Insights

Live As A Free Person

January 23, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Do you live more like a free person or a slave? A free person lives without the burden of guilt and shame. Guilt is like a ball and chain. It slows you down and in some cases, it might completely immobilize you. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus died so you can be free of these horrible burdens.

God introduced the Gospel to us 430 years before He introduced the law (Galatians 3:8, 17). It’s the law that tells us we are guilty (Romans 3:20). The Gospel is based on the promise God gave to Abraham and Abraham’s response in faith. This established the means of salvation well before we even knew about the law.

Faith in God’s Promise Equals Freedom

Salvation is activated by faith (believing God honored His promise in Jesus Christ), not by works (self-righteous acts that attempt to fulfill the law). When you want to know if you are an heir to God’s promise, you only need to verify that you take God’s word (His promise) as the truth. If you believe it, then you are a child of God: a new creation with a spiritual connection to God.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:26-29 NIV

Anyone can activate their salvation, if they can believe. God does not discriminate between His creation in any other way. It doesn’t make a difference if you are a Jew or you are a Gentile, a slave or free, a male or female, you can gain access to God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Once you have this access by faith, you must continue to maintain the access by faith. God’s way liberates you from the burden of fulfilling the law through your own effort. Paul encourages those of us whom Christ has set free to never return to the old ways.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1 NIV

In fact, because of what Christ has done for us, attempting to follow the law is always a wasted effort. Anyone who attempts to achieve salvation through works must fulfill the entire law (Galatians 5:3). Our effort or lack of effort counts for nothing.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.
Galatians 6:6, 6:15 NIV

Being a New Creation Equal Freedom

Are you a new creation? This is the same as asking if you have been born again. Have you experienced a spiritual rebirth (John 3)? If so, you have been set free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). You are no longer a slave; you are a child of God (son or daughter).

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
John 8:34-36 NIV

Reach John 8:31-47. Jesus makes a clear distinction between those who belong to Him and those who don’t know Him. What burdens are you carrying that you no longer need to carry? Set them down. You are free.

Listen To The Heartbroken Spouse You Wounded

January 16, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Is it possible to really listen to a spouse (or other loved one) who is furious with you? Maybe you betrayed them or simply have been insensitive. No matter the cause, if you want to keep the relationship, there’s no better time to listen well.

To listen well is a skill. You can learn to listen better if you want to. Hearing and understanding your spouse won’t guarantee their healing or their forgiveness. But it is both the least and the most you can do.

It’s the least you can do because listening does accomplish something. Listening can validate another’s pain and help him or her move beyond it. It’s the most you can do because there’s no way to undo whatever you did to upset your spouse.

In saying all this I’m making a few assumptions:

You are guilty of hurting your spouse in some way.
Your spouse is justifiably angry with you.
You want to do what you can to heal your relationship.

Listen and Understand Before Expecting Forgiveness

To be guilty is to be in need of forgiveness. But your spouse might not be close to being ready to forgive you. Be patient with the one who is struggling to forgive. It’s okay for them to take some time to work through the pain and be completely ready to forgive.

Jesus commands us to forgive one another because of all He has forgiven us. But shallow forgiveness (in word only) isn’t what Jesus wants from us. He wants us to mean what we say with all our hearts. See The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant for more details (Matthew 18:21-35).

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6:14-15 NIV

The command to forgive doesn’t depend on the other’s sincerity, however, you can certainly make it easier by being genuinely sorry. Listening isn’t a substitute for repentance, but it can be evidence you are changing your ways.

Listen By Focusing on the Other Person

When you are guilty where is your attention? It’s on you, right? Relief from the agony of guilt is an urgent need, not unlike needing relief from hunger, tiredness, or even a full bladder. How well can you concentrate on another’s concern in these situations?

Before you can be attentive to the one you hurt, you must first take your guilt to the Lord. After you have repented and secured His forgiveness, you will be able to give your undivided attention to caring for your spouse.

