How to fill up the lonely hurt inside

This post is part of a series and I recommend you read both:

• How to fill up the lonely hurt inside (newer)
• What to do when you’re feeling empty inside

You may have seen a previous post of mine from long ago: What to do when you are feeling empty inside. It is by far the most popular post on this site and is the most read post almost every day. I have been feeling the need to write about love and healing again for a while now - and this is the beginning of that.

Disclaimer: If someone was to come up to me and poke their finger in my face and accuse me of still struggling with addictions, still struggling with self esteem, still struggling to love myself, still struggling to find motivation on some days… then I would say yes to them… you are right, I do.

But then I see that these days are less and less frequent and the trend is UP. I then realize how far I have come and what I have learned. I also see that the fruit of my experience is good and what I have to share is good and I know I can write something that can help others.

I am not a trained counsellor, but I have been called “an accidental volunterr”. I simply love loving people. As a result, I help a lot of hurt people the best I can. I don’t look for them, they find me and usually they have no one else to turn to. 

It is not an exaggeration to say that I almost never hear a story of trauma/hurt that I have not experienced myself. When I tell people even a fraction of what I have been through, they ask me how I survived.

I hesitate to write, because I am not 100% healed and done and dusted. So it feels like a lack of integrity for me to talk about how to heal and recover. Although I am still struggling in some ways, I have a lot of experience in recovery, I have a lot to share - and I will try to share some of it in a way that is integrous and safe. If it works for me, there is no reason why it won’t work for you. I don’t have it all together, but I have some and I can share that some with you.

Recently someone left a comment on that “empty” post and I think it is such an excellent summary of what hurt people experience, that I will list the main points here and then I can explain the way out. This is what this person wrote (you can read the full version by clicking that link) in bullet points with my thoughts:

• I am lost, unsure of everything and
• I do not feel alive inside

So many people feel this way, it is astonishing to me. Whenever someone says they feel “lost, unsure” I always think to recommend a book by Dr. Henry Cloud (he wrote the boundaries books). He is a Christian and his excellent book is called “Changes that heal“. I recommend it.

• I have felt this way for as long as I can remember due to many bad experiences from abuse in childhood
• to extreme anger at my mother who raised me alone
• and a father who abandoned me and her before I was born
• and a violent relathionship that went on for 7 years

This person has listed the 4 reasons that have caused her current way of feeling extremely accurately. I highlighted the key problems in green.

• my anger and not being able to forgive is like a paralysis for me
• the rage I am feeling is destroying me

I think that anger over what has happened is completely appropriate in this situation. The bible says to BE ANGRY, but don’t sin. Here is a really fantastic study on anger.

Figure out who in your life is good for you and who is bad for you - and get away from the bad ones. A lot of anger and rage comes from being around harmful people. Get away from them and your rage may decrease. Get around loving people and how you feel about yourself will certainly improve.

• I am begining to see forgiveness as a weakness because the same people often wrong you again.. boundaries or not.. how many times can you forgive.

You mentioned boundaries. If people are still boundary-busting then your boundaries are too weak. You may have to do the hard work in figuring out who in your life is harmful to you and remove them from your life if they won’t change. You simply must look after you.

Children want the milk to be put on the table, they don’t want to go milk a cow. They want bread - with no crusts! - and they don’t want to go harvest the wheat and mill it to make the bread.

Adult children also suffer from this same childlike outlook on life. How does someone become an adult child? Abused people sometimes get stuck and maybe haven’t grown up inside because they feel emotionally tired inside. They may be able to do all the normal things to manage a day to day life, but emotionally they hunger for a parent. Adult children still want parents to look after them.

But. You and I are the adults now. Even if we have parents, we perhaps can’t rely on them for affirmation and support and healthy guidance. We are the adult now. Even if its exhausting and deep down we still want a parent to look after us… we are adults now. We must look after ourselves.

• I seem to have over the years only ever kept in my head the bad things that people have said.. silly when I have had more compliments than insults

Let me explain how this works. When we are children, we internalize what our parents teach us. Don’t walk across the road, hold an adults hand. Don’t talk to strangers (”stranger danger!”). Don’t run with sharp knives. These lessons are taught by parents and our mind stores them so thatwhen no adult is around, we can remember what the lessons in life are and they will help us survive.

So every child grows up in a home where they hear messages that they store for later use. That later use is like a tape recorder. The lucky child has their life shaped in a good way. That is stored and played back later on when the parent is no longer around. Unlucky children are given awful lessons and those rules are played back later in life - with bad results.

A lucky child grows up and sees their parents fight fair and with good boundaries and reconciliaton and ongoing love between the parents. That child then learns how to fight, and later in life that child repeats what he/she has learned and follows the messages as they are played over and over in that child’s head.

But an unlucky child has terrible lessons and messages stored in their head. They repeat over and over as an adult, shaping a life in a bad way.

BUT do not think you are a victim to this. You can stand up and reprogram your thoughts. Argue back and tell the truth to yourself. You can learn to have a positive explanation style (see my post: Getting out of depression (learned helplessness) by learning to be optimistic and get the book I mention in that post!).

