After I had much time to reflect on how I ruined my life, and took well over two and a half years in therapy learning of the cognitive distortions I was inadvertently harboring in my mind and discovering new and healthy ways to think and to be in the world, I wondered if I would ever be restored--what it meant to be restored and what being restored would look like in my everyday life. Obviously, when I'm referring to Jesus restoring a person who has ruined his life, the context includes the person or the people who are trusting in Christ for salvation--those who have a relationship with God by grace in Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit. I'm addressing the believer who has sinned grievously, whose sin has become public knowledge, and who feels like his or her life is now over. Don't worry about how long it takes to read this. You have nothing else to do right now except to read. The Lord brought you to this place so relax, breathe, and proceed.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
For believers who have royally messed up their lives, and there are various ways of doing this (so this is really a one-size-fits-all statement), one of the most difficult aspects of this ruination is owning the failure. Just boldly deal with it: own what you did, let others know that you fully own it, and let everyone know how you, too, are equally as horrified by your actions as is everyone else. Shake your head along with everyone else who is shaking their head at your failure. Because if you don't own your own failure then your failure will end up owning you. What that looks like in real life is you living in utter shame and paralyzing fear for the rest of your life. You won't want to be seen in public. You will fear what everyone is saying about you behind your back, what others feel and think of you, and you will attempt to hide yourself from everyone for the rest of your life. Don't do that. Just own it. Face it. Agree with others about your sin. Do what needs to be done to fix the problem that you caused (as much as depends upon you to fixing it if you can). You lost the trust of others. Face it. Own it. You will only gain back the trust of others if you will humble yourself, own your choices and actions, and seek to think and to live healthy in the future.
REMIND YOURSELF CONSTANTLY
This will be extremely difficult, but, keep reminding yourself constantly that if you are trusting in Jesus to save you from your sins by His work on the Cross then you still belong to Him in spite of the horror that you created by your choice to sin and ruin your life (and potentially ruining the life of someone else or of others). If you feel guilty for what you have done then rejoice! You are guilty. Own it. If you feel shame for what you have done then rejoice! Sin is shameful. Own it. But don't sit there in your shame for too long or shame will consume you, control you, and actually hinder your healing toward a healthy way of being in the world. Jesus has already taken your shame and nailed it to His cross: so keep fixing your eyes on Jesus, "the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:2) where you are presently seated with and in Him (Eph. 2:6).
Whatever you do you need to read Dane Ortlund's book, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, and think deeply on what he is conveying to your precious soul. (You can usually find a used copy for a few dollars if you are low on funds.) I am immensely grateful for this book and I think you will benefit from it for years to come. This is a book for anyone who feels as though he or she has made an utter ruin of their lives. In the pages you will discover a God who loves you out of His own heart and has loved you from His heart from all eternity past. You will find a Savior who longs for your restoration to such a degree that He would give His own life for you, to save you, to redeem you from all your failures. This is a Jesus who doesn't want you to run from Him while you are in the pit of your sin but run toward Him. His heart is with you in your turmoil, your failure, your lust, your depression, your suicidal tendencies, your greed, your gossip, your cutting down of others because you secretly loathe your own self. You think you disappoint God. I remember a pastor declaring that you can't let God down because you don't hold God up! Do you really think God was caught off-guard by your sin? He knew it all, my friend, and He still knows all the sins that you will yet commit and He still calls you His beloved adopted child. He wants you to know this love--to experience it.
BUT I'VE FAILED TOO OFTEN, TOO MUCH, TOO GREATLY
Impossible! For the believer in Christ, the adopted child of God, there is no sin you can commit that will make you an abandoned child of God. There is no such thing! That you see your sin for the horror that it truly is in all reality is wonderful! You agree with a righteous, just, and holy God that your sin is frightful, utter darkness, of the devil. Rejoice! For the unredeemed, the unregenerate, the unbeliever does not see his sin in such light. Do you not think God already knew how often you would fail? You're not even done yet in sinning against Him! You have, by His grace and sovereignty, years and years and years left yet to sin against Him. Do you really think you can out-sin the God who describes His own grace as "riches" (Eph. 1:7; 2:4), "surpassing riches" (Eph. 2:7), that this grace is not a thing but a Person--Jesus Himself (Titus 2:11)? Moreover, the grace and mercy of God in Christ speaks of the nature of God, meaning that God is grace and He is mercy. God did not save you because you cleaned yourself up and approached Him (Rom. 5:6, 8, 9). He knew what He was doing when He saved you; and He knew all that you would do in Christ, the good and the horrible, and He saved you anyway! He loved you anyway! You are His and He will never let you go.
