Warning Adult content
I can't say who exactly I should be sharing my story with but it comes out at random moments to various people. I try not to talk about myself too much except when relating to others. I will continue to trust God to tell whom I should tell.
Jesus died for me. That's the simple answer. I've known this so simply so long that I wonder how much power it actually has. It wasn't even the basis of my faith, knowing it and knowing it was God's will for me to accept it were the biggest motivators to get saved. My lack of emotions must also come into play. I have recognised both my lack of passion and authenticity lately and how much it must be a hinderance to my ministry. I want to show God's love more and maybe it is because I have too intellectual of a knowledge of what Jesus has done for me.
Jesus came down from heaven, willfully losing all power to die, knowing he would die. I know this but that seems simple too me as I don't want power except to help people. Giving up power for the sake of the world does not seem that hard for me, and that's probably because of how much love God has given me for others. I'm too logical for this to have that great of an effect for me. The sacrifice of one for many just makes sense, it was none the less an act of love and humility to give it up.
He took a massive beating and still pressed on. Not only that but he knew he would take the beating. This is more impressive to me. Most people would cringe at the thought of having to go through that much pain and most would flee to protect themselves. He did this not to some people that had been nice to him, but to those that were putting him through it.
Not only this but he was more misunderstood than anyone else on earth. For me this would be the hardest part. Most of us feel like no one understands or alone and we get depressed. Some of us even get angry. But the fact is that all of us pure humans are facing what millions of others have in some form or another. Jesus was fully man and fully God. He had never sinned. He understood us but how could we possobly understand him. He willfully went to the cross knowing he would be seperated from the only one who ever could give him comfort and take upon him all the pain, shame and imorality of the world at once. You think your emotions are bad imagine feeling everyone's. Imagine having to feel all the pain from adulteries, rapes, molestations, abuses of all sorts, being thrown out on the street, seeing your loved ones dying before your eyes, and every other thing that has ever been felt. He took upon himself all the shameful thoughts and actions I have ever done or sill do. If anything death must have been a sweet release once it came upon him. We fear rejection and abandonment, it actually happened to him, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it would happen and walked right into it. It was for the very people that rejected him.
Jesus faced the greatest tortures man could ever know of all types but took it willingly for me. For that I own Him more gratitude than I could ever give.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Day 17: Does my level of involvement in my local church demonstrate that I love and am commited to God's family?
I've been going through the "Purpose Driven Life" and for my own development I've been journalling based on the "Questions to Consider" at the end of each chapter. The book is written as a devotional which is why its based on days. Day 17 had to do with why one should be a member of a church and I was convicted on how the church is the bride of Christ and to criticize it is criticizing God's bride. Here's the journal entry:
Obviously I am commited. But do I always love them? I have been very critical of the church as a whole and consistently spoken of the bad elements there of for quite a while now. I've been a cinic since Bible school and been able to recognise the issues in the church to such an extent that I wonder if I've focused on the negative too much. In my training there has been many comments on the lack of God's presence, discipleship, and community involvement as well as other issues. The only thing is I have not neccessarily seen this in my own life. I actually come from a really good church, one that has these things. Is it perfect, no, but it has fulfilled many of those things that those that complain about the church complain about.
To change slightly I seem to make it a point to defend the thousands of Catholic priests that haven't molested children because there is actually a relatively small amount of Catholic priests that have done it. But I seem to be willing to disclude the numerous Christians that are honestly God following but for whatever reason seem to be failing to make a difference. Let's face it there's a lot of people out there that have given Christianity a bad name, but realistically those are not the real church. The real church follows God and not regulations. Are there rules, yes. But those of the real church try to please God not the administration that calls themselves the church. Any rules we put in place are for growth towards God. There is something to say about removing ourselves from the appearance of evil, but face it Jesus himself spent time with those that were the supposed heathens and was declared a heathen because of it from those that looked in on him. Does that mean that we should do things as men like be alone with women, by no means, that's just foolish. But does avoiding the appearance of evil mean exlcuding ourselves from the world, by no means. It is the sick that need a doctor not the well. The sinner will rarely if ever enter the church and if they did they would care less for our worship and sermons than anything else. Unless were going to entertain them the only part of the service that should be tailered to non-Christians is keeping the religious language out or explaining the meaning in some other way that is understandable to them, anything else is watering down the truth.
