The Proof of His Love -- The Cross

We are not saved by feelings.

We are saved by grace through faith.

We receive this grace based on what Jesus did for us at the Cross.

Cults like AA want to get people looking at themselves for the proof of God's love for them.

AA is no exception:

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. (AA, pg 84)

What was the first thing that Adam and Eve did when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil?

"7And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

God Arraigns Adam and Eve

8And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. 9And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? 12And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 13And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." (Genesis 3:7-13)

 

Their eyes were opened to themselves, and they saw right away that they were inadequate.

 

Then they clothed themselves with fig leaves, a picture of self-righteousness referenced throughout the Bible.

 

However, that sense of sin, of "not good enough", coupled with the arrogant yet bankrupted belief that we can and must do something about it, cannot be removed by covering it up.

 

Nor can it be removed by good works, or working twelve steps, or taking our inventory.

 

Damn AA!

 

The proof of God's perfect love for us begins and ends at the Cross.

 

There we can look away from our sins, our shame, or bad thoughts and feelings, and see Jesus the perfect man, taking our sin, becoming sin, and then granting us His Sonship.

 

Today, Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father, and there we receive grace in time of need, as God our Father now invites to come boldly before the throne of grace (Hebrews 4: 16)

 

Our proof of God's love for us is the Cross.

 

For so long, I was wandering around in my mind, and in the actions I took, trying to create a sense of peace and serenity for myself through what I did, or what I was thinking.

 

Living in mind control, trying to make sure that I never got angry or frustrated, doing whatever I could to prevent myself from blocking the sun light of the Spirit, I was totally focused on myself.

 

Just terrible.

 

I was also dogged by these terrible fears.

 

How did I know that I would not have to pay for my sins?

 

This lie was so pervasive in my life, which battered me with the lie that I needed physical, tangible proof.

 

Yet there is no peace in our senses. We are called to walk y faith in order to have proof of God's love for us.

 

That proof, the proof of His love, is the Cross.

 

The more that we allow God our Father to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, what Jesus did at the Cross, the greater His grace and peace abound in our lives.

 

Not a proof for what will happen, but the certainty that He has pledged to care for me, for what has happened -- the Cross!

His Cross is Greater Than Our Burdens

This revelation has been one of the greatest.

God's love is greater than every setback, every hurt, every fear and failure.

We cannot esteem His love at the Cross as less than anything else that we see in this life.

His love covers a multitude of sins, in fact His love covers all the sins of the world (1 John 2:1-2)

For me, as far as my imagination was concerned, I still all that Jesus did for me at the Cross as too small to deal with the big stuff.

Why did I see the Cross as so small?

Because I was focused so much on what I was thinking, and then I was focused on what I was feeling, as though His grace still depended on me in some way.

Then it is not grace at all.

It's not just what happened at the Cross, but what it means.

Satan's greatest trap to this day has been to minimize the Cross rather than try to get rid of it.

His love has overcome everything in the world.

We do not have to feel it. Just see it and rest in the truth of His love.

Paying less attention to the condemnation of men, or our feelings about it, we realize that through Christ, we have overcome the world (John 16: 33), and that our faith in what Jesus did is the overcoming power we need:

"1Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 3For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. 4For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." (1 John 5: 1-4)

Not Fear of the Future, But Fear of Condemnation

For so long, I was afraid of the future.

I was worried that I would make a mistake, or that I would choose something that would make God angry with me.

I would decide to go somewhere or be somewhere and I would get into a  great deal of trouble.

Dr. Laura Schleslinger even tried to counsel one young lady, who was all caught up in doing the right thing or the wrong thing.

"Don't get caught up in whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing. You will go crazy."

I never understood that statement, until now.

When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they started looking at themselves, and they spent their time and energy trying to fix themselves, to make themselves presentable from the sense of shame which came with realizing that they were naked.

When the heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden, Adam and Eve still hid themselves.