Dane Ortlund writes: "For God to be merciful is for God to be God."1 We admit the same regarding God's love. For God to be loving toward His own redeemed sinners-saints, His adopted children, is for God to be God because God is love by nature and by definition (1 John 4:8). When we sin--especially when our sin is truly heinous in nature and quite destructive--what we long to know is that God still loves us, that Jesus will not forsake us, that the Holy Spirit will not leave us. We have the very promise of God Himself in this regard: "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you" (Heb. 13:5); "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" (John 6:37). There is no condition attached to these promises: there is no mention of God refusing to forsake us, or of Jesus promising to never cast us out, if we remain faithful to Him. God is the One who must fulfill His own promises to His children because we are too weak, too frail in our fallen frame, to walk sinlessly and thus please Him perfectly. Only Jesus, fully human and fully God, could sinlessly obey the Father (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15). We may be rich in sin but God's riches of grace and mercy are entirely without accountable measure.
SEEING JESUS RIGHTLY
We can't even begin to imagine being restored in Christ--to God, to family and friends, to the church--until we see Jesus rightly. Our sin clouds our judgment of Jesus. We too often cast God in our own fallen image. We imagine that God is all Law and sparing on grace. But what if we discovered that Jesus, who revealed His very heart toward believers as being gentle and humble (Matt. 11:28, 29. 30), "most naturally gravitates" toward the person who seems to be drowning in his sins and failures?2 Yes, Jesus is holy, and He is righteous. "But the dominant note left ringing in our ears after reading the Gospels, the most vivid and arresting element of the portrait [of Jesus], is the way the Holy Son of God moves toward, touches, heals, embraces, and forgives those who least deserve it yet truly desire it."3 You, believer, are still loved by God as much as you were prior to your sin and failure. "Jesus Christ is [even] closer to you today than He was to the sinners and sufferers He spoke with and touched in His earthly ministry."4 Some of the people He healed and loved on never became redeemed children of God. Here you are, graced by God to believe in Christ by the awakening power of the Holy Spirit, forever sealed as His redeemed child. The Holy Spirit Himself took up residence within you when He regenerated you (John 3:3, 5, 6, 7, 8; Rom. 8:9, 11; Eph. 2:1, 2, 3, 5, 8; Titus 3:5) and that residence was to guarantee with eternal and absolute certainty your final redemption as God's own glorious possession (Eph. 1:13, 14). Your sin, your failure, may have caused untold damage but that sin has no power to undo all that God has accomplished for your salvation.
Why? Or how? Because you cannot escape from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus "went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limitless supply of mercy and grace to His people. ... Christ gets more joy and comfort than we do when we come to Him for help."5 Jesus loves to give of Himself--and He is grace, mercy, and love personified. "When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of His own deepest wishes, not against them."6 I didn't grow up knowing this Jesus. I was raised to learn of the fundamentalist Jesus, the Jesus who loved Law instead of grace, and the Jesus who, if you messed up your life, you will spend the rest of your life in turmoil, shame, and failure without restoration. That, my friends, is a false god--a wicked and perverted idol of legalists and fundamentalists. The Jesus of the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament is a Savior who suffers with us (cf. Acts 9:4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Heb. 4:14, 15, 16)--even in the sins that trip us up so very often.