So many people attempt to “be there” for their spouse when they are still caught up in the mess of their guilt. You can tell if this is you by how you respond. When your spouse talks about how they are hurting, you aren’t listening well if you immediately shift the focus to you with something like, “I already told you I’m sorry” or “I feel terrible about what I did.”

Instead of starting with “I…” keep your spouse in the spotlight. Let their concerns be the focus. You already focused on yourself by hurting them, don’t repeat the offense.

There is one exception to this rule. If the person you hurt wants to hear what is going on in your heart, then you can meet their need by letting some of the focus rest on you. Maintain a healthy balance but always be prepared to serve the needs of the one you hurt.

Listening that focuses on your loved one requires a substantial amount of effort, but the payoff is worth it.

Read more on healthy listening.
Photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels

Rejection Is Like A Painful Death

January 9, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

What has been your experience with rejection? I see it as the most painful experience. But God has overcome it with the power of His acceptance.

I recently watched the movie, Saving Private Ryan, again. In one scene a German and American soldier are wrestling for survival. The American pulls out a knife, but the German manages to use the knife against him. The American pushes against the German’s arm to prevent the knife from cutting into his chest, but slowly the knife moves deeper until the American dies.

In managing pain, it’s usually easier to face and get it over with quickly. A slow and painful death is bad enough. To face the humiliation of defeat and also endure excruciating torment is the worst. But isn’t this is exactly what Jesus faced on the cross? He was without personal guilt, but in carrying the weight of sin, He must have experienced the shame of our guilt.

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
1 Peter 2:24 NIV

To die at the hands of another person is a physical rejection. To wither away because of another person’s critical words is an emotional rejection.

Rejection Is a Lie From the Devil

The devil wants you to feel cut off from God. He doesn’t have the ability to sever your connection with God. The best he can do is deceive you into believing God has rejected you.

When you experience emotional rejection, there is nothing true about it. It’s not valid. If you struggle with self-doubt, you become susceptible to believing the lie is valid. You might feel horrible as if it were true. This happens when you focus on the negatives rather than on God. It often leads to God-doubt such as, “God doesn’t love me” or “I’m too defective for God to love me.”

Jesus’s sacrifice saves you from destruction. He rescued you from the darkness–including its lies and shame.

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
Colossians 1:13-14 NLT

Because of this, no matter what you’ve done, you do not have to endure any shameful rejection. Don’t do that to yourself. You can graciously accept God’s discipline but you can reject the devil’s rejection.

God Accepts You as a Friend

Do you realize that God is for you? Because of Jesus’s death, you are blameless and without a single fault.

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.
Colossians 1:21-23 NLT

Because God has removed your sin and guilt, you have His complete acceptance. Others may reject you, but God will not reject you any longer. God wants you to cling to this truth. You are a member of His family. You are God’s friend.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15 ESV

To fully heal from rejection, you must not avoid it. Only by feeling it can you realize how false it is. The process involves staring down the lie until it is no more. Facing the lie with the truth weakens it. Even though it can be absurdly painful, the lie will die, leaving you with freedom because of Christ.

Take some time to remember when you have felt most rejected. Allow the truth of God’s acceptance to wash away the lie.

Overcome The Lies You Believe

January 2, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Whether you realize it or not, you believe some lies about yourself. No one has perfect self-worth.

Where do these lies come from? They are like seeds sown for destruction. The more they take root in your heart, the more life will be a struggle for you. Just like if you want a fruitful garden, you must pull the weeds in your heart.

Experiences Promote Truth and Lies

Every life event you experience communicates some degree of truth and some degree of falsehood. For example, any interaction you have with Jesus or the Bible will always communicate 100% truth. And any interaction you have with the devil will always communicate 100% lies. When Jesus spoke to non-believers, He addressed them as “children of the devil.”

For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44 NLT

If everything ever spoken was always all truth or all lies, it would be easier to sort out fact from fiction. But people speak with words and actions that fall somewhere between 0 and 100% truth. So it falls to the recipients to sort through all their experiences to find and savor the truth and discard the rest.

