Honest Cries- In Spirit and Truth

    I was reflecting this morning on the last several years of my life and a song sung by Amy Grant that the Lord led me to in answer to prayer a couple years ago. I was feeling like the Lord wanted me to pour out my grief and sorrow to Him that was the result of sin and transgressions. He didn't want me to live with that burden anymore. But I was convinced that if I did that I would be stuck in a pit and have a huge pity party which would give satan legal right to hold me in bondage.  Up until that time I was living with the consequences of my sin.  Sins that were committed before Christ and transgressions that took place after Christ had come into my life. When I was saved, I was so grateful to God for what he had done for me and joy filled my heart, but over time I realized that even though the Lord had saved me, I still lived with alot of the consequences of the seeds I had sown in my life before Christ,  AND some weeds that kept springing up as a result of planting the wrong seeds as a new creature in Christ. Soul wounds were causing me to react wrongly to current events in my life. This caused me much grief and I lived with alot of shame over it. 
    When I was saved I took my sin to Him and He sanctified me and made me holy by his blood. I took Gods word as my shield and in faith forged ahead applying it to my life , (took up my cross), but I never brought the shame and the grief to God for Him to sanctify it . I just thought I had to live with that. But one night I was led to the song "Better Than A Hallelujah" by Amy Grant. The Lord used that to open the floodgates and I lay  my guilt and shame down at his feet.  During this time the Lord confirmed it further as  I read Isaiah 53 ;





Is. 53:4 Surely He has borne  (lifted) our griefs and carried our sorrows , yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted . (browbeaten) We esteemed Him smitten of God and browbeaten!   I don't know about you but if I esteem Him that way am I really gonna want to be like Him?   How can the one who is being oppressed by the bully on the school playground help me?  He would be the last one I would go to to help me with my problem. I was esteeming Him wrong......

But this is how God esteems Him:
 Isaiah 53: 11-12By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors  I believe now that I was grieving the Holy Spirit by not bringing my griefs and sorrows to the cross just like I brought my sin to the cross . It was for freedom that Christ set me free. Living in this bondage was causing me to stumble and transgress which was compounding the problem of shame. It was a very frustrating way of life to say the least. And yet God had a perfect plan in all of it. He brought me to the place of complete and utter frustration with myself.  A cross roads where I finally once and for all reckoned myself dead and actually asked Him to kill me.

I was so sick of my flesh. I knew I couldn't crucify my own flesh. Even though Christ willingly lay down His life someone else  had to hold the hammer to nail his hands and feet. So I asked Him to do it for me.
Romans 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Ezekial 36:26-27 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
That day I repeated over and over and over again, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live, I live by faith in the son of God who diesdand gave Himself for me" And I really believed it and wanted it. I also believe that- that day, the strength of sin was crucified in my life because I was no longer reverting back to the law (waffling back and forth) but completely submerged in grace . I had reckoned myself dead with Him

 

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  Isaiah 50:55-57  O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.   The power of so many of the sins that had so easily beset me , was broken because I was no longer under the law but completely submerged under the fountain of His grace. (The strength of sin is the law )                     

Because I thought I had to live with the shame and the guilt and the sorrow and grief- (the law)  I  did live that way . (Pre-resurrection thinking)

He bore my sins at Calvary but He was also making intercession for me as I transgressed over and over after I was saved. Shame causes fear and he who fears is not made perfect in love.  He removed my shame and with  it my guilt and fear.  Oh what a wonderful Savior!  Oh what love!
  Now this was a process for me and it will be for every child of God... But rest assured we are being liberated from the bondage of corruption and into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
 

Romans 8:18-23
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. 
 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

 And so I want to encourage you. If you are where I was- frustrated with your flesh, tired and weary of the battle with your flesh , determine today to face your giants (death being the ultimate giant),  and camp out until God delivers you from the bondage of this corrupt flesh .

Praise God for delivering me from all bondage! Not just  the bondage of past sins but also the guilt and shame ,fear and hiding that comes with transgression!

Hallelujah!  Sweet deliverance, but more than that, SWEET DELIVERER!