Jesus shares in our suffering even when that suffering is in sin? "In our pain, Jesus is pained; in our suffering, He feels the suffering as His own even though it isn't--not that His invincible divinity is threatened, but in the sense that His heart is feelingly drawn into our distress. His human nature engages our troubles comprehensively. His is a love that cannot be held back when He sees His people in pain."7 "Our difficulties draw out a depth of feeling in Christ beyond what we know."8 But even in our sin? Because Jesus was fully human, fully man, He "therefore knows the strength of temptation better than any of us. Only He truly knows the cost."9 When we dig our own hole of sin, He runs to us with compassion, even though "He Himself is not trapped in the hole of sin with us; [so then] He alone can pull us out. His sinlessness is our salvation."10 When we sin, we want to run away from Jesus, not to Him. But "He cannot bear to hold Himself at a distance. Nothing can hold Him back. His heart is too bound up with yours."11 Can we, then, live freely and happily in the filth of sin? God forbid. "We are indeed called to forsake our sins and no healthy Christian would suggest otherwise. When we choose to sin, we forsake our true identity as a child of God, we invite misery into our lives, and we displease our heavenly Father."12 Don't let anyone convince you to sin so that God's grace may continually increase: "How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" (Rom. 6:1, 2; cf. Rom. 6:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14).
But let's not fool ourselves, either. "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8). Even the most perceived saintly among us still sins, for no one among us is without sin, except Christ Jesus our Lord. "Do not minimize your sin or excuse it away. Raise no defense. Simply take it [continually--every time you sin] to the One who is already at the right hand of the Father, advocating [being a trial lawyer] for you on the basis of His own wounds. Let your own unrighteousness, in all your darkness and despair, drive you [always and each time you sin] to Jesus Christ, the righteous, in all His brightness and sufficiency."13 Preachers used to encourage their flock to "keep short accounts with God," meaning, each time you sin then take it immediately to God. We are always to be "destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and ... taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5). But, when you fail, let "Jesus draw you in through the loveliness of His heart."14 Jesus is always ready to receive and restore us! "Given our sinfulness, we are shocked to find that our sins cause Him to be all the more ready to plunge us into His heart. 'We unexpectedly find Him with open arms to embrace us, ready forever to forget all our sins as though [the sins] had never been [committed].'"15
RESTORE ME, LORD, RESTORE ME
If you immediately thought about restoration as that of Jesus giving you back your ministry, your career, your family, your friends or whatever it is that your sin caused you to lose, that is not what is meant here by restoration. Yes, some ministers do get their ministry back, and others do not--depending upon the severity of the sin and the beliefs and practices of varying congregations. At the very least the Lord may graciously give you a ministry to help others who have fallen. That brings the Lord as much glory as does any other ministry. (Let us also remember that if God could only use sinless people in ministry then He couldn't use anyone among us.) Sin, for our part, causes a separation in relationship with God (Isa. 59:2). This is why we want to run from God after we sin (Gen. 3:8). Running, however, is not what the heart of Jesus wants from us--His redeemed people. Filthy in our sin, tattered by the ravages of our failure, Jesus comes looking for us (though He never truly left us), wanting to restore to us a right state of mind and of heart. I don't know about your future. But I do know that Jesus longs to restore His fallen children--to His Father, to His people (the Church), and to the family and friends of the person He restores.
Jesus loves to bring about restoration (cf. Joel 3:1; Amos 9:14; Nahum 2:2; Zeph. 2:7; 3:20; Zech. 9:12; Mal. 4:6; Matt. 17:11; Mark 9:12; Acts 15:16; 2 Cor. 5:17, 18, 19, 20); He loves to heal brokenness--broken people, broken relationships, broken circumstances. One day God will restore all that was lost in the Garden of Eden when He makes all things new (cf. Isa. 43:18, 19; 65:17; Rev. 21:5). "Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently" (Gal. 6:1 NIV). Jesus "hates with a righteous hatred all that plagues you,"16 even sin, even temptations to sin. Are you grieved by your sin? So is Jesus. Are you angry about your sin? So is Jesus. "In your grief, He is grieved. In your distress, He is distressed. ... Be comforted by this: Jesus is angry alongside you. He joins you in your anger. Indeed, He is angrier than you could ever be"17 about your sin. More than this, though, is that Jesus, from His heart, wants to see to your redemption and your restoration infinitely more than even you do--and He will see to it. What is your part in this restoration?
