I am only 14
Which means both physically mentally and spiritually I'm sure I have a lot of growing to do
But I'm truly at a loss religiously
A couple years ago I was very religious
Now I only believe in God because of logic
About 3 years ago I started struggling with sin and God went quiet I have since cried and prayed every prayer
Silence
I feel pulled back to that spiritual relationship though which is why I still try to call out even after 3 years of doing everything I can think to communicate with God
So, what's the purpose wise guys? Why is God done with me?
God isn't done with you. Not at all. But God is God. He says how things will go between you; He dictates how you may know and enjoy Him; He's the Leader, you're the follower. When you act contrary to this dynamic, when you step away from God's control and set your own course, doing what you want even when it is clearly against what God has commanded, well, He will let you but the consequence of your rebellion is, in part, what you're now experiencing.
God wants a love-relationship with you (
Matthew 22:36-38; 1 John 4:16-19), which requires that you be free to choose to submit to His will and way - or not. And so, when you start steering your own course, following your own desires and will, God allows you to do so. Instead of forcing you to do as He wants, He waits for you to return to a place of submission before Him by your own free choice. Only once you've done so, will interaction resume.
Anyway, I don't know what you mean by "I was very religious." It seems, from what you go on to write, that you mean you believed in God for reasons beyond logic. Is this right?
You mention a "spiritual relationship" with God. What do you mean by this? Do you know what the Bible says this relationship looks like? I ask because, in the thirty years I've been discipling guys, when I ask them this question for the first time, they don't know how to answer. Usually, they start talking about what
they're doing for God, not what
God is doing in, and to, and through them.
When the Bible talks about knowing and experiencing God in the variety of ways it describes, it is actually talking about
the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ (
Romans 8:9; Philippians 1:19), the Spirit of God (
Matthew 3:16; Acts 2:17; Romans 8:9). The Holy Spirit connects us to God, living within a person and working to make them more and more like Jesus Christ, revealing the character and power of God to the person of whom he's made his "temple" (
1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19-20). Without the Holy Spirit living inside of you, there is no salvation, no being "born again," as Jesus described in
John 3:3-7, no being made a "new creature in Christ" (
2 Corinthians 5:17).
Romans 8:9-11
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
1 John 4:13
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
Titus 3:4-5
4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
So, then, when Christians speak of "walking with God," of "fellowship" with Him, what they are speaking of, whether they understand it or not, is
life in the Spirit. You and I experience God in the Person of the Holy Spirit who does a variety of things in and through us - if we'll walk in loving, holy, faithful submission to him, throughout each day.
Romans 11:36 - Romans 12:1
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 6:13-14
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
James 4:6-10
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Being consciously and consistently under God's control, under the Spirit's control, is essential to "walking with God."
Having strayed from God's control into sin, how do you return to a right relationship with Him? There are three essential steps to restoring fellowship with God and experiencing the life and work of the Holy Spirit in you again:
1.
Repent. (
Acts 8:21-22; James 4:8-10; Revelation 2:5)
Change your mind about your sin. See the lies that have brought you into sin and reject them for God's truth, instead.
2.
Confess. (
1 John 1:9)
Admit to God that your sin and the lies you've told yourself that have brought you into sin are what they are: lies and sin. Agree with God that your sin is the evil rebellion that He says it is.
3.
Submit. (
Romans 6:13; Romans 12:1; James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:6)
Consciously, explicitly
yield yourself to God's authority and control.
Some time ago, I had a chat with a guy in his early twenties who wanted a deeper walk with God. I talked to him about some of the things I've written to you above, urging him, in particular, to live in constant submission to his Maker. He agreed to do so over the following week and then meet with me again to discuss his experience. When I saw him a week later, he reported that "it didn't work"; submission to God hadn't produced the effect he was hoping for.
Whenever I get this response from fellows learning to live in daily submission to God, I ask some probing questions:
"What were your expectations of God's response to your submission to Him? Are those expectations biblical? What has God said in His word He will do in response to our submission to Him?"
I pointed out to the young guy that whether he got the response from God he wanted, or not,
submission to God is a non-negotiable of Christian living. There is no walking with God apart from constant, conscious submission to Him. Submission is "ground zero" for Christian living.
I also asked the young man the following:
"With whom are you relating, exactly? Describe Him. What does who God is mean to how you interact with Him?"
We talked, the young man and I, about God's omniscience, power and holiness and what these things meant to how the young man approached God. As we did, the young man realized how casually he was regarding God, and how careless of God's "protocols of approach" he was being. He would, for instance, pray to God from a life full of spiritual and moral compromise. He had also not thought carefully about what it meant to his interactions with God that the deepest recesses of his heart were fully exposed to God. He had not considered well what it meant for him to interact with a Being in whom there is no darkness at all. And so, when he embarked on the attempt to live in submission to God, all of his careless thinking about God colored his doing so which, of course, fouled the effect of his attempts to submit to God (which was, as we talked, not really submission at all).
The young man was actually trying to submit to a God that didn't exist, you see. The real God was obscure and contorted in the mind of the young man into a sort of cartoon with which the young man was attempting to interact. As you'd expect, the cartoon, not being real, made no response to the young man's attempt to submit. So, be careful that you aren't trying to do the same.
There's more to be said on all of what I've shared with you, but if you want to know more, I'll wait on your saying so before I continue. Be assured, though, that God isn't done with you. Perhaps, though, you have yet to actually meet Him.
