Application?

I haven't written here in a long time--most of my posts have been going to my "One Once Bound" blog as God as been working in me. That doesn't mean that I've not had any musings from the Lord to write about, I've just not thought to write them down. Life's been moving fast.

Lately though, I've just been really run down with temptation, not knowing who I am in Christ, and not seeing much of a future. "Yeah, really encouraging."

I realize that in my writing, I'm very pushy. My heart pours out, and I'm very "hoo-rah, let's get up and go" with the stuff I say. I'm not saying it's not true by any means, but sometimes maybe the gung-ho attitude isn't reflective of where my heart really is overall. It's true of my heart in the moment I'm writing it, but reflectively I see what I write and realize it didn't go through in application.

So, where do we go in that? How can I write such heartfelt things, and write them in such a way that helps me and others apply it to their lives? I want to be able to see what I write about so passionately come to life in my walk with Christ, and comprehensively enough that others who walk with the Lord can do the same. Something that a lost person can grasp and take hold of when coming to Christ.

I like to end posts with a bang with a "okay, you know the truth, go live it" kind of deal I guess. In these writings, do I do that effectively, or is there something wrong with how I write?

Or is it as Jesus said, how some seeds are planted amongst thorns--the Word is received, but it's choked out and eventually dies?

Double-Mindedness: I Believe, But...

Double-mindedness is a crippling problem that began when I was 11 or 12, and festered until about now. This is a weakness that has clouded every area of my life, and has blinded me to God's awesome ability to deliver me, as well as his ability to make me strong when I'm weak. Let me give some examples of how this cripples me, some situations if you will:

1. "I want to share Jesus with those guys!" "I don't want to even speak to them. They just wanna make fun of me."
2. "I want to sing, and get excited in worship today!" "Oh, I better not get too loud or active, people might stare at me... I'll just sing quietly so they'll leave me alone."
3. "I want to fellowship with my youth group!" "What do I say to them? I don't have anything in common with them... they'll just screw with me like all the others."
4. "I'm struggling with my lusts... but I know Jesus will give me strength!" "I can't shake the thoughts... they're closing in. It's all over now."

The passions I have, the affections I hold for the Lord are so often clouded by thoughts and fears that feel as if they're ten times heavier than what I believe to be true. Day after day, I'm shot down, defeated by these soul-crushing fears. Where, I ask myself, did all these thoughts originate? Surely I wasn't always like this!

...I know I wasn't.

Somewhere down the line, I lost it all. I got sucked into escapism, and with that came the ridicule of my peers. I never understood why they hurt me, so I blamed myself... all these things together brought me to a point where I felt as if I was no longer allowed to trust myself with any one thing. I'd been hurt, and hurt myself so much that I assumed that all I believed was just going to end in another failure, another blow to my life.

But... what about my Christian faith? Why do I treat that like something I came up with? Why won't I trust God's word, what the Father says about his little boy; whom was fearfully and wonderfully made in His image, whom was predestined to do great and wonderful things in the name of Jesus? Whom was designed to be strong by faith in the Lord? Whom is loved despite all his sin...

Somebody tell me, where did I get the right to say that all of that was just something I made up?

I made a lot of mistakes, and I was hurt a great deal... but NOTHING I have ever done, am doing, or will do will EVER give me the right to cast God's truth aside. I did NOT make God's truth up, I did NOT write the Bible. Those truths are NOT mine to throw away, and it has NOTHING to do with trusting me.

God, you have never been wrong. You've never screwed up. You've never made one single mistake in this whole world. People may call you a liar, a murderer, a criminal... but they know not what they say.

You have NEVER given me any reason not to trust you. Your truth is not mine to cast aside as nothing; not now, not ever. Don't let me treat your truth as something I made up, some disposable something that I can throw away...

I am Yours, Lord Jesus... and I am guided by Your Holy Spirit. Don't let me call you a liar in the dire moments when the truth is hard to see... because it's not me that I'm not trusting...

It's You.

A Broken Home

A growing child has a talk with his father as he walks with him. He says "Daddy, I think we live in a broken home." To this, the father replies "Uh, no. Your mother and I have been married for many years; we're not abusive or anything." The son had little to say, as he feared to argue or even further discuss the matter with his father.

There's a thing about God's standard--it's all or nothing. This, I believe, means that the son was right. I spoke with this kid (I won't disclose his name or where he's from, or even how old he is), and he felt that if a family wasn't spending time together, laboring in love for the sake of Christ-like unity, then the family is broken.

Essentially, that means every family in this world, by God's standard, is broken. However, there's a difference between the family that refuses to make amends and grow together, and the family that works hard every stinkin' day of their lives towards being unified in Christ.

As far as how this is actually achieved, I'm unsure... however, I know, above all else, despite anything that seems unsolvable, God answers us when we call Him, and expects us to call to Him to fight the good fight against the evil one. So, if you feel your home is broken in this way, pray against the strongholds, against the division of the home and pray for unity in Christ amongst your family, that you all strive to be equally yoked in faith, and supporting of one another in love.