I seem to have gone on a tangent but my point is I beleive I have been to harsh on the church as a whole. The Americanization and religiosity is a definite problem but to constantly belittle the good parts due to the bad would be flawed and honestly unloving.
I'm sorry God for when I've degraded your church and not uplifted the good parts. It is your bride and to deride her is being critical and is synonomous to deriding God Himself as insulting the bride will surely hurt the groom. Help me and others to recognise the true church and lift it up, not tear it down.
Obviously I am commited. But do I always love them? I have been very critical of the church as a whole and consistently spoken of the bad elements there of for quite a while now. I've been a cinic since Bible school and been able to recognise the issues in the church to such an extent that I wonder if I've focused on the negative too much. In my training there has been many comments on the lack of God's presence, discipleship, and community involvement as well as other issues. The only thing is I have not neccessarily seen this in my own life. I actually come from a really good church, one that has these things. Is it perfect, no, but it has fulfilled many of those things that those that complain about the church complain about.
To change slightly I seem to make it a point to defend the thousands of Catholic priests that haven't molested children because there is actually a relatively small amount of Catholic priests that have done it. But I seem to be willing to disclude the numerous Christians that are honestly God following but for whatever reason seem to be failing to make a difference. Let's face it there's a lot of people out there that have given Christianity a bad name, but realistically those are not the real church. The real church follows God and not regulations. Are there rules, yes. But those of the real church try to please God not the administration that calls themselves the church. Any rules we put in place are for growth towards God. There is something to say about removing ourselves from the appearance of evil, but face it Jesus himself spent time with those that were the supposed heathens and was declared a heathen because of it from those that looked in on him. Does that mean that we should do things as men like be alone with women, by no means, that's just foolish. But does avoiding the appearance of evil mean exlcuding ourselves from the world, by no means. It is the sick that need a doctor not the well. The sinner will rarely if ever enter the church and if they did they would care less for our worship and sermons than anything else. Unless were going to entertain them the only part of the service that should be tailered to non-Christians is keeping the religious language out or explaining the meaning in some other way that is understandable to them, anything else is watering down the truth.
I seem to have gone on a tangent but my point is I beleive I have been to harsh on the church as a whole. The Americanization and religiosity is a definite problem but to constantly belittle the good parts due to the bad would be flawed and honestly unloving.
I'm sorry God for when I've degraded your church and not uplifted the good parts. It is your bride and to deride her is being critical and is synonomous to deriding God Himself as insulting the bride will surely hurt the groom. Help me and others to recognise the true church and lift it up, not tear it down.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Unforgiven Self
(This Blog is rather unusual as I typically insist on quoting passages but this time I did not. If there is any need for references ask).
As I write this certain words ring through my mind. "Stop hating yourself and love God." It's an interesting phrase with interesting implications.
I run the risk of over simplifying or even over analyzing it as I right this to the point of worthlessness, it would not be the first time. What this is stating is to hate yourself is to hate God and to love yourself is to love God. You can have it one way or another but not both.
In 1 John we read how we cannot say we hate our brother and say we love God. It may be have not God in us but either way the implications on the surface are the same. Now obviously upon first being saved you don't have to have forgiven everyone you possibly have a grudge against but if you take Jesus words literally after the parable of the (oh what was that name) the unforgiving servant. Oh well Jesus didn't name them. It's the one where the servant is brought before the king and he owes him like a million dollars. The king forgives him until later when the servant does not forgive a lesser servant of his very small debt (something like 1 dollar). At this point the king summons him back, forgives the lesser debtor and throws the first servant in prison. After this Jesus says (this may be abbreviated) "If we forgive those that have trespass against us then God will forgive us, but if we do not forgive those who have a trespass against us then God will not forgive us." In the Lord's Prayer he also says, "forgive us as we forgive those that has trespassed against us." If taken literally at all we must forgive others to be forgiven, another practice of sowing and reaping. This is basic, even more basic than those subjects listed in Hebrews 6.
But unforgiveness of self is similar but different. It is similar in that we must forgive ourselves if we will truly be forgiven by God. If what we lose on earth will be loosed in heaven is true for another how much truer is it for ourselves. Whenever there is unforgiveness with another we will suspect that they are going to do the same things again, and to an extent we will expect them to do the same things to others. Unforgiveness in this case negates the part of love that causes us to expect the best out of people. In the same way what we expect from ourselves will impact what we expect others to do.