The part you play in this drama of restoration is humility, submission, and honesty. This sin has caused a gaping hole in your life and it has brought about much pain--within your own heart as well as that of others. As for you, Henri Nouwen advises, you will need to work around the abyss that sin has created in your life. This abyss is "so enormous, and your anguish so deep, [that] you will always be tempted to flee from it. There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal."18 There is some work on your part to be accomplished with a therapist or counselor or pastor.
The mission is to understand why you did what you did so that you can learn to think and feel in healthy ways in Christ. Henri encourages: "Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people's response to your experience ... the more you will feel exposed to ridicule."19 You may, for a time, have to "close yourself to the outside world so you can enter your own heart and the heart of God through your pain. God will send to you the people with whom you can share your anguish, who can lead you closer to the true Source of love."20 You will learn to trust Christ implicitly for only He knows who to send to your aid; only He knows how to heal your wounds; only He knows how to bring about your restoration for His glory and for the benefit of your soul. You must cling to God's promises of forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation and restoration.
CONCLUSION
When Jesus restores your ruined life He will bring about a renewed sense of purpose. Don't worry about how long this process takes. That doesn't matter. What matters is the work He is performing within you by His grace and for the ultimate glory of God. Make no certain timeline to the accomplishment of your healing and restoration. His timing is perfect. Live through "your pain gradually and thus deprive it of its power over you." You may be "so afraid of that place [of pain and shame and humiliation] that you think of it as a place of death. Your instinct for survival makes you run away and go looking for something else that can give you a sense of" peace.21 Learn to "weep over your lost" life / ministry / career / relationship "so that they can gradually leave you and you can become free to live fully in the new place" provided for you in Christ "without melancholy or homesickeness."22 Don't worry how long this may take. You're on God's time now.
You have nothing else to do but to discover the grace of God in Christ Jesus--whose heart for you is immensely more intense toward your healing and restoration than you could possibly be. Remember, above all else for the rest of your life, that the meaning of your life is to glorify God. "We are pieces of art, designed to be beautiful, and thus draw attention to our Artist. We are simply made for nothing else. When we live to glorify God, we step into the only truly humanizing way of living."23 If all you do for the rest of your life is live well in Christ, bringing glory to God even in some menial way, that is enough. God doesn't need superstars. He wants His redeemed children to flourish in His Son by the power of His Spirit to bring Him His rightful glory--and the glory of Jesus Christ "is preeminently seen and enjoyed in His love to sinners."24 So we conclude: "Here we are. Just ordinary people, anxiously making our way through life, sinning and suffering, wandering and returning, regretting and despairing, persistently drifting away from a heart sense of what we will enjoy forever if we are in Christ."25
But there is more! God has redeemed us in Christ "in order that, in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:7 NIV). This means that we who are in Christ are eternally safe, because "the one thing we fear will keep us out [of Heaven]--our sin--can only heighten the spectacle of God's grace and kindness."26 This, then, means that "our fallenness now is not an obstacle to enjoying Heaven. It is the key ingredient to enjoying Heaven. Whatever mess we have made of our life--that's part of our final glory and calm and radiance. That thing we've done that sent our life into meltdown--that is where God in Christ becomes more real than ever in this life and more wonderful to us in the next."27 Your sin was nailed to the bloody Cross of Christ Jesus our Lord. You can't reclaim it. Let it be. "Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom He is pleased" (Luke 2:14).
Now, if I can just get myself to believe these truths, I may begin to enjoy my life instead of being consumed with regret and failure of having ruined my life, living with debilitating and severe depression, accompanied by suicidal thoughts and wishes of death. Time will tell.
________
1 Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), 144.
2 Ibid., 27.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 33.
5 Ibid., 37.
6 Ibid., 38.
7 Ibid., 46.
8 Ibid., 49.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., 50.
12 Ibid., 92.
13 Ibid., 94.
14 Ibid., 99.
15 Ibid., 98. I changed "their," "they," and "them" to "our," "we," and "us."
16 Ibid., 111.
17 Ibid., 112. Know that I took some liberty here by quoting this particular passage about being angry with our own sin when the author was referring to Jesus being angry about someone who was wronged or someone who wronged you.
