my mind) caught the attention of God. And for the first time in my life, that mattered to me. In the past, my sins only mattered in relation to how others saw me...keeping up the 'good Christian girl' facade. But this time, this time it was different. 

   For the first time in my life, I saw my sin as against God. My sin wasn't just about what I had done, but Who I had done them against. In this moment, I knew I had sinned against a holy God. I had always seen myself as a 'good enough' person, and I didn't need as much saving as other people. I was the classic Pharisee who was thankful I wasn't like other people as told in the parable in Luke 18:9-12. In my mind, Jesus didn't need to cover me with as much blood as some other people. As long as I had not done certain sins, and did all the religious things required of me, I was sliding by. But as I stood there, sobbing over my laundry thinking of the horrors of the cross that Christ had endured to save me, I finally saw myself for what I really was: a sinner who loved my sin. While telling myself I wanted God, I really had only wanted the blessings of God that I had seen in others, while not really wanting God Himself. I wanted the benefits of God, while still wanting to be my own god. I had not before understood my sinful, fallen state, and the power of the cross for me. My pride was shattered in that moment. God had humbled me. 

   It was as if a light had been turned on in my heart and mind. I had put my identity in being a good person and called myself a Christian. I had made myself to look like those around me and called it salvation. My Purity Culture upbringing had told me my identity was in my virginity, then in being a wife. I had lost my virginity, committed sexual sins, and felt I was a failure at being a woman and wife because I couldn't even keep my husband's eyes from wandering. All the things I had been putting my identity in went up in smoke the moment I slept with someone who wasn't my husband. And this identity included my carefully constructed moralistic facade.  

   The realization that my view of my identity and sin was skewed way before I went through the sexual act of adultery hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been seeing it all wrong. I saw my identity as a 'good person' as based on my actions, and now my actions had made me a 'bad person'... Except that God says that no one is good (Rom. 3:10-18). I saw that my heart and very thoughts were wicked (Mark 7:21-23; Jer. 17:9), and that my actions were only a reflection of my heart which was totally depraved and happy to be there (Eph. 2:3; Prov. 21:10; John 3:19). My actions hadn't made me any better or worse to God. I had been only way to Hell this whole time and it wasn't because of the sins I had just committed. I was a sinner who deserved God's wrath- not because of my actions, but because of who I was. My actions were just a logical result of my wicked and sinful heart. My heart had been harboring and reveling in sin long before my body acted on it.

The words of the song that came flooding my headphones changed my life: 

"Start Over"

by Flame (feat. NF)

Everybody’s got a blank page

A story they’re writing today

A wall that they’re climbing

You can carry the past on your shoulders

Or you can start over

Regrets, no matter what you've gone through

Jesus, He gave it all to save you

He carried the cross on His shoulders

So you can start over

Don’t let your heart be troubled

Don’t be afraid

To the broken-hearted that wished that they’d

Never been born, never been torn, never sinned, never disobeyed

I know you think there’s no hope, but that ain’t true, Jesus saves!

I know you feelin’ regret

(Like I) brought this all on myself

(Like I) messed it up big time, and this time I don’t deserve God’s help

(Thinking) how can God forgive me after knowin’ what I did (can He?)

After knowin’ that I hid from Him, and I stayed away and backslid (listen)

Jesus came for the sick (so true)

Jesus came for the weak (amen)

Jesus came to give good news and have set the captives free (amen)

Jesus came for the poor (amen)

Jesus came with the keys (amen)

Jesus came to remove the chains so the prisoners are released (amen)

(chorus)

See, His love is deeper than the ocean floor

Run to His arms like an open door

God the Father sent the Son

So men can come and be free and ain’t gotta run no more (that's what He said)

Come to me, all who are weary; with heavy burdens, I’ll give you rest

Separated you from your sin, as far as the east is from the west (He said)

Thrown in the sea of forgetfulness

What sin? What offense?

And when them waves come crashing in, I’ll calm the winds in your defense (that's what He said)

So, whatever it is that you’ve done

He put that punishment on His Son

You’ll never come under His condemnation conquer sin and Satan, and his accusations

So, dry your eyes, lift up your head

Hallelujah! God is not dead!

Plus He gave us His peace, and He took our guilt on the cross instead

Took our place and now we embrace

A clean slate with the eyes of faith

We know unfailing love, unfailing love, it’s not too late, start over

(chorus)

    The words of the song, "Jesus came with the keys/Jesus came to remove the chains so the prisoners are released" reminded me that Jesus didn't come for those who could be moral on their own, but for those who were prisoners, slaves to their sins and knew they needed Him to set them free. 

