I'm falling apart, really. I feel unstable and out of control of my tongue and my behavior.

I find myself repeatedly asking God and myself "What's happening to me?"

I'm so angry all the time now. I complain and I gossip. I lust and I hate.

I wonder... Where is God? Why doesn't he come pouring into my thoughts and emotions like that first day? I need something to strengthen me and renew me, but it seems like I'm waiting for something that may never come in this life.

I thought when I understood grace and believed it that things would get better, but I see myself getting worse.

It's sort of like I've totally ran out of energy to serve and to obey. I'm devoid of strength and will. I've lost the will to hold back the flood of selfishness and anger.

I'm just tired. I need to rest. I need a fresh revelation; a fresh experience of God.

I can't allow myself to be disregarded by God anymore. I need him to love me and care for my feelings, and to stay with me through them, no matter how negative they may be.

I really hurt.

Done

It is such a relief to just relax and to stop trying to make God pleased with me. I don't intend to do anything right now. If something happens, well and good, but if not, that's fine with me.

If I do anything, I want it to be joyful service to the one I love and not contrived.

I am absolutely done with refusing God's grace.

If nothing ever changes in my behavior, still I will hope in his grace and trust in it to work a good work in me.

I am resolved to be myself and to shed all pretense for the sake of gaining Christ's righteousness. I'll gladly give up any super holy image in order to be clothed with his holiness.

Being a "Good" Christian

My Christian life feels so strange now. It feels like a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. These past 3 years of understanding and believing in the grace of God have totally destroyed an old, faulty, legalistic Christian paradigm and replaced it with a completely new paradigm centered around faith, hope and love.

No longer am I concerned with Christian niceties or making sure that my life revolves around endless sermons on behavior change.

Now, contrary to popular understanding, I believe you can be a liberal democrat and be a Christian.

I believe you can have the world's worst potty mouth and be a sincere follower of Christ.

I believe you can struggle with drug addictions, alcohol addictions, you name it, and still be a committed follower of Christ.

I believe you can listen to the crudest music you want and yet be a genuine lover of Christ.

I believe you can be a filthy, messy, screwed up, dumb ass and yet be one of those that will receive great honor and glory upon the return of Christ.

Why do I believe such things now? Because I saw that I had nothing to offer God under the supervision of the law. I am fully assured I could never accomplish any feat of holiness or righteousness by what I do or do not do. I was a law man.

Now, I am a faith man. Since the law could not accomplish what I wanted it to accomplish in my life, and since God demands faith as the channel through which we are made supremely right with him by the finished work of Jesus Christ, I figured I would be the best faith-man he has ever seen. I'll be the dumbest, most outlandish, insane idiot with a reckless faith in God. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I will believe in his goodness and grace toward me even if it means dying. What else do I have to offer God except faith? Nothing.

Faith is all that God requires of me and since faith is all that I have to give, I will gladly be ruthless with it. I'll stubbornly set my face toward Christ, the cross and the resurrection. Nothing else.

When the end comes, and I stand before God, he will say to me, "Well done, well done! You are exactly what I've been looking for: someone crazy enough to believe what I told them!"

The kingdom of God is not a place that shuts out everyone but the 'righteous'. The kingdom of God throws a huge feast, and invites anyone crazy enough to believe that they're allowed in.