Interpretations Promote Truth and Lies

Discerning between truth and falsehood is an invaluable skill. Unfortunately, it is not foolproof. It’s possible to interpret a true experience as false or a false experience as true. This sets up four possible outcomes for every experience:

You believe the lie: the devil intends to harm you by being deceitful and you take it as if it were truth.
You disbelieve the lie: you see through the devil’s deceit, and refute it for the lie that it is.
You believe the truth: you experience love, accept it, and allow it to strengthen your self-worth.
You disbelieve the truth: you doubt your positive experience, reject it, and prefer your low self-esteem.

Trusting Everyone Isn’t the Answer

Overly trusting, optimistic, or gullible people lean toward believing everything. These verses show that we shouldn’t trust everyone.

Don’t be stupid
    and believe all you hear;
    be smart and know
    where you are headed.
Proverbs 14:15 CEV

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8 ESV

Mistrusting Everyone Isn’t the Answer

Overly mistrusting, pessimistic, or paranoid people lean toward disbelieving everything. They throw the baby out with the bathwater. Or rather, they throw God out because of the hypocrites.

God is the only person you can trust 100%. Even then, God asks us to trust Him beyond any scientific proof. Sometimes the truth is harder to believe than the lie. That’s where faith comes in. God distinguishes a believer from a non-believer by the faith we have to believe what the non-believer considers to be unbelievable.

These verses show that God expects us to trust Him even when it seems like we shouldn’t.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 ESV

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5 ESV

And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
Psalm 9:10 ESV

If you want to overcome lies and grow in self-worth, the first step is to learn how to discern God’s voice of truth from the devil’s voice of falsehood. You can discern the truth because you have the Holy Spirit who guides believers into all truth (John 16:13).

More on the journey to overcome lies.
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

Demonstrate Faith To Complete Your Training

October 23, 2021 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

The fourth and final step to complete your training depends upon the lessons learned in the first three steps. The first three steps build faith so you can achieve victory over significant life challenges. This post describes step 4 of 4 of the transformative journey.

Depend on God Alone to Demonstrate Faith

From steps two and three, a person learns to tell the difference between friends and enemies. To complete your training you need to learn more than that. You must also come to realize that even friends can let you down. They can and will help, but they are limited just like you.

In Star Wars, Luke wants Han Solo to help but he presses forward even when Han plans to return home when the rebels need him most. Luke listens to Obi-Wan’s prompting to “use the force” instead of relying on his ship’s computer sensors. But Luke is the one who turns off his targeting computer.

Only God gives inward peace,
    and I depend on him.
God alone is the mighty rock
    that keeps me safe,
    and he is the fortress
    where I feel secure.
Psalm 62:5-6 CEV

When have you been tempted to wait for someone (other than God) to rescue you? Even when your friends help, keep in mind that God is the only one who can bring about a victory. Count on your friends, but never stop counting on God no matter what else happens.

Confront Goliath-sized Problems to Demonstrate Faith

What good would all the trouble of the first three steps be if you didn’t put it into practice? God prepares us for bigger problems than we can handle alone. Our active faith in Him paves the way for victory.

Luke takes on the death star, against incredible odds. He stays focused on his target while relying on fate. After his victory, Obi-Wan says, “Remember, the force will be with you always.”

David certainly had to rely only on God to be able to defeat Goliath. All of his other friends were too afraid to attack him. But David attacked Goliath in the name of the Lord. “In the name” is the same as saying “by the power.”

Today the Lord will help me defeat you. I’ll knock you down and cut off your head, and I’ll feed the bodies of the other Philistine soldiers to the birds and wild animals. Then the whole world will know that Israel has a real God. Everybody here will see that the Lord doesn’t need swords or spears to save his people. The Lord always wins his battles, and he will help us defeat you.
1 Samuel 17:46-47 CEV

Have you ever felt like God has abandoned you? Are you so discouraged that you have stopped trying to exercise your faith? You wouldn’t have a need for faith if you alone had the power to obtain the victory. Step out in faith to tackle problems bigger than yourself that you know God wants to resolve.

