Does reprieve come?

Matthew 16:24-25  Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he 
must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

SO, in trying to truly give up your worldly concerns...is it supposed to be easy?  If you give it all up to Him, will reprieve come?  I truly believe that His love will fill the void left in your heart...but I do not pretend to believe that we will be without pain and without sorrow.  In fact, perhaps it is supposed to be harder...does that make sense?


There are so many things about my life that I feel that God is displeased with, the least of which would be my lack of being able to act more strongly and confidently on my faith.  I know it is displeasing for Him to witness how much I profess to love Him and then continue my life on Earth disobeying and utterly disregarding His word.  What is that about?  Who does that?!  Why do I think it is OK to go to church on Sunday, ask for forgiveness, and then sin again...sometimes just hours after leaving church?!  The worst part of my life is when my sin impacts the lives of others.  In retrospect, this is the thing I hate the most...the fact that my actions can have an effect on the lives of others.  I know how this sounds, I know I sound immature and without a grounded view of reality.  But honestly, I hate and want to reject reality a good deal of the time.  I don't like the reality that I am unable to make sacrifices in His name, I don't like that I am unable to truly commit to my life as a Believer and as a Jesus-Follower, I don't like that I am consistently very quick to point out faults in others without immediately recognizing my own.  I hate this and I don't know what to do about it.  I am lost and thus I continue to walk and I continue to try and listen.


The wonderful thing is that God knows me and knows my remorse, He knows this and He forgives.  How comforting!  However, I think it is important not to treat God as if you can sin forever and just expect to always have His grace.  I don't know if grace works like that...but it just doesn't sound right to think that we can continue to knowingly sin and just treat God like a platitude and bust Him out only when we need Him so we can feel better about ourselves.  I still struggle with this.  I have a heard time just getting rid of my sin, even though I know it's wrong.  Seriously, sin comes upon me, I recognize it as sin...and then keep on rollin in it!  This does not make sense!  Oh, and inevitably I always feel SO much worse when I've realized that I decided to knowingly sin despite the fact that I could feel in my heart that it was wrong.  Why do I do this to myself?  Has the Enemy really penetrated my heart that much?  Am I that far off the path?  I have a feeling that this walk is going to be a very long one and that I have a lot to answer for.


At Southland Christian Church this past weekend, Jon Weece mentioned his thoughts on the matter of "manhood" and asserted that our society has raised a lot of guys, leaving "men" to be few and far in between.  You may notice that my profile says "a guy..."; this was intentional.  I do feel very much like a guy and it's heartbreaking.  I want to be in a place where I can take a stand and speaks God's truth and do so having a man's heart as opposed to a guy's heart.  I have few friends who I can truly call "men" of Christ but I was fortunate enough to spend some time with one of them recently.  As I have said before, I really think that God brings people into your life just when you need them.  I needed the time I had with this friend.  It was really low-key but it forced me to recognize the differences inherent between us.  I am thankful to know this and to have recognized this, it spurred me on even more to hold myself accountable in my walk.  Do I think it is bad that I respond with stronger convictions mostly after being around people, whether at church or in the presence of great friends?  I don't think so.  In fact, I am convinced that life happens best in community and that we can only hope to survive our worldly torment by relying on God and by sharing our lives with each other.  God made us to be brothers and sisters, we should act like it and support each other more and do so in earnest.


I am now restless.  I know that sacrifices must be made in order to deepen my relationship with Christ, but this leaves me at a loss.  I know that the sacrifices I need to make are going to be some of the hardest things I've had to deal with.  Maybe that is the point?  I have led a very blessed life and maybe I need to be tested and I need to truly invest in these sacrifices if I can ever hope to enter the kingdom of Heaven.  It just know that it is going to be hard, the hardest thing I have ever done...it will happen though, I will be a man of Christ.