/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>708792

Yes, absolutely.

The first and greatest sin I overcame after being saved was masturbation (self-fornication), God was with me and I couldn’t even force myself to do it anymore. Praise God.

After that I overcome the sin of covetousness. I no longer am jealous of other people and I am content with all God gives me.

Lately, I have been overcoming my sin of laziness. Slowly, six days of the week God has helped me make into days of work, and the seventh day he has helped make into days of rest alone. I used to be so lazy I couldn’t get anything done. Now I have a good part time job and I’m doing great in college.

All praise and glory is to God!

Used to be homosexual, I still struggle yet I made huge progress since I came back to God; I’ll never be able to have this cross removed from me, but in God I am going to find the strength to endure it.

>>708806

https://www.conservapedia.com/Ex-homosexuals

https://www.conservapedia.com/Overcoming_Homosexuality

I self harm, do drugs, watch porn, sleep in, eat too much. It's gotten slightly better but I live in constant anxiety and shame and depression so I do laughing gas, cut my wrists. to calm down and distract myself from my issues

I get the feeling my life will serve as a warning to others for what not to do.

A lot of you guys don’t seem to be doing well. I think many are not saved. When you are saved, you are overcome with the love of God. I testify of this.

>>708876

*than to be at the bottom of despair pit

I wouldn't say I was a total degenerate but I've definitely come back to God and have been following Him more closely over the past year. I don't do hookups (fornication) anymore, I try my best not to masturbate or watch porn at all and if I slip up I confess it or don't take the eucharist until I do. I've also been taking more time to be thankful for everything He provides, and to not be envious of others for what they have or for the things I don't have. All things considered, having Christ back in my life has been one of the best improvements to it. I'm much happier now, more confident, and living a better life.

>>708804

How did you overcome those sins? I struggle with the same things you once struggled with, but I guess it has something to do with me being a babe in Christ and having weak faith. I feel that I believe in God, but deep inside there is some doubt and that this doubt forces me to sin (devil?)

I was drinking, getting high, sleeping around (or trying to) and just being an overall abundant piece of shit (lying for laughs, generally selfish, cold and callous etc). I had used drugs and drank for years at this point but had always been careful to take breaks, measure my doses/drinks, etc to avoid withdrawal symptoms, but I began to care less and less and thus literally watched myself become a drug addict and an alcoholic. I became careless and this eventually led to a heroin overdose.

I decided things had to change, so I went to talk to a priest, then started researching Christianity. I thought merely going to church would be enough (a 'fake it 'til you make it' mentality) but of course it wasn't, and I relapsed and overdosed on heroin again a year and a half later.

Since then, however, something has changed. I've really thrown myself into my religion since then, totally embraced it and the Holy Spirit began to dwell within me and work on me. I've quit drinking, getting high, and masturbating. I've become much more honest and upright in my dealings with others. I've stopped using the Lord's name in vain. I don't lustfully at women very often at all (usually it only happens when a coworker draws my attention to a woman in a lustful way directly), and I pray every day, morning and night. I truly love Christ, and I'm legitimately excited as to how He will mold me to His will in the future. I'm still overcome with guilt from past sins (despite my confessing them) and still fantasize about getting high and occasionally crave a drink after a hard day at work, but I trust God to keep me right.

>>708905

I feel I should mention I was not a religious person at all - I had tried reading about both Islam and eastern religions (Hinduism) before and falling in with them, but they were too exotic and I wasn't taken with them like I am with Christianity. I was a liberal, hard deterministic materialist atheist through and through. It was as far from the Christian worldview as you could be.

>>708792

Well, I haven't jacked off for the better part of half a year and don't really care to for the most part. This was after a very long Lenten fast according to strict rules. Last few months my mental fortitude has improved slightly, I've never been off my rocker but I'm less prone to fits of rage and I've definitely become more assertive. There's other things that have occurred over the last several years that have also adjusted my situation, so these recent developments are on top of other improvements over time.

To live in a lukewarm or worldly state is also risky, though you might not think it, since you don't even know anything is wrong until you suddenly find yourself not in the Book of Life.

>>708899

You have to accept to Jesus Christ as your savior, and fully acknowledge you cannot save yourself. Once you do that, Christ’s righteousness will live inside you, not your own righteousness. The Holy Ghost will compel you to fight sin.

