The Ultimate Relationship: Repentance, Redemption and Renewal

The Sower's Secret: Preparing Your Soul (soil) for True Change Toxic to transformed: purging the sin from your soul

PODCAST Episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7FjOb9HvHoSSotW4Z6FOgL?si=XzQ8LICzTxeFYBjai17jfA

This blog is to review the healing of our core wounds, our relationship to God, the truth of unconditional love, the role that repentance and forgiveness have in all of it.

To heal, we must understand the reflections we are being shown.

The mirror is a two-way reflection, a duality. (James 1:23)

The outer reflection, the outer behavior are signs that reveal to you and to others what is hurting or what is distorted that needs to be healed. The outer mirror also reflects the gifts and the talents that you have suppressed but really can become or do.

• I say that because a lot of our jealousy and envy or our comparison or the areas where we are coveting something, it's because you can actually have that too.

• It doesn't mean you have to take it from that person.

• It doesn't mean you have to be that person but can that person help influence to pull those things out of you.... those things that you have the capability of doing and being by you taking those actions instead of jealousy and envy.

You obtain by you taking actions to do the work that the other person had to do.

• It's easy to be jealous and be in our minds and covet those things, but there's work to be done. To have that relationship that you're seeing they have......that's work, and it's not all peaches and cream every single day. There can be arguments. There are things that's going on behind closed doors that you don't know about. There are things they have to work through in order to have that relationship.

• There are things they have to do in order to have that career, that dollar amount in their lives, to have the home they have.

  
  

There are things they have to do; those outer things that you're seeing. Well, there are

inner things that people have to go through in order to acquire it. So, it's easy for us to be in a jealous mindset and sitting and doing nothing and hurting ourselves in our lives.

So, the outer mirror when that jealousy or that covetousness or that comparison

comes in .... that's because we're not fulfilling that aspect of us that God really wants us to have. So that outer reflection helps us and it's about our perspectives and our wounds that distort and keep us in that jealousy covetousness mode or it can transform us into actions, beginning with a question "Hey, how did they perform those steps so that I too can do those steps" and maybe not do it exactly as they are doing things because that's they're their own person. I'm me, you know, I have my own gifts and who God made me to be uniquely me.

So, I might have to have a little twist to that to work for me, but all in all, they're helping to be that mirror to me to call out what was hidden within me to become. Acknowledging that I can become that and if you're wounded, you might stop at just that jealousy, envy, covetousness, and comparison and not go further with it and instead of just and you just sit there. That's one of the things about the outer reflection.

The Inner Reflection (The Core): This is what we feel inside and could never express: the raw emotions, thoughts, feelings and triggers both positive and negative, good and evil.

You know, the Bible contains numerous verses that emphasize the significance

of the heart, highlighting its role in our spiritual lives and the relationship with God.

There is a void in the heart that can only be filled with God.

Nothing else can fill it. Even though we try through external sources, it cannot be filled by those things. Those are truly just temporary things. There are verses in the Bible that are key to helping us understand our heart and not just in a physical sense, but also a spiritual sense and as you grow in relationship with God, these truths are apparent because you begin reconnecting with yourself through it, revealing areas that you're to confess and to repent for the sins that lead to your healing, leads to your deliverance, leads to forgiveness...(forgiving of yourself and forgiving of others). It leads to your salvation. It leads to your redemption. It leads to you understanding why Jesus is our savior and why Jesus is so important and fundamental in the Bible..... in the new covenant in order to save you... to redeem you.

• Proverbs 4:23: "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." This verse underscores the importance of protecting our hearts as they influence our actions and decisions.

  
  

• Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" This verse allows us to seek God for understanding our own hearts and the need for divine guidance.

  
  

• Psalm 51:10: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." This plea for a pure heart reflects the desire for spiritual renewal and closeness to God. Which normally is asked once revelation of the wounds buried within due to a repentant heart.

  
  

• Matthew 5:8: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This verse highlights the connection between purity of heart and the ability to experience God's presence. In our sin we are separated from God, purity reunites us.

  
  

• Ezekiel 36:26: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you."

  This promise of transformation, it emphasizes God's desire to renew our hearts and spirit.

These verses actually describe a process that surfaces within you to be seen and felt. When the hurts of the past surface (naming only a few things wounds can surface as): images in our mind, anxiety in the body, perversion, depression, anger, or fear. Our reaction first would be to suppress it because it's emotionally, physically, and mentally uncomfortable. Our initial attempts to deal with the resurfacing wounds are often unhealthy. Internally, we numb the pain. We bury it or we suppress it by seeking external temporary band-aids and solutions. We hide, run, fight, ignore. We utilize drugs. We utilize alcohol. We drown it out through the TV or social media, food, shopping or sex. Whatever the distraction we sought in the past,

we seek stimulation in numerous ways as a form of avoidance.

