Passionate not permissible

I feel that in many ways I have backsliden to sins that I thought I was past.  I think I need to write this in order to free myself of my conscience's constant nagging about my hypocritical living.  I am being taught now that I may not have been as holy as I perceived myself at a time in the past.  This is not to say that I have been living a total lie.  That is not the case.  I have been following Christ at least in some real manner since I was 16 or 17, and there was a time when even though I was struggling with my flesh, I nevertheless was a wide-eyed kid anxious to get to know my Father and Saviour Jesus.  I had a real passion to get to know Jesus.  Well, my first year in college a whole host of things happened and I went into a real depression.  Not just a couple of day down period, but a real valley.  I call it that now, but at the time I didn't know if I would ever come out.  I though to myself many days during that time, 'so this is it, I will be like this from now on'.  I was very scared and very down and darkness was all around me.  I know in stories people tend to exaggerate, but with this I am understating because you could not understand unless you were there.  Well during this time I battled all kinds of questions and doubts about everything that meant anything to me, namely God.  I doubted my salvation a lot.  I was approached with all kinds of ideas about God that I had not heard, (at least in the manner they were being presented).  Well there was some real good that I got out of that era in my life which I finally slowly began to come out of.  I developed a desire to read that I didn't have before, because I read everything during that dark period to try to find some light.  I also learned a real-life compassion for people struggling with depression.  I also learned a good bit about doctrine.  That is good too, but somewhere along the way I lost the passion for my Saviour and filled it with a passion for understanding.  That is not a conclusive statement, but that is in large part what happened.  There were times when I felt I was still close to God, but the close father-child relationship I didn't feel.  I also have the last few years have picked up a few things that I renounced as definite, no doubt about it, sins when I first started following Christ.  But after studying I found that some of the things that I had renounced as definite sins were not in fact in and of themselves sins.  Things like smoking a cigar, drinking a beer, having a chew or a dip of tobacco.  Those things are not found condemned in the Bible, and I still believe are not in and of themselves sins.  However, I could never and still can't get past the feeling of guilt that overcame me as I tried some of those things after I was 19 and 21.  I could never press the guilt feelings out of my heart, no matter how much I talked to myself about them being ok.  Specifically, the verse in which Paul says that he would not even eat meat again if it might cause someone to stumble, kept haunting me.  You see I had gotten knocked around badly and when I began to balance back out emotionally I started to follow the doctrines of God  rather than God and what He teaches us.  I began to live a permissible christian life instead of a life sold out to following Jesus.  I am not here condemning anyone that can honestly with a clear conscience do any of the things I listed above.  I am not trying to promote another list of rules outside the Bible.  I am trying to promote a life that is passionate, not permissible.  

The things I listed above do not make a comprehensive list of all that I struggled or struggle with, but it gets the point across.  I for a long time have lived without the wonderful awareness of my great God on a consistent basis.   I have lived a permissible life, without much passion for Jesus.  But I am very happy to say that the day before yesterday I saw Him with my heart once again as my precious Saviour that died for me, that is now here with me.  I am still fighting every moment that I think about it to keep Him before me as I live, but there is a freshness about it.  I am ready to follow Him.  He is so faithful.  You can trust Him too.  If you are reading this you can have the reality of knowing Jesus Christ personally.  You can.  You may already.  Either way the object is the same: Jesus.  If you'll look to Him now and be honest about where you are, He will take you in and be your Saviour and Father.