   Salvation was not me feeling bad about the consequences of my sin or guilt over the way that others felt about my sin, and then saying I was sorry and hoping that God would forgive me and save me from the consequences of those wrongs- and as a bonus not send me to Hell. Salvation was so much more beautiful and God centered than that. I had seen salvation as man-centered; God just loved me so much that He couldn't live without me...and so He died on the cross to forgive my sins. But that gave me the impression that there was something in me worth loving. Something that was keeping God begging for me to accept Him. It gave me the impression that my sins were already forgiven because I accepted his forgiveness. But after my adultery, I knew that couldn't be the case. I didn't just do sin, I loved my sin. There wasn't anything in me worth loving. I had tried to 'accept the gift' of having my sins forgiven without wanting God...which was not what was offered. 

   Nothing had been offered to me. It had been bestowed on me. Jesus loved me while I was still in my sin (Rom. 5:8) and reconciled me to Himself while I was still His enemy (Rom. 5:10), aside from anything I had done, including "asking Him into my heart" like I had done oh so many times before. Salvation was from Him and for Him. It wasn't about me at all. It was about Him; His glory; making me His bride. I had been trying to save myself for so long. Until God made me alive in Him, I was unable to change (1 Sam. 24:13 "Out of the wicked comes wickedness"). It wasn't just that I had 'slipped up', but I had always been an enemy of God (Rom. 8:7-8). All those times of praying the prayer of asking Jesus into my heart, or 'rededicating my life to the Lord', while sincere, had not been because I saw my genuine need for a savior and wanted to know Him, but they had been for the benefit of others- my parents, grandparents, people in my church, and even myself. 

   I have since learned that I was made for the sole purpose of glorifying Him. I had wanted God to change my marriage. I hadn't wanted Him, just what He could do for me. I hadn't want a God to serve, I wanted a god that served me. But that day while folding laundry, I came to the end of myself and God met me and saved me. That day was the day I knew that I wanted God and God alone. That to try to do anything on my own to earn God's favor was to slap His face while He hung on the cross. It was to tell Him that what He did there wasn't enough; I couldn't add to what had been already accomplished. His exclamation of "Tetelestai! It is finished!" meant that there was nothing I could do that He hadn't already done. That desire to know Him, to love Him, to glorify Him, and to serve Him, was put in my heart by God, because before that day, my desire was for myself and my happiness alone. I had been afraid that God wouldn't want me because I had done bad things, but I now know that God imputed His righteousness on me and took my sins, so when He sees me, He sees His Son. Jesus took the wrath I deserved when He died on the cross, and I am now in Christ and there is no condemnation to those in Christ. I no longer need to worry about my identity being anything other than a daughter of The King. 

The happy ending...

   My husband and I are still together. And the amazing thing is, we are more happy than either of us thought possible. God got ahold of us both- He redeemed me, made me a new creature, and He restored my husband from his backslidden state- and is revealing Himself to us. My husband has done a 180º turnaround. The man who was verbally abusive is now conscious of his words and in Christ speaks with love. The man who used to leave the room when I cried now holds me close and wipes my tears away. The man who controlled everything is learning to relinquish control to the God Who already controls it all. The man who used to make fun of my looks now tells me as often as he can how beautiful he finds me. The man who thought only of himself is becoming a man who puts others needs before his own. The man I often regretted marrying is becoming the man of my dreams. He loves me tenderly and gently because he understands the love of the Heavenly Father. He cherishes me. He is patient with me. I still have a long way to go to heal, but with my heart made new and a God who is my refuge (Ps. 16:1-2), I know that He is using all things- including the pain of the past...what was meant for evil- for His good (Rom. 8:28). The marriage that I had wished would make me happy is making me holy, which gives me joy. 

   God used the pain of our open marriage to show us our need for Him. He is continually conforming us to His image, and growing us in the knowledge of Him. My husband and I are able to better love each other as we should because of the Love in us. We should not be together. We should not be happily in love. But God. 

    

"...her sins, which are many, are forgiven..."

(Luke 7:47a)

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness..."

(2 Corinthians 12:9a) 

Soli Deo Gloria

{Click to read Part 1: Pain}

{Click to read Part 2: Despair}

The song is called "Start Over" by Flame. Watch the video. You'll love it!