The majority of us have had no healthy outlet or influence to show what healing even looks like, feels like, or can trust in. Because we had to return back to the same wounded environment that contradicted what was healthy, what was safe. Dysfunction was the majority and that which was healthy was the minority. This can create a form of confusion.

This not only happens in relation to our physical life but also our spiritual life (the mirror)

Read, hear, and be a doer of the Word written in the Bible

As it is written when Jesus explained the Parable of the Sower to his disciples in Matthew 13:18-19, Mark 4:14-15, and Luke 8:11-12.

(read all three in different bible translations)

In these passages, Jesus states that:

·         The seed is "the word of God" or "the message about the kingdom."

·         The seed sown (the word read or heard) along the path is snatched away by the "evil one" (Satan) so people will not believe.

FYI - anything in parenthesis ( ) ........ I added/inserted to bring clarity)

Luke 8:4-14 AMP

Parable of the Sower

4 When a large crowd was gathering together, and people from city after city were coming to Him, He spoke [to them] using a parable: 5 “The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road and it was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the sky ate it up. 6 And some seed fell on [shallow soil covering] the rocks, and as soon as it sprouted, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out. 8 And some fell into good soil, and grew up and produced a crop a hundred times as great.” As He said these things, He called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear and heed My words.” 

9 Now His disciples began asking Him what this parable meant. 10 And He said, “To you [who have been chosen] it has been granted to know and recognize the [a]mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that though seeing (physically) they may not see (spiritually), and hearing (physically) they may not understand(spiritually). 

11 “Now [the meaning of] the parable is this: The seed is the word of God (what is written in the bible) [concerning eternal salvation]. 12 Those beside the road are the people who have heard; then the devil comes and takes the message [of God] away from their hearts, so that they will not believe [in Me as the Messiah] and be saved. 13 Those on the rocky soil are the people who, when they hear, receive and welcome the word with joy; but these have no firmly grounded root. They believe for a while, and in time of trial and temptation they fall away [from Me and abandon their faith]. 14 The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, but as they go on their way they are suffocated with the anxieties and riches and pleasures of this life, and they bring no fruit to maturity. 15 But as for that seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word with a good and noble heart, and hold on to it tightly, and bear fruit with patience.

Now why is that important?

Some people don't understand.

Seeing you can see physically but some people cannot see spiritually.

Verse Breakdown:

• Verse 11 meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God concerning eternal salvation.

• Verse 12 Those beside the road are the people who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes the message of God away from their hearts so that they will not be  so they will not believe in me as the Messiah and be saved.

• Verse 13 Those on rocky soil are the people who when they hear receive and

  welcome the word with joy. But these have no firmly grounded root. They

  believe for a while and in time of trial and temptation they fall away from me

  and abandon their faith.

• Verse 14 the seed which fell among the thorns. These are the ones who have heard, but they go on their way. They are suffocated with the anxieties and riches and pleasures of this life, and they bring no fruit to maturity.

• Verse 15 But as for that seed in good in the good soil, those are the ones who have heard the word with a good and noble heart and hold it tightly and bear fruit with patience.

The Parable of the Sower is about cultivating the heart for God, and how the Word of God is received in different types of hearts. Our task is to ensure our own soil is ready. The steps I had to take and am now sharing with you is to:

1. The Call to Stillness: Replacing Band-Aids

Instead of running to our temporary band-aids—be it drugs, alcohol, excessive TV, social media, food, shopping, or sex—we must choose stillness. These distractions are the devil's tool, allowing him to "come and take the message [of God] away from your hearts."

We must empower ourselves to be still, pray, and listen. Ask for help in understanding why that image, feeling, or emotion surfaced—the one that creates fear, shame, guilt, perversion, or anything else from your past that hurts or condemns you in our mind, heart, and body.

2. Analyzing the Soil of the Heart

The Parable describes four types of "soil," representing four different ways people respond to God’s message. We must examine which soil describes us:

·         The Sidelines (The Way Side): Some people simply stand on the sidelines. They attend church or listen to others speak, but they never allow God’s Word to nurture the soil of their heart and mind and commit fully to Him. The message is taken away before it can take root.