It is different however in that unforgiveness of self is the cause of false humility and self-destructive tendencies. When one has not forgiven themselves they will expect themselves to fail or even cause themselves to fail. They will not want success for themselves but will consistently try to harm themselves in some way (this could also fit in the similar category). This is why addictions are rooted in this. If a person truly loved themselves enough once they recognized that they were destroying themselves that they would stop. It sounds simple but if you knew that your mother was walking towards a train track and even though it would hurt her to stop her from dying because of the train you would. Why is it any different than when we have a destructive issue ourselves?
The truth is that unless you've truly never failed yourself you will likely have some sort of unforgiveness towards yourself. The easiest way to see it is if there is a destructive tendency in your life that has not changed even though you tried. It may be an addiction, it may be an addictive relationship, it may be some form of self hatred where you put yourself down, or it may simply be a bad habit that one does not care enough about to change. In my case it is self discipline, aka laziness. It has mainly been in the forms of personal finance, keeping my body healthy, and wanting to fight God's will for my life. One is their own worst enemy when they have not forgiven themselves. They will never perceive themselves good enough, which though theologically true, they will then take God's job upon themselves to try to stop themselves from success. Moses would be an example I believe in that he even when God said that he was calling him (from a supernaturally burning bush, obviously God!) he still did not think he was capable. Now there was a level of lack of faith there, but how much was a lack of faith in God's power and a lack of faith in that Moses believing God would pick him. After the plagues Moses seems to have no issue with this while everyone but Caleb and Joshua did.
How about Elijah, the man that calls fire down from heaven than flees for his life. We find out later he had a bit of self pity (btw self pity can also be a sign because even though you want to punish yourself you outwardly want sympathy. I believe that this is because one can't love themselves they need love form somewhere so they'll get it from pity is they can). The Bible seems filled with characters that don't like themselves, or at least some aspect of themselves.
Simply one who has unforgiveness towards themselves will passively or actively punish themselves.
Possible symptoms of self unforgiveness (that I know of):
Addiction
Cutting/self mutilation
Destructive relationships
Focusing on one's weaknesses and failures.
Self destructive behavior (Laziness/ lack of self discipline)
Consciously/Unconsciously looking for ways to weaken one's success
Self pity (this self pity typically is looking for sympathy but will usually not search for a solution because they want a reason to not try and give up on themselves)
Suicidal thoughts
An unwillingness to be happy no matter how good their lives are.
Consistently wanting to change their lives (discontentment).
The inability to pray for one's self in a positive manner (blessings/promises).
Failure to accept love from others.
Note: These are also signs of emotional/spiritual wounds. But as any psychologist can tell you many people blame themselves for things even if it wasn't their fault. This is not an all exclusive list nor do these symptoms mean that there is unforgiveness towards one's self, they are all symptoms of some sort of wound.
Salvation:
The way to forgive one's self is pretty much the same way that one forgives anyone else. They recognize that they are like everyone else and make mistakes, realize that God is the judge not us, and pray for God's forgiveness.
However this can have a serious flaw in the first part of that in that if we recognize that everyone is flawed like us we can begin to hate everyone that we believe has the base traits that we have. This could also be passive or active.
The real solution is this, that we are created in God's image and because of this if we hate ourselves we hate what God made. Not only that we hate the IMAGE OF GOD, in other words it would be like going to a Buddhist temple and spitting on Buddha, or if you believed Zeus was real it would be like going to his temple and telling him you thought he was a horrible god. The image of a god is the ultimate representation of a god. God gave us the greatest gift ever in that we are His image (remember to separate specific attributes of specific humans form God, especially those created after we were separated from God). To insult humanity itself is like kicking Jesus in the leg. You are a human, you are the image of God. Not only that but you are a unique perspective of the image of God that no one else it like. If God was Davinci you could be the Mona Lisa, the last supper, or maybe even his drawings of an ancient parachute. There is only one you, strengths and weaknesses and all. Every brush stroke that is on your canvas, every note that flows from the violin of God's orchestral performance is uniquely you, and no one else has your attributes.
To not forgive you is to cause God not to forgive you. To hate yourself is to hate the God that made you. To damage yourself is to damage the very image of God.
Process:
1. Ask God to forgive you for not forgiving yourself and asks for help to forgive yourself.
2. Pray blessings for yourself.
3. Continue this process as long as it takes.
4. If needed get counseling or outside help.
As I write this certain words ring through my mind. "Stop hating yourself and love God." It's an interesting phrase with interesting implications.
