And Nothing Will Separate You From My Love Again
April 17
Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love God that is Christ Jesus our Lord.”
From the beginning days of my decades long pornography addiction, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I knew it was not what God desired for my life. Every time I interacted with the addiction, I felt miserable afterward and was filled with a tremendous amount of guilt and shame. I was grateful for stretches of sobriety (which were often very short), but I would soon return to the addiction and the cycle of feeling terrible and dealing with deep feelings of self-hatred and loathing would follow. The addiction took me farther than I ever planned to go, and as I spun further and further out of control, the fear of being discovered intensified and so did the feelings that God had to be very angry with me. I began to doubt His love, protection, and provision in my life. How could God love me when I failed so often? How could God love me when I returned to the addiction time and time again ? Why would God love me when I didn’t love myself? If God loved me, then He would take away the addiction.
When life-changing consequences became part of my life, and I had to start over as a single middle-aged guy, I had convinced myself it was because God didn’t love me. I wasn’t at a point where I was willing to accept responsibility for my choices and the consequences that happened because of my choices. It was much easier to blame others and to believe the events in my life happened because God didn’t love me. (There isn’t space here in this blog to describe all the events that happened that led me to finally accepting responsibility and shifted my thinking on God’s love for me regardless of what I had done, but at the age of 45, my perspective began changing on God’s love, grace, and forgiveness for me.) Through a lot of hard work, tears and a variety of emotions, many questions and doubts, accountability with other guys, attending a weekly recovery group, daily devotions, and ultimately surrender, I could finally accept that God did love me. That God had always loved me. That God will always love me.
God’s love for me will never change. He will not love me any less - or more - than He does right now. None of the horrible and egregious things I did because of the addiction changed God’s love toward me. The destruction left in the lives of others (and my own life) because of what I had done, did not change God’s love toward me. The people I hurt and the relationships that were greatly affected by my choices had no effect on God’s love toward me. There is absolutely nothing in all of creation that will ever separate me from God’s love. I may have walked away and turned my back on God, but that didn’t stop God from loving me. I went my own way believing I knew better, but that didn’t stop - or change - God’s love for me. My stubborn and foolish pride was no match for God’s life-changing love. No matter what I went through or what lies ahead will separate me from God’s love. This amazing love - God’s undeserved love - was displayed on the cross at Golgotha. This love that has me firmly in its grasp and will never let me go was shown in His Son’s arms that were spread wide on the cross. This perfect and unconditional love was seen Easter morning when the stone was rolled away revealing an empty tomb. Father - Thank You for Your love. A love that has changed me. A love that never let go of me. A tenacious and relentless love that chased after me. A love that sent Your Son to the cross to pay for my sins. What amazing love!