No matter how hard we try to cover our sin and shame, it cannot work.

Someone Else had to do it, and that Someone is Jesus Christ!

The evil scam of AA lies in greater part in making people keep trying to fix themselves, to keep looking for fig leaves, if you will, and no matter how hard you try, though, the leaves are never big enough, the consciousness of wrongdoing just never seems to go away.

What a frustrating life it was for me.

I kept fearing the power and willingness to make the next step, because I was so unsure of what to expect.

There was that one passage from 1 John, which teaches us that "Perfect love casts out fear."

I do understand that that perfect love is not our love for God, but God's love for us, a love which has taken us from dead in our trespasses to alive and seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Now I understand that it is not the future that I fear, but God's anger, or the shame of wrongdoing.

Yet what does the Bible say about God's wrath:

"For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." (Psalm 30: 5)

In contrast to God's wrath is God's favor.

Why is His favor for life?

Because He sent His Son Jesus, who was filled with grace and truth (John 1: 14), that we may receive His life and His favor:

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1: 14)

and then

"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John  10: 10)

Later:

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." (1 Corinthians 15: 10)

and later

"20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Galatians 2: 20-21)

Who we are has nothing to do with what we do, but with all that Jesus has done for us, and because we have been crucified with Christ, no longer identifying with our sin in the flesh or our sins in what we do, we now have the freedom and grace to come boldly before God to the throne of grace in our time of need (Hebrews 4: 16)

One again God will never be angry with us every again:

"8In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.

"9For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee." (Isaiah 54: 8-9)

 

God is never going to be angry with you or me ever again.

 

In fact, God is not angry with the world anymore:

 

"To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5: 19)

 

and

 

"1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2: 1-2)

 

There is no reason to fear the future, because no matter what happens, we know that we have passed from death to life, and whatever wrath God may have had with the human race because of Adam's sin, His divine justice has been satisfied at the Cross.

 

He will never be angry with you -- and even when you fail, instead of punishing you, He will guide you by His love, and by His Holy Spirit you will be transformed from glory to glory by His Spirit as you behold Jesus (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

Position in Christ Has Nothing to Do with Condition on Earth

I want to understand this better, and hope that more people do, too.

Who we are has nothing to do with how we feel or what we have.

Who we are has everything to do with who Christ is, and that we are in Him.

Our position in Christ cannot be effected, no more how poor or rich we may be at any one time.

Who we are in Christ cannot change, no matter how we may feel, for better or for worse.

Like many, I am addicted to feeling better, and trusting those feelings as a guide for my standing before God.

No, that's wrong.

I get that.

It's very hard to define God's love for us based on how we feel.

It's a source of great bondage, too, if we insist on feeling a certain way in order to say that we are at peace, too.

Jesus, reveal to us all the more, no matter how we feel, that you are taking care of all things for us.

Know the Truth -- Not Feel Better

"31Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8: 31-32)

It's about knowing the truth of the Gospel, the Gospel of grace (Galatians 1: 6, 2: 5, 14; 3 John 2-4)

I have revisited this topic many times.

I do not want to feel better.

Such demands were the crux of the problem for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness in Numbers 21, and such is the problem for too many Christians today, including myself.

I wanted to feel that God loved me, but when circumstances were not always looking, when I was angry or upset.

I kept seeing the feelings as a gauge for whether God was with me or against me.

The issue is not feelings, but thinking the truth, renewing our minds to the Word of God, not the world of man:

"1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Romans 12:1-2)

How are we transformed? Notice that Paul writes "Be transformed", not "transform yourselves".

Paul writes to the Corinthians how we are transformed:

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

Not feeling, not struggling, but beholding!

Check out also what John wrote in his Gospel account:

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1: 14)

Wow! When you behold the glory of Jesus, you see the Father, and you receive more of His Grace and Truth.

Wow - the more that you know the truth, the more that you are set free.

