Confession of an Addict

Disclaimer: This is not an actual letter to you by anyone in particular. But, it serves as a model of a letter of confession by an addict who is attempting to be honest and to come clean regarding his true motives and intentions, and regarding his true heart attitudes and behaviors. For this person, though, is not just an addict, but he is someone who has been leading you away from pure devotion to Jesus Christ, and who has been trying to get you to follow him and his cheap grace, instead, for he doesn’t serve God, but Satan.

Dear Reader,

I am writing to you because I have something I need to talk with you about. I need to tell you that I am not the man you think that I am. For, you see, I lied to all of you. I led you to believe that I was sincere, tenderhearted, and compassionate, when really I was a roaring lion seeking whom I may devour. I led you to believe, too, that I cared about you, when I really just cared about myself. For, I am really an egotistical, selfish brute who takes advantage of others, who is an abuser and a user, an addict, proud, fleshly, controlling, and in my flesh, full of evil and wickedness.

I have lived a selfish life ruled by the flesh and Satan, and not by the Spirit of God, although I promoted myself as a godly man who worshiped and served the Lord.

Yet, while I was cozying up to you, and being all friendly with you, I was secretly committing adultery against God on a consistent basis, feeding my lust addiction, serving myself, lying to HIM and to everyone else, being hateful, spiteful and cruel to the Lord Jesus, cutting HIM to the heart, and serving HIS head on a platter for the rest of you to follow suit. I did this knowing full well this is what I was doing because I wanted you to like me and to not like HIM, because I hated HIM. I was bitter against HIM, too. And, yet HE did nothing to deserve or to earn such treatment from me.

So, while I was secretly abusing the Lord, and while HE was treating me back with love and kindness, and HE was trying to help me overcome my addiction and to get free from my chains, I not only was treating HIM with disdain and resisting HIS loving assistance, but I was badmouthing HIM to others, lying about HIM, and giving false impressions of HIM to others so that others would see me as the wounded one, and HIM as the perp, when clearly it was and still is the other way around.

So, in essence, I took advantage of all of you. And, I led many of you to reject the Lord in favor of me. And, all the while I was being mean and hateful and spiteful towards HIM and was cheating on HIM with “other lovers,” I was warming up to you and I was showing you affection right in front of HIM, giving you what I should have been giving HIM, making you HIS rival.

I need you to understand this. I was a lowly lying cheating user, and yet you often ran to me with outstretched arms, because you didn’t know who I really was, because I had lied to you, and I had deceived you. By comparison, you often seemed to shun or barely acknowledge the Lord who loves you more than you can possibly imagine.

Yet, I let Jesus and HIS servants be the “bad guy.” I stuck HIM with having to keep things going smoothly, making certain everyone was working together as a team, only for HIM to get resistance from your church family, and to experience disrespect and dishonor from many of you, while I did nothing or little to help, because I wanted to be “Mr. Nice Guy” who everyone loves.

I stuck HIM with all of that responsibility because I was thinking only of me, and I didn’t want to take the responsibility for doing the things HE commanded that I should do as a man, as a husband, as a father, and as the spiritual leader of my household. I didn’t care, or very little, what you all thought of HIM, only what you thought of me, because I was dishonoring and disrespecting and abusing and using HIM for my advantage.

But, the thing of it is, I did this for most of my life while professing faith in Jesus Christ. And, I can’t even trust myself now to know for sure if I am really coming out of this or if this is yet another performance, for I have had many. And, I can’t be certain that I am not still operating in my own flesh, for I have made many confessions and admissions before only to go right back to being the same lowly selfish brute as I was previously.

Yet, through it all Jesus loved me, HE cared about me, and HE stuck HIS neck out on the line time and time again to help me be free, only for me to cut HIM to the heart and then stomp on HIS heart over and over again.

So, whatever good opinion you may have had of me, it was not true, because I was a poser, a performer, who just played tricks to entertain everyone so they would like me. And, whatever opinion you may have of Jesus, please, if it was that of a softy who is perfectly okay with your sinful practices, and with you not honoring and obeying HIM, prayerfully consider the things I have shared with you here. And, if you viewed him as a tyrant, a legalist, and a crazy man who is unloving, please be willing to see HIM through different eyes than you may have seen HIM before.

I want you to see that Jesus Christ is God, and that God is using HIS true servants to reach the world with the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and that they have been doing this faithfully for many years all the while they have been facing much opposition from me, in particular. They are not perfect, they will admit, but they love Jesus with all their hearts, and they are following HIM with their lives, and God is using them to help many people to find hope, healing, salvation and deliverance from sin through faith in Jesus.

Jesus has written a book about HIS plan for all of our lives. I want to share it with you, and I hope you will read it, because I want you to see HIM for the God that HE is, and to hear HIS wisdom, for you can learn everything you need for life from HIM, if you are willing. The name of the book is The Holy Bible. And, you can find it on the internet. I do hope you will read it.

Now, in closing, I would like to say that I love you, but I am not certain I yet know what that word means, for it means doing no harm to another, and I can’t be sure I am there yet. I can’t even be sure this is where I truly want to be yet, for I have fooled myself far too many times, and the many confessions I have made before did not result in genuine change, and, in fact, I often just walked away and forgot what I looked like in the mirror.

But, hopefully, this time will be different. Hopefully, I am coming to my senses, and this time will be the real deal, and that this is the point in my life when I truly turn that corner. So, all I can ask of you is that you pray for me, for I have a lot of junk I need to unload so that I can walk the Christian walk instead of just talk it. And, please give Jesus Christ the love, honor, respect and obedience HE so deserves.

Thank you for listening,

Anonymous

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ Acts 26:14-18 ESV

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:41-46 ESV

 Lord, Send Me Anywhere

David Livingstone, 1813-1873

Frank Garlock, b. 1930

Lord, send me anywhere, Only go with me;
Lay any burden on me, Only sustain me.
Sever any tie, Save the tie that binds me to Thy heart—
Lord Jesus, my King, I consecrate my life, Lord, to Thee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-fzUk0X5PM