“Still trying” continues…

• My self love is at 0%
• I feel I am emotionally bankrupt

Through verbal or physical abuse you may have learned that your value was nothing. Through abandonment you perhaps learned your value was nothing. Through sexual abuse you may have learned that you had some value to someone - but how could you know that they were tricking you?

If you hear God speaking - as some deeply hurt people do - you will probably have heard Him telling you that these “truths” about you are in fact all lies. And yes they are. No matter what your painful surroundings taught you, its a lie.

Here is the truth: Jesus loves you and you have tremendous value.

Jesus didn’t design the world to be like this and I have noticed that many abused persons know that is the truth. We all feel this shouldn’t have happened. Those who have suffered to extremes no longer care about how it should have been, they just try to get through and survive. Even when the danger is in the distant past, they still find no reason to begin loving themselves and begin living again.

This is a very sad state. But it is reversible. How is it reversible? You have to stand up. I know it is hard and exhausting, but you need to do it. Give up being an adult-child and be the adult in your life. For those who are don’t feel they have a good reason to live their life and really give it a go and improve things, to them I offer this biblical “I dare you to do it” statement… go ahead and bring glory to God in your body:

You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body. - 1 Cor 6:20

The enemy tried to make you suffer, but you’re here, reading this page, written by a person who knows what it is like to suffer. And now I am gradually learning what it’s like to live an abundant life.

You can bring Him glory by dressing well and taking care of yourself.
You can bring Him glory by doing well in your job and being promoted because of good and honest work.
You can bring Him glory by eating meals that you enjoy.
You can bring Him glory by paying down debt and by storing up when the harvest is good and He has blessed you.
You can bring Him glory by having good boundaries.
You can bring Him glory by using the gifts and talents that He gave you.
You can bring Him glory by using your spare time to share what you have been through with someone else who might be lonely and looking for support as they go through their own journey.

Some people will hear a voice inside say “but I dont want to love myself if no one else loves me”. That is a difficult thought to combat, but you have to speak the truth back, you have to argue back, you have to replace that lie with the truth.

• I know that healing is a lengthy process but I want to be happy right now

This “right now” thing is extremely common. I hear it a lot. When I pray with that person I try to explain that humans can only grow at a certain speed. I ask the person what speed they want God to move at and they say 1 million miles p/h. I ask what their personal speed limit is. They say 40 mph. Usually this gets the message through, but only for a moment.

People who want it all right now are still being adult-children. It’s just not realistic to recover in one second, because you would not recognize yourself! But the people are usually very determined and I pray for their healing and they get a good strong dose of it… their head spins as He heals their brain chemistry… and they struggle to get used to the new them in the days to come. Amazingly that person will then ask for more healing even while they are struggling to get used to the last round of healing!!

It’s great that we want all the healing that God has for us and we believe that Jesus can and does heal and He is Lord over everything and there is no limits to His ability. But. We are the ones who have the speed limit, not Him. Take it a day at a time and be adult about where you are and how far you have come. Be your own parent. Give up your adult-childhood and become the adult in your own life. You have God on your side and you can do it. I am doing it, you can do it too.

• I have locked myself away from most people for the last ten years trying to minimise the contact I have because I feel I am not worthy or that I will be hurt by getting close to people

I also isolated myself after abuse as a teenager. This is very common, but very unfortunate. Isolation, or making yourself be alone (for a variety of reasons) will only extending the length of time you will go on suffering.

Isolation is part of what hurt you as a child and to go on isolating yourself is to extend the hurt. We human beings are social creatures. You may not know that. Your childhood taught you to be isolated. I sat outside my house as a child fighting back tears, fighting back feelings of trauma, telling myself not to feel, I won’t feel, I refuse to feel… until eventually I sat in quietness with this loud rumbling murmur of pain in the background.

What I was doing was trying to get through and survive, trying to keep my head down and not be noticed. To be noticed would bring more suffering. Does that sound familiar to you? I bet it does. But here’s the ironic twist in the story. Unfortunately, my choice was the worst choice I could have made.

If I had spoken out perhaps child welfare would have come and helped my parents, perhaps they would have been forced to confront their issues and heal the home. Perhaps child welfare could have protected me from predators. The isloation I was experiencing would only greatly increase the cycle of damage in my life and make me even more vulnerable to predators.

Isloation is only good if it keeps you away from bad people. But isolation from good friendships as an adult is unhealthy for human beings. Think about it. God is 3 “People” in relationship: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God began the history of the world with a marriage and He ends it with a Marriage. Jesus walked around with 12 men. He taught about the need for the 1 lonely stray lamb to get back into the group of 99. His bible speaks extensively about the need for fellowship and for one anothering.

“Still trying” wrote more in her comments…

• this is a waste of a life and I want to stop the cycle I am in but dont know how

In the same way that admitting someone is an alcoholic is the first step to recovery, your words above are a vital step to your own recovery. Now take step 1 (get away from bad people) and step 2 (be the adult) and 3 (stop isloating) and 4 (bring Him glory by LIVING your life) and keep going from there.

• why is it that when one thing upsets me it brings up old hurts and I roll them all into one and I can be angry or tearful for days
• why can I move heaven and earth for other people and be so unkind to myself
• I have tried affirmations and prayers but I have to say I want to believe god loves me but I feel so dirty is it really possible?