·         The Back-and-Forth (Rocky Soil): These hearts are inconsistent. They commit to God but quickly fall into temptation when confronted with the trials of change. They have no deep root, and their early enthusiasm fades under pressure.

·         The Anxious (Thorny Soil): This soil is overgrown with anxieties, traumas, fears, worries, and doubts. These individuals sought external material things and riches because "to face the internal is harder than to obtain the external." The cares and wealth of the world choke the Word, making it unfruitful.

3. Bearing Fruit: The Good Soil (Luke 8:15)

·         The goal is to become the final soil type, as described in Luke 8:15 "But as for that seed in the good soil (mind and heart), these are the ones who have heard the word with a good and noble heart, and hold on to it tightly, and bear fruit with patience."

·         The ones with good soil are those who truly want to change. They have faith, believe in God, and understand that the healing and prosperity God intends will take time.

We lived by the flesh, and in that state, (living by the pleasures of this world that leads to sin, & idolatry) the spiritual "father of the world" was Satan. To bear good fruit, we must come out of his rulership in our hearts, minds, beliefs, behaviors, perceptions, and speech. This requires a sincere heart and a sincere wish to move from the fruits of trauma and corruption into bearing the fruits of healing, love, and peace—aligning ourselves with God's character, morals, and values.

Now, I want to go back. Okay, I told you earlier there were four types of soil representing four different ways people respond to God's message. You don't just automatically go from the life we had to all of a sudden being fruitful in God in verse 15. Blessed is the person that can get there immediately, but what I've learned is that in our youth, we didn't know any better and whenever God came into our lives, whatever stage that was. There was

things that we had learned and had done that was of this fleshly world. We have done sins

and whatever level you come into God with full knowledge and full commitment to him.

There are stages that you go through and so I want people to understand that I believe that these things are stages of which we're all going to go through at some point of time. You might be going through stages and you're all the way on the last stage of verse 15 , but that doesn't mean something's not going to try to come in and rock your world to the point you

We're building ourselves up to bear those fruits of healing and love and peace and aligning ourselves with God's character, morals, and values because that's going to keep us grounded in the storms.

might have to start all the way back up to number two where you're back and forth on rocky soil where your heart is inconsistent because you just got shaken.

There are things that we're going to go through in our in our stages of life with God hold on to it tightly and bear fruit with patience.

You thought you were on solid ground and something happened that you weren't prepared for and it humbled you.

There are things that we're going to go through in our in our stages of life with God because this is lifetime. The biggest thing I think is to understand with what the word says in verse 15 is to hold on to it tightly and bear fruit with patience.

Firm foundation being built in the word, so that when the storms come your house remains built

Knowing his word and what it says so that whatever storm may blow because you

know those storms are going to blow. He talks about that firm foundation being built so that when the storms come your house remains built. It does not mean that those storms aren't going to come and shake and rattle and roll and hit your windowpanes, that your shutters aren't going to be ripped off, that the siding of your house might be ripped off, or part of the roof might have pulled off. But thank goodness you have insurance in God and you rebuild that, right? .... because your foundation is in him.

So, you know that your focus being on him and through your prayers and through your repentance and through your forgiveness and through whatever else happens since we are still living in this world..... that we can come to him with that patience and understanding and realign ourselves to be that verse 15 with whatever happens.

That's the reason why we're building ourselves up to bear those fruits of healing and love and peace and aligning ourselves with God's character, morals, and values because that's going to keep us grounded in the storms.

It's going to keep us grounded so that when Satan comes, he can't take God's word from us because it's grounded in us. Whatever stage that you're in, whatever soil your heart is, begin with God in prayer and ask:

• "What are you to understand about the circumstances, about the thoughts that are coming in your head, about the emotions that are surfacing upon your body and the feelings and the anxieties and the fears, all these things. Ask what are you to understand?

• Ask what are you to confess and to repent for?

• Ask whom are you to forgive?

• Be still to receive additional images or internal direction.

  • In your mind is where you get that direction. The majority of the time he may give you external direction through books or music or messages through people and you have to be open to that. But the majority of the directions are in your mind in your alone time... in your silent time when you take away all those distractions and listen.

  • In your MIND although it seems like it's coming from you because it is your voice, I need you to recognize that there's both light and darkness that can surface in your mind, in your heart, in your body. You are to begin to seek God and discern good and evil, right and wrong within that thought, within that belief, within that behavior, within that perception, and within that intention. Whatever you plan on doing and putting your hands to, question your motives.

    • Ask what is my intention on this?