18 Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom (New York: Image Books, 1998), 3.
19 Ibid., 4.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., 26.
22 Ibid., 27.
23 Ortlund, 205.
24 Ibid., 207.
25 Ibid., 209.
26 Ibid., 210.
27 Ibid.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
For believers who have royally messed up their lives, and there are various ways of doing this (so this is really a one-size-fits-all statement), one of the most difficult aspects of this ruination is owning the failure. Just boldly deal with it: own what you did, let others know that you fully own it, and let everyone know how you, too, are equally as horrified by your actions as is everyone else. Shake your head along with everyone else who is shaking their head at your failure. Because if you don't own your own failure then your failure will end up owning you. What that looks like in real life is you living in utter shame and paralyzing fear for the rest of your life. You won't want to be seen in public. You will fear what everyone is saying about you behind your back, what others feel and think of you, and you will attempt to hide yourself from everyone for the rest of your life. Don't do that. Just own it. Face it. Agree with others about your sin. Do what needs to be done to fix the problem that you caused (as much as depends upon you to fixing it if you can). You lost the trust of others. Face it. Own it. You will only gain back the trust of others if you will humble yourself, own your choices and actions, and seek to think and to live healthy in the future.
REMIND YOURSELF CONSTANTLY
This will be extremely difficult, but, keep reminding yourself constantly that if you are trusting in Jesus to save you from your sins by His work on the Cross then you still belong to Him in spite of the horror that you created by your choice to sin and ruin your life (and potentially ruining the life of someone else or of others). If you feel guilty for what you have done then rejoice! You are guilty. Own it. If you feel shame for what you have done then rejoice! Sin is shameful. Own it. But don't sit there in your shame for too long or shame will consume you, control you, and actually hinder your healing toward a healthy way of being in the world. Jesus has already taken your shame and nailed it to His cross: so keep fixing your eyes on Jesus, "the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:2) where you are presently seated with and in Him (Eph. 2:6).
Whatever you do you need to read Dane Ortlund's book, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, and think deeply on what he is conveying to your precious soul. (You can usually find a used copy for a few dollars if you are low on funds.) I am immensely grateful for this book and I think you will benefit from it for years to come. This is a book for anyone who feels as though he or she has made an utter ruin of their lives. In the pages you will discover a God who loves you out of His own heart and has loved you from His heart from all eternity past. You will find a Savior who longs for your restoration to such a degree that He would give His own life for you, to save you, to redeem you from all your failures. This is a Jesus who doesn't want you to run from Him while you are in the pit of your sin but run toward Him. His heart is with you in your turmoil, your failure, your lust, your depression, your suicidal tendencies, your greed, your gossip, your cutting down of others because you secretly loathe your own self. You think you disappoint God. I remember a pastor declaring that you can't let God down because you don't hold God up! Do you really think God was caught off-guard by your sin? He knew it all, my friend, and He still knows all the sins that you will yet commit and He still calls you His beloved adopted child. He wants you to know this love--to experience it.
BUT I'VE FAILED TOO OFTEN, TOO MUCH, TOO GREATLY
Impossible! For the believer in Christ, the adopted child of God, there is no sin you can commit that will make you an abandoned child of God. There is no such thing! That you see your sin for the horror that it truly is in all reality is wonderful! You agree with a righteous, just, and holy God that your sin is frightful, utter darkness, of the devil. Rejoice! For the unredeemed, the unregenerate, the unbeliever does not see his sin in such light. Do you not think God already knew how often you would fail? You're not even done yet in sinning against Him! You have, by His grace and sovereignty, years and years and years left yet to sin against Him. Do you really think you can out-sin the God who describes His own grace as "riches" (Eph. 1:7; 2:4), "surpassing riches" (Eph. 2:7), that this grace is not a thing but a Person--Jesus Himself (Titus 2:11)? Moreover, the grace and mercy of God in Christ speaks of the nature of God, meaning that God is grace and He is mercy. God did not save you because you cleaned yourself up and approached Him (Rom. 5:6, 8, 9). He knew what He was doing when He saved you; and He knew all that you would do in Christ, the good and the horrible, and He saved you anyway! He loved you anyway! You are His and He will never let you go.