If there is any bondage in our lives, the reason falls on the fact that there is more about the grace of God through Christ Jesus that we do not know yet.

I don't want to wait any longer! Please, Jesus, show me more of your grace and truth in my life today!

Fear No More through His Love at the Cross

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4: 18)

I misread this verse so many times.

I used to think that if I was afraid, it meant that I was not loving God enough.

If I loved God more, then I would not be afraid.

This love, which is perfected among us (1 John 4:17), is not our love for God, but God's love for us.

"We love because He first loved us." (1 John 4: 19)

If we find ourselves still fearful in some way, the answer is to understand more about how much God loves us, how much God loves me!

He loves me as much as He loves Jesus, because as He is, so are we, so am I in this world!


The answer to fear is not something that we have to do, or some feeling that we need to conjure up.

We need to understand more about the fullness of God's love for us at the Cross.

What He did there, taking away all our sins, all our shame, all the reproach, and offering us the perfected grace which takes our worst and makes us first - that is what the Cross is all about -- that is what God's love for us is all about.

For too long, I kept paying attention to how I felt, as though my fears or upsets would frustrate God's grace in my life.

That is simply not true:

"7Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8: 37-39)

Nothing can separate us from the love of God: nothing. So, we must not use our feelings as the final judgment or determination of whether God loves us or not.

Love is seeing more of Jesus and all that He has done for us.

When I was troubled about my past, when I was afraid of the future, the lies that would assault my mind always pressed me with "Where's the proof? How do you know that nothing bad will happen to you?"

That fearful assault brought so much bondage into my life.

Today, I understand the answer -- the Cross is the proof of God's protection in my life. The New Covenant which God the Father cut with God the Son at the Cross, where Jesus is my perfect representative, has made all the difference.

That is the proof -- not what I am thinking at ay time, nor the feelings which may follow.

The source of the stressors in my life began and now end with the truth that Jesus Christ is living in me and watching over me. His resurrection from the dead is the divine receipt that all my sins are put away and gone forever.

Here is the New Covenant written out for all to receive:

"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

 

12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

 

When we understand (know) the truth, then the truth sets us free, and this truth is the truth of the Gospel (Galatians 2: 5, 14) and the same truth which John invited the Beloved Gaius (and everyone else) to walk in (3 John 2-4)

It's All About the Cross -- Then Everything Else

"6And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. 7Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 8And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. 9And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." (Numbers 12:6-9)

God bless the ministry of Pastor Joseph Prince.

It's all about Jesus and all that He has done for us at the Cross.

It's not about us and what we can do for Jesus, but what He has done as is committed to doing for us:

Since I was writing about Jesus, why am I referencing this account from the Book of Numbers?

Like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, many of have been bitten by disease, death, sin, judgment in terrible forms.

The fact is that all of us are bitten, with the sting of sin, and its strength is the law:

"The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law." (1 Corinthians 15: 56)

We are dead in our trespasses, and our greatest needs is righteousness, which allows His life to flow in us.

Wow!

Yet for me, as for many of us, when we are in pain, when we are struggling in some area of our lives, we cry out to God or to other people "Take away my problem. Take away the pain, take away this disease, this debt which is plaguing my life."

God our Daddy is interesting not just in taking away our problems ,but wants to restore us and bless us in spirit, soul, and body:

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23)


and

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." (3 John 2)

Any other prosperity which we enjoy in our lives must start with soul, or inner prosperity. If you are fearful, angry, easily hurt, embittered, or filled with upset on the inside, especially with a sense of guilt or shame, all the blessings in the world will come to naught.

God wants us to have full success in every aspect of our lives, not just materially.

We find this certainty for us at the Cross.

Now, what does the Cross have to do with the Israelites bitten by snakes?

They wanted Moses to take away the snakes. They needed the LORD to heal them from their bites and their bitterness.

So, Moses took a bronzed serpent, a picture of Jesus judged for our sins on the Cross.

