Satan. What a deceiver. What a liar in how beautiful he makes things look. His tricks never change. He did the same things to Eve in the garden as he does to each one of us today.
How did Satan deceive me? He took something sacred and good that God wanted me to wait for, and he made it seem okay for me to take it before it was time.
I had sex before marriage. I had sex with someone other than my husband.
You know what they say about sin. It’s like dropping a pebble in water. It causes a ripple effect in our lives, and it eventually leads to destruction.
In my case, the sex before marriage lead to a lot of issues with lust, which lead to issues with the way I saw myself. I beat myself up about it a lot for a while. Sometimes when I was feeling really down, I would actually call myself an adulteress. I never told anyone about this (the lust issue), of course, because I was ashamed of what was going on, and I thought that if I prayed enough, God would eventually bring me out of it.
I dealt with my lust issue silently until Training Camp.
There was one night when we were worshipping and they asked us to call upon the Holy Spirit. I closed my eyes and lifted my face up towards heaven, and that’s when God started breaking down my walls.
As I said in my last Training Camp blog, I had been praying for God to break down whatever walls were built up in my heart so that I could feel His love. Well when we started worshipping, God started showing me what those walls were made of. It was the guilt and the shame I had felt because of having sex with someone other than my husband, both mentally and physically. (But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:28)
So as the worshipping went on, the leaders were asked to walk around and pray for people. Eventually someone came up to me. When he started praying for me, I just started weeping. He kept saying, “You are wiped clean,” over and over again, and eventually, he put his hands on my shoulders and he turned me to face him.
When I opened my eyes, he asked me “What is holding you back from God?”
Now, keep in mind, I had never had a serious conversation with this person. He didn’t know what I was going through.
When he asked me that, I responded. I told him I told him I’d had sex before marriage.
And that’s all I told him.
Then he said, “God wants you to know that you are not an adulteress, and you are wiped clean.”
I am not an adulteress.
I couldn’t believe he said it. I had never told anyone about thinking that before.
And that’s when the walls were broken. That’s when I was healed. That’s when the Healer crushed the deceiver under His feet!
And now? Now I’m free. Free! Free from the sin that had held me captive for a long time. Free from self destruction. Free from lust. Free from shame. Free. Free, indeed.
So I ask you, what’s holding you back from God? I challenge you to find that thing today. Let God break down those walls. Let His healing come over you. Let Him set you free!
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