Transformation Mechanics

One of the benefits of in-depth bible study, especially categorical studies, is that the mechanics begin to emerge as the pieces come together. It is one thing to tell a believer to change the way they live to be like Christ and quite another to give him/her the means of making the changes. The church today is not producing credible Christians for many reasons, one of which is that the clergy does not teach with any depth, providing the pews with enough insight into the process to succeed. These articles are intended to supplement the food that hopefully you are getting from your pastor-teacher. The following article is one of a series of discussions that will provide you with some of the “how to’s” of the Christian life. This article deals with the Old Man, how to recognize false beliefs in our souls and then what to do with them when we discover that we have believed a lie.

Eph 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old man, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new man, created to be like God in  righteousness and holiness from the truth.

The next few articles will provide insights and exercises intended to help Christians discover their false Old Man beliefs that are hidden in their subconscious minds. These false beliefs are ideas we believed at some point in our lives as a reaction to a life event(s). After consistent use of these ideas over time, they became our natural, habitual viewpoint and way of reacting to similar life situations. A brief description of how/why these beliefs came to be programmed into our souls will help us understand the normal design of the soul and help us see other false ideas we hold.

Old Man Beliefs – An Example

The Old Man (OM) belief system contains false ideas that we adopted based on our human experience growing up through the stages of human development. The OM system contains positive ideas intended to give us pleasure and negative ideas intended to protect us from pain. The following example is an altered but true story of how and why a person known to me adopted a false belief(s) in reaction to a painful event(s) that occurred when he was 12 years old.

Joe’s Story

Joe was 12 when his parents divorced. This was the time of his life he describes as when “the world as I knew it came apart”. Joe was old enough to know what was happening when they began to fight all the time and when the arguments turned into bitter fights and he was not really surprised when the announcement came. He was a little surprised because he remembered that the fights stopped real sudden like and he had hoped for a moment that they had worked out their differences. When they sat him down though, he knew what was coming before they said a word. He saw his dad’s bags by the door and he knew. He had been dying a little inside every time he heard the hateful tone they used with each other but this was the moment when his heart just stopped and he stopped feeling anything for a long time. For half a second he considered begging them to reconsider but the look on his father’s face told him to “never mind”. As his mother sat beside him hugging him, telling him what was happening, he could feel himself growing cold inside, totally numb to anything. When she was through, he just nodded his head and went to his room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Joe’s heart was toast.

It was 18 years later that Joe recounted this event to me in a counseling session. He was there in a last ditch effort to save his own 4 year old marriage. He and his wife Sue had come together for the first session and now he had come by himself when they were both scheduled, not a good sign. Her complaint was that she no longer believed that Joe cared for her in any way, to any degree. She explained that her many tears shed in the first session and the many more before they came to me meant nothing to him. He does nothing when I am hurting she said, he says nothing, does nothing and he finally admitted the other day that he feels nothing when I try to tell him that I can’t live like this any more. He listens without offering a word, he just looks at me like he doesn’t care and then just walks off and turns on the TV.

He wasn’t like this when we dated, he was kind, caring and we used to pray together all the time. We met at church you know and I thought he was the most spiritual man I had ever met because he knew more about God than anyone I had ever met. He never was very expressive or emotional about his love or anything else for that matter she added, but I had no idea that he would be so distant and unfeeling. Joe sat, looking down at his hands folded in is lap, passive, unmoving, not a blink or show of any emotion on his face. Sue went on until her emotional complaint finally came to an end and she sat silent, looking at Joe, waiting for some sign that he had heard her, that he was alive. I had also sat silent looking at Joe, waiting on him to say something. He finally looked up at her, then at me and said, I tried to tell you that it wasn’t you, I don’t feel anything about anything, ever. I don’t know why, but I just don’t feel anything for anyone. He then lapsed back into his silent vigil, making sure his hands stayed attached. The first session ended soon after that and now Joe was here by himself because she had told him that she was at the end of trying and maybe they would both be better off not married to each other.

Joe sat across from me, trying to remain unemotional as he told me what she had said, but for the first time I could tell he was anything but numb. For just a split second when he was talking I could see the pain in is eyes and almost like a desperation showed through. I decided to use the time by trying to get Joe to open up a little. I asked him, Joe, do you know why you don’t feel anything for your wife’s pain or as you said, anything for anyone? No, he shook his head slowly, trying to keep his composure but I could tell he was close to breaking down. I wasn’t this way with her at first, he said, I was normal for awhile when we dated and then when we were first married. Normal for awhile I asked with sudden peaked interest? Hmm, I said to myself that is an odd way of expressing the situation. Yes, he said, normal for a time, not like I used to be. Ok Joe, you have my curiosity aroused, what do you mean, like you used to be? Well, Joe began, for as long as I can remember, I have felt numb inside, almost like God didn’t include feelings when He made me. It’s not that I don’t feel anything at all, but I don’t seem to have a wide range of feelings or very strong feelings about anything. I remember when we won the city championship in football and I was playing running back. I scored the winning touchdown and everyone else went nuts but not me. I was glad we won, but I just didn’t feel all that much about it or like I said, for anything else in my life either. How long have you been this way Joe? I asked. For as long as I can remember he said, way back into my childhood.