Anyone who looked, just looked at the bronzed serpent was healed.

Not looking at our problems, not feeling our pain and trying to get rid of the pain, but gaining a greater revelation of the goodness and grace of God at the Cross.

Jesus Himself compared Himself to the bronzed serpent:

"13And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3: 13-15)

When we see Jesus, not ourselves, we are taken from death to life, and that more abundantly (John 10: 10)

Jesus later told the Jews of His day:

"31Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 32And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. 33This he said, signifying what death he should die." (John 12: 31-33)

When Jesus says "draw all", He was talking about drawing all judgment to himself:
"1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2: 1-2)

His blood cleanses us from all sin and unrighteousness (1 John 1: 7)

Look at the Cross, and gain a greater understanding of His love for you at the Cross:


"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)

Paul writes in his epistles about God's love:

"17That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, "" (Ephesians 1: 17-19)

and then

"16That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." (Ephesians 3: 16-19)

I still do not understand everything that Jesus has done for us at the Cross.

We still have so much to learn about what Jesus did for us, and has committed to doing for us because of the Cross.

Keep learning about what He did for you when He died for you, and let His Spirit transform you from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

Our Conception of God Very Dangerous -- God as Father

The idea that we can conceive of God right away creates problems.

For many people, our conception of God is informed by our parents.

I have since learned that dysfunctional families are the norm, not the exception.

Throughout the Bible, I have read about one bad father (and mother) after another in the Bible. From the strife between Abraham and Sarah, to Isaac's favoritism and Rebekah's conniving, and then Jacob and his wives (four wives!) plus the rebellious children and their bitter envy of the favored Joseph, dysfunctional families are the  norm, not the exception.

And let's not forget David: great shepherd, poet, warrior, prophet, king, but he was a bad father.

So, our conception of God, if based on our experience, will set us up for nothing but frustration in our proper standing before God the Father.

He is the best Father out there, and we cannot understand how great He is based on our experience with our parents.

At one point in my life, I was so frustrated with what I saw in my life, with what my parents had done (or not done) and I was not afraid to pray:

"I want a new family."

Then as I read more of the Bible, I found out that everyone of us needs a new family, a new identity in Christ Jesus:

We need a spirit of adoption, a recognition of how good God is, and how much He loves us because of all that His Son Jesus has done for us.

No one had ever told me how good God is -- how great He is because of all that His Son Jesus did for me.

No one.

On this Mother's Day, I want to leave this post, about the mother whom we all receive because of our Loving Father God through His Son Jesus:

21Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? 22For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. 23But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. 24Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. 25For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 26But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. (Galatians 4: 21-26)

 

In Christ, we receive grace as our mother, the Jerusalem above, because we are all lifted up in Christ above all setbacks, principalities and powers (Ephesians 2: 4-6)

The Truth That Sets Me Free

The revelations about the AA cult has open my eyes more than I could have ever imagined.

I never realized that the program was creating such damaging  mind control.

For years, I saw the world through the eyes of "Do good, get good. Do bad, get the bat."

That's not who God is at all.

Yet our minds and our bodies are driven to that kind of thinking in the first place.

I was so geared to seeing God as someone who may or may not be on my side.

There was so much frustration, so much toxic thinking in my life.

The irony was that the very program which told me to avoid stinking thinking, AA, was created that stinking thinking.

I lived in such mental bondage, trying to think or feel a certain way.

So in bondage to what I was feeling, so in bondage to what I was thinking.

I , I , I.

So much bondage in ourselves.

Wasn't AA supposed to be about getting us out of ourselves in the first place?

No it isn't.

God  is love, and this love was manifested to us in what Jesus did at the Cross.

God is all give, that we may in turn give to others.

For so long, I was trying to give and love out of my emptiness, out of my frustrated efforts.

And lo and behold -- there was nothing but frustration.

