Getting to where I Am.

Masturbation.

It's a reality. I'm a Christian and I do it.

Whew. Okay, there it is. It's out.

What about it? Well. I'm recovering from shame.

It's important for me to claim Jesus' righteousness as my own. While I'm at it, I suppose my secretive eating and hygiene habits ought to get the wash down of Jesus' love.

I masturbated recently while reminiscing photos I had stole peeks at from a magazine in the grocery store around the corner. I wanted to look at the magazine again the other night, but I realised that some of the kids I "minister" to at New Horizons frequent the store. I was driven by shame momentarily away from the smutty magazine.

I wake up every morning feeling this kind of whirlwind stirring in my heart. I eat immediately to still the emotions that are stirring from a night of fasting. I use food to silence my aching heart full of desire and longing. Desperate, needy, dependent longing. It rears its head when I wake and I respond to it by silencing it rather than crying out in faith of God's love. I eat this way all day. Since I quit my fast (three weeks ago) I have been eating this way and gaining weight. I looked in the mirror finally to find that my head seemed nearly round compared to the shape it was before I began my fast.

I struggle to not be disgusted by the state of my body, and the testament it is to my denial of the Spirits power in my life. And yet the Spirit persists. I have done drugs, masturbate in places that I should not have, and been a horrible witness of who Christ is to people who count me as a Christian.

And yet, I will still claim that Jesus' perfect righteousness, his very identity as the Son of God, has been gifted to me. In the face of all these indictments, no less.

Yes. It seems scandalous to me to. How dare I be so presumptuous to claim that I stand before God as one who is holy, as He is holy. Who am I to think that I am exempt from being accused? God says I am, because I believe that Jesus was accused and punished for every of my wrongs.

I'm really at the point where I don't care what happens next. I have tried so hard to stop sinning by every possible means: accountability, positive self talk, denial of a problem, more service and church and "worship", 12-step groups, meetings, introspection, brutal self-scrutiny, therapy, prescription drugs, and God knows what else. None of these things ever set me free from the compulsion of feeling guilty and ashamed. None of them in their greatest moments of success ever offered me a sense of righteousness, a sense of worthiness. So, what have I really got to lose in letting God's complete acceptance have a shot at my sin problem? Not much, maybe some people judging me for not "controlling myself", but really, it's not like I could get any worse.

I've come to believe that even the worst human beings have a basic desire for what is good. So it would seem to me that coming to a point in one's life at which they decide they don't care whether they attain "good" would be a point of dying to that which is central to who you are, your self. Sounds kind of extreme, but then again think about the tenacity of the Pharisees, who, ironical, were one of the few groups to incur Jesus' wrath.

So for me to say that I don't care what happens, as in I'm fed up with trying to make good become me, and really kind of hopeless that I ever will, I'm really saying, God I have relinquished the task to you, and to be completely demoralized by my own ability to get good, I will accept whatever you produce.

Here I am, at this very place. I'm ready to accept that I'm holy and blameless, free from blame. What? Jesus, you say that even in the very moment of my sin, caught with my hand on myself, with my head full of lustful thoughts, you don't blame me? But what will people say? Won't people pick up stones to bring me down if I accept myself like this?

And my love replies to me, "Man, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," I answer.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declares. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

With his blessing I can return to the Father, The Source of Life. That's where I'm going. These sins will fall off like scabs under which new living skin is growing and ready to see the light of day. Scabs have no use after the wounds are healed.

I am holy. I am blameless. No one can judge me, because God does not judge me. All that Jesus did in the power of the Father I am capable of because I am in him, and all he has is mine.

Jesus, you have given me your faithfulness. You sent your Spirit into me and made me completely new, and gave me eyes to see what you have created. I know who I am now, because you revealed it to me.

Thank you, Jesus.