Mentor Others to Demonstrate Faith

As God has been faithful to you, share your faith with others. No matter how old you are, your faith will continue to grow as you put it into practice. You can testify about God at any age, but those who have walked with the Lord longer will have a stronger story to tell.

Now that I am old and gray,
do not abandon me, O God.
Let me proclaim your power to this new generation,
your mighty miracles to all who come after me.
Psalm 71:18 NLT

Take some time to remember all the ways God has been faithful to you. Don’t stop remembering until you can conclude that God has been faithful to you. This doesn’t mean you have never had trouble or heartache. It only means that you didn’t lose the sense of God’s goodness along the way.

A strong faith believes in God even when circumstances are challenging.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Learn To Trust To Complete Your Training

October 17, 2021 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Trust is an essential skill for many aspects of life. It’s the foundation of every relationship you have. You need relationships to move forward in life. This post describes step 3 of 4 of the transformative journey.

Learn To Trust: Be Vulnerable in Relationships

You can’t accomplish anything apart from God. And, since God uses other people, you probably need them too. Trusting involves risk, but it also results in vulnerability which is required if you want to grow more emotionally healthy. It’s easy to trust when no suffering is involved. But God wants us to wait patiently for Him during our suffering.

The Lord’s people may suffer a lot,
but he will always bring them safely through.
Psalm 34:19 CEV

In Star Wars, when Luke attempts to rescue Princess Leia, he ends up trapped in a room-sized trash compactor. When a creature in the compactor strangles him and pulls him underwater, and yet again when the compactor starts shrinking, he must rely not only on his friends Han Solo and Princess Leia but also his droids C3PO and R2D2.

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
Psalm 40:1 NIV

When have you had no choice but to trust others when you’ve been at the bottom of your pit?

Learn To Trust: Replace Lies with Truth

In the midst of suffering, God would have us both accept the suffering and yet confront the lies that the suffering makes possible. When faced with the hopelessness of the moment, hope in God’s decisive, but future, victory is the only way to endure the pain.

Luke escapes the compactor only to see his mentor Obi-Wan struck down by Darth Vader. At that point, he lacks the understanding that something better is coming. But before Obi-Wan dies, he tells Vader, “You can’t win. If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can imagine.” I imagine that’s what Jesus could have said to the devil.

Obi-Wan’s sacrifice is Luke’s gain because he can speak directly to Luke through the force. I know the force is fiction and impersonal, but it’s hard not to think of the parallels to the Holy Spirit after Jesus’s sacrifice. Obi-Wan guides Luke similarly to how the Holy Spirit guides Christians into truth.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
Psalm 40:2 NIV

What lies are you believing about God or yourself that keep you in a pit? When have you experienced God removing sin, cleaning you, and blessing you with the truth so your footing is firm?

Learn To Trust: Accept a Positive Interpretation of Your Life

When you experience God the Holy Spirit within you, you have no choice but to see who you are from a positive perspective. You can rejoice that God’s sacrifice sets you free to contend with evil. Life can be hard, but victory is not only possible, it’s guaranteed.

After Luke feels the sting of Obi-Wan’s death, he resolves to continue to fight against evil. His confidence increases as he realizes he has the skills needed to contend with evil. “It’s not impossible,” Luke says as the rebels discuss the death star attack plan. Later he agrees with an old friend that, “they will never stop us.”

He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
and put their trust in him.
Psalm 40:3 NIV

When have you had a goal so big that you have no choice but to trust God for a positive outcome?

God is worthy of trust no matter the degree of difficulty you face in this life. There are plenty of “false gods” to choose instead of God, but these will only keep you in a pit.

Blessed is the one
who trusts in the Lord,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods.
Psalm 40:4 NIV

What false gods do you need to put out of your life so you can accept the amazing plans God has for you?