The truth has set me free - the truth that in Christ, I am justified from all wrongdoing and brought into perfect fellowship with Him!

Wow! I hate AA, a terrible cult which teaches people that God is demanding from us,  when we have nothing to give, and He knows this. Instead, He wants us to receive all things from Him, that we may give to others.

His Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

I have written before about this wonderful truth.

For years, I tried to psych my way out of fear.

I tried to tell myself why I should not be afraid.

I kept thinking that if I had the right mindset, if I put enough effort into pushing away the feelings, then I would not be afraid.

It never worked. Never.

Fears were still very strong in my life.

I did not have the rich full knowledge of how much God the Father loves me, and this love has nothing to do with what I am feeling.


It has everything to do with His being in my life!    

His love is all about revealing and releasing all blessings in our lives.

This evil cult AA teaches us that how we feel can block God's love in our lives.

That is a lie:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

Followed by:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4: 18)

This perfect love rests on this -- that God our Father sees us not just as His dear children, but as His only begotten Son, Jesus!

We have received a new life in Christ Jesus, and His standing: righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

This new habit of mind has taken a while for me. Whenever I get upset or fearful in my mind, the last thing that I want to do is go right to God and say "Show me more of how much you love me."

Yet we are invited to come boldly before the throne of grace in our time of need. Don't heed your feelings, or even your fears. Because of all that Jesus has done at the Cross, we can know and believe in His love, even if we are upset in any way.

"37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8: 37-39)

This love has nothing to do with me, and certainly nothing to do with what I feel:

"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 John 4: 16)

We have known, and when we know that He loves us, and that this love is unconditional, then we believe it, and then we feel it. For this reason, Paul invited us to renew our minds, not our feelings.

Perfect love, His perfect love, casts our all fear.

Why Do You Feel Bad?

Why are you mad?

Why are you angry?

Why does that person make me mad, sad, angry, etc?

These questions do not manifest enough in our lives.

We spend so much time trying to feel better, when we need to pay attention to what we are thinking, pure and simple.

Some people could make me mad. Other people would make me feel ashamed

Or did they?

In reality, it is perfectly true that no one can make us feel anything.

What we are thinking makes all the difference in what we are feeling.

This lesson is hard to accept in part because the feelings, the emotional responses we have toward other people -- those vivid experiences are the most real, or rather present aspects of our experience.

For so long, I would pay attention to my feelings, to my thoughts, to the fears and worries, then live a life of reacting to how I felt and who was responsible for "making me" feel a certain way.

A sense of shame has been common in my life.

Every time someone was angry with me, or someone yelled at me, a sense of upset would not go away.

Some people I would go out of my way to avoid.

For a long time, I never understood why some people seemed to inspire so much shame inside of me..

Now I understand what Paul was writing about in Second Corinthians:

"(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; 6And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled." (2 Corinthians 10: 4-5)

For so long, I believed that I had to judge God's love for me based on how I felt.

If I felt bad, it meant that God was angry with me. If I sensed some unease in my life, if my mind was not focused a certain way, then God was not going to be with me.

This kind of mind control comes only from cult like practices, which AA is founded, which were forced on me because of my stepper Mom.

I had the wrong impression of God for so long. I saw Him as harsh and overbearing, demanding obedience from me, and I was constantly under stress and strain, fearing that I was doing something wrong.

The issue was not even feeling bad, necessarily, but the lie attached to the sensate emotion, which in the past then sent these shock waves of condemnation up and down in my head.

God's love for me has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with Himself.

How true it is - we need to understand the fullness of the Cross, and if we think that we understand everything about what Jesus did for us, then we are greatly mistaken (and can be easily deceived)

For years, my mother presented to me a false impression of God, and everything that I understood about Him was tied up in what she thought, she said, she believed.

A false icon from beginning to end.

I was severely abused as a child, and the spiritual intimidation which I had endured is now being peeled away as I understand more of how much God loves me, and that as Jesus is, so am I in this world!