I run the risk of over simplifying or even over analyzing it as I right this to the point of worthlessness, it would not be the first time. What this is stating is to hate yourself is to hate God and to love yourself is to love God. You can have it one way or another but not both.
In 1 John we read how we cannot say we hate our brother and say we love God. It may be have not God in us but either way the implications on the surface are the same. Now obviously upon first being saved you don't have to have forgiven everyone you possibly have a grudge against but if you take Jesus words literally after the parable of the (oh what was that name) the unforgiving servant. Oh well Jesus didn't name them. It's the one where the servant is brought before the king and he owes him like a million dollars. The king forgives him until later when the servant does not forgive a lesser servant of his very small debt (something like 1 dollar). At this point the king summons him back, forgives the lesser debtor and throws the first servant in prison. After this Jesus says (this may be abbreviated) "If we forgive those that have trespass against us then God will forgive us, but if we do not forgive those who have a trespass against us then God will not forgive us." In the Lord's Prayer he also says, "forgive us as we forgive those that has trespassed against us." If taken literally at all we must forgive others to be forgiven, another practice of sowing and reaping. This is basic, even more basic than those subjects listed in Hebrews 6.
But unforgiveness of self is similar but different. It is similar in that we must forgive ourselves if we will truly be forgiven by God. If what we lose on earth will be loosed in heaven is true for another how much truer is it for ourselves. Whenever there is unforgiveness with another we will suspect that they are going to do the same things again, and to an extent we will expect them to do the same things to others. Unforgiveness in this case negates the part of love that causes us to expect the best out of people. In the same way what we expect from ourselves will impact what we expect others to do.
It is different however in that unforgiveness of self is the cause of false humility and self-destructive tendencies. When one has not forgiven themselves they will expect themselves to fail or even cause themselves to fail. They will not want success for themselves but will consistently try to harm themselves in some way (this could also fit in the similar category). This is why addictions are rooted in this. If a person truly loved themselves enough once they recognized that they were destroying themselves that they would stop. It sounds simple but if you knew that your mother was walking towards a train track and even though it would hurt her to stop her from dying because of the train you would. Why is it any different than when we have a destructive issue ourselves?
The truth is that unless you've truly never failed yourself you will likely have some sort of unforgiveness towards yourself. The easiest way to see it is if there is a destructive tendency in your life that has not changed even though you tried. It may be an addiction, it may be an addictive relationship, it may be some form of self hatred where you put yourself down, or it may simply be a bad habit that one does not care enough about to change. In my case it is self discipline, aka laziness. It has mainly been in the forms of personal finance, keeping my body healthy, and wanting to fight God's will for my life. One is their own worst enemy when they have not forgiven themselves. They will never perceive themselves good enough, which though theologically true, they will then take God's job upon themselves to try to stop themselves from success. Moses would be an example I believe in that he even when God said that he was calling him (from a supernaturally burning bush, obviously God!) he still did not think he was capable. Now there was a level of lack of faith there, but how much was a lack of faith in God's power and a lack of faith in that Moses believing God would pick him. After the plagues Moses seems to have no issue with this while everyone but Caleb and Joshua did.
How about Elijah, the man that calls fire down from heaven than flees for his life. We find out later he had a bit of self pity (btw self pity can also be a sign because even though you want to punish yourself you outwardly want sympathy. I believe that this is because one can't love themselves they need love form somewhere so they'll get it from pity is they can). The Bible seems filled with characters that don't like themselves, or at least some aspect of themselves.
Simply one who has unforgiveness towards themselves will passively or actively punish themselves.
Possible symptoms of self unforgiveness (that I know of):
Addiction
Cutting/self mutilation
Destructive relationships
Focusing on one's weaknesses and failures.
Self destructive behavior (Laziness/ lack of self discipline)
Consciously/Unconsciously looking for ways to weaken one's success
Self pity (this self pity typically is looking for sympathy but will usually not search for a solution because they want a reason to not try and give up on themselves)
Suicidal thoughts
An unwillingness to be happy no matter how good their lives are.
Consistently wanting to change their lives (discontentment).
The inability to pray for one's self in a positive manner (blessings/promises).
Failure to accept love from others.
Note: These are also signs of emotional/spiritual wounds. But as any psychologist can tell you many people blame themselves for things even if it wasn't their fault. This is not an all exclusive list nor do these symptoms mean that there is unforgiveness towards one's self, they are all symptoms of some sort of wound.