This is all in retrospect looking back and my life since I was saved. As well as what I’ve read in the Bible

>>708792

Grew up in a lukewarm Baptist family. Went to church and Sunday school for about the first 18ish years of my life or so. Around High School, started to notice a disconnect between how I acted at Church and Sunday school, and how I acted outside of church. In other words, like your garden variety worldly person: cussing, fitting in with the crowd, motivated by materialism/getting cool stuff/clothing, amusement and distraction via video games/movies/etc., Ironically, I took the "turn the other cheek" commandment seriously to the point of, in retrospect, using it as an excuse to be a doormat. A combination of of getting fed up with the cognitive dissonance, being a doormat, not understanding the rules and viewing them as capricious and overbearing, along with an experience at Acquire the Fire in which I saw everyone around me being taken up with the Holy Spirit, while I felt detached and numb, all culminated in my apostatizing.

At first it felt great, like a weight had been taken off my shoulders, and I could be free to be my "real true self™." I just kind've existed as a worldly person for about a year - identifying myself as an agnostic or nihilist, depending on my mood or whatever. Then I started feeling empty on an instinctual level, and just wanted something to worship. I remember a friend from high school claiming to worship the old Greek gods. I had developed an admiration for the Norse gods, and thought to myself: "Man if they were still around, I'd worship them in a heartbeat!" Did some research on-line, and sure enough Asatru/Heathenry had just started to gain steam on the Internet. Took it for a test drive via a private "blot." Had a prelest-irrific "spiritual experience", and I was hooked.

Started out initially as essentially a Norse-flavored Wiccatru, then stumbled upon Reconstructionist Heathenry, as well as Alt-Right/Radical Traditionalist stuff in my research on Seith and Shamanism. Proceeded to fall into that. Friends at the time around me fell into it as well and we started our own little kindred. Looking back, we were just a bunch of LARPers who loved the whoo whoo and ritual, but in our everyday lives, were the same video game, anime and drug obsessed hippies/hipsters/geeks as we ever were. Yeah, I fell into drug use at this time too, particularly cough syrup. Got into the "Positive Thinking/Affirmation" garbage as well too.

Proceeded to spin my wheels like this for about 15 years going nowhere. Half-hearted my way through art at college and ended up working at 3rd shift Wal-mart while going to community college for Programming. Eventually essentially devolved into a NEET living with my parents. Kindred eventually collapsed due to getting fed up with the toxic antics of my so-called "friends" and either kicked them to the curb after attempting an intervention or ghosted on them when I knew it was pointless (constant pathological lying, extreme drug abuse, emotional abuse, as well as overall growing sick and tired of the empty dissipation and hedonism of the hippies/hipsters I had surrounded myself with and had become.)

>>708976

(cont'd):

Finally decided to go back to school and do it right this time. Was doing better, but was ultimately motivated by personal pride and paranoia about success more than anything, and constantly felt uncomfortable in my own skin. Went to therapy for about 2 years, and at first it did some good, but shortly after I stopped, I realized we just did a bunch of talking that amounted to nothing in terms of healing my deeper wounds (abusive PTSD stricken father, as well as bullying and alienation during my grade school years.)

I was still soloing it as a LARPagan during this time, getting into more occult stuff like "Psychonaut and Libernull.", and even ran the PDF archives over at /asatru/. Eventually, however, due to various factors, including long stretches of poor sleep and my cough syrup abuse catching up with me, I started having intense hypnagogic hallucinations and mild voices during the day. Things like presences behind me reaching around and grabbing my junk and scaring me to death and making jump out of my bed. Having to turn the radio on at night to drown the voices out and get sleep. Eventually the voices and sensations got more demonic and malevolent to the point were I finally had to get help.