I Wish Someone Had Taught Me About the Flesh

The flesh is still with us.

We are not defimed by the flesh, but by the Spirit.

That's why Paul told us to walk in the Spirit, and thus we would never fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Never.

Yet too many Christians, of which I was one, are convinced that we are called to live a life of perfecting our thoughts and feelings, that we can walk in victory to the degree that we keep trying to fix ourselves.

There is no such course of action.

Self-help is not help at all.

We cannot help ourselves, we cannot fix ourselves, our selves are corrupted thoroughly.

Born dead in Adam, we are invited through Christ Jesus to have life and that more abundantly, to reign in this life.

To reign in His Life.

Jesus is so awesome.

Greater than every need and want, filling in every gap and limit in our lives.

For the longest time, I treated Jesus as too small to meet every need that I was facing.

Or worse,  I treated Him as though His presence depended on how I was feeling from day to day.

That is just ridiculous, but I was so busy trying to create peace through what I was feeling rather than recognizing how great He truly is.

I was wandering and wondering like a weary Israelite in the wilderness for years and years.

I treated every hurt, every bad feeling, every upset as though it was something that I had to deal with, something which had to be put away.

But there is no putting away the sense of fear and upset in our lives. There is no putting away through our efforts the sinful tendencies in our minds and bodies.

We do need to be reborn. We do need a new life.

This new birth, this new life we find in Christ, or rather we receive through Jesus.

I wish that someone had told me about the flesh. I remember reading about it briefly when I was a first year student at UC Irvine.

If we do not see Jesus as our Savior every day, not just from death to life, then we will find ourselves creating more death than life in our daily walk.

Back to Paul's Epistle to the Galatians:

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." (Galatians 5: 16)

"Walk in" means identify with.

As we see ourselves more in Christ, we find that the dead sins of our old man start to fall away from us.

Instead of trying to fix ourselves, the Holy Spirit transforms us from glory to glory.

Look at Jesus, not yourself. Let Him take stock of who you are in Him, and realize that you are not your flesh, but that you are Spirit, and His Spirit will transform you.

All That Upset Was Never Me!

We will never rest if we do not believe that He is taking care of everything.

That God our Father -- not just some conception but the Truth who sets us free -- is taking care of everything is essential to growing in grace.

The reason why I was so full of fear, though, rested in the poor understanding of how great God is.

He is taking care of everything.

His working in my life has nothing to do with me at all.

I do not have to work double-time in my mind, my head, my thinking, or my anything else to ensure that He is in business, and in the business of taking care of me.

He covers every inch of the universe, and He is taking care of every moment before and after.

Even if I fear for tomorrow, it makes no difference, for He is with me.

I do not have to feel that He is here, because there is no way that He would not be here for me with me, and leading me in all things.

Now I am starting to learn something really wonderful.

For years, because of the upsets of not knowing how great He is, I was constantly fearful, having no idea that He is providing everything -- Everything! -- for me.

Yet a sense of unease, a sense of frustration and difficult took center place, at least in the back o f my head.

This sense of foreboding just would not go away.

For so long, I was convinced that I had to do something about the burning frustration in the back of my head.

Today, I am realizing that not only do I not have to do anything about that upset in the back of my head, but the thoughts of "what will you do?" and "what will happen if?" are not even revelant questions for me to answer. It makes no difference, because who God is, and how much He loves me, has nothing to do with me at all.

Still, for years  I was carried away by this frustration, as though everything depended on me in some way.

Such thinking was never true, yet this false, all too limiting conception of God was what I was taught for so long.

For too long.

This lie, that limited God and made Him seem oh too small to step into my life -- caught me up in great bondage.

I did not need to feel better.

I needed to see how big God is and that He is huge in my life, regardless of how I feel.

He is taking care of everything. All He asks of us is to believe on Him.