Salvation:
The way to forgive one's self is pretty much the same way that one forgives anyone else. They recognize that they are like everyone else and make mistakes, realize that God is the judge not us, and pray for God's forgiveness.
However this can have a serious flaw in the first part of that in that if we recognize that everyone is flawed like us we can begin to hate everyone that we believe has the base traits that we have. This could also be passive or active.
The real solution is this, that we are created in God's image and because of this if we hate ourselves we hate what God made. Not only that we hate the IMAGE OF GOD, in other words it would be like going to a Buddhist temple and spitting on Buddha, or if you believed Zeus was real it would be like going to his temple and telling him you thought he was a horrible god. The image of a god is the ultimate representation of a god. God gave us the greatest gift ever in that we are His image (remember to separate specific attributes of specific humans form God, especially those created after we were separated from God). To insult humanity itself is like kicking Jesus in the leg. You are a human, you are the image of God. Not only that but you are a unique perspective of the image of God that no one else it like. If God was Davinci you could be the Mona Lisa, the last supper, or maybe even his drawings of an ancient parachute. There is only one you, strengths and weaknesses and all. Every brush stroke that is on your canvas, every note that flows from the violin of God's orchestral performance is uniquely you, and no one else has your attributes.
To not forgive you is to cause God not to forgive you. To hate yourself is to hate the God that made you. To damage yourself is to damage the very image of God.
Process:
1. Ask God to forgive you for not forgiving yourself and asks for help to forgive yourself.
2. Pray blessings for yourself.
3. Continue this process as long as it takes.
4. If needed get counseling or outside help.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Commentary on "Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem.
Note: I do not claim to be an expert on the subject. But these are my educated observations.
This song is very popular internationally which is interesting as the song is basically describing an extremely abusive relationship. How common is this that people aren't repulsed by this description but instead embrace it as their own? How many have faced this, wither directly by way of being the abuser/abused, or indirectly by way being close to a person involved or even a child?
The perverted male protective instinct presented in the song. The male talks about how much he loves the woman and hates it when he is violent and she leaves. When the man is not taught to protect then the instinct is perverted into control or to abandon, and control is what happens in this case. There's also an issue with drinking and anger, but that's another issue.
The woman ultimately wants that companionship so she will subject to it. Despite the violence she feels safe with him because what she wants is safety, aka protection. It is very common for those that are abused to return to abusers despite even a threat to death because of this safety.
There's a lot of pain in this type of situation. The man fears the woman will leave, and the woman fears what will happen if she leaves the man. Fear is what drives this. A fear that they can't get any better, fear of losing the "only person that has ever truly loved them". There's also masochistic behavior based on a lie that they deserve what they get. There also can be an element where physical behavior connects them in a way where they become emotionally bound to each other.
The solutions to this are inner healing that only God can bring. Change can come in time but that requires recognizing the problem and getting to the root, something that is very painful and is usually generational.
In the bigger picture it would be easier to have preventative counseling before the relationship gets to this point but that usually only happens in premarital counseling. As situations like this are more common amongst those that live together that seems unlikely.
This song is very popular internationally which is interesting as the song is basically describing an extremely abusive relationship. How common is this that people aren't repulsed by this description but instead embrace it as their own? How many have faced this, wither directly by way of being the abuser/abused, or indirectly by way being close to a person involved or even a child?
The perverted male protective instinct presented in the song. The male talks about how much he loves the woman and hates it when he is violent and she leaves. When the man is not taught to protect then the instinct is perverted into control or to abandon, and control is what happens in this case. There's also an issue with drinking and anger, but that's another issue.
The woman ultimately wants that companionship so she will subject to it. Despite the violence she feels safe with him because what she wants is safety, aka protection. It is very common for those that are abused to return to abusers despite even a threat to death because of this safety.
There's a lot of pain in this type of situation. The man fears the woman will leave, and the woman fears what will happen if she leaves the man. Fear is what drives this. A fear that they can't get any better, fear of losing the "only person that has ever truly loved them". There's also masochistic behavior based on a lie that they deserve what they get. There also can be an element where physical behavior connects them in a way where they become emotionally bound to each other.
The solutions to this are inner healing that only God can bring. Change can come in time but that requires recognizing the problem and getting to the root, something that is very painful and is usually generational.
In the bigger picture it would be easier to have preventative counseling before the relationship gets to this point but that usually only happens in premarital counseling. As situations like this are more common amongst those that live together that seems unlikely.
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