Dane Ortlund writes: "For God to be merciful is for God to be God."1 We admit the same regarding God's love. For God to be loving toward His own redeemed sinners-saints, His adopted children, is for God to be God because God is love by nature and by definition (1 John 4:8). When we sin--especially when our sin is truly heinous in nature and quite destructive--what we long to know is that God still loves us, that Jesus will not forsake us, that the Holy Spirit will not leave us. We have the very promise of God Himself in this regard: "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you" (Heb. 13:5); "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" (John 6:37). There is no condition attached to these promises: there is no mention of God refusing to forsake us, or of Jesus promising to never cast us out, if we remain faithful to Him. God is the One who must fulfill His own promises to His children because we are too weak, too frail in our fallen frame, to walk sinlessly and thus please Him perfectly. Only Jesus, fully human and fully God, could sinlessly obey the Father (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15). We may be rich in sin but God's riches of grace and mercy are entirely without accountable measure.
SEEING JESUS RIGHTLY
We can't even begin to imagine being restored in Christ--to God, to family and friends, to the church--until we see Jesus rightly. Our sin clouds our judgment of Jesus. We too often cast God in our own fallen image. We imagine that God is all Law and sparing on grace. But what if we discovered that Jesus, who revealed His very heart toward believers as being gentle and humble (Matt. 11:28, 29. 30), "most naturally gravitates" toward the person who seems to be drowning in his sins and failures?2 Yes, Jesus is holy, and He is righteous. "But the dominant note left ringing in our ears after reading the Gospels, the most vivid and arresting element of the portrait [of Jesus], is the way the Holy Son of God moves toward, touches, heals, embraces, and forgives those who least deserve it yet truly desire it."3 You, believer, are still loved by God as much as you were prior to your sin and failure. "Jesus Christ is [even] closer to you today than He was to the sinners and sufferers He spoke with and touched in His earthly ministry."4 Some of the people He healed and loved on never became redeemed children of God. Here you are, graced by God to believe in Christ by the awakening power of the Holy Spirit, forever sealed as His redeemed child. The Holy Spirit Himself took up residence within you when He regenerated you (John 3:3, 5, 6, 7, 8; Rom. 8:9, 11; Eph. 2:1, 2, 3, 5, 8; Titus 3:5) and that residence was to guarantee with eternal and absolute certainty your final redemption as God's own glorious possession (Eph. 1:13, 14). Your sin, your failure, may have caused untold damage but that sin has no power to undo all that God has accomplished for your salvation.
Why? Or how? Because you cannot escape from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus "went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limitless supply of mercy and grace to His people. ... Christ gets more joy and comfort than we do when we come to Him for help."5 Jesus loves to give of Himself--and He is grace, mercy, and love personified. "When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of His own deepest wishes, not against them."6 I didn't grow up knowing this Jesus. I was raised to learn of the fundamentalist Jesus, the Jesus who loved Law instead of grace, and the Jesus who, if you messed up your life, you will spend the rest of your life in turmoil, shame, and failure without restoration. That, my friends, is a false god--a wicked and perverted idol of legalists and fundamentalists. The Jesus of the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament is a Savior who suffers with us (cf. Acts 9:4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Heb. 4:14, 15, 16)--even in the sins that trip us up so very often.
Jesus shares in our suffering even when that suffering is in sin? "In our pain, Jesus is pained; in our suffering, He feels the suffering as His own even though it isn't--not that His invincible divinity is threatened, but in the sense that His heart is feelingly drawn into our distress. His human nature engages our troubles comprehensively. His is a love that cannot be held back when He sees His people in pain."7 "Our difficulties draw out a depth of feeling in Christ beyond what we know."8 But even in our sin? Because Jesus was fully human, fully man, He "therefore knows the strength of temptation better than any of us. Only He truly knows the cost."9 When we dig our own hole of sin, He runs to us with compassion, even though "He Himself is not trapped in the hole of sin with us; [so then] He alone can pull us out. His sinlessness is our salvation."10 When we sin, we want to run away from Jesus, not to Him. But "He cannot bear to hold Himself at a distance. Nothing can hold Him back. His heart is too bound up with yours."11 Can we, then, live freely and happily in the filth of sin? God forbid. "We are indeed called to forsake our sins and no healthy Christian would suggest otherwise. When we choose to sin, we forsake our true identity as a child of God, we invite misery into our lives, and we displease our heavenly Father."12 Don't let anyone convince you to sin so that God's grace may continually increase: "How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" (Rom. 6:1, 2; cf. Rom. 6:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14).
