Body of Death

"O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Romans 7:25

Q: I am aware that I am a sinner and I want to be saved, but...how can I be forgiven by God if I love to hurt people? How can I be forgiven if I am a lesbian and don't see the problem in it? How can I be forgiven if I manipulate, lie, insult and have sadistic thoughts? How? I don't really feel guilty about what I have done. If I ever feel guilty, it won't last long. I can be really narcissistic. I sometimes feel that I'm better than most people. I tend to rationalize everything to the point where I can't understand why would someone feel guilty about murdering another person. I even watch animal abuse videos and don't feel anything. Maybe a little joy. I don't want to go to hell, how can I start feeling sorry for my sins?

A: You are already forgiven by God. "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them (2 Corinthians 5:19)." It is not a question of how can you be forgiven. In His love for you, God died on the cross in the Person of Jesus Christ. That is why the Bible says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)." Furthermore, the fact that you are on a Christian forum, confessing your sins and asking questions about hell and your dilemma is an indication that something is stirring inside of you that is leading you to the point where you recognize something is missing in your life. All of these sins you are describing you have committed and are enjoying is because you are looking to have the deepest desires of your heart for unconditional love, total acceptance, meaning, and purpose to life met outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ. And you will never be satisfied. You are spiritually dead. Nothing in this world will meet those needs. Apart from faith in Jesus Christ and having the Holy Spirit of God raise you from the dead, you will fall deeper and deeper into sin. God designed you in such a way that only He can meet those needs you have inside of you. He put them there. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is composed of two things; the bad news and the Good News. The bad news is that all mankind is born into this world spiritually dead to God. We are alive to the world, physically, but dead to God, spiritually. Man was created in the image of God, with His life indwelling us. Genesis 2:7 says, "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." The breath of life is the Holy Spirit of God. God gave the man, Adam, a warning in Genesis 2:17. There it reads, "but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." Adam would eventually eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and would die.

However, the death he experienced was not a physical death. That would come later. The Bible records that Adam lived 930 years (Genesis 5:5) before he physically died. The death he experienced when he ate the forbidden fruit was a spiritual death; the life of God was removed from Him. However, Adam, and his wife Eve, did not have any children before they sinned. Therefore, all of the children they had, and thus, all people on earth to this day, are born in the image and likeness of Adam (Genesis 5:3); spiritually dead to God. But the Good News is that God, in His love, desired to restore Himself to mankind, but before He could accomplish that, He had to deal with the sin that caused Him to remove His life, to begin with. That is where Jesus Christ enters the picture. Sin is so terrible that it required the death of God as payment; a perfect and holy God required a holy and perfect sacrifice. Jesus, God in the flesh, was that sacrifice. Being God, He lived a perfect life we could not and died a death He didn't deserve to pay for our sins. Now, through His resurrection, He can offer that life once again to all who respond to Him in faith. Once a person does that, the life of God comes to indwell them for all eternity. That is why Jesus said, "You must be born again (John 3:7);" born once physically, born again spiritually through the restoration of the life of God. And because of the once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, there is no sin that can cause God to remove His life again. Therefore, the life you have is an eternal life that will carry you through the rest of your physical life and on throughout eternity. Whether you are at the point to accept Jesus Christ, I do not know. But, God is patient with you. However, I would ask Him to reveal Himself to you, clear up the questions, etc. I trust, when the time comes, He will make Himself known to you in a way you will recognize. God Bless you on your journey.