I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew there was this longing inside of me I couldn’t shut up and people raved about this relationship they had with their Creator I wasn’t experiencing.
So I decided 2015 was going to be the year I finally made time for a daily devotion. Making a decision like that at the beginning of the year wasn’t new for me (or anyone else, for that matter), but last year I actually stuck with it.
2015 was the year I finally spent time–about 25-30 minutes every morning–reading my Bible, journaling, praying, and listening for God. Some days it went really well. Some days it was just okay. Some days were just plain rough. But if I showed up, so did God. It was never a waste of time. A few times I felt like a lesson didn’t teach me anything, but I kept truckin’ through, getting up each morning, first at 5:30 and then, when I got my new job, at a more reasonable hour of 6:30. Some days I missed, but most days I did not.
My life was changed because of the commitment I made to show up every morning and let God do his thing. I didn’t know what was going to happen or what he could even do with me, but I made myself available and said, Here’s what I’ve got. It’s not much, but it’s yours.
And he flipped my world upside down.
Actually, he flipped my world right-side up would probably be a better way to put it.
I didn’t even realize how lost I had become. But he was patient and loving and kind with me. Sometimes he was even funny. He corrected and quieted me. He covered me with grace and forgiveness and then more grace.
I fell in love with Jesus in 2015. Hard, fast, and forever.
I don’t have five easy tips for you to do the same. I don’t have tricks that will make my journey your journey. What I did is really simple and really difficult at the same time. You need to show up daily to God’s Word and he’ll do the rest. It’s like the laziest and hardest thing you’ll ever do. But you won’t regret it for a second.
This week I’m going to share four ways God ruined my life last year as I faithfully spent time with him and asked to be broken and remade. Some of it was painful. Some of it was fun. Some of it was painfully fun.
2015 was my best year ever.
I think 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 sums up best what happened to me in 2015:
Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are–face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free from it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.
I just spent a year reading a book some people think is all about rules, and I’ve never felt freer in my life. I don’t know how any of that even makes sense. The world, for so long, has told me and you and everyone else who will listen that we don’t need what that books says, what we need we have inside of us. But guys, that is wrong, so wrong. I’d been doing it for years on my own and while I didn’t think I was unhappy or missing out, I was. The veil hadn’t been lifted yet so I thought my view was best. Only because I didn’t have anything else to compare it to.
And now, I see how dead everything was. I see everything the veil was blocking. I see clearer now.
Friends, Jesus ruined my life last year. He messed up so many things I had going. He changed my heart, my mind, and my relationships. He took away my security, most of my income, and my sense of comfort.
I’ve never been happier.
I can’t wait to share my ruin with you this week. See you tomorrow.
Edit: This is a post I wrote after doing a 60-days in the Bible series last March. It breaks down how I started doing my daily quiet time and what I use. Not that you have to use the same things I do, but it can be a starting point if you don’t know where to go next.
The rest of the series:
How Jesus ruined my life: He took away my money
How Jesus ruined my life: He made me write about my faith
How Jesus ruined my life: He’s making me start a small group
How Jesus ruined my life: odds & ends
Jesus ruined my life, too, but the other way. He won’t forgive me anymore. He has decided I have to go to hell. I never felt free with God. And life with God sucked generally. Fuck God.
This whole living by the Bible thing totally ruined my life. I not only submitted to the the commandments in the Bible, but I lived it. Which, gave me a laid back attitude about becoming successful in life because I was convinced that God would take care of me as long as I did his will. I exposed the lies in the Bible by actually living it. The Bible makes a lot of conditional promises but so many people don’t bother upholding those conditions. So, with that, they don’t expect God to keep his promises. When you are in complete compliance to God’s commands, you expect him to keep his promises.
The Bible does not keep it’s promises and I am very disappointed I was ever introduced to it. I spent over three decades chasing the Bible and as a result, I am currently homeless.