Was initially diagnosed as schizophrenic, and then bi-polar. For about a year and a half, name a major atypical anti-psychotic or major mood stabilizer for bi-polar, and I was probably on it. Each medication either didn't work, gave me life debilitating side effects, or both. Father passing away around this time didn't make things any better. As said earlier, he could be abusive, but it was due to his PTSD. Outside of his rage episodes he could be the most loving human being. He wasn't some Saturday Morning cartoon villain twirling his mustache, he was a complex human being with inner demons

Finally, I had one episode that felt particularly demonic, and cried out to God. Even during my LARPagan years, I felt this instinctual draw back to Christianity, but always shouted it down and tried to sweep the nagging doubts and ugly truths under the carpet. Viewed it as the "easy way out" in comparison to "forging your own way as a pagan." Lol, what a naive fool I was. This time I listened. Started getting signs. Got on a medication shortly after that started to make things better. Tried out Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches, and ultimately fell in love with the ritual and theology of the Orthodox, as well as the faith of the people there. Started realizing Christianity was this whole new world that I barely touched the tip of the iceberg of back in my milquetoast Baptist days.. Did not even know about the ecumenical councils, or canons or early church history, or about fasting and too many other things to mention. Started doing better at school (half-hearted it at art the first time around and decided to do it right this time.). Got published int the school arts journal and got my art displayed in a couple of local galleries and even won some awards. Reconnected with good Christian friends that I had grown apart from during my hipster druggie years and made new friends at Church.

Currently in my last semester and am going to be graduating this December. Still struggle with some sins, but growing as much as I can as I grow in the faith and knowledge while currently being a catechuman readying myself for baptism.

>>708990

Thanks man. Glad to see you're doing better as well: >>708938

>>708824

>I do laughing gas

For the love of God, get off that stuff NOW. Of all the drug types out there, Dissociatives like Nitrous, Ketamine, and DXM (cough syrup) are the hardest and roughest on your brain. The jury's still out on Olney's Lesions, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olney%27s_lesions but based on personal experience, doing that stuff has done something to my brain, and I may never quite be the same again because of it.

>>708806

What do you mean?

>>709013

It means my actions have repercussions; but thankfully God came to my aid.

I had sexual intercourse with a male friend , then I was raped by my roommate at the time(the guy was a rape victim himself: his own father abused him when he was a child): that event made me almost go insane… I repressed it for a long time until the truth of it hit me like a truck. I was devastated, but a priest helped me…I forgave my rapist, and now I’m trying to make the best of all that pain and my mistakes.

I’m not ashamed to admit this: I’m a furry, and I am very happy that the furry community helped me…now, however, with God’s help, I want to move away from it.

It’s a long road, but what that priest was able to teach me is that, no matter how bad things are or get, He’ll be with me, for He made me and made me worthy of Hos love and that is something I’ll always try to be grateful for (even in the stubbornness of my fallen nature).

>>709048

>I forgave my rapist

Anon… I

Thanks everyone for sharing. I prayed this morning and have fasted all day and will say grace before dinner. Its a start.

>>709048

I don't envy you. It's good to hear God is helping you through this

Everyone wants to tell their stories and rarely do we listen to each other. I’m glad you care enough OP. Most people only talk, not listen.

>>708832

It’s not metapedia.

>>708792

I still don't know if I can say I'm actually a Christian. I was raised in an atheist environment. I really want to believe but I'm not sure I am able to.

I used to be your average "religions are stupid" fedora-tipper, now I'm actually more sympathetic to religious people than non-religious ones. I was living an extremely hedonistic lifestyle: fornicating, doing drugs every day, seeking pleasure in any way imaginable. Ironically, the more "fun" I had the more depressed I got. I was slowly going insane.

I don't remember how exactly I started getting out of all that. I guess I slowly started to understand that I can't fill the hole in my chest with mindless pursuit of pleasure. Rampant degeneracy of our secular world also played a role. My best friend became a "transgender". Some other friend became a regular faggot. Another one OD'd on drugs. It was all very depressing, to see people ruining their lives and to realize I'm not better than them and it will be my future as well. I started to think that there must be more to life than that.

I remember watching le funny ebin webm memes and stumbling upon Steven Anderson's bits and pieces, ranting about faggots or some other stuff. I found it entertaining and listened to a couple of his sermons in full, and it was even more interesting than the meme stuff. His fiery preaching style was my gateway to actually opening my ears and getting past the stereotype of Christianity as some meek and passive hippie religion. I came for the memes, but stayed for the beauty of the Scripture. Actually listening to it changed something in me and I realized that I was completely wrong about Christianity. I didn't even know what I was "against". I was surprised to realize how much wisdom is there in some ancient "fairy tale" book, how much of it can be applied to our daily lives, how it can explain the things I didn't even know I wondered about.