When All Love Seems Dead and You Can't Sleep

Okay, see if you can relate to this: As a child, you had a whole lot of friends. You hung out with them every day at Recess, ate lunch with them, spent the night at their houses. You felt like you were going to be friends forever.

But then, things change. You become interested in different things, and you really get into what you're doing. Suddenly, people start insulting you, and before you know it you're the butt of every joke in class. You can't seem to find anyone who likes the same stuff you do, so you wind up in your own little shell, refusing to come out.

The longer you stay in this shell, the less you seem to care for friendship with anyone local. You spend a good chunk of time on the Internet, talking on forums with friends who have the same quirks and hobbies you do. When you're not online, you're either playing video games, drawing, reading, or something of the sort... sometimes you do things that are much worse and harder to explain to others, and then you feel it's impossible to open up to anyone because you'll just get made fun of again.

At this point, you really, really don't care to get close to anyone. You won't admit it, and you may not even realize it, but deep down you're terrified of getting hurt. You don't really seem to think much of yourself, then, either. You assume yourself to be some sort of alien in this world, and that for whatever reason you deserve to face ridicule and pain.

What happens to you, then? Where do you turn when all love seems dead and you can't sleep? Some might kill themselves. Some might turn to homosexuality, some might turn to zoophilia. Who knows, maybe some even become serial murderers. The point is, when it boils down to it, you don't know what else to do besides escape even further.

I'm begging you, before you run away any further,

STOP.

I may not know exactly where you've been, or what you've done, or whether or not you're even still running. But I'm begging you, from one sufferer to another, I would give all I had to make you see that there's more to life than running! To make you see that people DO care about you, despite how different you might be... and even if you don't believe that, hear me and know that you haven't suffered alone, and better still, that you can rise above this! You're worth so much more than you realize right now!

God doesn't care what you've done. He doesn't care if you've killed someone, he doesn't care who you slept with, he doesn't care if you've cut yourself, he doesn't care if you worshiped the devil, or whatever. No matter what you've done, He still loves you, and it is to His good pleasure that he would forgive you for it all, and more still, forget you ever did it! (Micah 7:19)

Not only does He love you and want to forgive you, He promises that he can make you a brand new person (2 Corinthians 5:17). He can show you what love is, and greater still, fill you with so much of it that you can't help but share it with everyone you know!

God knew, at the dawn of time, that he was gonna make you. He knew how many hairs were gonna be on your head (Matthew 10:30), he knew what emotions you would feel and when, what sins you would commit... God knew, and knows it all. Yet, despite all that, despite all the horrible things you did, he came and made himself nothing (Philippians 2:7), and gave you everything; an everything that lasts until the end of time and beyond.

I don't know if this means any less because they're words on a blog... but I promise you before God Himself, I would allow myself to be struck dead if you came to understand what I'm telling you now!!!

Forget all the Church dogma... the legalism... the televangelists and hateful Christians waving hateful signs in their yards...

Come to know a God that, despite all you've done, is running to you, asking you to jump into His arms so that he can look into your eyes and say...

"Son, do you know I still love you?"

Let it Go!

Now, in life, there's a lot of things that we deal with, a lot of personal struggles that we feel like will never end. Whether we're waking up in the morning, or laying our heads to rest at night, we're haunted, tormented by what we're going through. This struggle is different for everyone--some deal with alcoholism, some deal with drugs, some deal with sexual lusts (the most prominent one I've seen in friends is masturbation). We think things are starting to get better, only to find that struggle, that sin, staring us in the face. We eventually may even come to the point where we just give in to our desires, because we feel that we'd rather live with doing whatever instead of fighting it.

I myself have been dealing with the same problem, trying to overcome a personal struggle that was borne by the shadows of my past. I was a major escapist (which, if you've read my other blog, you'd notice that), and there were a lot of lusts from that past that I just couldn't, and sometimes can't seem to let go of.

Note what I just said, "Just can't seem to let go." That, my friends, is the key to freedom. A lot of you have heard about Jesus, and if asked about him, you'd say "Yeah, he's the main figure of Christianity who died on a cross for the sins of mankind" or something to that effect. I'm telling you now, it's not just a story. It's TRUE.

I know that a lot of you don't believe that, but before you scoff, hear me out. The promises of the Bible are so much more than just empty words on a page. So much more than a list of rules. People argue that they want to keep their freewill, and use that as a main basis to bash Christianity. I'll say this: We can't follow the rules even if we wanted to. It's not about following rules or being religious! It's about SURRENDER, and right now, that's what some of you desperately need to do.

This is the Bible's core promise; Jesus died on the cross for ALL your sins. Not some of them, not just one of them, but all. Your lust? That died with Jesus on the cross. Your addictions? Dead. Your pride? Dead.

To this, you ask "Well, if Jesus died on the cross and took all those things of mine with him, then why am I still struggling?" You know why? Because YOU'RE still holding onto your struggles. In your pride, you refuse to let it go, because you have it in your head that you can deal with it yourself. Look at how long you've struggled, and tell me that you can deal with it. If you think you can defeat your sins by yourself, you're sorely mistaken.