This whole living by the Bible thing totally ruined my life. I not only submitted to the commandments in the Bible, but I lived it. Which, gave me a laid back attitude about becoming successful in life because I was convinced that God would take care of me as long as I did his will. I exposed the lies in the Bible by actually living it. The Bible makes a lot of conditional promises but so many people don’t bother upholding those conditions. So, with that, they don’t expect God to keep his promises. When you are in complete compliance to God’s commands, you expect him to keep his promises.
The Bible does not keep it’s promises and I am very disappointed I was ever introduced to it. I spent over three decades chasing the Bible and as a result, I am currently homeless.
what on earth did you do that you feel he won’t forgive you?
Elder, I’ve thought things similar to that before. That God just chose that I wouldn’t have the ability to believe, and I was destined to go to hell.
What I do know is that he does want all to be saved. He tells us in John 6 that it is his Father’s will to lose none of those whom he has created – Us. Through this, I don’t understand how he would pick and choose some, and choose that some would just not be able to be saved.
Something else I know is that his blood is strong enough to forgive you. You can only be forgiven through it though if you are willing to trust in him by faith. It’s not that God won’t forgive you anymore. But he can only forgive you if you are willing to trust him with everything you are. And if you have not ever believed on him, then I’m afraid that you don’t have forgiveness. But there’s still time, and God is still willing to forgive you. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved”.
This is a God who loves you enough to literally die so you COULD be forgiven. If he loves you this much, then it’s reasonable that his plan really is the best for you. The enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy. But Jesus has come so you could have life to the full. This life to the full can only come from a TRUE relationship with Christ.
I would like to kindly ask you to examine yourself, to see if you are truly a Christian. It’s so so important, and it’s not too late as long as you are alive. God is still pursuing, and wants a relationship with you enough to die so it could be possible.
I hope I didn’t come across too harshly. I care and I just want this to be able to influence someone positively.
God is the real one that destroyed my life altogether by Not giving me a wife and family that i really wanted to have, especially when i see Billions And Billions of other people that have that gift of life. Then again, just look at the horrible women that God unfortunately created these days which certainly has a lot to do with it as well.
I always prayed and thanked god and triedntondonthe right things every day. God a bond ones me and destroyed my family. He took everything from me by sending Aman through his own church to have an affair with my wife. Now my four kids and I have been living hell here on earth for the past 5 years. He won’t help or show us any hope after all this time of struggle and begging for help. He has forsaken and abandoned us. He lost 5 good souls but all the adulterous wore has to do is ask for forgiveness and she’s saved and happy again. What about the 5 innocent victims of her sin? What is there for us? God has left us.
Why does God bless some and forsake others? I did nothing wrong and certainly 4 innocent children didnt. After all these years I have realized the bible and religon was written only for the sinners. It gives them an opportunity to feel better about themselves and thier sins. What about the victims of that sin? What donthey have? There is nothing for us. No answers, no peace, just torment and loss and a never ending sense of abandonment. That’s all that’s left now.
We are horses everyone wants to ride.
If Satan can’t ride you, he will seek to poison you(kill/destroy you), or beat you( to cause you to fear any other rider).
Jesus was a problem for me for many years. However I got them back misotheist is the way to go. I suppose if you want a backdrop of why I became hateful of gods son. Well it’s time you knew. That the bible plagiarized off many other religions like the Torah, Koran, Hinduism, pagan religions like the Roman’s. Not to mention that every single holiday worshiped and celebrated in the bible was and still is pagan celebrated as well. Christian pagan war look it up. After digging deeper and deeper into the history of religion I found little peace through my relationship with god, especially his son which made no permanent sacrifice. As of now I’m leaning towards spiritualism and misotheism. As I grew older and people that I loved died and faded into the distance I now realize a god that would punish me, would also be punishing the ones I love and ultimately if those people are in heaven. That would declare god as evil. Because if any family that made it into heaven could create dogma paradox. Thus god is no more love then you or I for committing to your eternal damnation. Remember no god who punishes your loved ones by punishing you is worthy of being called a god. God or no god sounds like satan in disguise at the gates.