Please notice the words I highlighted in green. These are words your are using to describe your own thoughts. That gives you a clue to the problem - read on for an explanation.

Joyce Meyer said it so well when she wrote about “The battlefield of the mind“, because it is true - the battle is in the way you think. We can see this truth in God’s bible as well. Prov 23:7 puts it this way: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he”. I would explain it this way: the lessons we learned (through suffering) are what keeps us bound.

Is it sin that keeps us bound? If you believe that Jesus is the Christ and He has paid for your sins  - as a Perfect Sacrificial Lamb on the cross - then you are freed of the effects of sin. The sin done to you is not able to bind you. Your own sin cannot bind you. Inherited sins cannot bind you. The sins done by Adam and Eve cannot bind you. He has set you free.

But. If Jesus opened the door to your prison and yet we still struggle to leave the prison… it makes sense that something is still keeping us bound. What is stopping us? We can be aware of the problem and we can want to feel better, so what is it that is keeping us bound?

The door to the prison is open, but maybe we don’t know how to use our legs, maybe we think we need help or support or a map to get out, maybe we think we don’t have a good reason to leave, maybe we think there is nothing good for us outside - these are just lies.

The door is open, and we have to change the way we think and get the courage and motivation to leave the prison. Changing our thoughts is tough and I won’t pretend otherwise. The lessons we learned in childhood have been stored and they are repeating inside our head. But we have to stop being adult-children and become the adult in our own lives. We have to speak back to those thoughts and correct them. Speak the truth in love and with kindness, but be firm.

• I am not a unkind person nor do I wallow in self pity, I try to keep my mind and heart open, I do good deeds for others my experiences has enabled me to understand other people who are in pain.. (I sometimes volunteer helping young persons with similar backgrounds)

I have no doubt that God has seen your heart and He is moving Heaven and earth to help you, because of your heart. You are willing to love in spite of your past and this has brought favor on your life. You can and must stand up inside yourself and walk out of this - and He will certainly continue using you as you recover and grow stronger.

I love how The Message can put things so simply sometimes…

Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively! - 2 Cor 6:11-13 (MSG) 

I would not be surprised if for some people the lessons of life are written in LARGE HANDWRITING and we need to hear this message from God over and over until we believe that He has something good for us. So here is a truth from His own lips…

For thus says the Lord–Who created the heavens, God Himself, Who formed the earth and made it, Who established it and did not create it to be a worthless waste; He formed it to be inhabited–I am the Lord, and there is no one else. - Isaiah 45:18

God formed the earth to be inhabited! NOT to be a worthless waste!!! This is the same logic as in the original command which He gave Adam and Eve - and it’s the same command to you in your life.

And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God and man] - Gen 1:28

So I say to you… GO AHEAD and live your life and IN THAT WAY you will bring honour to God and bring Him glory.

You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body. - 1 Cor 6:20

Yes, the enemy brought evil into your life. He comes to steal, kill and destroy. But that is not God’s intention for your life or for the earth. The devil hurt you and your family, but God is greater and He wants you to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth!

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). - John 10:10

If you choose, you can begin to recover and move forward now, be the adult in your own life - be the captain of your own ship - and LIVE!

Remember: God did not create your life to be a worthless waste. NO WAY! He created you to be fruitful, multiply and to expand - and in this way to serve God and humanity (in loving them) and this is how you can bring glory to Him in your body.

Uh-oh. This is nearly the end of the post. I know from my own experience that some people will read this to the end and then sit there, wondering why their life has not changed. You read all of this, you agreed with all of it, you want all of it… now the post has nearly ended and your life is not changed. Why not?

Remember: Children want to be GIVEN milk, not go out to the cow and milk it. BE the adult in your life. Get up and go milk the cow. Get up and go harvest the fruit for dinner. Get up and go form friendships. Be fruitful. Multiply!

Some people may say that we are blessed so abundantly that they will just be passive and wait for the blessings to come. Let’s look closer at this. When God promised all those blessings in Deut 28:1-14, did you stop to notice how He promised to bless them? Take a moment to read the blessings in The Message version, it’s very beautiful Deut 28:1-14.

But wait… HOW did He promise to bless them? Are they to be passive? Take a close look in the AMP at some sample verses Deut 28:4-6:

Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. - Deut 28:4-6

Did you notice all that activity? The fruit of your body (the work you do), the work you do with your beasts, your basket (gathering), your kneading trough (the work you do), blessed when you go OUT and IN. There are more wonderful blessings in Ezekiel and there too He says He blesses the work of our hands.

All these things are activities. He wants to bless your LIFE, your activity. So go live!

———————-

Keep on reading

Leave a comment on this page if you’d like? Use a pretend name if you’re not sure you want to reveal your actual name. For further reading these posts might also help you:

• Love God, love others, love yourself - a biblically balanced life 
• Getting out of depression (learned helplessness) by learning to be optimistic 

and also try

• Heal your identity - it will help to fill the emptiness inside
• A vital step to health - thankfulness
• Seeing the truth, accepting, forgiving and recovering

This is a post about forming deeper relationships that let us feel connected and warm inside

• Creating deep intimacy (into-me-see) in relationships 

Or try some other posts that I wrote:

• Why does the bible say to love yourself?
• God has a plan to prosper you… what to do while you wait
• Emotional healing… what’s it like?

