 This is why being a good Christian kid didn't work out. If you're anything like me, you grew up as a Christian in a Christian household with parents that did their best to raise you according to the Bible and for the most part they did a pretty good job. But then you begin to find out that there's the formation of two lives that happen within your life, two lives. The first life is the life that you live with your church and with your Christian parents and family and your Christian friends and the other life that you live is the one that you live in secret or with your non-Christian friends or maybe at school and these are the two lives that begin to form and so for me the first life looked like while me sitting on the front steps of my church reading my Bible as people would enter on Sunday morning so that people would think that I was this great Christian kid. I was probably 11 years old at this point but I sat there deliberately so people would look at me and be like wow this kid is really spiritually probably knows the Bible super well. He's better than other kids his age. He's probably more mature or just he's a better person. That's what I wanted people to see me as a good Christian kid and then the other life that was forming was behind scenes. I was struggling deeply with lust and I was trying to navigate how I could break free from but at the same time I felt like I was giving in more times than I actually found victory. My conscience was being seared and what I mean by that was I was taking in so much of this kind of lustful material online that it didn't really hinder my conscience as much as it used to. I began to be okay with it. I began to kind of not feel as guilty as I used to like at the beginning I would feel oh my goodness I'd feel so bad and I'm like I can't believe I'm doing this I'm watching this I'm supposed to be a Christian. God I'm sorry I'll never do this again and you'd say that multiple times and you say that every time God I'll never do this again I'll never do this again I'll never watch this again but then you do and then as time goes on you begin to be okay with these two lives. The life of a good Christian kid and then the life that he lives behind the scenes in secret or with his non-Christian friends and the challenge was as well I had this pressure on me or this understanding that God needed me to be perfect that was the only way that God was going to accept me. At the same time I understood like the gospel right there was the head acknowledgement that Jesus came to die on the cross for my sins so that I could be forgiven but what that what that meant for me at that point was he was going to forgive everything I did in my past right he was going to forgive everything I did as a non-Christian but then as a Christian it was my duty to keep up this facade or present myself as a good Christian kid in order to be accepted and loved by God and with that expectation with that pressure now I had to operate in this space where I was ignorant of my own sin where I wasn't acknowledging it and I wasn't confessing it because I tried to pretend that it wasn't there in order for me to accept love by God and be accepted by him I desperately wanted that I wanted to be that Christian I wanted to be loved by God and so when I was partaking in the sin I would just have to push it off to the corner push it under the rug and say no no no that's not I mean it's not that big of a deal I'm still good I'm still good with God and so there was this disconnect ultimately these two lives and maybe you've experienced this too in your life you have this life of being this good Christian or trying to present yourself as a good Christian but then you have this other life this other life behind the scenes where you're struggling and you don't know maybe it's pornography for you maybe it's masturbation it's lust it's greed it's gossip it's pride whatever that is behind the surface that maybe you try to push off and say it's not that big a deal but this is kind of who I am underneath the surface these two lives exist when there's a disconnect between the head and the heart that's what it was for me where I understood the bible I understood the gospel I understood theology I was listening theology podcast from the time I was like 11 years old that wasn't a big issue for me it wasn't that I didn't have a I had a lack of understanding of what the bible said but it was rather that there was that yet to be an internal transformation or an understanding that I could let go of this desire not necessarily to the desire because I think the desire to honor God and that that's that's great but this expectation that I was going to be perfect I had to let go of that in order for me to come to terms with my sin and to really humble myself in repentance now if you maybe you've been in a toxic church environment where you haven't been given the space to be authentic to be real you felt like you needed to put on a face that's awful right because it puts you in the space of continuing on in this double life but maybe you have been in a space where people have been open and and real but still you've held on to your pride so much that you don't want to open up or you don't want to confess that maybe all that I am isn't you know it's I'm not just this one person that presents himself to be super awesome I'm actually this other person that struggles deeply behind the scenes and the truth is is that what we need to do is we need to humble ourselves to repent and merge the two to understand that we're not just this perfect Christian that we're not just this person that's got it all together and has no questions and no doubts and no struggles and none of that no we are also this person that struggles deeply with with sin but at the same time we can overcome it through the power of God and the Holy Spirit in our life and that when we repent from it and when we confess it on a daily basis this is something that that begins to take its power away because now we're not just struggling behind the scenes but we're inviting God into the picture we're not just trying to push it under the rug and and say it's not that big a deal I'm I can still keep on this good Christian persona we're saying no no actually this is a big deal this is something that is separating me relationally from God even though as a Christian we know that nothing could separate us from the love of God but at the same time when we have unconfessed sin in our life that puts up a relational blockage where we're not going to be praying like if you have unconfessed sin how authentic are you going to be with God right if I'm going to pretend like I didn't just do what I just did and I'm going to pray to God like everything's cool what kind of relationship is that so there's a relational blockage there when we when we pretend that everything's okay and that's why we need