Category: Blogs

Blogs, Personal Growth

We Don’t Have to Know All the Words (Part II)

Sandra

Here are the last three points.

  1. We must teach our children that their acceptance is not based on being good

In the same way that our children’s worth does not come from the things they achieve, children do not become acceptable because of their good behavior.

The most powerful way to teach your children that their value is not based on what they do, is to express your love and acceptance of them when they are bad. When we withhold love and acceptance from children when they misbehave, we are teaching them a works based righteousness.  If our children think that if they sin, we will be disappointed in who they are, then they are not learning the gospel.

If the gospel is true, then we don’t lose God’s acceptance.  Jesus is the propitiation for our sin.  A payment that satisfies.  If the payment is satisfied, then God cannot be dissatisfied in us.  God is able to accept us, not because we are good, but because our debt of guilt has been fully paid, once and for all.  So when we are afraid that He will not accept us because we have done something wrong, we are negating and minimizing what he has done for us.  Rom. 8:1 says “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  Rom. 8:39 says that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is nothing that we can do, that will cause God to not want us anymore.  If we are dissatisfied in our children when they sin, we give them a picture that the enemy would want.

Satan wants our kids to believe that if they don’t get good grades, and stay away from the bad stuff, and don’t perform, then you’re not proud of them.  And he wants them to believe that they can get good grades, never sin, and perform perfectly and that it is possible to earn their own value and attain their own righteousness. This is works based righteousness, and it’s the best strategy to keep children from becoming dependent upon God (Act like Men-Joby Martin).  Children need to know they are accepted by God, and they can’t earn it.

  1. We must face our own continued sin and need for Jesus

The worst lie that we can teach our children, is that Christians no longer sin. Teach your children that you are in need of Jesus every day, just like they are.  Adults are not beyond sin.  Recognize that and live that, and you will inspire your children to live in dependency on God!!

If we want our children to have an accurate picture of who God is and who they are, then we have to know the truth and live out the truth in our own inner lives.  The truth is that we as Christians still sin, we are not perfect, we struggle every single day with pride, judging others, looking down on others, comparing, competing, controlling, manipulating, misleading.  We can sometimes deceive ourselves into thinking that we are “good” because we live a moral life, and we try really hard to follow all of God’s commands, and we don’t do any of the big sins.  But even as Christians, sin is in our hearts, and we still need the healing grace of the gospel every-single-day.

God’s grace is not just an absence of condemnation, it is His unmerited favor, God is for us, not against us.  He desires good for us not evil.  Grace reverses the law.   The law says we have to do it, but grace is God saying “I will help you do it”.  Grace allows us to face our sinful hearts, and as we are received with acceptance and we are forgiven, our hearts are transformed into people who are less and less drawn toward sin, and more and more drawn toward Christlikeness.

When God reveals our sin, we can either respond with systems of self-justification to ease our conscience, or by admitting it, confessing to God and others, and receiving God’s grace and mercy.  When we self-justify, we teach our children to hide sin, explain it away, deny its existence, or blame others.  When we as parents, practice authenticity and vulnerability by confessing our sins, we model to our children the gospel, and how the power of the gospel works out in everyday life.

We need to ask for our children’s forgiveness when we have wronged them.  When we say “I was prideful, I’m sorry I said that, will you forgive me?”, we live out the gospel.

We need to allow them to see us confess our sin to our spouses, and allow them witness the grace and healing that comes through living out the gospel.  Our families should function as redemptive communities, where we regularly confess sin, repent, ask for forgiveness, and experience fully restored relationships.

Authenticity is the practice of being honest about who we are before God and others, and is the lack of posturing and pretending.  This is who we want to be, and who we want to teach our children to be.

We need to work very hard to not perpetuate the delusion to our children that they can achieve perfection.  We are not good; they are not good.  That’s why we need Jesus.  We need to live in truthfulness and humility.  We don’t have to live a life of posturing and pretending, denying our sin, and fearing our failures.  We need to receive God’s love every day for our sense of worth, and we need to confess, repent, and receive God’s grace every single day.   We need to live in dependence on God.

James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”  Confession should be a regular part of our lives, if we don’t think we have regular sin to confess, we are experiencing self-deception, and we’re not looking deep enough at our motives and thoughts.

  1. We must provide a redemptive gospel community for our children.

When our children sin, we must not distance ourselves as if we can’t relate.  We need to identify with them.  We are sinners too.  Sin is a human condition.  It is a problem that’s a part of our very nature.  There is no sin that our children will ever commit that we are not capable of as well.  As we admit that we are alike, we convey our need and excitement for the gospel, because it is our only hope as well.

