Performance Based Acceptance..........

Okay, so it's day late, but I am going to post a brief testimony of my life pre-grace, while still in the mire of performance based acceptance, to join in on the syncroblog. I have since learned since breaking free from the performance treadmill, ie religion/legalism/much of the modern day church, is that my greatest need all along was love and acceptance. I had spent all my life up until the summer of '07 trying to get love and acceptance whatever way I knew how. I am here to tell you about the years of my life that I sought to gain love and acceptance through my performance. Only thing is, I didn't know then what I know now, and didn't know that that is what I was after and that was how I was trying to gain acceptance. By my behavior and performance. The problem was not ultimately me all along, the problem was what I believed. 

After years of living in the world seeking for acceptance and love, of which I never truly found, I became pregnant. Unmarried and scared, the next several months were the most challenging months I ever faced. When the time came near for my son to be born, I had come to the realization that I needed God. Though I didn't fully know why at the time. I told him I knew I needed him, but I just couldn't live up to the christian life. I just couldn't do it! He told me not to worry about it, and to let Him do it for me! I realized I could live with that, and slowly opened my heart back up to him. 

Shortly after this time, I returned to church. I found my husband, got married and became committed to the church. I served and pursued growing as a christian. I took marriage classes, parenting classes, read all the recommended books, struggled to have quiet times, had accountability, and more. I thought that juggling all these plates was my duty and it was the ticket to a disciplined mature christian life. Only trouble was, I was dying on the inside. I did not have true joy, and had many struggles in my marriage. The struggles were due to the high bar we tried to hold over each other, and we both fell way short. They were exasperated by ongoing council from our pastor, which only caused more pain and turmoil. 

What happened was awful and ugly and I won't go into detail here, as I have shared parts of my testimony throughout my blog. BUT, what broke us free, was finally hearing the truth of the Gospel in it's entirety for the first time, with NO conditions. You see, I knew about grace, but I only knew about the half of it, and then mix that with still trying to apply the law and standards to my life and you have a recipe for disaster. 

It was the summer of '07 and I listened to a message by Rob Rufus. In it he explained the distinction between grace and law. And I remember at one point in the message, he shared this....he said, "I want to say, categorically............you have NO christian duties!"  WHAT!!!  The next thing I remember hearing from him, was the promise in Isaiah 54 of how God is no longer angry with us. These truths began to really set me free to receive the truth of the Gospel and God's love and acceptance for me so fully. I had finally found what I had been looking for all my life!! It was available all along, but I had not seen or been taught the truth. I had believed lies, and that had caused me to live in such a way that caused a void in me. I experienced true joy for the first time in my life!! 

I choose not to ponder the past, because He is doing a new thing in me. Each day I press on, living in the present, experiencing His presence, love and joy over me. It's an exciting and wild journey this life, based on HIS performance for me! Thanks to Jesus, I am accepted by God, and seen as He sees Christ, perfect forever, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, holy, blameless, spotless, seated in heavenly places, as a Son and heir of God!!!