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Thank you for writing to The Refiner's Fire!
First, let me welcome you to the "Body of Christ"! You made the right decision! If you would like to share with me how you came to faith, I would certainly love to hear about it.
Secondly - for the reading materials you asked about, I'd like to recommend you visit Messianic Jewish Resources. They answer questions and have a web store where you can purchase books, magazines, etc. For your growth in Yeshua (Jesus), we suggest a book by Dan Juster, head of Tikkun Ministries, called "Growing to Maturity". It is a basic discipleship book that is good for new believers who also want to discover more Jewish roots of the faith. I would also highly recommend two workbooks you can buy from any Baptist bookstore called "The Survival Kit" (which teaches you the basics about your new relationship with God), and "Experiencing God" (which is a much higher level for people who already have a sound relationship with Him). Those two workbooks are the best I've ever seen. I would never have grown as fast as I did in my walk with God without them!
Thirdly, I'd like to suggest that you not be so hard on yourself for finding it hard to let go of old habits. We all go through it and, let me tell you, it is really HARD to let go of the "carnal world". Once you do, I promise, it's the most satisfying feeling! This is not to say that you'll never want to do the "old routine" anymore; it's a constant struggle, because Satan knows exactly how to push our buttons. If you backslide, don't fret; just repent and ask God for forgiveness and do your best never to repeat it. (That's the beauty of what Yeshua did for us: we are forgiven! Please realize this does not mean you can go around sinning on purpose whenever you feel like it; it simply means that if we do "backslide", God WILL forgive us if we sincerely repent.)
I learned to overcome my old ways and habits after I heard my former pastor (in the Baptist church where I first "met" Jesus) talk about "fence straddling". He said that fence straddlers are people who are afraid to let go of their old ways and become "Godly". Rather than to give themselves to God totally, they have one foot in the carnal world and one foot in the spiritual world - because it feels "safer" for them to be able to hold on to something they are familiar with. Once I heard that, I realized that that is what I had been doing. So, I simply prayed that God would help me to stop being a "fence straddler". I told Him that I realized that I was a new creature and that I truly wanted to leave the "old" behind - but that I would need help doing it. I told Him that I knew my old life was an abomination to Him and that I never, ever wanted to go back there again. I confessed the sins I had continued to commit after I got saved, and asked Him to show me how to overcome the temptations - or better yet, to just take them from me.
God works differently in each of us, and He works in a way that's best for each of us. He meets us right where we are, in ways we can truly understand. He knows how hard it is to break the old mold; after all, He experienced temptation first-hand while He walked the earth. He understands fully what we are going through.
Back in the nineties I used to help facilitate a church-sponsored Singles Adjustment Seminar for newly divorced and widowed people. One of the illustrations they used to show how people hang onto their old ways and keep making the same types of mistakes over and over again, went something like this:
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There once was a man who found himself at a "Y" in the road. He looked at the left fork and it had some pot holes and looked a little rocky. He looked down the right fork, and it appeared flat and smooth, and so he decided to take that one. Well, he walked for days and days without incident. The road was so smooth that after awhile, he never even bothered to watch where he was going anymore. One day, without any warning, he fell into this huge pot hole. This pot hole was so big that it took him days to find his way out of it. Once he did, he was so shook up that he immediately ran back to the "Y" to check out that other road. It still looked a little rocky, pot-holey, and -- well, unfamiliar. So, he decided to take that old, familiar road. Now since he knew where that huge pot hole was, he would simply watch out for it and then walk around it. And walk around it, he did. He was happy, life was good. So he went whistling on his merry way. Shortly thereafter, without warning, he came upon a huge, rock wall that blocked the road. It was so big that he felt it would be easier just to go back to that "Y" and see if that other road might not be a better option after all. So, back to "square one" he went. After checking that other road out again, he realized it was a completely viable option, but -- it STILL didn't appeal to him. So, he decided to go back down that old familiar road and somehow try to scale that wall, or figure out a way around it, or maybe even THROUGH it.....
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What this is supposed to illustrate is that people are so accustomed to doing things their own way, that they will tackle their problems by doing the same things over and over again, using slightly different tactics each time to accomplish their mission - yet never really overcoming the root of the problem because they simply don't know how, or they don't realize they're stuck in a rut. For example, I've been married several times. Each time I got married, I chose "bad boys" -- the rugged, macho, partying kind -- believing I could "tame" them and help them overcome their drug or alcohol problems or whatever, and mold them into decent husbands. (Of course, I was never able to "tame" anybody, and after putting up with their abuse, their infidelities, or their drug/alcohol problems, I always ended up dumping them.) I didn't choose them on purpose; they seemed to kind of "fall into my lap" and I just couldn't figure out why I was so unlucky all the time. One day I realized this was because I was following in my mother's footsteps. My mother was married eight times. She was never, ever happy with just one man, and the ones she chose were usually bums. I was doing the exact, same thing as my poor mother used to do! Plus, I realized that, since I never had a role model for what a family was supposed to be like, I didn't have the skills or the knowledge to try to "knit" my own. So, whenever things got too hot to handle, I simply got a divorce - figuring that the NEXT guy would surely be the right one....
The key to breaking that rut I was in, was to admit I had some kind of a problem when it came to choosing men - because, consciously or unconsciously, we choose clones of our parents in some way. They might not resemble our parents physically, but we usually choose mates who have certain attributes that remind us of our parents. I was used to being abused at home and, although I had hated it, I subconsciously always chose abusive men. I was on that proverbial merry-go-round; it was my little "rut" and I didn't even realize it. Instead, I kept attacking the same problem from different angles, never realizing that there was a BETTER way.
Once I realized and admitted I needed help, I read books and participated in seminars that opened my eyes and helped me to break out of that awful cycle Satan had me in. (Had I been "saved" at the time, I would have prayed and asked God to show me a better way, which would surely have saved me a lot of heartaches. Luckily around that same time, I was led to the Lord, which changed my entire life!)
Satan will use your old ways against you whenever he can. Once you have given your problem to God, however, things start taking a different turn because He WILL deliver you from them!
I hope this helps you out some. Please don't hesitate to write me whenever you need advice. I don't know everything, but I know plenty of people I can call who could help us out.
God bless!
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