We don’t respond to sin with “How could you?”  As if it’s such a shock that a Christian would sin, or so out of the ordinary.  We are humbly aware of our own sin.  We understand their inner struggle, because we have been there and we would be there, apart from the amazing grace of God.  If we want to reflect the love and grace of God, then our children need to know that there is nothing that they can do to cause us to lose our love for them.

Both Galatians 6:1 and 2 Tim. 2:25-26 paint a picture of the one in sin, as being caught in a trap and in need of rescue, and both verses mention that this rescue must be done gently.

Home and church should be a space where it is safe for our children to be vulnerable and acknowledge failure.  A space where we respond with calmness and grace, and the promise to walk with them through their struggles, rather than judging and condemning them.

We must not have a “life as a final exam relationship” with our children, where they are constantly evaluated and critiqued, where there is no room for making mistakes and being human. The belief that we must be perfect to be acceptable, drives us into denial of our sin, and keeps us from ever experiencing the grace of the gospel and transformation of our hearts.  God does not expect us to “know all the words”, he does not expect us to get everything right, he does not expect perfection, he accepts us based on the work of Christ.  God’s unconditional acceptance makes it safe to admit our sin, face it, confess it, repent of it, and grow from it.

Home and church can be a gospel community where we live out the themes of grace, forgiveness, deliverance of sin, reconciliation, new life, and hope. When we extend the grace of Christ that we have received, to our children, we train them to live honestly and in the open and fully dependent upon God.

Blogs, Relationships

He’s Not as Strong as You Thought

Sandra

Deep, intimate, meaningful connections only happen when two people are able to let their guards down and be completely vulnerable and real with each other. They must feel the freedom to be honest about who they really are and all of their true thoughts and feelings.

What is it that keeps us from having deep and intimate relationships?  I think the best answer is: Self-protection.  Why do we need to protect ourselves?  Because we are not sure that it is safe to be ourselves.  Why do we need to believe that others think well of us and love us to expose our true self?  Because we are afraid that someone will conclude that we are not “enough.”  We are insecure and we believe it might actually be true.  We need to know that we are safe and loved before we can be willing to let our guard down.  It is not safe if others are constantly pointing out our faults or judging us for our mistakes.

A woman may think her husband is confident and secure, and so she points out whenever he is wrong or makes a mistake, but he is not strong and secure.  He lives with self-doubt every day.  And he will never be safe enough to take off his mask and be vulnerable, if she doesn’t find grace and compassion.  Every human soul is fragile and must be treated with gentleness and respect.

I noticed a pattern in our marriage.  Whenever I would bring up something that my husband could work on, he would defend himself and try to convince me that he was much better than I believed he was.  I concluded that his behavior meant that he thought he was perfect and never did anything wrong.  So I would redouble my efforts at pointing out all the ways that he falls short, to prove to him that he was not perfect.  Of course my behavior would invite him to continue to deny any wrongdoing because it seemed that I was making him out to be way worse than he actually was.

Then one day I had the opportunity in a counseling session to witness the mask coming down, and what was revealed was shocking.  He didn’t think he was perfect, or even good.  He had an inner critic inside his head that was constantly condemning him for imperfection.  He lived with chronic self-contempt.  On the inside he was not strong and self-assured, he was actually filled with insecurity.

I had mistaken insecurity for pride.  I don’t know if I was the first to make it unsafe for him to be vulnerable with his insecurities or he was the first to invite me to convince him of his human imperfections by his defensiveness, but either way once I understood that he had insecurities just like me, it changed everything.  I realized that I had become a very unsafe place for him, I had joined in with his inner critic against him, rather than joining him in his journey toward the truth of his security in Christ.

I starting having grace for my husband when I saw his walls come down and he admitted to having fears and insecurities, and that he wasn’t perfect.  That’s when I was able to stop defending myself against him and the lie that he thought he was better than me.  I began to have compassion for his inner critic.  I started to see that I was just as sinful as he was.  All the things that he did that I didn’t like, I did too.  I wouldn’t admit this before or see it before because I was too busy self-protecting because he was so self-protective towards me.

