Hi, I have a concern and I want to hear some Christian perspectives.
Over the last few years, I've struggled a lot with a problem (lust) and I've prayed, but I always fail. Sometimes I feel like I have no right to talk to God, I'm sure He doesn't want to know about me.
Can I pray even after committing the very same sin over and over again even if I promised God that I wouldn't do it again?
Thanks
Hi Joey,
There's quite a battle going on in there, and it's one I am that I'm not unfamiliar with myself.
On the one hand you've got dark forces inside of you telling you you're only young once but once you succumb then another dark force with a different sounding voice saying, 'Oh no, now you've gone and done it. And don't go bleating to God, you've blown it there boy, He don't want to have to face you ever again!' Anything telling you that God doesn't want you to pray to Him is lying through its teeth. First off, God's gripe with you is not that He doesn't want to hear from you, no, it's more that you don't pray to Him enough: He can't get enough of you. You see God's not dissapointed in you, He knew you inside out, all your shortcomings, issues and weaknesses before He called you., and yet still He called you!
Can I suggest you read a book called the Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis? It's a series of lighthearted instructional letters from a senior demon to a junior demon. A really quirky read and thought provoking. I'm not saying sin and lust are OK, I am saying that there's no sin so big or bad that God will turn His back on you. Think of the woman caught doing adultery, she wasn't just fantasising, no when she was busted she was butt naked in the throws of passion with her lover- and yet Jesus still called her. John 8:1-11.
So is sin no problem? Course it is. If you deliberately sin, ignoring God's displeasure, your relationship with Him will inevitably suffer and will leave you feeling like there's an imaginary gap between you and Him, and you quickly find yourself comforting yourself with indulging in more sin, you feel like you're in a downward vortex- please cry out, God, please help me! As soon as you ask, He will help you. That's one of the many jobs of the Holy Spirit but it's more likely to be a process than a miraculous instant. If there are slip ups, pick yourself up and immediately say sorry and then get back on that wagon and stay on it for as long as you can.
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Dear Lord God, I do pray for my lovely brother Joey. He wants to please you, he hates upsetting you but there's something in him that's bigger than he is but nowhere near as powerful as even your shadow. We know Lord that this battle that wages in all of us isn't ours but is yours Lord as explained in Ephesians 6:10-13.
Lord God, I pray for extra helpings of your wonderful Holy Spirit so that Joey's resolve to turn away from sin and filth and refocus his desires instead upon you does actually come about. Your Spirit has the power to cleanse us so that our weaknesses become our strengths. That's one of His jobs, that's what He does, but we have to really really want that cleansing.
Father Lord, that even though at times we are the opposite of you, you still absolutely adore us. We can't understand that love but nevertheless we cling to it dearly because it's more precious to us than life.
Amen.