This is a post about growing:

• Fantasy stops us growing into adults

God loves you!

Politics - democracy is for the people, by the people (not for companies, by companies)

In 669 posts I have hardly ever expressed my political views. After the recent election here in Aussie I waxed lyrical about our new PM. He campaigned on hope and he has certainly lived up to his promise. The country has ceased being a place of fear-mongering and it has become a place of ideas and a spirit of equality and “can do”. I am proud to be an aussie. Great leadership can do that.

So I do have political views and I pray for the leadership in Australia. I pray passionately to God that He guides our leadership. And this brings me to the point of this post.

I feel that the US is at a very important moment in its history. Like Australia was faced with a negative cadidate and a positive one. Bad news sells, but is that really what you want for your country?

One of your cadidates talks about obliterating another country and her husband was the one to bring in waterboarding, the other candidate is promising to remake the political system so that the power is returned to the hands of the people, taking the big money out of it and taking the power out of the big money.

Democracy is for the people, by the people. It is not for companies, by companies.

I am not asking you to get out and vote. I am asking you to pray. Do not pray that you get the government that you deserve - you have far too much porn and evil in your country as do most countries these days - instead I urge you to pray that God empowers His choice, that God builds you up, that God softens the hearts of both candidates, that God refreshes your country.

If I keep quiet on this, I will have failed in this moment to send out a clarion call. Australia chose a leader who has spent his last 7 Christmas days serving the homeless. We chose a leader who this last weekend listened to the top 1000 Australian people in various fields (see 2020 Summit) and he will implement some of the new and healthy and empowering strategies that were suggested. His VP is a woman and she is the education minister. I love our PM… can you tell?

Why vote for Godly leadership? Godly leadership brings Godly blessings. Look at what happened a few days ago:

AUSTRALIA may be sitting on an oil and gas bonanza after winning legal ownership of a slice of undersea territory five times the size of France. In a landmark judgement by a United Nations commission, Australia expanded its borders by almost 35%, or 2.5 million square kilometres, including a seabed thought to harbour fossil fuels and minerals. “I am pleased to announce that Australia, the largest island in the world, has just been dramatically increased in size,” Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said yesterday. - National bonanza

More… UN move expands Australia’s territory

If Godly leadership brings Godly blessing, then the opposite is true. We cannot serve money and God.

“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. - Matt 6:24

We in Aussie have a PM dedicated to serving people/love/God and in turn God gave us more land and a potential oil bonanza. If you serve God, He blesses you. Will you in America dig your own well, or drink from God’s well?

I am not saying explicitly who of the candidates is good or bad, I am saying that at this critical time American Christians and Christians around the world need to be asking God to move. He can change the heart and guide either of the candidates. Both can do His will.

Please could we pray for our leaders and politicians. We cannot serve God (love) and mammon (money). We need real leaders, real ones that show fruit. The fruit we are looking for is that they love people.

Jesus undid the first sin (Rom 3-8)

Most of us have read about how the serpent tricked Adam and Eve into the first sin.

God warned them not to eat from the fruit/apple and they did.

He warned them that in that day that they sinned, they would die. They did it.

Death was released into the world… and it affects all of us.

The process is shown in the image below, in the left hand column. The serpent, the sin, death and the consequences are curses.

This problem affets everyone. Rape, murder, divorce, theft… its all sin and its all a form of decay or death.

The whole world is under the influence of death and is decaying… this is captured in the scientific law called “2nd law of thermodynamics”

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics describes basic principles familiar in everyday life. It is partially a universal law of decay; the ultimate cause of why everything ultimately falls apart and disintegrates over time.

But the prophets promised someone would come to establish God’s righteousness in the world and to save the world from sin and death. This Christ (or Messiah) would be like King David, but He would not build a physically powerful Kingdom, instead Isaiah said He would deal with sin and death and the consequences of sin and death.

God’s righteousness required that something pay for the sins done. That was why He brought in the Levitical sacrifices. But no matter how many sacrifices, Israel still were taken off to Babylon TWICE and then had a period of 500 years of silence. Right before that silence God sent many simultaneous prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah etc.) to say the same thing… God is sending someone to create a NEW covenant and to defeat sin and death and the consequences of sin and death.

Jesus Christ is the only candidate to be that Person. No other person in history offered Himself as a sacrifice to pay for the sins of the whole world, no other person began a new covenant with God, no other person was from the right lineage/birth and so.

So what did Jesus Christ do? He made a way for us to be right with God…

But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. - Rom 3:21

Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. - Rom 3:24-25

he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. - Rom 3:26

And Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was circumcised. - Rom 4:12

So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. - Rom 4:16

What kind of faith did Abraham have? He was fully convinced that God is ABLE to do whatever He promises!

Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping… Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger… He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. … - Rom 4:18, 20, 21 

So what are we to be sure of?

