Grace: Soap for the Unclean

You must be a very good and sensitive person to suffer so much for (your own private sin). I am absolutely certain that the Lord loves you, empathizes with your situation, understands your disappointments and pain, is not shocked or surprised by you, and wants to help you. I want to tell you with total confidence, knowing what I know from my own experience and watching others, that you can go to Him even with this sin again and again and again. You must never feel that you cannot go to Him. The point for Him will be that you are trying.

Let Him in, and don’t be fooled into thinking that what you do puts you beyond His reach. We do not have to be perfect to receive His Spirit. We are cleansed by the Spirit but, think of this, "how could we be cleansed by the Spirit if we had to already be perfectly clean before receiving the Spirit." It’s like saying I can’t touch soap until my body is clean.

The desire and the striving is all. Every day turn to God, plead with Him, let His light in, and slowly this will become a strength to you - even if you never defeat it 100% in this life, you will begin to feel it is strength to you - never give up.

Remember Paul’s thorn in the flesh - he says that it kept him humble even though he received many revelations. Think of that; he received many revelations even though his thorn in the flesh never went entirely away. Perhaps we might think, well, Paul’s thorn must not have been so egregious as mine. But we don’t know what it was, only that he had it, it caused him disappointment, and that he never gave up or let it stop him from going boldly before the Throne of Grace.

Comment #59 by Thomas Parkin - Auld Lang Sin (By Common Consent)