If you truly believe with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength that Jesus died for you on the cross, and rose to life 3 days later, then know this: You're FREE. Let your struggles go, and believe that Jesus has taken your sins, because he has. He has given you the keys to life, the keys that open the gates to the prison you're in. Put your faith in Him, believe that you are free and that your sins are forgiven, and the lie will run screaming.

Welcome to Set Free!

This is a blog in which I will post topics about ponderings of different truths that I have come to know from the word of God. I hope that it will be insightful for you!

My name is Dillon Lucas, and I have been set free.

-My Past, My Deep, Dark Secret, and my Testimony-

Now, a lot of you reading this may be totally and utterly shocked by what is posted here. Some of you saw me go through this part of my life, and may or may not have seen the outcome. Some of you may or may not stop halfway through and stop reading it altogether.

Please read all of it.

I was raised in a Christian home--I went to Church with my Mom and Dad almost every Sunday, was brought up in the "do this, don't do this" mindframe. All around, I was told I was a "good kid", and most people that know me would agree. I was your typical kid; I grew up watching Pokemon and playing video games until 8 in the morning... ok maybe not your typical kid. Most normal kids did this wonderful thing called going outside, which I did less and less as I got older.

By 6th grade, I had very few friends, and honestly didn't care to have any. I was very distant with the other kids in class, always keeping to myself and drawing, and if I wasn't drawing, I was talking to myself, sometimes out loud. Any desire to get friends was obliterated by the comments my classmates would make. They'd laugh at my highwater pants, make fun of my awkwardness in general, and they'd call me gay a lot. Yeah, real encouraging.

7th grade, things got even worse. Not only was I being made fun of, but I was the butt of every other joke, a figure of ridicule. Now, I may or may not be acting a touch victimized here, but regardless, you get the picture. Didn't have a lot of friends, and I didn't wanna try to make any because I was afraid of being made fun of.

Halfway through 7th grade, I started delving into the occult. I didn't look at it that way while I was doing it, because I still considered myself a Christian, at least on a "what's your religion" basis, if you get my drift. I wanted an escape, and not only that, I wanted some kind of power so as to smite others somehow, and I wanted confidence. I hated who I was, and blamed myself for all the insults that got thrown at me. I wanted to be something (note I didn't say someone) better than me. I wanted to be strong and confident; an animal all my own. This led to a long, painful experience that lasted until the end of my Junior year in High School (FIVE years).

For more information on my involvement in the occult, go to my other blog: http://oncebound.blogspot.com and scroll to the very bottom, and work your way up.

Now, after having given all that up at the end of my Junior year and having rededicated my life to Jesus, I'd like to say that everything was awesome and peachy, and that everything magically unfolded for me. Well, it didn't. I had this huge grudge against everyone, and was still afraid to try and make friends without pretending to be someone I wasn't. On top of that, I had a lot of baggage from my being in the occult, and everything I dealt with there, and still held onto this feeling of self-hatred. All I knew at this point, is that I was forgiven for my sins, but I knew nothing of freedom.

In my Senior year, I eventually joined the Church choir going to FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes), and started seeking God's will. I knew I could be free, and I knew that I wanted to learn more... but, deep down, I don't think I had the faith to believe it could all be true.

I was afraid to talk to anyone and "be real". I was always cynical, and making jokes that I shouldn't have, just doing anything to get anyone to call me a friend, and whether or not they meant it didn't really matter to me. The thing I didn't realize here, was in my holding myself back, in my not trying to really make a true friend, much less share the Gospel, I was sinning.

1 John 4:20: If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. (NIV)

This truth never really hit me until after I graduated from High School. One thing I drilled myself with is this: The offer of free forgiveness that Jesus gave by his grace is just as free for them, for those that opposed and made fun of me, as it is for me. Jesus, who knew no sin, came to BE sin for the WORLD.

2 Corinthians 5:21: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (NIV)

Who the heck am I to say that they don't deserve that? Do I think myself to be God, that they don't deserve to know? If I truly believe, and I do, that those who don't have Jesus go to Hell, how much do I have to hate them for what they had done that I would choose to send them there?!

When I think about the grace of God, that despite all the things I put myself through, and all the things that people did to me, who am I to say that those who ridiculed and berated me don't deserve forgiveness? They DO. Jesus knew NO sin, but he became ours. He bore our pain, our suffering, our temptation, sins... On that cross, as he died, he KNEW US. He KNEW YOU.

That was not exclusive for that moment--Jesus is alive! He rose from the dead, defeating and conquering our sins. We didn't, and can't do anything to deserve that sacrifice, and we don't have to! We just have to accept Jesus for who he is, accept his love.

With that, I want to say something, especially if someone who bullied me when I was younger is reading this. I forgive you, because he who was put to the Cross by your sins, Jesus, has forgiven you!