It is that simple, because He is the way, and the only Way who provides us truth and life.

So, if there is any upset, any sense of "what if" at this point, the issue cannot be resolved by psyching myself not to be afraid.

The truth lies in knowing more about how much My Daddy loves me.

The fearful upset in our lives has been fully paid for because of what Jesus did at the Cross. This life is no longer about doing more, but about receiving more of Him who has been from the beginning (1 John 2: 4-15)

He Works for Us -- So Stop Working

Keep coming back, it works if you work it.

No it doesn't.

I have written at length, for nearly two years now, about the dreaded AA cult, an evil human-efforts based fraud which like all other religions -- binds man back to working for everything, when the Bible presents the Loving God in the fullness of Himself:

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8: 32)

One of the biggest reasons why AA is so dangerous is that the program offers this sad idea that people are cared for, but they have to work, they have to add something to the Finished Work of all that Jesus has done at the Cross.

There is no adding anything, because Christ did everything, and in Him we find everything, too:

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8: 32)

The work is finished

Yet for years, I never felt at peace.

The settled peace which Jesus gives us, He gives us by grace through faith, not through our works.

There is no mixing law with grace, and yet many Christians believe that they have to add the Twelve Steps to the One Work which Jesus did for us.

Jesus is working in us and through us. He is ministering on our behalf, and He sits as our representative at the right hand of God the Father:

"Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4: 14-16)

This Jesus is not a product of our conception. He is a living, breathing person who ministers on our behalf

"Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." (Hebrews 7: 16-17)

and

"1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12: 1-2)

We stop looking at ourselves, which includes "taking our inventory", and we start seeing Jesus our forerunner not as a mere example of how we are to live, but rather see Him as our life:

"1If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3: 1-4)

He is our life, and He is alive in us now, as long as we rest in Him and keeping receiving His gifts of righteousness and grace (Romans 5: 17)


Jesus is working for me, because I can do nothing of myself.

Oh, this wonderful Savior! He is saving us now. Not just from death to life, but in this life He is still saving us, still restoring us, still serving us.

He is working for you Beloved. So stop working, because He works and does a better job at it, too!

He's On The Job, Even When You Feel Bad

This truth has also taken some time for me to accept, too.

He is on the job, even when I do not see or feel Him.

Faith is not about our senses, because if we could see God, then He would not be big enough, He would not be great enough.

When everything seems to be working against us, we have to believe that Satan is working in reaction to the very good which God is purposing in our lives.

I am receiving all things from Him, and He wants to continue receiving all things from Him, too.

Thank you, Jesus for caring for me, that you are on the job, even when we feel bad.

I Don't Want to Feel Better -- I Want to Know He Cares for Me!

"Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

6Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: 7Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." (1 Peter 5: 5-7)

 

God cares about you and me.

 

He cares about me.

 

I have had a hard time resting in this truth.

 

I am so easily upset.

 

The reason why I was so easily upset, I learned, rests in the fact that He is taking care of me all the time.

 

He invites us all of u trusting Him with all our cares.

 

This has been very difficult for me, as I am so used to taking care of things myself.

 

At this point in my life, I find that there is less that I can take care of, and more that I have to trust Him to take care of.

 

Such is the full meaning of growing in grace.

 

Alcoholics Anonymous sent a message that there was this loving God, yet I could be cut off from this loving God based on how I felt or what I was thinking.

 

Such is the full meaning of mind control, which defines AA.

 

Any program which pushes emotional balance as a final goal is missing the big picture.

 

I do not want to feel better. I want the source of fear, pain, and upset removed from my life.

 

The cares of this life are all bound up in the sense that I am alone, and that I have to fend for myself.

 

Yet that is not the case at all:

 

"5Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrews 13: 5)

 

 Lord Jesus, I am not afraid to write this -- show me more how you wish to the servant working in me, that you are my life, and this life is as easy as receiving from you:

 

"For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10: 45)