the heart and the head to kind of merge where we're not just believing these good things but this is an internal reality that we're experiencing in this moment that can only happen through the power of the Holy Spirit I think personally of the Pharisee who went up to pray this is a parable that Jesus told and he went up to pray and he said God thank you that I'm not like other men these extortioners these these adulterers these adulterers and also this tax collector thank you that I'm not like those guys I resonate with that because that's where I was in my Christian faith even though I was in a sense living this double life of of non unconfessed sin I believe that I was a good guy because hey at least I'm not as bad as those guys right like okay I do some bad things every once in a while but at least I'm not as bad as those guys but what does it mean to truly repent in your life maybe you've been living this double life and you want out of it what does it mean to truly repent well it's not being this Pharisee who's just like God thank you you know that I'm not like other men it's actually the tax collector later on in the parable who says God have mercy on me a sinner this is the repentance that we need to be embodying here some people they're okay with living the double life they live it their whole lives and we have examples in the scriptures of what it looks like to live a double life you think of Judas Iscariot he walked with Jesus for three years seeing his miracles eating with him breaking bread with him getting the truth the head knowledge right but there was no heart transformation and when push came to shove Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and I think in a lot of ways we can all resonate with that betrayal of Jesus because we have all walked with Jesus we've heard especially if you grew up in the church in a sense you have that same experience of walking with Jesus or maybe even seeing particular miracles or people being healed by God in your church and things where you're like okay I recognize that I can see with my eyes and my head I understand who Jesus is I understand what this is all about but at the same time I still don't have that heart transformation and so you could walk with Jesus for all that time in a sense but still betray him still not want him what I want for you is a humble a real authentic faith I literally couldn't care less about how much Bible knowledge you think you have or how far along that you've gotten in your you know yearly Bible reading or like I believe it is so important to get in the word of God to understand theology because that's how we learn more about God but if we know God to you know about God so much right you understand so much theology and you can spout it all off and yet you don't know him it's worth nothing it is worth nothing so maybe this will wake up call for you maybe you've been in this Christian space for a long time but God's never been real to you and I'm not here to say that I can just you can just choose one day to experience God or for him to become real to you but what you can do is to submit your will to him to submit your life to him to stop living the double life and and to have this new orientation and new value system where the top value isn't coming across as a good Christian but rather to seek God humbly this is where we need to lay down our double life of being just totally honest with God and say God this is where I'm at this is all these are all my struggles you know already everything and when you get to that place of vulnerability with God that's where relationships grow you think about a relationship with a human being are you gonna get any kind of place there relationally if you're not being open with them if you're not being honest with them if you're not being vulnerable with them if you feel like you're hiding some things with them because you think they're gonna judge you or they're gonna say oh I thought you were this whole person this person different person the whole time and now they reject you but we can understand from God God's perspective that he already knows where you're at he's not surprised by these things that you've been trying to hide from him or trying to gloss over pretend that they're not that big of a deal he knows all that already but I look to the story of the prodigal son and and how that father for in that story he gave the son the money and you think about it like the inheritance you think about it this father knew the son it wasn't that the son just one day was like probably this good son and he did something out of character where he took this money and did something bad and then came back is like no this this was the character of the son where when the father gave him the inheritance man he already knew I bet like this is just my take but he already knew he was gonna go spend it on whatever else right he already knew he was gonna do that but in so doing the son came back and and he was on his face and repentance like he got to the end of his robes and say okay I need help and the father's like you know what I knew you were gonna betray me I knew you were gonna I knew you were gonna backstab me in this way but I'm still thankful that you came back I'm still grateful that you came back I think that's a picture of God right it truly is because when he he knew that we were gonna backstab him he knew we were gonna rebel against him we knew all that stuff but yet he still receives us back with joy and with celebration and delight and he throws a party so this is my plea to you today like this channel literally means nothing to me if it can't help you walk with Jesus authentically so this is my plea to you as today just get honest with God get honest with God get out the noise like turn off the phone turn off Netflix you know block up block out that stuff to delete TikTok and just get really honest with God about where you're at and begin to just seek him seek him don't just try to seek deep you know all the all the stuff about him or what people say about him seek him and and that is where you begin that is where you begin thank you for watching this video if you enjoyed it subscribe because I'm putting out new videos like this all the time I want to give a huge shout out to everyone on Patreon it is because of your guys support that I can continue to make videos like this it's not the big clickbaity type videos that you're going to get tons of views on and I understand that but the reason that I can make these and still continue to support and sustain this ministry is because of the people on Patreon that enable me to do that and make content that I think it digs a little bit deeper than the classic Christian clickbaity content where I can move to a place of real seeking the Lord in this space and so thank you for enabling me to do that and I will see you guys next time God bless