"One challenge was exposure to the sin of pornography" My God & I with Tommy

FH: Tell us about you.

I’ll limit this to the three things I’d love to be known most for and/or by: I’m Tommy Michael, I’m a Christian, and I’m a (gospel) pencil artist.

FH: When did you give your life to Christ?

I gave my life to Christ while still a kid. This makes it a bit difficult for me to settle on a date. Even though I somewhat made a rededication in 2010.

FH: What were the events that led up to making the decision?

I can’t exactly remember now, though I can easily assume it must have been one of my mum’s incessant talks on the rapture, heaven, hell or something like that.

FH: What challenges have you experienced in your walk with God?

One, not having as much faith as I would love to have in Him. Two, I learnt my Christianity in not so easy a way. Three, and chief of them, seeing how much God hates sin and sinfulness, was my (incidental) exposure to the sin of pornography.

FH: What practical steps did you take to deal with them?

As much as I felt like puking – literally – in my first real encounter with the earlier mentioned sin, it had held on to me and was going to engage me in a struggle for years. And of course my prayer for forgiveness couldn’t lead me out of it. How I overcame?

1. As a Christian lad, I’d been made to understand God’s infinite intolerance for sin (by anyone: saved or unsaved). This I easily accepted (and still accept).
2. As much as my knowledge of truth was shallow, deep down I knew I couldn’t do this by my effort.
3. When I found myself unwilling to let go, I prayed God to make me willing to let go. When I say prayed, what I mean is cried. I ‘held on to His leg’. It was heartfelt. In the end there was a readiness to let go.
4. When one prayer didn’t do it, I persisted until I got freed.
5. The necessary action followed. I freed my pc of most of my movies. If there was a multipurpose website where occasionally a wrong image would pop up, I resolved to not visit it or do so less. I knew a little mistake could suck me right back in, which I occasionally experienced. Not anymore.

FH: There are times in our walk where we don’t exactly feel top notch, what keeps you going in those times?

What keeps me going is my decision not to feel, but to act on what I know and believe in His word, and to pray. I realized my feelings often to be misleading. Prayer helps a great deal in such situations.

FH: A lot of Christians out there have the major challenge dealing with Sin. What’s your take on this? And how do you think we can overcome sin?

I can’t speak extensively on this right now, but here’s a part of what I believe constitutes our challenge with sin: a Christian’s challenge with dealing with sin has a whole lot to do with his or her understanding and utilization of grace. I’ll explain.

One man is taught and describes grace thus: “I’m once saved, and forever saved. Whatever I do hereafter: good or bad, matters little or nothing”. Such will have challenge with sin.

Another thinks of grace thus: “Yes I’m saved, but whenever I’m faced with temptation or trial, and I fall, God understands and will forgive when I ask Him to”. Such will have no power over sin.

Here’s how I interpret grace: that at salvation, you receive the Spirit of God Who enables you to stand in the day of temptation, that you have the word of God to teach, warn and renew you daily, that you have Jesus always interceding for you, that Christ died not just for your salvation but for you sanctification, that He has given you exceeding great and precious promises by which you can possess His nature(2 Peter 1:4), that you can PRAY to Him and rest in His victory over the chief tempter, that He has promised to make a way out of every temptation (I Cor 10:13); all this, is grace for me and renders us inexcusable if we find ourselves living still bound to sin.

There’s a lot more though.

FH: Can you share the most remarkable time/season in your walk with God?

To anyone reading this, wait till you (really) receive the infilling of the Holy Ghost, then you’ll understand the most remarkable season in my walk with God ☺

FH: What is your relationship with God like today?

Right now, Jesus is at the centre of my goals, passions, ambitions, life; not ‘cause I made it so. No, He did. I just let Him. Yet is there an infinite degree to Him that I’m yet to experience ☹

FH:

Words of encouragement that you have for people in whatever phase they are in right now.

Whenever I find opportunity to thank God often I say: “Thank You Father, because you never left me alone”. Whatever you’re passing through, always remember, God never leaves us alone and no prayer of His child’s goes unheard.

Tommy blogs at http://walkwithmee.wordpress.com/ (Do visit and go through his art - Awesome stuff)