There is not a person in this world that is not wrestling with insecurities on the inside.  Even people who appear overly confident have insecurities.  Pride is a cover-up for insecurity.  We are all trying to seem like we are secure on the outside, but it is only a mask.  We all wrestle with thoughts that we are not “enough.”  We fear that others will look down on us.  What we are really afraid of, is that their judgment might be right and that we might actually not be “enough.”  So we self-protect.  We put on a mask and project a version of ourselves that we think will be acceptable to others so that they will think that we are “enough” and then we can believe that we are enough.

When someone says something that makes us feel bad about ourselves, we become angry and want to fight it because we believe that it is not true.  But at the exact same time we all believe deep down on the inside that it might be true, and that’s why it hurts so much.  We fear that if it is true, then we are not “enough.”  The pain comes from what we believe inside, not from the words spoken by others.  We are deeply insecure.

We believe “I am not worthless!!” And at the same time we believe, “I might be worthless.”  We are dependent on the thoughts of others to validate our self-worth.  We give others WAY too much power.   We need to take it back and give all of the power of determining our worth, to God.  When we realize that people’s thoughts about us don’t determine our worth, we are more free to be vulnerable with others and have authentic relationships because we are no longer dependent on them for our self-worth.

If we want deep and intimate relationships, we need to take off the masks and stop self-protecting.  We have to both reveal our fears and insecurities, and make it safe for others to do the same.  This means having constant grace and compassion for the failings of others.  People need to know that that they are safe and loved regardless of their behavior before they can venture to put their masks down and be their authentic selves.

When you experience being loved by someone who knows all of your insecurities, deepest fears, and inner thoughts and motivations, then you have experienced true intimacy.  Intimacy is to know each other fully, and to experience full acceptance of each other, completely unmasked.  When we cover and hide our insecurities, we perpetuate the hiding in others.

We can begin a new cycle.  Our vulnerability, grace, and lack of judgment can give others the freedom to be their real authentic selves.  We can find true intimacy.

 

Blogs

The New Kingdom is Backwards

Sandra

Jesus teaches principles in the Bible that are the opposite of the principles of the world that we live in.  These principles teach us the way that the Kingdom of God will function.  They show us a way to live that brings Life rather than suffering and pain.  We were created to live according to these principles.  As followers of the King, we can begin living according to these radically backwards principles right now.

Here are six of Jesus’ backward Kingdom principles.

The first principle is: Honor Others Above Yourself (Rom. 12:9-10 Jn. 15:12-13, Phil. 2:3-4).  Honoring others above ourselves means to put others’ needs and desires ahead of our own.  Instead of sacrificing others interests to make ourselves happy, we sacrifice our interests to make others happy.   Jesus demonstrated this kind of other-centered love by giving up his life for us.  We were made for self-giving, other directed love.  When we are self-centered we are less of ourselves.  We are not who we were created to be.  God knows that the only way that we, who have been created in His image, can have true joy, is if we center our entire lives around others, instead of ourselves.  However, I think that this is only possible if we are getting our needs met in God.  We all have needs for love and acceptance, but we were created to get our needs met in God and then to give ourselves sacrificially to others.  And I believe that loving others selflessly from the abundance that we have from God, absolutely does give us true joy and happiness.

The second principle is: Put Our Security in God Rather Than Money (Matt. 6:19–34; Luke 12:29-34; 1 Tim. 6:6-10 and 17-19; Heb. 13:5). Jesus instructs us not to worry about food, or our bodies, or clothes. He also instructs us not to love money or try to get rich, but to just be content with what we have.  The Bible says that the reason we can have contentment is that God is with us and he will not leave us.  The truth is that money will not care for and protect us.  Money provides false security, but God provides true security.  The Bible not only teaches us to be content with what we have, but also to be generous and willing to share with those in need.

The third principle is: Love Your Enemies Rather than Repaying Evil for Evil (1 Pet. 3:9; Rom. 12:17-20; Matt. 5:38-44; James 4:11-12: Matt. 7:1-5; Luke 6:37-42; Rom. 2: 1-4; John 8:7).  Jesus instructs us to bless those who insult you, turn the other cheek, and pray for those who persecute you.  We are taught not to judge others because we are just as guilty; and judgement is not our role.   This is extremely backwards according to our culture.  Our culture believes that we are entitled to retribution for offenses.  But, we were not created to judge and punish one another.  God is the only one who has the authority to judge.  Laying down our entitlement to judge and punish others actually leads to deeper and healthier relationships.