But let's not fool ourselves, either. "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8). Even the most perceived saintly among us still sins, for no one among us is without sin, except Christ Jesus our Lord. "Do not minimize your sin or excuse it away. Raise no defense. Simply take it [continually--every time you sin] to the One who is already at the right hand of the Father, advocating [being a trial lawyer] for you on the basis of His own wounds. Let your own unrighteousness, in all your darkness and despair, drive you [always and each time you sin] to Jesus Christ, the righteous, in all His brightness and sufficiency."13 Preachers used to encourage their flock to "keep short accounts with God," meaning, each time you sin then take it immediately to God. We are always to be "destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and ... taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5). But, when you fail, let "Jesus draw you in through the loveliness of His heart."14 Jesus is always ready to receive and restore us! "Given our sinfulness, we are shocked to find that our sins cause Him to be all the more ready to plunge us into His heart. 'We unexpectedly find Him with open arms to embrace us, ready forever to forget all our sins as though [the sins] had never been [committed].'"15
RESTORE ME, LORD, RESTORE ME
If you immediately thought about restoration as that of Jesus giving you back your ministry, your career, your family, your friends or whatever it is that your sin caused you to lose, that is not what is meant here by restoration. Yes, some ministers do get their ministry back, and others do not--depending upon the severity of the sin and the beliefs and practices of varying congregations. At the very least the Lord may graciously give you a ministry to help others who have fallen. That brings the Lord as much glory as does any other ministry. (Let us also remember that if God could only use sinless people in ministry then He couldn't use anyone among us.) Sin, for our part, causes a separation in relationship with God (Isa. 59:2). This is why we want to run from God after we sin (Gen. 3:8). Running, however, is not what the heart of Jesus wants from us--His redeemed people. Filthy in our sin, tattered by the ravages of our failure, Jesus comes looking for us (though He never truly left us), wanting to restore to us a right state of mind and of heart. I don't know about your future. But I do know that Jesus longs to restore His fallen children--to His Father, to His people (the Church), and to the family and friends of the person He restores.
Jesus loves to bring about restoration (cf. Joel 3:1; Amos 9:14; Nahum 2:2; Zeph. 2:7; 3:20; Zech. 9:12; Mal. 4:6; Matt. 17:11; Mark 9:12; Acts 15:16; 2 Cor. 5:17, 18, 19, 20); He loves to heal brokenness--broken people, broken relationships, broken circumstances. One day God will restore all that was lost in the Garden of Eden when He makes all things new (cf. Isa. 43:18, 19; 65:17; Rev. 21:5). "Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently" (Gal. 6:1 NIV). Jesus "hates with a righteous hatred all that plagues you,"16 even sin, even temptations to sin. Are you grieved by your sin? So is Jesus. Are you angry about your sin? So is Jesus. "In your grief, He is grieved. In your distress, He is distressed. ... Be comforted by this: Jesus is angry alongside you. He joins you in your anger. Indeed, He is angrier than you could ever be"17 about your sin. More than this, though, is that Jesus, from His heart, wants to see to your redemption and your restoration infinitely more than even you do--and He will see to it. What is your part in this restoration?
The part you play in this drama of restoration is humility, submission, and honesty. This sin has caused a gaping hole in your life and it has brought about much pain--within your own heart as well as that of others. As for you, Henri Nouwen advises, you will need to work around the abyss that sin has created in your life. This abyss is "so enormous, and your anguish so deep, [that] you will always be tempted to flee from it. There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal."18 There is some work on your part to be accomplished with a therapist or counselor or pastor.