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. - Rom 5:1

… we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ… - Rom 5:9

… our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son… we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. - Rom 5:10

we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. - Rom 5:11

even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ. - Rom 5:17

Did you notice how these verses say the same thing “will live in triumph over sin and death” and this corresponds to the 13 promises I listed from the writings of the prophets (e.g. IS 2 which also speak of an end to sin and death.

How do we get it? Can we miss getting it? Two verses speak of God’s “gift” (Rom 5:17, Rom 4:16) and those two verses also speak of us receiving the gift. Receiving is a choice.

Paul summarises this section of his teaching by saying this (snipped…)

When he died, he died once to break the power of sin… you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin… - Rom 6:10-11

He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. - Rom 8:3

The 13 promises I outlined from the writings of the prophets correspond well to what Paul says here in these 5 chapters in the book of Romans. Take another look at the comparison.

• Where the serpent enslaved us to our inner nature, Jesus gives us a new nature.
• Where we sin, we are sinners, we will sin every day of our life… Jesus Christ gives us His robes of righteousness as a free gift.
• Where our sin brought death into our lives… Jesus Christ brings His own life into us as a free gift.
• Where our sin would have brought curses into our lives, instead Jesus Christ became a curse to take all our curses and because through Him Abraham became our father… we are children of God AND because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, now we have the blessings of Deut 28 and of so many other chapters in the bible. Instead of curses, Jesus Christ brought blessings into our lives!

Some people may be asking, how do I get this? I have two replies… Jesus asks you ONE question

When He reached the house and went in, the blind men came to Him, and Jesus said to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this? They said to Him, Yes, Lord. Then He touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith and trust and reliance [on the power invested in Me] be it done to you; And their eyes were opened. - Matt 9:28-30

And secondly I would like to show you why you may be saved but still not have these promises in your life… there are two things to see here…

1. Justification (righteousness/right standing before God)
2. Salvation by our mouth

For with the heart a person believes (adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Christ) and so is justified (declared righteous, acceptable to God),

and with the mouth he confesses (declares openly and speaks out freely his faith) and confirms [his] salvation. - Rom 10:10

Conversely some people might be looking for rightousness/right standing with God, but be unwilling to receive salvation through Jesus Christ.

For those who believe, the situation is now very different… His payment was perfect and complete for all time… He put the bite back into the apple!

… and Jesus said to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this? They said to Him, Yes, Lord… According to your faith and trust and reliance [on the power invested in Me] be it done to you; And their eyes were opened. - Matt 9:28-30

God bless you!

The gospel according to the Matrix

I am always thinking about how to explain to you what Jesus did - because He is the Christ and the Christ was coming to do something - but I spend lots of time every day wondering how to show you what it means to you.

Last night I had an inspiration. I took a snip of the Matrix, added some watercolor effects and added titles and fun to it. I hope this will present the gospel to you in another, different and easily absorbed way.

Short and sweet: In this video you are represented by Neo, Jesus/God/Holy Spirit is represented by the woman called Trinity (coincidence?). You were dead, but God loved you too much for you to remain dead, so Jesus paid for all your sins… and what remains is for you to realized that truth, accept it and live an overcoming life - because of Jesus Christ.

This video is the closest way I can find to explain how to have an overcoming faith and how to have victory in spiritual situations. I hardly edited it at all, this is exactly how it happens in the movie.

Recognize Him and thank Him

So far I have tried to show what the OT promised the Christ would do.

1. crush the head of the snake (the same snake that caused the initial sin, death and separation from God to enter the world) - Gen 3:15
2. possess the gates (sin) of the enemy, bless ALL the nations of the earth - Gen 22:17-18 
3. take upon Himself our sins and the consequences - Is 53:6
4. stop the asp/snake from biting us (sin) and render the poison (death) ineffective (consequences) -
5. take our sins and the iniquity, trauma, disease, sickness, weakness (consequences) - Is 53:4-6
6. Branch - He unwrapped of “iniquity and guilt” (sin) in a single day - Zech 3:9
7. Branch - brought you into the presence of God (because you are clean and there is no sin separating you from God) - Zech 3:7
8. Stone, Cornerstone - He cancelled the covenant with death and sheol - Is 28:15-20
9. Passover Lamb  - He WILL NOT ALLOW the Destroyer (death) to enter your household - Ex 12:21-27

When you see what He was intended to do, you can accept that He did it for you and then these words that Jesus said ALREADY apply to you:

“I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me HAVE eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they HAVE ALREADY passed from death into life. - John 5:24

If you believe He is the Christ who has unwrapped you on His cross of sin and death, then you HAVE ALREADY passed from death into life. Already. Paul confirms it

We know that we have passed over out of death into Life by the fact that we love the brethren (our fellow Christians). - 1 John 3:14

So this is a fact for those who believe NOT that Jesus existed, NOT that He came to earth, NOT that He is the Son of God. No. the absolutely key issue is did He take the sins of the world? Was He your perfect sacrifice? Is He your High Priest who made a single sacrifice for all of your sins in the true Holy of Holies - in Heaven? If He did, then you have already passed from death into life. Already. And if you stay unmoved at this truth, your experience of life will utterly change and you will see the fruit of this truth begin to materialize in your life.