    • Is this in my flesh or is this in my spirit?

    • Is this God or is this Satan led? ...what is my intention of this?

    • If I do this, am I expecting return from this or am I doing this because I truly want to do this out of truly the love in my heart to do this for this person that they owe me nothing.

    • When I forgive another person, I'm forgiving them because they owe me nothing. I do not need to sit in front of you in order to forgive you. I'm choosing to forgive you to set you free; to set me free. You owe me nothing and really mean that... of your choice of your free will.

• Remember God's instruction and guidance will align with his word, morales and character.

• When in error your thoughts, emotions, and feelings are your moral compass and the thoughts that are of the light is "CONVICTION" the thoughts that are in the dark is "CONDEMNATION". We are familiar with both and have been unaware on how to differentiate because they started when we were young and again these thoughts are in our head and sound like our voice.

• You do not have to accept those dark thoughts any longer. You also have a choice as to which you choose to accept, believe, and act upon. (resist the devil and he will flee) - Read - Zechariah 4 through prayer & the power of God working through us. No matter the trials, tests, temptations, denying the flesh, and any other challenge we face, it is not by human might nor power but by the Spirit of God that we can overcome. (Zechariah 4:6)

How can you build awareness to understand the difference between conviction and condemnation, even without a spiritual context, by focusing on their effects within your mind:

Conviction	Condemnation
Conviction, in a personal sense, is when you realize you did something wrong and understand that you need to make a change.	Condemnation is a feeling of being judged and sentenced for your wrongdoing with no way out.
Brings to your remembrance or immediately: It is specific—it points out a bad action or behavior ("You yelled at your friend and hurt their feelings").	Brings to your remembrance or immediately: It is general and attacks your identity or worth ("You are a failure and a terrible person").
Feeling: It comes with a feeling of guilt or regret, but it also includes hope and a sense of a path forward.	Feeling: It comes with overwhelming shame, hopelessness, and despair. It makes you want to hide or give up.
Result: Conviction leads to repentance, correction, and growth ("I see I made a mistake, I'll apologize and try not to do that next time"). It motivates you to do better.	Result: Condemnation leads to remorse that paralyzes you, makes you feel worthless, and pushes you away from others. It offers no solution or hope for change.
The message is: "You did bad."	The message is: "You are bad."
Conviction is like a good teacher pointing out a specific error on your test paper and telling you how to solve the problem next time. It hurts a bit, but you can fix it and learn. Conviction encourages you to fix the error	Condemnation is like a bully or a bad teacher telling you you're stupid and will never understand the material. It makes you feel like giving up on school entirely. Condemnation tells you... you are the error.

You are to experience in order to understand in this life. Because once you understand, you can then confess that sin.

You can then repent on behalf of yourself and your family line.

You can forgive yourself and others.

You can renounce that sin. You could come out of agreement with that sin, then replace it with the scripture on what God has written in the Bible that builds you up, builds another person up, builds and edifies you, builds and edifies another person, the soul with love, peace, patience, and understanding in order to now be a doer of the word in the way you live and in the way that is holy, that is righteous and healing for yourself and for others.

The heart is often viewed as the center of our emotions, our thoughts, our behaviors, our beliefs developed from our experiences.

It symbolizes our inner being and is crucial in our relationship with God of how far away or how close we are to God.

• The condition of our hearts can significantly affect our spiritual well-being, guiding our desires and our actions. The Bible encourages believers to seek God wholeheartedly, emphasizing that a sincere heart is essential for a genuine relationship with him.

During our most trying times of pain and loss or fear or grief that we return to God

When we have been separated from God, it is normally during our most trying times of pain and loss or fear or grief that we return to him because we're truly seeking him and open to reunite.

God is always waiting for us to reach out to him with a sincere heart of repentance. which is to change your ways, to change your old way of thinking, to turn from your sinful ways and accept and follow Jesus as the Messiah. And you could read that in Acts 2:38 in the amplified version. It is up to us to maintain that connection with making choices that align us with God every day, every hour, every minute, every second to turn from our sin and to seek him in moral right standing, changing our lives to do and be better by reflecting on those scriptures.

Reflect upon your life with deeper contemplation about the state of your heart and your relationship with God. Where are you at that? The heart is a vital aspect of our spiritual lives influencing how we live and interact with the world around us.

We have been contaminated by rejection, betrayal, unforgiveness, bitterness, anger and more so along the journey of any and all wounds that had cut deeply poisoning us and everything we truly desire to love, those things that were compromised by that poison, by the things we watch, listen to, and surround ourselves with. These things can poison us.

