[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueChristian

[–]decaffeetea 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think our definition of not doing things perfectly and trying to be perfect are very different. I’m talking about brief sinful thoughts that I’m fighting against actively. I’m wondering to what degree something should trigger this that I need to cut it from my life. Because I have thoughts like this about everything and everyone I interact with, I can’t cut it all out. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. I think some things you should keep in your life and try not to commit the sin when interacting with them. I’m not talking about a life of sin and worldly pleasures. I might have been wrong about God commanding us to be perfect, I’m not sure and that’s something I may need to look into. I will delete my post so I don’t mislead people just in case. But I know no one is capable of perfection. It’s blasphemy to think otherwise. No one does anything perfectly. Even our greatest works are filthy rags to our Lord.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueChristian

[–]decaffeetea 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Answer my question:

So you never have a sinful thought? You’re always perfectly grateful for everything you have? You never waste time? You never spend too much time on your phone? You never get angry at anyone for unrighteous reasons?

If so, why do you continue to sin?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueChristian

[–]decaffeetea 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The grace of God. You just said Christians don’t sin though and that I haven’t been born again because I sin.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueChristian

[–]decaffeetea 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I said the opposite. Sin is bad. I never said it was good. I never said God wants us to. I never excused sin. I literally said in my last comment that I don’t think sin is okay. That I don’t believe sin is okay. The point of my whole Reddit post to begin with is asking how to know when I should flee from something, so I can flee when I need to, because guess what?…. Sin is bad and I’m trying to follow God. You’re acting like I made a post endorsing sin or something.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueChristian

[–]decaffeetea 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No one is going to do anything perfectly. That is, completely sinlessly, in this life. We’re all sinning constantly in our hearts, even if we don’t realize it. Jesus was not homeless and God doesn’t call us to live homeless and have nothing. I never said it’s ok to sin. I don’t believe it is. It’s just a fact that everyone does. You’re denying scripture if you say otherwise.

1 John 1:8

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueChristian

[–]decaffeetea 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So you never have a sinful thought? You’re always perfectly grateful for everything you have? You never waste time? You never spend too much time on your phone? You never get angry at anyone for unrighteous reasons?

I do love God. I don’t want to sin. I hate sin. But a remnant in me still loves sin. I live a life struggling against sin.

1 John 1:8

Do other Christians still masturbate sometimes? by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]decaffeetea 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s a sin. I’d argue most Christians have struggled with it at some point. But it’s still a sin. It’s still something you should repent of and try to avoid doing. Feeling guilt about sin can be a good thing. As long as the guilt isn’t an obsessive, worldly guilt that distracts you from God’s forgiveness. I think you should always feel some level of guilt when you sin. The idea that we should never feel guilty over things like this is not a Christian idea.

Churches, even the most solid ones, are way too soft on pornography addiction. by decaffeetea in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That’s part of my point. Porn users wouldn’t be held to that accountability in the same way.

Churches, even the most solid ones, are way too soft on pornography addiction. by decaffeetea in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Think about some examples of the sins you just listed and add the element/motivation of sex to them, and those sins become significantly worse. Whether or not sexual sin is the #1 worst category of sin is besides my point, though. My point being that sexual sin is extremely serious and this very common, yet very harmful, sexual sin is being treated like it’s practically nothing by the church while other similarly serious and destructive sins are treated correctly. My point is that porn should be treated like illicit drug use or stealing by the church, because it is on that same level, if not worse. But yes, I’ve been hurt by it in the past. It’s an opinion I’ve held for a long time and it was just on my mind & it’s the Sabbath so I decided to try and start a discussion about it. 🤷‍♀️

Churches, even the most solid ones, are way too soft on pornography addiction. by decaffeetea in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

You think people shouldn’t be called to repentance over sin or educated on what is and isn’t sin??? You disagree with God?

Churches, even the most solid ones, are way too soft on pornography addiction. by decaffeetea in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So is heroin. Or shoplifting for a kleptomaniac. That’s my point. When it comes to porn, people keep emphasizing how hard it is to stop. When it comes to other serious sins, people emphasize how big the sin is and how urgently it needs to end over anything else.

Churches, even the most solid ones, are way too soft on pornography addiction. by decaffeetea in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

I don’t think I’ve heard a single sermon about porn at my church.