 

The fourth the principle is: Lose Your Life to Find It (Matt. 10:37-39; Matt. 16:25; Jn. 12:25).  This principle teaches that we must give up our dependence upon anything other than God, for our significance, safety, love, acceptance and purpose.  The examples that Jesus gives are family and relationships.  But there are many things that we depend on besides God.  Some examples are success, money, love and approval of people, appearance, intelligence, competence, etc. We must transfer our dependence from other things to God, to be able experience the true Life that God offers.  God is the Life Source that we were created to depend on.  All other life sources lead to chronic insecurity, comparison, and disappointment.

The fifth principle is: Serve Others Rather than Be Served.  Use your power and authority for the benefit of others (Matt 20:24-28; John 13:12-17; 1 Peter 5:2-3; Eph. 5:22-29). Jesus teaches us not to “Lord it over” people.  “Lord it over” means to act arrogantly, as if you are better or more important than others and to use your power to domineer over others.  Jesus taught that those in authority should use their power to serve others, not to serve themselves.  Jesus exemplified this by washing the disciple’s feet, a dirty job that those in authority don’t normally do.  Jesus always treated all people with respect and dignity, no matter what their station in life.  This is a very backward way of thinking.  In our culture, once someone gains power, they believe that because they have earned it, they deserve to use their power to make things go their way and protect themselves from scrutiny and accountability.  They believe that if those under them want things to go their way, they will have to earn it as well.  But God has given us the resources of power and authority for the purpose of bringing life to everyone and everything around us, not for our own glory.  We were created for giving to and serving others, not for centering around our selves.

And the sixth backwards principle is: Look Out for the Weak Rather than Yourself.  (James 1:27; Isa. 1:17; Matt. 25:37-40) The Bible teaches that Kingdom people look after orphans and widows, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, care for the sick, and visit those in prison.  All humans have value and dignity and we are all one people.  We are created to be a community of people, not simply individuals.  Those of us who have strength and means must look out for the weak and poor.  When we deny others we deny our own humanity.

Blogs

Physical Future?

Sandra

I used to believe that the next life would be a purely spiritual existence.  I thought that when I died, I would go to heaven and have a spiritual body and live in a spiritual world, and that death was an escape from all that was physical and corrupt.  I saw our bodies and world as only temporary.  As I have studied the Bible more, I have come to realize that the next life will actually be a restoration of heaven, earth, our bodies, and relationships as they were originally created to be (Isa. 65:17-19; 2 Peter 3:10-13; Heb. 11:16; 13:14; Rev. 3:12; Rev. 21:1-22:5).  The new earth is described in the book of Revelation as a physical place with rivers, and trees that yield crops of fruit, and cities, and streets (Rev. 22:1-2).  This is very similar to the Garden of Eden described in Genesis (Gen. 1:29; 2:9-10).

God’s Kingdom was vandalized and nothing in this world is working according to the way it was designed to work.  But God promised to one day redeem things back to the way they were supposed to be.  He promised to send a Savior who would restore the Kingdom and bring back peace, justice, and righteousness (Isa. 9:6-7).

The Gospel is the announcement that God is now fulfilling the promise He made to restore everything back to the way that it was created to be.   With the Birth of Christ, the Kingdom of God arrived!  Jesus came into the world to make all things right.  The Kingdom of God has come into the world, and we can be a part of it.  Anyone who chooses to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior becomes part of the new Kingdom.  We do this by turning to Jesus alone as our Source of Life.  We become children of God, and we join Him in restoring all of creation back to what it was originally intended to be.

The fact that the future Kingdom will be physical, has serious implications in the way I live my life today.  I used to think “Why recycle, we can’t save the planet, its going to burn anyway?”  Yes, it is going to burn, but if the future Kingdom is physical, that means that the physical world has value.  Same for our bodies, we might think, “I’m  going to die anyway so why take care of my body?”  But if we will have physical bodies in the future, then our bodies have value and physical life is valuable.

The physical world and our physical bodies matter.  Following God is not just about our spiritual lives. Part of joining God in restoring the world, is to recognize the dignity of all human beings made in the image of God, restore justice to the oppressed and marginalized, care for the diseased and dying, provide community for the isolated and lonely, cultivate the natural creation through science, art, and gardening, and share spiritual joy with those alienated from God.  This is how we live out the Good News of the future Kingdom.  This is the beginning of the Kingdom now.

In the book The Road to Missional, Michael Frost said,

“If mission is the alerting of people to the reign of God through Christ, our mandate is to do whatever is required in the circumstances to both demonstrate and announce that kingship.  We feed the hungry because in the world to come there will be no such thing as starvation.  We share Christ because in the world to come there will be no such thing as unbelief.  Both are the fashioning of foretastes of that world to come, none more or less valid or important than the other.” (Michael Frost, The Road to Missional, quoted in Dwell p.79)

“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4).