There is a saying that hurt people hurt people but also consider a computer healthy and uncorrupted that works efficiently.

• How does it work once the virus is uploaded into that computer?

• A virus will corrupt anything it comes into contact with. All of the files, the memory, and the efficiency of the computer is no longer the same.

The relationships we have had become infected and toxic.

Within us...that virus is toxic, and the definition of toxic is harmful or dangerous to health or life when it's taken into the body. It's poisonous relating to or caused by poison, very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way. Meaning the relationships we have had become infected and toxic.

The toxic relationships we had with God, ourselves, our finances, our relationships, our family, our romantic partners, all of this exists because of the open wounds that have not been addressed and going back to the original sins of Adam up even into the sacrifice of Jesus and again the importance of Jesus and what Jesus did when he gave his life for us so that we can live.

Jesus is the healer. God wants those wounds healed and purged of the contamination, healed and cleansed and purged of the corruption and healed and cleansed and purged of the compromises that we have made due to the viruses uploaded into us from those wounds, from those curses of the past.

This involves you seeking God, building a relationship with God, and the process of healing will begin. The spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional wounds will not be healed

instantly, but God is the one we're to seek first, and all else will be given to us.

The revolutionary path of love requires returning to God

(1 Samuel 7:3, Hosea 14, Hosea 5:4, 2 Chronicles 30:6, 2 Chronicles 30:9, Jeremiah 4:1, 

Joel 2:13, Acts 3:19)

I learned a lot of our physical, mental, and emotional wounds occurred in childhood from our parents, our caregivers. Spiritually it goes back even further but the solution is returning to God through Jesus. Jesus reconciles us to God and is very important in understanding the role he played in the New Covenant for us and by doing so we can open our hearts to forgiveness and embracing unconditional love/ agape love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV 

4 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails.”.

There was a persistent void in my heart that remained until I began seeking the spiritual aspects of my life. In that pursuit, I recognized what was missing was a genuine relationship with God and a true understanding of repentance, love, and forgiveness. My previous lack of understanding about love was the actual thing in fact that was the greatest barrier

that was hindering me from truly loving myself and others.

God taught me by having me reflect on the difference between sorry and repentance.

This lack of understanding was laid bare in my remembrance of a past relationship.

After arguments where I knew I was in the wrong, I would say "sorry" so that person would stay. However, my sorry was never true; I just wanted the argument to end. I wanted to go back to the good things. It always had some type of excuse tied to it. I didn't fully commit to taking responsibility for my behavior, and that partner actually said, "If I was truly sorry, then I would stop doing it."...through this remembrance I learned that to truly embrace love,

both giving it.... and receiving it, requires a genuine repentance and a fundamental change in action, not just the word itself.

I mentioned once before the blame game was done. You can't blame anyone or anything else anymore. Whatever your parents did, whatever you experienced in life is not your excuse to keep doing the things that hurt yourself or to hurt others.

It does not give you a card to carry to say I'm a victim. It does not give you a card to say that you're angry and because I'm angry at this person, I'm going to stay angry with that person or I'm going to be angry with everybody. It does not give you that badge of entitlement... because that's the thing that Satan is using to take the word of God from you, which is love, which is forgiveness, which is repentance, and taking accountability to change the damage that was done, and to purge the corruption and the compromise and  the wounding that was caused by that experience, by that person from our past trials in life.

There is a scripture (Genesis 50:20, Romana 8:28) that which was meant to hurt you, to kill you, God transforms it into good and without us knowing that and understanding that he is giving you an opportunity with every future encounter from the day that person hurt you, from the day that wrong was done to you, God presents you with an opportunity to now rewrite it and transform that which was meant to hurt you into something good instead of reliving it with a new person within a new situation.

However, what we do is what's called projecting...and when that situation comes up and it touches our owie (wounds) and we go straight into reaction mode to the reaction of who we were in the past, we're forgetting that God blessed us with a new day. A present day, a present of a new day, a gift ....that when that owie (wounds) gets touched and I say owie (wounds) because a lot of these owies (wounds) happen when we're kids....and it's that inner child that is screaming out to be saved.

God is presenting you with a gift to trust him with this gift that he's presenting you that it won't hurt and if it does hurt, it's about to empower you in a way that will equip you to never allow it to hurt you again.

I say this because it may hurt because I'm now having to face the pain of the heart in order to emerge and choose a different response.

