5 biblical labels that have set millions of people free
Apr 9, 2016 9:40:59 GMT -5
fearnot likes this
Post by Cindy on Apr 9, 2016 9:40:59 GMT -5
5 biblical labels that have set millions of suffering people free from bondage: (Excerpts)
Child of God
The first is “child of God.” John 1:12 says, “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Paul emphasizes this truth in Romans 8:14 when he writes that “those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
What a contrast to the enslavement of forever remaining a child victim of an abusive parent! Paul says that a Christian is “no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:7). In spite of the depraved environment one may have grown up in, we are told that we “may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe” (Philippians 2:15). What wonderful news this is for “adult children” who have been handcuffed to their tortured past!
Redeemed Person
A second joyful biblical label is “redeemed person,” in direct contrast to the psycholabel of “abused person.” When I hear Christians say, “I am an abused person,” I quickly remind them that they once were abused persons, but now they are redeemed persons! Isaiah promises that “the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. I, even I, am he who comforts you” (Isaiah 51:11, 12).
I am reminded of the old gospel song that says, “Redeemed—how I love to proclaim it! Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb! Redeemed thro’ His infinite mercy, His child, and forever, I am.”
Forgiven Person
In addition to being a child of God who is redeemed from the clutches of hell, the Christian can assume the label of a “forgiven person.” David wrote, “He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases” (Psalm 103:3). No matter what is in one’s past, God can cleanse and forgive. Whether one was abused or the abuser, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The victim of incest who mistakenly assumes that he or she must have deserved such treatment need not spend years in therapy to sort out blame or to comprehend why something so awful took place. A biblical understanding of man’s sinful nature removes much of the mystery.
Healing begins to take place when the victim learns to rest in God’s glorious love. Understanding God’s unlimited forgiveness for the sins he truly has committed can free an abused person to forgive those who sinned against him.
And what of the abuser? Because of the awfulness of what he has done to others, he may well assume that there is no possibility of forgiveness for him. The best he can do, according to the standard psychological view, is to undergo years of therapy so that he will never repeat his crimes. But psychotherapy will not change his heart, and the psychologized rapist, when released from jail, may well repeat his abuse whenever possible.
Compare that with the biblical view, which says that God loves the abuser, who can genuinely repent of his unspeakable wickedness, receive the cleansing forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ, and thereby have his heart radically changed. How can we know if someone has truly repented and is changed? Two indications will be his desire to ask the forgiveness of the ones he so viciously ravaged and his willingness to submit himself to close supervision and strict accountability.
New Creation
Is it possible for any thoroughly depraved person to be permanently transformed? Yes! The fourth biblical label that has freed so many people from their inner sufferings is “new creation.” Before Paul became a believer in Jesus Christ, he was guilty of incredible abuse of men, women, and children. What he did was so awful that he called himself “the chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15 KJV). Yet under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he wrote, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NASB).
You cannot truly reform a person through therapeutic techniques. What is needed is the miracle of transformation that is performed by the Holy Spirit. This process, called regeneration, is described by Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). Titus calls it “the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Anything short of this supernatural work of God will fail.
Victor
A fifth and final biblical label I suggest—a label that is an alternative to psychovictimization—is “victor.” We live in a victimized age. We are all casualties, to a greater or lesser degree, of a sin-cursed world. Whether you suffered at the hands of an alcoholic father, a drug-crazed rapist, a bitter stepmother, an unfaithful wife, or a violent husband, you have been victimized.
I want you to know that God cares about your suffering and is full of sympathy for your pain. Matthew quotes a portion of Isaiah that gives us a hint of Jesus’ compassion for the suffering: “A bruised reed he will not break, or a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory” (Matthew 12:20). Are you a bruised reed who has been trampled on by those around you? Jesus cares. Do you feel like a smoldering wick in a lamp nearly out of fuel? Take heart, my friend. Jesus understands.
You can choose to remain a victim the rest of your life, or you can choose the path of victory by following One who was abused as no other.
We are told that Jesus was beaten nearly to the point of death, was spat upon, humiliated, dragged bleeding through the dirty streets of Jerusalem, and hung naked on a Roman cross. Yet Jesus did not curse those who tortured Him so cruelly or walked by laughing at His suffering. Instead, He prayed for them, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
How could Jesus love His abusers? By faith in a loving God. We are reminded in Romans 8:35–37 that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Not “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword.” Though we suffer in a cruel world, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
That sounds wonderful in theory, doesn’t it? But how do we make it real? John says, “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). You can become a victor instead of a victim as you live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Perhaps you’re rolling your eyes, shaking your head in irritation, and muttering, “Another nothing-butterist is dispensing his simplistic solutions by quoting Bible verses.” Think what you will, but God’s holy Word has given you the key to your liberty.