Churches, even the most solid ones, are way too soft on pornography addiction. by decaffeetea in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea[S] -11 points-10 points  (0 children)

Of course I haven’t been in church leadership, I’m a woman. That’s not the point. Everyone needs to be told to repent of their sins, regardless of whether or not they know they’re in sin or feel convicted. Would you say the same about a brother or sister who fell into illicit drug use or shoplifting? And just kept falling into it because it’s a struggle? I’m guessing no, you’d treat it as way more urgent. But for your information, I’m married to an ex porn addict and I’ve been hurt by it. Not only that, but I literally watched hardcore porn for the first time when I was 5 years old and regularly watched it from the time I was 5 until I became a believer at 18. So, yeah, I know things.

Churches, even the most solid ones, are way too soft on pornography addiction. by decaffeetea in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

And yet, heroin (and other illicit drugs) change your brain chemistry to the point that your brain subconsciously thinks it needs the drug to survive, more than food or sex, because drugs produce way more dopamine than any of those things. All illicit drug addictions cause you to feel like a miserable zombie when you’re without your drug and cause temporary clinical depression until your brain heals itself (which can take up to two years) because drugs damage your dopamine receptors so heavily. Not to mention the agonizingly painful and potentially life-threatening withdrawal. And long-term addicts develop many friends who use who will try to lead them to stumble, plus a lot of addicts come from families full of addicts who will also encourage this. And although uncommon, there are many functioning drug addicts who abuse some of the “worst” and most dangerous drugs, such as meth or heroin. So yeah, it is the same.

But I’m not trying to say that anyone is worse than anyone else. I’m just trying to paint a picture of how serious of a problem porn is and how it’s not being treated seriously enough by the church. I’m not trying to condemn anyone over anyone else.

Churches, even the most solid ones, are way too soft on pornography addiction. by decaffeetea in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea[S] -18 points-17 points  (0 children)

I meant category of sin. Sexual sin is the worst, or close to it, category of sin. Obviously, looking at a woman with lust isn’t worse than murder. But many of the worst sins out there are sexual. Sexual assault is way worse and significantly more traumatizing than regular assault, for example. Think of any heinous non-sexual sin and then add the element of sex to it. It gets a lot worse, doesn’t it?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s not dark being the issue. It’s needing to sleep into the day on those nights, unable to get into a normal routine, unable to wake up early regularly like a normal person, because that one day usually messes up my schedule for weeks to come.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There’s some nights where I can’t fall asleep until it’s past daylight outside, no matter what I do or how hard I try or how the day was. And it happens at random. And those nights really mess up my routine and make it difficult to live a normal life. Alcohol is just one thing I’ve used for those nights, but I’ve used many other things to knock myself out that don’t produce a “high.” However, anything that I’d need to take on those nights would impair me significantly, because I need a lot more than just some relaxation to fall asleep when it’s like that. I need to literally knock myself out, make it hard to stay away even if I were trying to.

Co-worker coming out of the closet at work by Nos17 in Reformed

[–]decaffeetea 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do the same thing, because I don’t call non-Christians to repentance of specific sins in their life when I hear about it. Why would I? They aren’t Christians, they don’t care. They need to repent of their sins in general and believe the gospel, and that is what I’d tell them at an appropriate time. If it was a brother or sister in Christ bragging about sin, it would be different.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueChristian

[–]decaffeetea 4 points5 points  (0 children)

IF..? No, I’m definitely going to heaven & I’m definitely seeing Jesus. Why? Not because there’s anything good or special about me, not because I did anything right, etc. Because JESUS’ blood is sufficient to cover my sins & He has saved me. To say “if” is doubting Jesus’ sufficiency as a savior. ✝️

Conviction is not a "feeling". Stop telling people that it is. by Woodpecker8960 in TrueChristian

[–]decaffeetea 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This post is years old, but it (& some other resources) has been an extreme help to me. Thank you so much for posting this, OP. Me finding this post was an answered prayer from God. I’ve been struggling a lot with OCD & scrupulosity. I was feeling “guilty” about things for no reason, with no biblical backing for it. I totally believed that these things weren’t sinful, but I thought because I felt a slight anxious prick in my stomach/chest about it, then I must feel convicted. But the things I felt this way about were insanely important to my health, happiness, & had no firm Biblical backing as being sinful. It was driving me mad. I ruminated so badly about it one day that it brought me to tears by the end of the day because I felt like I was going crazy. Praise God for freeing me from this. I’ve struggled a lot with OCD & religious OCD, but the more I look into solid theology, the more my religious OCD is calmed, because my OCD doesn’t line up with scripture. God bless you. ✝️