To breno785au:
I know. It's ridiculous, on the face of it. I actually haven't been sitting on my hands all this time, though. More on what I have been trying in my reply to Scribe, below. In addition, I have been seeing Christion counselors and psychologists, when I could afford it. In between, dealing with the hard scrabble of being alive,
To Scribe:
I have been in Spirit filled churches, but they weren't much help. Most of the members just seemed to say "Get over it!", but I couldn't do that without knowing for certain that he--call him Mike--wasn't accurate in his estimation. Others kept focusing on whether Mike had the right to estimate my spiritual progress, while I am much more concerned with whether or not he was ACCURATE! Bless their hearts, they prayed hard for me, and one group even tried to exorcise me--a surreal experience--but nothing helped me to have any confidence that God actually loves me, or that Jesus hadn't rejected me. Scribe, you are the first person to address the question of whether Mike was accurate: please tell me more, if you can.
Since the obvious advice that I have mentioned, and that you have already received from various sources. does not seem to be dealing with the issue in your own mind I suspect (but can't be sure on an internet chat site) some sort of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that could be a demonic attack or simply an explainable mental process people put themselves through based on a "feeling" they are trying to achieve. In this case you are probably trying to "feel" a clear conscience and right standing and fellowship with God and you have a nagging suspicion that you are not truly repentant or bearing fruit acceptable to God.
Lets use the example of someone who checks their front door to make sure it is locked and 30 minutes later they feel the overwhelming need to check it again. They think "I already did that" and then they question themselves "Didn't I?" and they feel not sure, and this feeling does not go away, so they get up and go check it again just to put the nagging feeling to rest. Now many of us have experienced something like this before and we were not chronically OCD. However there is something similar of a spiritual nature where you have a nagging conscience about whether you are "pleasing God."
This man who told you where you were failing and whether he is accurate or not has become the focal point for you in your quest for a clear conscience and in order to capture that "joy of the Lord" that you feel is missing.
I could be way off, so understand my descriptions of what you might be going through is more of a question to you.
So you might be thinking:
Should you own it (the man's opinions) and repent? Would that be the end of it? If you do that and he was wrong are you sinning by false confession? If you don't own it are you being stubborn and not repentant? And if you are not being repentant are you going to hell? Are you no longer in fellowship with God? Is there something between you and God because you are not dealing with the issues the man pointed out, have not agreed that he was right, or somehow can't see what he sees?
True repentance is no easy thing, and yet it is a prayer away. If you simply tell God that you believe that Jesus paid the price for all of your sins and these failures that were pointed out to you, and you lay them at the foot of the cross and believe that the Blood of Jesus washes you clean, and that you are righteous in the eyes of the Lord despite all of your past failures, and that God sees you as righteous, and blameless because of Jesus, and that
if this man was right you acknowledge it and if he was wrong you understand that all of our best efforts are as filthy rags anyway and so it really does not matter you are going to depend totally on the righteousness of Jesus Christ to justify you and not your own TRACK RECORD which is what this man was pointing out.
Then after praying like that just begin to worship and praise Jesus and maybe even sing a song to Him. You might sing scriptures since it is the Word of God that Jesus used to defeat satan's attacks we should follow that example. Saying "It is written: 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Every time the thoughts come tempting you to analyze the list the man gave or whether he was right or not, just begin to Praise and worship Jesus out loud until the thoughts go away. Do this for two weeks if necessary. I believe youe spiritual OCD will be broken before the two weeks are up.
But be prepared for the attack to shift. Something new will come along for you to torture over. A new accusation that will tell you that you are not right with God because... (fill in the blank) Do the same thing, just begin to Praise God and tell him how much you Love Him and how you are glad that the Blood of Jesus cleanses you from all sin. Sing a song of praise to the Lord. Do this until your mind is off the accusation and when it comes back start the Praise again.
This kind of spiritual OCD is not uncommon. The Joy of the Lord and the clear conscience will be tangible most of the time, but there will be times when we get attacked and we have to remember not to base our faith that we are righteous on a "feeling." Or our track record.
I did not give a lot of scriptures because I get the impression that you already know them. You probably already know what scripture verses to speak out loud like the one I gave from 1 John 1:9 when you are declaring your faith that you are sinless in the eyes of the Lord because of Jesus Christ. Praising and worshiping the Lord when under mental attack by singing and just telling him how much you Love him is also a powerful weapon in this warfare and my contribution here is to let you know that this method of worshiping rather than analyzing the accusation has been used by others who testify that it worked and set them free and they have never had the problem repeat itself years later.
One of the reasons I mentioned "a Spirit Filled Church" is that some people have never just sang to the Lord out loud with lifted hands of surrender and told him they Loved him making up their own words and singing their own song. This kind of worship and praise is not what they are used to. I can point them to a Spirit Filled church and they might discover that this was what they were looking for but did not know where to find it.
There is a whole new level of relationship with the Lord when you can break that ice and be free in your expression of Love to Him and it will help you to break through this mental war you are going through.
Someone who is only worshipping God in their head and with mental intellectual assents will feel uncomfortable singing to the Lord alone with exuberant praise the first time they try it, but I believe their whole life will change for the better as a result.
And if none of this applied to you, I believe it will help many others who may read it on CC because there are many forms of "spiritual OCD" that satan uses to attack us. He is called the accuser of the brethren for a reason. It is his number one strategy in this spiritual warfare we are engaged in.