I am not suggesting that it will be easy, for it involves a paradox: Living by faith is hard work, but the reward is unbelievable freedom and joy.
Living by faith doesn’t mean that you believe real hard so that nice things will happen magically. Living by faith means that you saturate your mind, soul, and heart with the living truths of the Scriptures. Then you submit to those precepts in your day-to-day existence. Living by faith simply means walking with our loving heavenly Father in humble, childlike trust and obedience, as stated in the old gospel lyric: “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.”
How can we be so foolish as to trade our glorious labels in Christ for the pathetic labels of secular psychology? We must never forget that we “were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).
Bulkley, E. (1993). Why Christians can’t trust psychology
The Sufficiency of Scripture: Love and Intimacy (Excerpts)
God created us for love and intimacy. We were, from the very start, meant to be intimately involved with Him and other human beings. God is love (1 John 4:8), and when He created us in His image, we were created to deeply thirst for love and intimacy. I believe that is why loneliness is so devastating. It flies in the face of our deep thirst for closeness. Our desire for intimacy with God and significant others is why self-sufficiency is such a problem. It leaves God and others out of the picture when they are meant to be at the very center of the picture.
Scripture clearly says that one of our deepest desires is for intimate connectedness with God and others. Having put that desire in us, God meets it by offering us perfect love. Love that has no strings attached. Love that cannot be earned. Love that cannot be made stronger or weaker. Love that, like the father looking for the return of the prodigal son, yearns for reconciliation with the person whose sin has damaged the relationship. God’s love is freely given so that we can freely accept it, and freely pass it on.
Not only does God love us directly as His children, but He also works through other people to show us His love as well. God will work through our spouse, friends, family, and even strangers to reach us with a kind word, a supportive statement, a hug of acceptance, a truth we need to hear, a challenge to keep pressing on when things seem hopeless, and even needed correction. It is a part of God’s character to love us. He doesn’t have to put on an act or find the strength to love us. He loves us because He is love.
The boldest expression of God’s love for us, of course, is that He sent His Son to die for our sins while we were still in rebellion against Him (John 3:16). We were at odds with God and He still sent His Son to die for us. God’s love took action on the cross. His aim was to reunite us with Him in an intimate relationship. And His love for us was not determined by how we were acting at the time. If God’s love depended on how we behaved, He would have never come to earth, much less died for our sins.
The Bible’s teachings on our need for love and how God meets it have staggering implications for my work as a psychologist. Most, if not all, of my clients have been rejected in one way or another throughout their lives. Many of them were abused as children – the most serious form of rejection a person can encounter as a child. The wounds created by rejection during early childhood and later in adolescence are extremely painful, and many choose to cope by either withdrawing into their own self-protective world or latching on to whomever comes along that seems to offer the faintest hope of acceptance. Unfortunately, further injury often results.
God offers love that doesn’t injure us. It is pure and is motivated by a desire to help us, not harm us. In counseling, if I can help a person understand that this is the kind of heavenly Father they have, it makes all the difference in the world. When abused clients allow God to be who He really is (rather than some distorted version of an earthly person who abused them), they can draw toward Him rather than run from Him. And they can have their needs for love and intimacy met at the deepest level possible. Yes, this is easier said than done, given the wounds that most clients are dealing with. Yet, no matter how large the wound of rejection may be for someone, God can heal it with a love that none of us can truly fathom.
Do we have a deep thirst for love and intimacy with God and others? Yes, absolutely! Who can meet that thirst completely? Only God! Secular counselors do not offer God to their clients. They offer only the encouragement to love oneself and seek love from others. But apart from God, how can we properly love ourselves or avoid selfishly taking from others? Secular counseling puts people in a closed system, encouraging them to give and receive “love” that is finite, often self-centered, and usually conditional. That isn’t love at all, and it will not solve people’s deepest thirst for intimacy with God.
Secular counseling shortchanges clients of the very thing they need to be truly healed and set free from the wounds of the past – the pure love of God and its power to heal. Scripture understands only too well what the love of God is all about, and its pages are full of descriptions of that love. For those who care to study what the Word of God has to say about His love for us and how to really love our neighbors and ourselves, it is theirs for the taking.