It’s about faith - what you believe is true

Jesus said “do you believe I can do this?” to someone and the man said YES and Jesus said “According to your faith and trust and reliance [on the power invested in Me] be it done to you;” (Matt 9:29).

If you believe He can heal legs and arms, He does. If you believe He can’t cure cancer, He won’t. If you believe He is the promised Christ and He HAS paid for the sins of the world and HAS unwrapped you entirely of sin and consequences… then you HAVE passed from death into life, because He has done it.

The absolutely central issue is this: what did the OT prophets promise the Christ would do? And then decide if Jesus is the Christ who did that. If you believe He is the Christ, then you are unwrapped of sin. It all comes down to who you believe He is - that is what defines what He did. If you believe He died, satan is unconcerned. If you believe Jesus unwrapped you of sin, removing the power of death then satan trembles. His time of influence in your life is short and about to be over.

All the healings Jesus did were to show us that He has the authority to unwrap us of sins. As God sent 10 plagues to show His greater power than the 10 “gods” of the Egyptians (before the exodus), Jesus showed His power over every type of natural things (water, healing, ears, money, fish, wind, food, wine). His healings were a confidence building measure.

Jesus said this exact thing:

AND JESUS, getting into a boat, crossed to the other side and came to His own town [Capernaum]. And behold, they brought to Him a man paralyzed and prostrated by illness, lying on a sleeping pad; and when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralyzed man, Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven and the penalty remitted. 

And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, This man blasphemes [He claims the rights and prerogatives of God]! But Jesus, knowing (seeing) their thoughts, said, Why do you think evil and harbor malice in your hearts? For which is easier: to say, Your sins are forgiven and the penalty remitted, or to say, Get up and walk? But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins and remit the penalty, He then said to the paralyzed man, Get up! Pick up your sleeping pad and go to your own house. And he got up and went away to his own house. When the crowds saw it, they were struck with fear and awe; and they recognized God and praised and thanked Him, Who had given such power and authority to men. - Matt 9:1-8

If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the One who came and forgave YOUR sins - all of them, known and unknown - then “take courage son” because not only has He forgiven your sins - all of them - but He has remitted the penalty for them as well.

An example of a confession

My journal is full of confessions. Every time I learn something new, I stand on that. It is by His blood and our confession of Him that we overcome… so that’s why I write out my confession and I then stand on it.

To help you imagine what that looks like, I made a video of a confession. I have made heaps of other videos and uploaded them to YouTube. Enjoy!

We speak ONLY of what we know - John 3:11

Please remember my committment to you - I have personally tested everything I write, before I share it here. I dislike people teaching things they hear somewhere else, I think it is articifical and lacking in integrity. Bad and untested theology is easily passed from teacher to teacher without anyone saying “wait, does this actually work?”.

Lets copy our Saviour:

I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, We speak only of what we know [we know absolutely what we are talking about]; we have actually seen what we are testifying to [we were eyewitnesses of it]. - John 3:11

Lets take the time to test what we hear others say. Lets preach only what actually works in our own life. I know there is great pressure to have something to say every sunday, but you have a responsibility to the listeners to preach actual truth that helps people.

Test it first, even if it means you have nothing to say for a while.

Faith and love… now for the love

Paul said the 3 most important things are faith, hope and love. You already have hope - it’s the hope that God has something for you which has you visiting this (and other) blogs. If you didn’t have hope you wouldn’t leave your bed in the morning. So that leaves faith and love. We know the bible says that the greatest of the three is love, sometimes we need to get our faith correct so that we can get some spiritual freedom. Then we can love again.

In my walk with God I find I cycle between the three. I get some hope that something I read about in the bible can be mine, then I learn about a deeper understand of Jesus and then I receive the reality of that hope. After growing in hope, I find God moves me to learn about love - or more specifically, about emotional living, how to live life, how to have greater meaning in life - that kind of thing. I have felt a yearning to complete my current series of faith posts and to move back over to love posts for a while.

Today the series wrapped up in my own life and it will wrap up on this blog. I will then begin to write about lovin yourself and loving others again for a bit.

These faith posts have been very popular and yesterday I saw a big spike in visitors. I have so much I would love to write about, but talking about how to live life well is very important too. So that is what I will be writing about from a few posts time.

Christ, Son of God, righteous

This is a multi-part series

• Testing the spirits (of people and prophets) for error
• Believe in Jesus as (1) Christ (2) Son of God
• The full personal knowledge of… Jesus Christ (2 Pet 2:20)
• Christ, Son of God, righteous

In my previous post I showed the 6 things that 1 John says that believers in Jesus need to believe/confess:

1. Acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah). - 1 John 2:22-25
2. Acknowledge that Jesus is absolutely righteous. - 1 John 2:29
3. Believe in His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and that we love one another - 1 John 3:23-24
4. Confess that Jesus is the Son of God - 1 John 4:15
5. Believe that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah) - 1 John 5:1
6. Believe that Jesus is the Son of God - 1 John 5:5

An overcoming testimony will have three key components:

1. Jesus is absolutely righteous
2. Jesus is the Christ
3. Jesus is the Son of God

NOTE: In that previous post I showed 6 benefits for those who believe. I have found at least another 12 without looking too hard. I will list all 18 in the next post.

