For twenty five years, I lived like God had given up on me. And honestly? I couldn’t blame Him.
Sexual addiction. Substance abuse. You name it, I tried it. Twice. A life built on lies I believed about myself and the God I thought had abandoned me somewhere around age thirteen. By the time I hit forty, I wasn’t just empty. I was a shell autopiloting through the same destructive patterns I’d rehearsed my entire adult life.
Then one morning, broken and desperate, I cried out to God. And He showed up.
Not with a sermon. Not with shame. With presence. With the kind of radical, instantaneous deliverance that makes you wonder if you imagined your entire life up until that moment. The sexual addiction that had ruled me for decades? Gone. The cravings that used to scream at 2 a.m.? Silent.
It was a miracle. A genuine, no-other-explanation-for-it miracle.
And then I was jarred back to reality by a text from my drug dealer and realized: Now what?
The Challenge: I then had to deal with the secular “brand” I built for myself. If you were known as the “party animal” or the “mean girl,” I’ll be honest, you may have a bumpy road ahead. The Holy Spirit has been so central in helping me navigate the messy situations where my spiritual authenticity has been questioned and in extending grace to those who don’t understand it.
Because here’s what nobody tells you about God’s instant work. It’s the starting gun, not the finish line. The miracle gets you to the race. The discipline is what gets you across.
You’ve Been Trying to Improve Someone God Already Killed
If you’ve been a Christian for more than five minutes, you’ve probably heard about being “born again”. But let’s be honest. Most of us treat it like a metaphor. A nice spiritual upgrade. Jesus 2.0.
It’s not.
When God regenerates you, He doesn’t improve your old self. He executes it. The person you were, the one who believed the lies, who autopiloted through sin, who thought they were too far gone. That person is dead. Gone. Buried with Christ.
What rises in its place is a completely new spirit. Not “you, but better.” A fundamentally different you, with God’s own nature implanted in you like an incorruptible seed.
This isn’t self-help Christianity. This is resurrection.
The problem? Your soul (your mind, your will, your emotions) didn’t get the memo. Neither did your body. They’re still running on the old operating system, the autopilot you programmed through years of believing you were worthless, alone and beyond repair.
So God gives you a new spirit instantly. But He gives you the rest of your life to teach your soul and body to catch up.
The Tension No One Warned You About
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
The moment God delivered me, I thought I was fixed. I genuinely believed that because the addictions were gone, the hard part was over. I’d show up to Youtube church, read my Bible, and coast into glory on the momentum of that one miraculous moment.
I lasted about two weeks before I hit a wall.
Not the wall of temptation. I was genuinely free from the cravings. The wall of me. My thought patterns. My reflexes. My decades-old habit of reaching for something, anything, to numb the discomfort of being fully present in my own life.
God had changed my spirit, but my soul was still running scripts I didn’t even know I’d memorized. Scripts like:
- “You’re only valuable if you’re doing enough.”
- “Never Show your true emotions, people will take advantage of you if you do.”
- “Asking for help is weakness.”
- “If you stop moving, you’ll have to feel everything you’ve been avoiding.”
And that’s when I realized. The miracle was God’s part. The discipline is mine.
Not because God won’t finish what He started. He will. But because transformation isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you walk out in cooperation with the Spirit who’s already inside you, doing the heavy lifting.
Religion Says Try Harder. Jesus Says You Died.
Let me be brutally clear about something. This is not a “try harder” sermon.
If you’re exhausted from white-knuckling your way through Christianity, frantically trying to be good enough for a God who you think is keeping score. Stop. You’re working a job that doesn’t exist anymore.
The “try harder” gospel is the one that keeps you trapped in shame, cataloging your failures, and wondering when God’s going to finally give up on you. (Spoiler: He won’t. Because the old you that could “fail” is already dead.)
The gospel Jesus actually offers is this. You already died. Now learn to live like it.
That’s what discipline is. Not striving. Not earning. Not performing for an audience of One who’s usually disappointed.
Discipline is the daily practice of remembering who you already are and letting that truth leak out into the parts of your life that are still stuck on autopilot.
It’s choosing to pray when your flesh wants to scroll.
It’s sitting in the discomfort of silence instead of reaching for the vices you use to distract and buffer.