Hindson, E. E., & Eyrich, H. (1997). Totally sufficient
Child of God
The first is “child of God.” John 1:12 says, “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Paul emphasizes this truth in Romans 8:14 when he writes that “those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
What a contrast to the enslavement of forever remaining a child victim of an abusive parent! Paul says that a Christian is “no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:7). In spite of the depraved environment one may have grown up in, we are told that we “may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe” (Philippians 2:15). What wonderful news this is for “adult children” who have been handcuffed to their tortured past!
Redeemed Person
A second joyful biblical label is “redeemed person,” in direct contrast to the psycholabel of “abused person.” When I hear Christians say, “I am an abused person,” I quickly remind them that they once were abused persons, but now they are redeemed persons! Isaiah promises that “the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. I, even I, am he who comforts you” (Isaiah 51:11, 12).
I am reminded of the old gospel song that says, “Redeemed—how I love to proclaim it! Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb! Redeemed thro’ His infinite mercy, His child, and forever, I am.”
Forgiven Person
In addition to being a child of God who is redeemed from the clutches of hell, the Christian can assume the label of a “forgiven person.” David wrote, “He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases” (Psalm 103:3). No matter what is in one’s past, God can cleanse and forgive. Whether one was abused or the abuser, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The victim of incest who mistakenly assumes that he or she must have deserved such treatment need not spend years in therapy to sort out blame or to comprehend why something so awful took place. A biblical understanding of man’s sinful nature removes much of the mystery.
Healing begins to take place when the victim learns to rest in God’s glorious love. Understanding God’s unlimited forgiveness for the sins he truly has committed can free an abused person to forgive those who sinned against him.
And what of the abuser? Because of the awfulness of what he has done to others, he may well assume that there is no possibility of forgiveness for him. The best he can do, according to the standard psychological view, is to undergo years of therapy so that he will never repeat his crimes. But psychotherapy will not change his heart, and the psychologized rapist, when released from jail, may well repeat his abuse whenever possible.
Compare that with the biblical view, which says that God loves the abuser, who can genuinely repent of his unspeakable wickedness, receive the cleansing forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ, and thereby have his heart radically changed. How can we know if someone has truly repented and is changed? Two indications will be his desire to ask the forgiveness of the ones he so viciously ravaged and his willingness to submit himself to close supervision and strict accountability.
New Creation
Is it possible for any thoroughly depraved person to be permanently transformed? Yes! The fourth biblical label that has freed so many people from their inner sufferings is “new creation.” Before Paul became a believer in Jesus Christ, he was guilty of incredible abuse of men, women, and children. What he did was so awful that he called himself “the chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15 KJV). Yet under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he wrote, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NASB).
You cannot truly reform a person through therapeutic techniques. What is needed is the miracle of transformation that is performed by the Holy Spirit. This process, called regeneration, is described by Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). Titus calls it “the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Anything short of this supernatural work of God will fail.
Victor
A fifth and final biblical label I suggest—a label that is an alternative to psychovictimization—is “victor.” We live in a victimized age. We are all casualties, to a greater or lesser degree, of a sin-cursed world. Whether you suffered at the hands of an alcoholic father, a drug-crazed rapist, a bitter stepmother, an unfaithful wife, or a violent husband, you have been victimized.
I want you to know that God cares about your suffering and is full of sympathy for your pain. Matthew quotes a portion of Isaiah that gives us a hint of Jesus’ compassion for the suffering: “A bruised reed he will not break, or a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory” (Matthew 12:20). Are you a bruised reed who has been trampled on by those around you? Jesus cares. Do you feel like a smoldering wick in a lamp nearly out of fuel? Take heart, my friend. Jesus understands.
You can choose to remain a victim the rest of your life, or you can choose the path of victory by following One who was abused as no other.
We are told that Jesus was beaten nearly to the point of death, was spat upon, humiliated, dragged bleeding through the dirty streets of Jerusalem, and hung naked on a Roman cross. Yet Jesus did not curse those who tortured Him so cruelly or walked by laughing at His suffering. Instead, He prayed for them, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
How could Jesus love His abusers? By faith in a loving God. We are reminded in Romans 8:35–37 that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Not “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword.” Though we suffer in a cruel world, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
That sounds wonderful in theory, doesn’t it? But how do we make it real? John says, “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). You can become a victor instead of a victim as you live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Perhaps you’re rolling your eyes, shaking your head in irritation, and muttering, “Another nothing-butterist is dispensing his simplistic solutions by quoting Bible verses.” Think what you will, but God’s holy Word has given you the key to your liberty.
