An Inside View – Obedience vs. Success: Healing does not, nor has it ever meant an absence of struggle.

Many, many years ago, at the very beginning of my discipleship, I hit a major wall. The wall had a definite name – “Loneliness!”

Not truly desiring to face and deal with the underlying factors causing the loneliness; I contacted my pastor and began to share my grief. Really, I just wanted to whine.

You know, the “Oh, poor me syndrome.”

My pastor requested that I meet him at the church for a more personal face to face conversation. I agreed. I arrived at the church before my pastor and positioned myself in the sanctuary for my tale of woe.

Eventually, I heard my pastor pull in the church parking lot and he immediately proceeded to the sanctuary where I was waiting. He had no sooner stepped inside when out came the words…

“Now, if you’ve got one good reason, I’m here to listen, but do not give me one excuse!” I still hear those words today. They were extremely authoritative and delivered with great volume.

I was stunned and couldn’t say a word. After a few moments of silence and collecting my emotions, I realized that my pastor had told me exactly what I needed to know, but not necessarily what I wanted to hear. His words snapped me right into reality.

You see, I had been giving my greater attention and energy to being successful rather than being obedient. Thank God for pastors who truly have our best interest at heart.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time. We will, of course, be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home, but the bathrooms are ready, the towels put out and the clean clothes are waiting. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up. It is when we notice the dirt, that God is present in us – it is the very sign of His presence.”

The Apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians 6:11, “You were sanctified,” or better translated, “are being sanctified.” Sanctification is that process where sin’s power is broken and we are separated unto God, enabling us to come into the wholeness Jesus promises.

Is it any wonder Jesus said, “If any man come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34).

Too often, when we think of salvation, we think of it in our initial choice to follow Jesus. But rarely do we view our salvation as a process, which entails many choices and often a string of many and various deliverance’s.

Healing does not nor has it ever meant an absence of struggle.

Our humanity, out of which our sexuality flows, will continue to bear the mark of the fallen age in which we live to some degree.
But that does not minimize God’s power. Experiencing temptation, feeling irrationally threatened, acknowledging the need for ongoing accountability, simply places us in a dynamic process of becoming whole.

For example, while God was helping me deal with homosexual sin, miraculously, I was spared the painful recognition of my broken masculinity, which was most definitely fueling my sinful behavior.

As I learned what it meant to be a man, and more importantly, a godly man, my masculinity began to be healed. The Lord revealed broken and hurtful aspects of how I related to family, friends, and people in general. God is faithful to reveal what needs to be healed. He does so in light of how much we can handle at once. And He always blesses obedience.

It isn’t enough to experience victory in sexual struggles. You might be saying, “it’s not…why?”

Because the victory will be very short lived if we don’t understand the specific characteristic of God on which victory is built. God wants us to know Him and trust His character, not just to use Him as a means to escape having to take responsibility for our choices.

A final thought…

To say that Christian love is unconditional is not to say that it does not encourage the one loved to do what is right. It is to say that Christian love continues even when that person fails to do what is right.

God help us to be encouraging rather than demanding.

In doing so, may many understand that obedience, not success, is your will and desire.

Pastor Phillip Lee
Executive Director
His Way Out Ministries

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