I will try to explain - as best as I know how… please forgive me for being human and prone to error - what being the “Christ” and “Son of God” and “being righteous” means. So I will ask three questions and search the bible for an answer to them.

NOTE: If you look at the teachings of the prophets, the Christ was shown in several stories to have a very big impact on his believers. So let’s have the hope and courage to aim high in our answers - provided they are biblical.

Question 1 - What does it mean: Jesus is absolutely righteous

It means He absolutely conformed to the Father’s will in purpose, thought, and action. This matters because we should have accepted Him as our High Priest (see Heb 7:26) and He made one single perfect sacrifice for all sins, for all time.

Human priests sacrificed every day. The instant they had finished they could not rest because sins were building up again. The next day they atoned again. But this High Priest - once for all - actually not only atoned (hid) the sins, but He actually removed them. He did this once and then the bible says He sat down at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.

The reason we must confess Him as our High Priest and confess Him as absolutely righteous, is because we need to accept that He has made that one perfect sacrifice on our behalf. In this way that one perfect sacrific has forever removed our sin and cleansed us and perfected us.

The bible makes many references to Him making us holy through this perfect sacrifice. It frequently says that by removing sin, He removed the power of death from our lives. As our perfect High Priest the bible says He erected a more perfect tent/tabernacle over us. In fact the bible says that our bodies are the tabernacle and tent for God to dwell in - and God is not able to dwell in sinful vessels.

Jesus told His disciples that He had cleansed them. When Peter refused to have his feet bathed by Jesus, Jesus said that if He doesn’t wash Peter, then Peter HAS NO PART IN HIM. This part of our confession is important and should not be overlooked.

Question 2 - What does it mean: Jesus is the Christ?

We know that the bible says that Jesus Christ (the Messiah) is the actual fulfillment of all prophetic scripture. So we simply need to look through the prophecies about the promised Christ. He was promised back then, He came 2000 years ago - and each generation understands a bit more just what it is that He did for/to us! So what can see that the prophets foretold that this Christ would do!?

1. crush the head of the snake (the same snake that caused the initial sin, death and separation from God to enter the world) - Gen 3:15
2. the Seed that will possess the gates of the enemy, bless ALL the nations of the earth - Gen 22:17-18 
3. take upon Himself our sins and the consequences - Is 53:6
4. stop the asp/snake from biting us (sin) and rendered the poison ineffective (consequences) -
5. take our sins and the iniquity, trauma, disease, sickness, weakness (consequences) - Is 53:4-6
6. Branch - He unwrapped of “iniquity and guilt” (sin) in a single day - Zech 3:9
7. Branch - brought you into the presence of God (because you are clean and there is no sin separating you from God) - Zech 3:7
8. Stone, Cornerstone - He cancelled the covenant with death and sheol - Is 28:15-20
9. Passover Lamb  - He WILL NOT ALLOW the Destroyer (death) to enter your household - Ex 12:21-27

That list is enough to convince us that the promised Christ was to do vast and incredible things for those who believed that HE IS. For that reasons Jesus said:

“be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]” (John 16:33) 

The Jews in Jesus’ time were looking for a powerful Christ/Messiah to overcome in the same way that King David did - to build a great nation and overcome surrounding nations. For this reason they anointed Herod as their king, because he did great and powerful exploits. What they failed to recognise was that the Christ/Messiah was coming to unwrap their sin and the sin of the world (for those who believe) as the prophets had foretold He would.

Question 3 - What does it mean: Jesus is the Son of God

I wrote quite a bit on this topic previously. Let me summarize the good stuff here. As the Son of God, He is able to “betrothe” you - which means to marry you and me. The entire church is His bride. The really big deal about this marriage is that the bride-to-be becomes His before the ceremony and her separation from her old father actually begins when she drinks from the cup of wine that He presents to her. By the time this cup of wine is presented, she has already been bought with a price from her old father. The new Father buys her for His Son. She now has a new Father, a new Husband, new brothers and sisters. If you are a seasoned Christian, all of this should sound very familiar.

1. You have been bought with a price by God
2. You have a new Father who will provide for you (Family, Husband)
3. Your old family has absolutely no claim on you (so don’t go back!)
4. You have a new Surname - the same one that God gave to His Son
5. You are a son of God (but obviously we have to be careful here and not imagine we are the Christ or anything)
6. You have an inheritance that is given by the Father to His Family
7. You have the authority of your Father and His Surname (you are not merely a servant with no authority!)

There are actually many things to wake up to yourself about and begin to live in a new and more powerful way.

Overcome by your testimony and by His blood

This famous statement in Rev has two components - His blood (meaning His full payment to remove sin and disarm death) and your testimony (meaning your decision to claim His full payment as yours).

In Deut 29:6 it says something I think is important “that you might recognize and know [your dependence on Him Who is saying], I am the Lord your God”. The reason why I want to highlight this sentence is that the world generally does not see it’s sin and therefore it doesn’t see it’s dependance on God to release them from their sin. Without seeing our need, we won’t recognize His offer to release us.