It’s speaking truth to the lies that still echo in your head, even when they feel true.
This isn’t about being good enough. It’s about becoming you. The you God already created when He raised you from the dead.
Why It Takes So Long (And Why That’s Mercy)
I’ve spent the last year in the process of “walking out” this transformation. I’ll be honest; there are days I wish God had just flipped a switch and reprogrammed my entire soul the day He delivered me. I admit I have a lot of emotional scars that produce some very un-Christlike behavior on a regular basis.
Why didn’t He?
Because instant sanctification would kill us.
Think about it. You’ve spent your entire life building neural pathways, emotional habits, and relational patterns based on lies. You’ve autopiloted through trauma, shame, and survival mode for so long that it’s become your identity.
If God ripped all of that out in one moment, you wouldn’t know who you were. You’d be a stranger to yourself.
Instead, He gives you time. He gives you trials. Not to destroy you, but to train you. To teach your soul to trust the new spirit inside you. To let you discover, one painful, grace-soaked moment at a time, that you’re not at all who you thought you were.
The discipline isn’t punishment. It’s physical therapy for a soul that’s learning to walk again.
The Image You’re Being Restored To
Here’s the part that changes everything.
You’re not being disciplined into some arbitrary standard of “holiness” that God made up to keep you in line. You’re being restored to the image you were always meant to bear. The image of God Himself.
And here’s something to keep in mind. God also lives by rules.
Not because He has to. Because He chooses to. God is love, and love requires self-limitation. It requires keeping promises. It requires not forcing people to obey, even when He has the power to.
God magnifies His Word above His own name. He binds Himself to His covenant. He operates within self-imposed parameters. Not because He’s weak, but because that’s what love does.
And you’re made in His image.
So when you choose discipline. When you say no to the impulse. When you show up to prayer even when you don’t feel like it. When you hold yourself to telling the truth even when a lie feels safer. You’re not just “being obedient.” You’re mirroring God Himself.
You’re learning to rule your own spirit the way God rules the universe. With love, with consistency, with a commitment to truth that doesn’t waver based on how you feel in the moment.
This Isn’t About Looking Good
Let me squash one more lie before I close this out.
The world’s version of discipline is about control. About hustle. About grinding your way to success so you can finally prove you’re worth something.
That’s not what this is.
Biblical discipline isn’t fueled by anxiety or self-aggrandizement. It’s fueled by connection. By staying grafted to the Vine. By letting the life that’s already inside you become the life that flows through you.
You’re not disciplining yourself to earn God’s approval. You’re disciplining yourself because you already have it. And you want your outer life to finally match the inner reality that God’s already created.
It’s the difference between a slave trying to avoid punishment and a son learning to walk like his Father. One acts out of fear and obligation, while the other moves from a place of love, trust, and genuine connection. The slave is driven by external forces, while the son is guided by an internal compass aligned with his father’s character.
The Part Where I Admit I’m Still Learning
I wish I could tell you I’ve got it figured out. That I’ve walked out my transformation so completely that I’m now coasting in effortless holiness.
I can’t.
I still have days where the old autopilot kicks in. Where I default to shame instead of grace. Days when I warn people that I’m new to this whole “Christianity” thing so they may want to tread lightly. Where I forget that the person God delivered wasn’t just saved from something. He was saved to something.
But here’s what I can tell you.
The miracle was instant. The walk is slow. And both are evidence that God hasn’t given up on me. Or you.
If you’re in your messy middle, if you’re frustrated that you’re not “there” yet, if you’re wondering why transformation feels more like trudging through mud than soaring on eagle’s wings.
That’s ok. That’s exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Because the goal isn’t perfection. It’s participation. In the life of a God who chose to limit Himself for love, who walks with you in the mess, and who’s committed to finishing what He started.
Even when it takes a lifetime.
What You Can Do Right Now
If this hit home for you, don’t ignore it.
Start with one question. What lie am I still autopiloting on?
Write it down. Name it. Then ask the Holy Spirit inside you to show you the truth.
And then? Discipline yourself to believe it. Not because you have to earn it. But because it’s already yours.
The inside-out transformation is real. The walk is hard. And you’re right on time.
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