Christian Concepts

Bringing your Potential to Light

Archives for April 2019

Jesus Will Never Cast You Out

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We live in a world with no 100% lifetime guarantees. There’s always some limit or exception. Imagine if washers and dryers came with a lifetime guarantee. You would need a new one every five years. No company can afford to sell a dryer for $500 and make it last 100 years.

Things don’t last like they used to. Nothing lasts forever, right?

In a world of broken and replaceable things, it’s easy for me to believe I am broken and replaceable too. If there’s no such thing as a lifetime guarantee, then is there such a thing as eternal security? Maybe even God can’t offer a lifetime guarantee. At least, that’s what the enemy wants me to believe.

Jesus doesn’t offer lifetime guarantees like the world promises. He promises infinitely more!

Jesus offers the opposite of a typical lifetime guarantee. He promises to keep you alive forever, even while other things break and pass out of existence. Jesus offers an upgrade: an eternal life guarantee. Click To Tweet

God the Father and Jesus have an understanding. God wills something to happen; Jesus makes it happen. If you believe in Jesus, God’s will is for you to have eternal life.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

John 6:37-40

Do you believe? If you believe, you have eternal life. The only work you have to do is to believe (John 6:29). When you believe, you trust that the Father has chosen and given you to Jesus.

Then, you will come to Jesus and He won’t cast you out. You have the Spirit’s seal of approval. You are secure in Jesus’s eternal life guarantee.

Because of Security You Belong

You belong only because of Jesus. God adopts you into His family. Anything good you have comes from God. You can accept yourself and count yourself as good and worthwhile because your creator says so.

Your life would have no meaning apart from the life of Jesus Christ. But because you are joined to God through Jesus, all of God’s blessings flow to you. To reject yourself in the face of this reality would be to reject the very words of God.

Security and belonging are not optional. Jesus provides both. What does life look like without security and belonging? I like how Brene Brown describes life without belonging:

A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.

Brene Brown, Research Professor at the University of Houston

It’s possible to struggle to feel God’s love and acceptance. In future posts, I’ll explore breaking, falling apart, and numbing so you can work toward becoming whole.

If you don’t feel like you belong, first consider how secure you feel.

God is Making You Whole

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What might you have in common with Spider-Man’s enemy, Sandman? Sandman had a broken heart and then through a freak accident, his body became broken too. If you haven’t seen Spider-Man 3 from 2007, catch a clip showing the birth of Sandman if it is still available.

Watching Sandman pull himself together will tug at your heart. He is sad and beat down by the difficulties of life. But sitting in the pieces of his life, he becomes aware of his reason to live.

When you have a mess of challenges to overcome, life can feel sad and slow. You might be saying to yourself, life can’t get any worse. But then it does.

You might feel like you're falling apart. Don't give up. God is making you whole. There is a power at work within the members of your body. Click To Tweet

and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,

Ephesian 1:19-20

Life has a way of pulling you apart at the seams. However, even if you feel completely disintegrated, God is always working to make you new. You don’t have to pull yourself together, although, you have no choice but to wait as God stitches you together.

Even when you feel weak and are spread thin, God’s power is at work. God knows where every part is. He is pulling you together with His great might.

When is God going to do this in your life? He’s doing it now. The first step to wholeness is to take inventory of how you feel spread into little pieces. You must feel the pieces

In what ways is your life in pieces? Visualize this.

Now, see the pieces coming together. What do you see?

No matter how broken you started, or how excruciatingly slow it seems God is working, God is making you whole. You are valuable to God and by His presence you are whole.

Christ is risen! And if you died with Him, so shall you also be raised with Him (Romans 6:5).

Image by Kuradomova from Pixabay

Your Pain Will Guide You

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You might see another person receiving significant attention and adoration from others. Or others are promoted ahead of you. Or others are pregnant for the second time while you’ve been trying for years. God is working in others’ lives, but He doesn’t appear to be working in your life.

That’s painful. Let it register as such.

It’s easy to become immobilized by doubt when others appear to have God’s favor while you seem to be invisible to God.

To become unstuck, you need to enter fully into your pain. Let your heaviness of heart guide you. If you’re not in touch with your feelings, you won’t be able to wake up to God’s reality for your life.

How in touch are you with your hunger? What does your soul ache for? Do you want more relationship? more peace? meaningful work? kingdom work? more healing?

It’s easy to deny the ache. Like in the movie The Matrix you can think you know reality, but be nearly oblivious to the true condition of your soul.

Hunger is scary. Hunger is so scary that I hide it from my awareness. When I’m not coping well, I cling to anything I can find to stop the pain. I lose touch with the condition of my soul. Then I experience shock when I reconnect. It’s easy to do.

Listen to the aches. They speak from a deeper reality. They speak out answers to life. To identify your suffering is to know a new kind of freedom. You will gain freedom from the ambiguity in life. Finally, you recognize the value of pain. What was once an intolerable distraction becomes a faithful guide.

Hind’s Feet on High Places is an excellent book for those times of unbearable confusion. You feel discouraged. Then, just when you adjust to your discomfort and believe it can’t get any worse, God suggests that you lean further into your pain and carry your cross.

God has a purpose for your pain.

As a counselor, I like to think I have some answers to life’s problems. However, I’m not at my best when I’m focused primarily on finding clever solutions. I’m more helpful when I provide support that allows my clients to stay connected to their pain. If they can achieve contact with their aching soul, they might not cease to suffer, but they will find the strength to endure and other side-effects like clarity, peace, and a path forward.

How are you doing with connecting to your pain? Do you allow others to support you as you stay connected?

—Image by Joe Murphy from Pixabay

3 Steps to Overcoming Shame

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Shame is the inability to tolerate being known.

Before you can share yourself with others, you must first be willing to know yourself.

There’s no end to being known. Every day is new. Every day brings more ways you can know and be known.

Being willing to be known is a discipline. Sometimes the cost of being known isn’t worth the reward. Hiding seems better than facing the humiliation of being known. There are times when you won’t be ready for the exposure. That’s okay temporarily.

The more you hide, the more you remain hidden even from yourself. It’s not that you’ve forgotten who you are, but more like you’ve never given yourself a chance to understand who you are.

But hiding in shame isn’t really an option for the Christian. God won’t let you hide forever. You are salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). He calls each one of us out of hiding and into a relationship with Him, others, and our self.

The antidote to shame is being authentic. I have three practical steps you can take to practice the discipline of being known. Each step has an element of taking in (receiving) and an element of letting go (expressing).

Step 1: Study and Journal

If you struggle to tolerate being known, the least risky way to begin is keeping a private journal. Make time to write consistently. As you journal and reread your writing, you begin to see yourself from an outside perspective.

What should you write about? Read the Bible and other helpful materials that teach you who you are. Then write about what the truths stir up in your heart.

Step 2: Confide in One Person

Choose a trusted person and begin to share verbally. Practice putting into words what you’re feeling inside, entrusting your private life to another. Receive their acceptance and care.

Remember that God is a person too. Pay attention to how He speaks to you whether directly or indirectly through others.

Step 3: Share Publically and Discriminantly

Now transition to sharing with everyone you know. This doesn’t mean being an open book to everyone. Healthy people discriminate how much they share to each person. However, as you heal, you should be able to share more freely with more people.

The more you know the truth about yourself, the more you’ll know how you can contribute to others. You don’t always have to receive; eventually, you’ll know what you can give back.

Shame is difficult to overcome. It’s easy to fear the unknown. And it’s ten times harder when that unknown is you.

Where are you on your journey to overcoming shame?