I was holding solid, biblically orthodox truth, but the life of the Spirit was a distant memory. Something had happened to my zeal for the Lord. The fire that burned in my bones was now little more than embers. I was living and proclaiming a memory. There was no currency in my spirituality. I was barren, bereft of my real joy in Christ. In some ways I had become a caricature of the churchmen – primarily preachers – I had turned to as a young believer. Trying to find someone who understood and identified with newfound enthusiasm for the Savior, I went from leader to leader. What I frequently discovered was a professional Christian – someone paid to do church but who lack passion and fire. Over a period of time, without realizing it, I had migrated from the place of an enthusiastic believer to the position of a person more concerned about professional acceptance.
Cookie-cutter clergy stood the best chance of thriving in the church. If you had fire, it was best to keep it in the fireplace and not let it spread. Don’t walk near the margins or go too fast. Be mainstream and respectable, learn the ropes, don’t ask too many questions, and certainly, don’t rock the boat. Play by the rules and the system will take care of you.
(But underneath it all), there was another significant dynamic that was at work in my interior world. I wrestled with a recurring problem of lust and pornography that was pushed down and repressed, only to rear its ugly head sufficiently to make me feel that I was destined to lead a life of defeat and powerlessness over sin. Inwardly I longed for deliverance that always seemed just out of reach. I had bargained and pleaded with God, promising Him that if He would take the compulsion away that I would never do it again, only to fall once again into a repetitive cycle of addictive behavior. I was trapped!
The shame of my sinfulness kept me from bringing it to the light. I wanted God to deal with me privately so that no one else would have to know. I was someone important in the church, at least in my own eyes, and I should be above and beyond such behavior. I would just have to work this out on my own.
I managed to make an uneasy peace with the monster within – refusing it when I could and giving in when I couldn’t stand it any longer, hoping God would forgive me one more time. I longed for a holiness of life where I would not always be battling a besetting sin. I wanted to be really free, but held out little hope that anything would ever be fundamentally different in my life until I go to Heaven. The sinful failures in my private world kept plaguing me with guilt and condemnation – real guilt and condemnation – that gnawed at me like hungry vultures devouring roadkill.
My struggles, I now know, were much deeper than wrestling with acts of sin I committed. At the root of these sinful behaviors was something fundamentally flawed. My sins were the evidence of brokenness of character (we call) the carnal or sin nature. The genetic predisposition to sin was the controlling factor in my life. No matter how hard I tried to overcome the behaviors, I was not able to change them. My sins were the evidence of my nature. It was more than behavior that needed to be changed. I was the problem! There was nothing I could do about it. Yet coming to grips with this reality was a severe mercy. The root of the behavior – my sin nature – needed to be dealt with before I could be delivered from the dichotomous existence in which I was trapped.
[It was the bringing of his sin into the light before others, by which the Holy Spirit of Christ Jesus could begin to work on that sinful nature. This was followed by on-going accountability, counsel and confession, which led to a victory which needed continuous attention].
See HR Brown, Encountering the Power of Sanctification, in Power, Holiness, and Evangelism, (Destiny Image, Shippensburg, PA) p.29