It may hurt because I feel the anxiety and I feel the tightness in my breath and my throat and the words that so much want to say the things that I used to say to lash out and to make that person hurt just as much as they made me hurt.... but to breathe. ...to breathe and maybe not say nothing, maybe just to listen.

God is there right in that moment.

The problem is Satan is talking to you louder.

Your pain is talking to you louder.

But God's there to breathe with you, to hold you, and he's asking you to let the pain go right then and there, let it go and breathe.

God did not give you a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, a spirit of love and sound mind.

In order to do that, it requires you to be still and to listen to him in that very, very moment. to quiet your body, to quiet your mind. Allow his salvation and redemption in that moment to now cleanse you, to help you.

These moments we keep thinking these are the moments to run......

Sometimes maybe they might be.......

But the biggest thing is for you to stand in your power, love, and sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

To do not fear, for he is with you. Do not be dismayed, for he is your God. He will strengthen you. He will help you, and he will uphold you with the right hand of his righteousness (Isaiah 41:10).

And that honey takes some time to build in that relationship, that trust and that safety because a lot of us we haven't had that safety within any relationship or even within ourselves.

And right there is your moment to conquer your Goliath, to circle that Jericho wall and tear it down. And that's where I'm saying in the Parable of the Sowers, you may be all of those stages, but eventually you're going to get to verse 15 if you don't give up.....

If you keep allowing Lord Jesus .... the word; for Jesus is the living word, the word to soak in.... to water you, to nurture you, to nourish you. Allow the word in, and it will build you up. Let it bypass all the defenses and the security that we placed around our heart because we've allowed the wrong things in.

Now it's time to allow the right thing in ....

This personal lesson became the key to understanding my spiritual life. True repentance means more than simply feeling regret. It means changing that action or behavior or belief or perception that is hurting yourself and hurting others.

This directly mirrors the ultimate relationship, the relationship God asks us to have with him.

He calls us to stop doing things... the sins that hurt him, that hurt us and damage the relationship.

By genuinely repenting from sin and committing to change, we align ourselves with the life he has planned for us. A life governed by his laws, his statutes, and his commandments, reflecting his character, his morals, and his values.

King David in Psalms 32:3-5 in the amplified version he stated a very key thing about repentance, and it's written "When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away

Through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand [of displeasure] was heavy upon me; My [a]energy (vitality, strength) was drained away as with the burning heat of summer. Selah. 5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And I did not hide my wickedness;

I said, “I will confess [all] my transgressions to the Lord”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin.."

Jesus bore our sins. He did. But that doesn't mean that we're not coming to God about our confessions of the things that we've done and repent because what Jesus did was allowed us grace for those sins. So again, we don't have to sacrifice goats and sheep over a fire any further. We don't have to sacrifice those things because he was the ultimate sacrifice. Now through him, through his blood, through his sacrifice, we confess our sins, we repent, we change our ways, and we don't go back.

And if we go back, thank goodness again, his grace is there. But don't go back. His grace allows us to learn to break the patterns of our old selves, of our old lives, of the old traditions and the way we grew up knowing how to do things that were compromised in hurt was corrupted by darkness.

Without this return to love, forgiveness, and the refusal to accept the status quo.

This is how we recognize how deeply disconnected we are. That's how

I recognized how deeply disconnected I was. Because at the time, I wasn't willing to do those things. I was no longer in tune with my heart, my body, or the soundness of my mind and my emotions.

It was the return to God that allowed me to start reconnecting with myself. I would say the book of Romans is a really good thing to understand what a reprobate mind is, what iniquity is....and if you choose that, how God releases you into a reprobate mind. If that's the path we choose, then that's the life we live. Or we can choose to live a life through Jesus, reconciled to God, and living by his laws and statutes, his morals, his principles, his values.

It was the return to God that allowed me to start reconnecting with myself. I recognized that the battle would not have been won without taking the first step, which was simply getting away from everything and just breathe, be still, and pray.

In our lives we've encountered many, many, many things and I hope this resonated with you today... even if your story was different than mine. I pray that this touches your heart and that we return to God with a repentant heart, with forgiveness to ourselves and forgiveness to others, and to seek him with all our heart and all our mind and lean not on our own understanding. And the way we do that is first by reading his word. Jesus became the living word so we can see it, so we can hear it and by reading the word, we too will embody Jesus within us. For he who is stronger is in us than that which is in this world. You can do all things through Jesus who loves us. We are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. It's these things that allows us to win in a battle we didn't know we were fighting. It takes time. It takes patience.