So I started researching Christianity and this is why I'm here, 2 years later. Haven't talked about it to anyone except strangers on the Internet. I guess I'm not taking it seriously just yet, and I don't know what stops me. It's like, I want to live my life as if God actually exists, even if I'm not convinced that He does exist, or even if I would be absolutely convinced that He doesn't. Am I a LARPer? A utilitarian? I don't know. The important thing is that seeing other people believe in it inspires me to improve myself. I have overcome my addiction to drugs and porn. I'm battling my sloth and wrath daily, and making progress. If it wasn't for Christianity my life and mental health would be a lot worse than now. Thanks for reading my testimony. If any of you have some advice on how to get myself to progress past this stage, it would be much appreciated.

(Sorry for broken English, it's not my native language).

>>708890

God bless you anon. Sometimes it’s easy to just dismiss people with your struggles as just some weak faggot. I think it’s more like what CS Lewis talks about in mere Christianity - it’s just the burden YOU have. It’s easy to criticize someone for their particular sinful nature when you weren’t born with it. I have no issues with gambling so it’s easy for me to just say “don’t gamble numbnuts”. But I struggled with fornication and alcoholism and sloth. I still do rarely sometimes but now they don’t send me into a spiral of self loathing where I dig deeper until hitting rock bottom.

>>709123

Just my two cents but if I were you I would examine the human condition, our sin and why we need salvation.

I can't really explain. On the one hand, I try my hardest to treat others as a Christian. Of course I'm not perfect in this regard, but I try my damnedest to be kind, selfless, patient, forgiving, all that jazz.

I don't extend that behavior to myself. I sin all the time, and the worst part is, I don't even care. I know I should, but something in my mind just doesn't give a shit. winnie the pooh me as I type this I'm racking up a line of gear; it means nothing.

And I know that my works will not save me. Any generosity I show to others, in the absence of Christ, is nothing but self servitude in an effort to make my brain feel better. I am as hypocritical as the Pharisees. I am no better than those who condemned Him to death, May the Lord save me from myself

>>709123

You seem like an earnest guy; in the future I’ll pray for you.

I’m fairly sure many of us here went through a hedonistic phase…and as a result of the overwhelming sense of disgust we derived from it, we started to seek God; to quote Stalker (the 1979 movie), we’re like those wretched men entering the Zone: it calls at itself the desperate and hopeless, for He comes like a doctor for those who are sick.

Don’t give up, anon.

>>709177

Most of us are guilty of that many many times over…some of us each day. Thank you for the honest self-awareness of your sins, we should all strive for this. You’ll be in our prayers.

My faith is weak and I fornicated with a woman. She dumped me, it hurts but that's for the better. My Christian life has been a mix of many failures and some success.

>>708832

>

Raised in lukewarm Christian house, attended a Christian school but had one foot in the door of salvation and one foot out. Felt the presence of the Holy Spirit with me a lot of the time, or an intuitive sense of God's grace and will guiding me, perhaps through a guardian angel. Mostly when I was much younger.

Late highschool I became distanced from God. Did drugs (weed and nbomes in college), jerked off to a lot of porn, used irreverent/blasphemous/heretical speech, and paid no thought to Holy things. During late high school and college I was drugged and raped a number of times, and raped when passed out or in deep sleep. A total of 5 to 6 women and about 8 men did it to me, some of those people did it a few times and some only once, sometimes as groups or individuals (they all knew me and each other). I suppressed those memories so deeply and self-medicated with pot that it distorted my psyche, I was spiritually sick for years to come. I found it hard in my heart to forgive those people.

From then on I had arresting moments of "irresistible grace" but my hardened heart and stubborn mind locked me out. I sought self-help methods, various philosophies and schools of thought that were not Living and fruitful like I remembered my early years with God, they did not help me. I came to embrace the void, denying reality, my self, or the animating presence of real meaning in the world.

A few coincidences, small messages and perfectly timed occurrences drew me back into the light and the self that I thought was irreparably shattered and lost to time started to repair. I am still returning back to my old self, the personhood originally bestowed upon me.