 

Blogs

Why a Ceremony?

Sandra

We were standing in the hallway as Ivy, the wedding coordinator, was lining us all up in the correct order to take our part in the wedding ceremony.  In that moment it occured to me, “this almost feels like we are playing parts in a play.” Is all of the ceremony of a wedding necessary? Why do we go through all of the effort to act out all of the parts of a structured and formal wedding ceremony?  I think ceremony is incredibly valuable because it reveals the meaning of the truths that it represents. Symbols and rituals are things that point us to the intersection of Heaven and Earth, the place where spiritual meets physical (Rom. 8). Ceremony brings focus and attention to things that are deep and significant.  Ceremony causes us to personally experience those deep meanings and truth. Without the ceremony of a wedding, we would never witness the radiance of a bride as she enters the room in a beautiful dress on the biggest day of her life, and we would never witness the tender emotions of an awestruck groom overwhelmed with love and joy at the sight of her.  We would never know what that feels like.

God meant for a wedding ceremony to be a picture of the day that we see Him face to face and live with Him forever and ever.  Every time we act out a wedding ceremony it is a beautiful reminder of that reunion day.  When we see the bride, in all of her radiant beauty, we experience what God experiences when he looks at us.  When we see the groom’s reaction to the Bride, we feel with him and experience how we are seen through God’s eyes.   When we witness the covenants that the bride and groom make, we are reminded of the covenant that God has made with us.  Yes, ceremony is necessary! What a beautiful reminder of God’s love for us!

 

Blogs

God is Not Condemning

Sandra

If you have in your mind a condemning God, you don’t have the right view of God.  When you have received his love you won’t be afraid; you will hear “I love you.”

1 Jn. 4:17-18 says: “Love is made complete so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement…There is no fear in love. Love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” When we have received God’s love, we don’t need to fear losing our forgiven state with Him.

Rom. 8:1-2 “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

John 3:17 says “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Rom. 8: 33-39 says that “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”

When we “believed”, we were declared “not guilty.”  There is no more separation. There is no more anger, or wrath. We do not have to fear condemnation or guilt.  (Jn. 3:18; Heb. 10:14; 17-18) We are legally “not guilty” by believing.   A guilty Christian is an oxymoron.  We don’t become guilty again each time we sin.  We don’t lose God’s love or acceptance when we sin.  Jesus died for all of our sins, past, present, and future.  The whole point of Jesus death was so that He could have a relationship with us even though we are, and continue to be, sinners.  He knew that we would wrestle with a desire to be independent from Him until the day we die.  God sees our inability as a part of our reality and he is not mad at our weakness.  In Matt. 5:3 Jesus calls being “poor in spirit” or being in a state of incompleteness before God, “a blessed state”.  In 2 Cor. 12:7-10, Paul says that our weakness keeps us humble and dependent upon God’s strength.

If we are still feeling guilty when we sin, the problem is inside of us.  God does not give us feelings of guilt.  The Holy Spirit sends us messages of conviction, not feelings.  We decide how to feel about the message.  God does not motivate us by guilt, he motivates us by love.  The more we receive God’s love, the more that we will be motivated by his love to live the way that we were created to live. We don’t need guilt motivation.  God does want us to know how terrible sin is and that it needs judgment, but only so that we understand how great our salvation is, not so that we think we are bad forever.  He has rescued us.  He wants us to see ourselves as rescued forever, not judged forever.

God does not want us feeling guilty.  Jesus died on the cross to cure us of our guilt.  Guilt does not motivate us to change for the right reason.  Guilt is focuses on how we feel about ourselves, not on the offended party or the destructiveness of our actions.  When we feel guilty, we want it to go away so that we can feel better about ourselves.  But when we are motivated by God’s love for us and therefore our love for his perfect design, and for all of his valuable creations, then we change because we have empathy for the people that we hurt and we have a desire to do things that are right because they bring life and not death.

God’s acceptance of you, and therefore your acceptance of yourself as a continually sinful person, does not cause you to sin more.  The lack of fear allows you to face the truth instead of deny it or try to escape the guilt feelings. Once you don’t have to worry about guilt anymore, you are free to be motivated by love.  When you realize that God is “for you”, and he loves you, and has always had your best interest in mind, you understand that all of his instructions and commands are good, and benefit you, and bring life.   This leads to freedom from sin motivated by love rather than guilt.