I am not suggesting that it will be easy, for it involves a paradox: Living by faith is hard work, but the reward is unbelievable freedom and joy.
Living by faith doesn’t mean that you believe real hard so that nice things will happen magically. Living by faith means that you saturate your mind, soul, and heart with the living truths of the Scriptures. Then you submit to those precepts in your day-to-day existence. Living by faith simply means walking with our loving heavenly Father in humble, childlike trust and obedience, as stated in the old gospel lyric: “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.”
How can we be so foolish as to trade our glorious labels in Christ for the pathetic labels of secular psychology? We must never forget that we “were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).
Bulkley, E. (1993). Why Christians can’t trust psychology
The Sufficiency of Scripture: Love and Intimacy (Excerpts)
God created us for love and intimacy. We were, from the very start, meant to be intimately involved with Him and other human beings. God is love (1 John 4:8), and when He created us in His image, we were created to deeply thirst for love and intimacy. I believe that is why loneliness is so devastating. It flies in the face of our deep thirst for closeness. Our desire for intimacy with God and significant others is why self-sufficiency is such a problem. It leaves God and others out of the picture when they are meant to be at the very center of the picture.
Scripture clearly says that one of our deepest desires is for intimate connectedness with God and others. Having put that desire in us, God meets it by offering us perfect love. Love that has no strings attached. Love that cannot be earned. Love that cannot be made stronger or weaker. Love that, like the father looking for the return of the prodigal son, yearns for reconciliation with the person whose sin has damaged the relationship. God’s love is freely given so that we can freely accept it, and freely pass it on.
Not only does God love us directly as His children, but He also works through other people to show us His love as well. God will work through our spouse, friends, family, and even strangers to reach us with a kind word, a supportive statement, a hug of acceptance, a truth we need to hear, a challenge to keep pressing on when things seem hopeless, and even needed correction. It is a part of God’s character to love us. He doesn’t have to put on an act or find the strength to love us. He loves us because He is love.
The boldest expression of God’s love for us, of course, is that He sent His Son to die for our sins while we were still in rebellion against Him (John 3:16). We were at odds with God and He still sent His Son to die for us. God’s love took action on the cross. His aim was to reunite us with Him in an intimate relationship. And His love for us was not determined by how we were acting at the time. If God’s love depended on how we behaved, He would have never come to earth, much less died for our sins.
The Bible’s teachings on our need for love and how God meets it have staggering implications for my work as a psychologist. Most, if not all, of my clients have been rejected in one way or another throughout their lives. Many of them were abused as children – the most serious form of rejection a person can encounter as a child. The wounds created by rejection during early childhood and later in adolescence are extremely painful, and many choose to cope by either withdrawing into their own self-protective world or latching on to whomever comes along that seems to offer the faintest hope of acceptance. Unfortunately, further injury often results.
God offers love that doesn’t injure us. It is pure and is motivated by a desire to help us, not harm us. In counseling, if I can help a person understand that this is the kind of heavenly Father they have, it makes all the difference in the world. When abused clients allow God to be who He really is (rather than some distorted version of an earthly person who abused them), they can draw toward Him rather than run from Him. And they can have their needs for love and intimacy met at the deepest level possible. Yes, this is easier said than done, given the wounds that most clients are dealing with. Yet, no matter how large the wound of rejection may be for someone, God can heal it with a love that none of us can truly fathom.
Do we have a deep thirst for love and intimacy with God and others? Yes, absolutely! Who can meet that thirst completely? Only God! Secular counselors do not offer God to their clients. They offer only the encouragement to love oneself and seek love from others. But apart from God, how can we properly love ourselves or avoid selfishly taking from others? Secular counseling puts people in a closed system, encouraging them to give and receive “love” that is finite, often self-centered, and usually conditional. That isn’t love at all, and it will not solve people’s deepest thirst for intimacy with God.
Secular counseling shortchanges clients of the very thing they need to be truly healed and set free from the wounds of the past – the pure love of God and its power to heal. Scripture understands only too well what the love of God is all about, and its pages are full of descriptions of that love. For those who care to study what the Word of God has to say about His love for us and how to really love our neighbors and ourselves, it is theirs for the taking.
Hindson, E. E., & Eyrich, H. (1997). Totally sufficient
!!