Like other anons, my first acts involve purification. I'm going strong through nofap, and am making vigilant efforts to conquer sinful thinking habits and the passions.

Romans 12:2

2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

>>717661

When I was discerning my own path back to the Church, it was the Church Fathers that convinced me I was back on the true Way.

Can't go wrong with St. Augustine.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110101.htm

>>711092

>>708905

If the the devil reminds you of your past remind him of his future.

Some of these get me in the feels.

The feels man. The feels… Okay, right so… Where begin?

> good Baptist fam. Well… Except for the part where the sermons started getting skipped and it was just to Sunday School.

> continued until 12-ish

> le move

> years of pretty much just chilling slipping into the suave insanity and madness that left its' metaphorical scars on my psyche. Also churchianity /end

> le college

> le brief bout of self-harm (and very short lived, probably should've skipped over, but it haunted me for a bit because *I* brought myself to literal self destruction.)

> le loneliness

> le college friend who I drank beer with, and urged me to go find potheads and smoke the devil's lettuce

> get jorb with potheads

> life does life for a minute

> le DAILYSTORMER.jpg

> le Nazism half the time, and le normie pothead the rest of the time

> keep up good appearances

> busted for drug paraphernalia because smarts

> drugs persist and intensify. Wanted to do coke, never did. Other things, yeah…

> le fornicating (both sides of the aisle - mind you, it was fornication-lite.)

> le Nazism intensifies

So basically, if it's not obvious. I was on the path to really splitting my personality between Neon-Nazi at night and stoner at day. We're just going to look over the fact I was a hypocrite here.

>le edgy larpagan symptoms develop

> this continues

>deny Christ

> feel dead inside like I just stabbed a pet hamster. A certain feel of terror befell me. Only lasted for a bit then it passed.

> not really sure what next. Things continued pretty much

> Eventually hear edgy hymns on YouTube

>wtfisorthodoxy.jpg

>Seraphim Rose - wut

>Elder Ephraim - who

>Nicodemus Hagiorite

>Brother Nathaniel (actually I found him earlier - made Nazism a great gymnastics routine, lemme tell ya)

>Contact nearest monastery

>they say come on by, or go bug this priest over here

> bugs the priest

> one coffee later - Ordodoxy is cool, priest is cool, kinda unsure about icons and the Holy Theotokos, but otherwise.

> gradual slide toward HOLY ORTHODOXY

> still split between Le edgy Natsoc and HOLY ORTHODOXY

> Gramps in the hospital

> Gramps' health goes downhill

> Gramps RIP

> my world = shaken, slightly.

You know, I was actually pretty calm about it all. That's what terrified me the most. I was that dead inside.

> decides to visit Orthodox Church

> strange. Yet attractive.

> visits again a month later

> it's still cool. Could see myself here.

> kinda avoiding Orthodox Church after those visits because I'd hang out drinking and smoking dope the Saturday night before, and the thought of going to Church like that - it troubled me. Not sure why. Could guess…

> time passes

> Orthodoxy tho

> Finally decide fuqit

> New Years resolution: BECOME ORTHODOX.

> repented

> said no to dr0gs. said no to late night drinksies.

> reconciled my NatSoc inclinations with Orthodoxy by throwing NatSoc to the curbside

> Placed my antisemitism on a shelf, so it's still there, but no issues with Jews who renounce Satanism and begome Ordodox, or at least seem to be goodly behaving Prots or Caths.

> time passes. Views change. Orthodoxy intensifies.

> present day

Couldn't be happier. Orthodoxy saved me from a bad slide. I didn't highlight it, but the NatSocism did land me into legal trouble at one turn. That kinda soured it for me and probably contributed to my ultimate decision to shun it.

But yeah. That's my lame testimony. I entirely suspect gramps interceded for me, as the saints do, but the process began before his accident. So I'm still baffled whether it was the grace of God, or if someone interceded. I'd like to know, but I'm also fine with not knowing. Maybe I ran into a saint who helped, maybe the Theotokos interceded. Not a clue ultimately.

That's my lame testimony. If it helps someone - or just does the slightest of convincing of someone, I'll consider this worthless post not worthless.

Glory be to God.

Christos Anesti!