The mission is to understand why you did what you did so that you can learn to think and feel in healthy ways in Christ. Henri encourages: "Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people's response to your experience ... the more you will feel exposed to ridicule."19 You may, for a time, have to "close yourself to the outside world so you can enter your own heart and the heart of God through your pain. God will send to you the people with whom you can share your anguish, who can lead you closer to the true Source of love."20 You will learn to trust Christ implicitly for only He knows who to send to your aid; only He knows how to heal your wounds; only He knows how to bring about your restoration for His glory and for the benefit of your soul. You must cling to God's promises of forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation and restoration.
CONCLUSION
When Jesus restores your ruined life He will bring about a renewed sense of purpose. Don't worry about how long this process takes. That doesn't matter. What matters is the work He is performing within you by His grace and for the ultimate glory of God. Make no certain timeline to the accomplishment of your healing and restoration. His timing is perfect. Live through "your pain gradually and thus deprive it of its power over you." You may be "so afraid of that place [of pain and shame and humiliation] that you think of it as a place of death. Your instinct for survival makes you run away and go looking for something else that can give you a sense of" peace.21 Learn to "weep over your lost" life / ministry / career / relationship "so that they can gradually leave you and you can become free to live fully in the new place" provided for you in Christ "without melancholy or homesickeness."22 Don't worry how long this may take. You're on God's time now.
You have nothing else to do but to discover the grace of God in Christ Jesus--whose heart for you is immensely more intense toward your healing and restoration than you could possibly be. Remember, above all else for the rest of your life, that the meaning of your life is to glorify God. "We are pieces of art, designed to be beautiful, and thus draw attention to our Artist. We are simply made for nothing else. When we live to glorify God, we step into the only truly humanizing way of living."23 If all you do for the rest of your life is live well in Christ, bringing glory to God even in some menial way, that is enough. God doesn't need superstars. He wants His redeemed children to flourish in His Son by the power of His Spirit to bring Him His rightful glory--and the glory of Jesus Christ "is preeminently seen and enjoyed in His love to sinners."24 So we conclude: "Here we are. Just ordinary people, anxiously making our way through life, sinning and suffering, wandering and returning, regretting and despairing, persistently drifting away from a heart sense of what we will enjoy forever if we are in Christ."25
But there is more! God has redeemed us in Christ "in order that, in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:7 NIV). This means that we who are in Christ are eternally safe, because "the one thing we fear will keep us out [of Heaven]--our sin--can only heighten the spectacle of God's grace and kindness."26 This, then, means that "our fallenness now is not an obstacle to enjoying Heaven. It is the key ingredient to enjoying Heaven. Whatever mess we have made of our life--that's part of our final glory and calm and radiance. That thing we've done that sent our life into meltdown--that is where God in Christ becomes more real than ever in this life and more wonderful to us in the next."27 Your sin was nailed to the bloody Cross of Christ Jesus our Lord. You can't reclaim it. Let it be. "Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom He is pleased" (Luke 2:14).
Now, if I can just get myself to believe these truths, I may begin to enjoy my life instead of being consumed with regret and failure of having ruined my life, living with debilitating and severe depression, accompanied by suicidal thoughts and wishes of death. Time will tell.
________
1 Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), 144.
2 Ibid., 27.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 33.
5 Ibid., 37.
6 Ibid., 38.
7 Ibid., 46.
8 Ibid., 49.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., 50.
12 Ibid., 92.
13 Ibid., 94.
14 Ibid., 99.
15 Ibid., 98. I changed "their," "they," and "them" to "our," "we," and "us."
16 Ibid., 111.
17 Ibid., 112. Know that I took some liberty here by quoting this particular passage about being angry with our own sin when the author was referring to Jesus being angry about someone who was wronged or someone who wronged you.
18 Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom (New York: Image Books, 1998), 3.
19 Ibid., 4.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., 26.
22 Ibid., 27.
23 Ortlund, 205.
24 Ibid., 207.
25 Ibid., 209.
26 Ibid., 210.
27 Ibid.
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