He came and died as a conqueror - of sin - but unless you can see that your sin separates you from God (the source of life) you won’t even know you need a Saviour and you won’t be drawn to Jesus Christ (the Messiah), the Son of God, the absolutely righteous One.

If you doubt at all that He has the power to forgive ALL sins and to take away ALL sickness, take one more look a look at these 3 verses Matt 9:2, 5, 6 

v2 And behold, they brought to Him a man paralyzed and prostrated by illness, lying on a sleeping pad; and when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralyzed man, Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven and the penalty remitted.

v5 For which is easier: to say, Your sins are forgiven and the penalty remitted, or to say, Get up and walk?

v6 But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins and remit the penalty, He then said to the paralyzed man, Get up! Pick up your sleeping pad and go to your own house.

I think many will accept He can release us from sin, but many will doubt He can simply release us from the penalty (sickness). Don’t doubt. In Matt 10:13 it says “freedom from all the distresses that are experienced as the result of sin” and I really like the way that sounds, don’t you?

Testing the spirits (of people and prophets) for error

This is a multi-part series based on 1 John

• Testing the spirits (of people and prophets) for error
• Believe in Jesus as (1) Christ (2) Son of God
• The full personal knowledge of… Jesus Christ (2 Pet 2:20)
• Christ, Son of God, righteous

I am making a bold statement that much of the church is not believing correctly in Jesus Christ. Let me explain this in some detail.

The 1 John test

Look again at how to test the spirits of people as described by the Apostle John in 2 John 1:7-11. It is an expanded version of how he wrote to test the spirits in 1 John 4:1-2 and the teaching is essentially the same.

In 1 John the first he says to test the prophets (see v1) for something very specific:

By this you may know (perceive and recognize) the Spirit of God: every spirit which acknowledges and confesses [the fact] that Jesus Christ (the Messiah) [actually] has become man and has come in the flesh is of God [has God for its source] - 1 John 4:2 

The 2 John test

In 2 John (see 2 John 1:7-11) again he says to look for something very specific. He lists 4 statements that should convince us of the central issue:

1. the coming of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) in bodily form - 2 John 1:7
2. Anyone who runs on ahead [of God] and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ [who is not content with what He taught] does not have God - 2 John 1:9
3. he who continues to live in the doctrine (teaching) of Christ [does have God] - 2 John 1:9
4. Such a one is the imposter (the seducer, the deceiver, the false leader, the antagonist of Christ) and the antichrist - 2 John 1:7

Did you see how the focus is always on the words Christ and Messiah? And did you notice that the enemy is not called the anti-Jesus, not anti-God… in fact he/she is called an anti-Christ.

Jesus is THE Christ (THE Messiah)

Can you see it?

Some facts…

• In the NT (ESV) the word “Jesus” comes up 965 times in the NT. “Jesus Christ” shows up xxx times.
• In Acts-Rev (only) the word “Jesus” comes up 355 times.  The two words Jesus and Christ shows up 475 times. The exact phrase “Jesus Christ” shows up 133 times.

What is the key thing in all of this? It’s quite subtle to see, even though it’s blatantly obvious.

• The key thing is not that there was a man called Jesus.
• The key thing is that the Christ, the Messiah - and has come from God and has come in the flesh, His name is Jesus.

There is something about the concept of the Christ, the Messiah which is the central issue to our faith. The Apostle John is saying that if people don’t admit that - the Christ/Messiah part - then they are in error.

I am not at all saying that such people aren’t saved, but I am saying that this “error” is why we (mostly) are failing to walk in the awesome provision that Jesus Christ (the Messiah) made available to us. We ALL know we’re not walking in it and no amount of blind faith and positive thinking is changing that. But I am saying that the simple reason is that we don’t know what to believe about Jesus Christ (the Messiah).

Here is the way I explained this to a friend recently. I asked her what job she does. She said “center manager”. So I said I believe she is the center manager and I assume that this means she manages centers! She shook her head. I believed in her, but I got her role entirely wrong because I assumed that I knew what she does. I know her, but I don’t know what she does for a living. I got it wrong.

In that same way we can be saved, but our faith is not getting the outcome we were promised - victory over this world - because we actually don’t know and are not taught what Jesus Christ (the Messiah) did for us. In that same way I think we have incorrectly assumed what it means to be the Christ. We don’t know what the Christ came to do. Jesus IS that Christ and we ALL know that, but we don’t know what the Christ did for us.

Our authority? No, His authority!

I find so many people trying to understand OUR authority, but I keep having a revelation of HIS authority and I find that my life changes radically in a single day, while theirs doesn’t change all that much year after year.

Believe

In my previous post I showed the 6 things that 1 John says that believers in Jesus need to do:

1. Acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah). - 1 John 2:22-25
2. Acknowledge that Jesus is absolutely righteous. - 1 John 2:29
3. Believe in His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and that we love one another - 1 John 3:23-24
4. Confess that Jesus is the Son of God - 1 John 4:15
5. Believe that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah) - 1 John 5:1
6. Believe that Jesus is the Son of God - 1 John 5:5