It was then that I began to explore Joe’s past and discovered the event that had resulted in Joe numbing out his emotions. We could go on with the story but hopefully you are beginning to see why I have told you about Joe. At 12, when his “world as he knew it came apart”, he decided that the pain of his parents failed relationship was too great for him to bear and he had shut down his emotions, repressed them, so that he wouldn’t feel the agony of losing his world. He had shut them down even further after the divorce when he went to his dad’s house and had to hear him running his mother down and then several other life events that were difficult had motivated him to turn the dial on his emotions even further. Let me explain what happened to Joe, why it had hurt his marriage and how his story applies to our exercise using daydreams.

Joe had discovered what most of us counselors call defense mechanisms, a term coined by Freud. The term describes a range of instinctive behaviors that all humans use to avoid the pain that results when our life comes apart. The mechanism Joe used is called emotional repression or suppression which is simply where we tell our self to stop feeling our emotions because something in our life has hurt us deeply. When we are hurt like Joe was by a failed relationship and the loss of a primary relationship like his parents, all we know how to do as unbelievers is to make it stop hurting any way we can. Joe’s instinct to avoid the pain worked for him and he was able to stop thinking about the divorce so much and stop hurting so bad in his soul. When Joe saw how well numbing his emotions worked, he decided to believe in this mechanism as a good way to deal with all the pain in his life and he adopted it as his strategy for handling pain. He told himself that he couldn’t control people disappointing him and causing him pain but he could control whether he felt any pain from their failures. He discovered this mechanism by instinct but then he attached his faith to it and used it as a strategy to deal with the pain of life in the devil’s world. Joe had built a primary old man belief and had used it until it became so habitual that he no longer even remembered that he was doing it. Going numb had become so habitual and so automatic that every time pressure came to his life, he did his turtle act. Joe continued to numb his pain but discovered that this mechanism had a bad side effect. When he numbed his emotions to avoid pain, he found that it numbed all of his other feelings as well. He didn’t feel pain but he didn’t feel joy either, nor love, nor sympathy nor as Joe said, he didn’t feel anything for anyone, even for himself. This side effect of all his feelings going numb had hurt his marriage. Sue still felt her feelings but Joe couldn’t feel his and he couldn’t relate intimately with his wife, he couldn’t feel sympathy when she was hurting and he couldn’t feel passion when she felt loving toward him. Joe had made himself emotionally unavailable to the world and even to his wife.

Sue was a normal young woman who loved her husband and wanted his love and approval in return. Soon after the honeymoon year of marriage, Joe settled into his life and his numbed emotions began to reassert themselves. The first time they had a fight, he ducked into his shell a little, then a little more and by the time they came to me, Joe had placed Sue in the same category as every other person who had hurt him and he simply felt nothing to guard against being hurt by her even more. Sue for her part, not knowing what was wrong, pursued Joe every time he backed off from her. The more he backed off the more she felt like he didn’t love and approve of her and so she became critical and complaining toward him. She pushed him to give her love and he pushed back to protect himself from being abandoned and feeling criticized. At this point Joe’s use of self-protective mechanisms was so habitual he didn’t even know he was doing it. The two together created a vicious cycle where she pursued him with criticism but wanting love, feeling hurt at his withdrawal and he withdrew even more to avoid being hurt and out of fear of her leaving him.

Both of them as Christians were still dominated by their old way of thinking, feeling and acting. They related to one another using the strategies they had built in their life as unbelievers. They desperately needed to take off their old man beliefs, replace them with the mind of Christ and yield their hearts to the Spirit moment by moment. They needed to surrender to transformation, God’s process by which He causes believers to grow spiritually from babies at the new birth to mature adults able to shoulder adult Christian responsibilities. They needed to take off their old man beliefs, strategies and actions and put on the new man beliefs, strategies and actions so that they could believe, think, feel, speak and act like Jesus Christ.

It was during the sessions we spent discussing his life that this exercise was introduced to me. Joe said to me that during the first year after his parents divorced that he used to daydream about them getting back together all the time. He said, I daydreamed about them getting back together so much it began to interfere with my schoolwork. My teachers began to get on to me for zoning out. I asked him, what did you get out of daydreaming about them getting back together?  Well he said, I would see them together in my mind and it would feel like it was real and I would feel like everything was all right for a moment. It was the only time I could feel anything, especially anything good. When I heard this, I realized the power of our daydreams as a window into the subconscious mind and as a tool to discover the hidden agendas in our old man belief system.

In the next article we will look at our daydreams and learn how to use them as a tool to discover what old man ideas you have programmed into your soul. Once you identify a false belief, then you can choose to reject it, to delete it from the program and replace it with the appropriate concept taught in the bible. This is how God designed the process of transformation to work.

God knows your name

Isaiah 49:16 “Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;

This is by Max Lucado
WHEN I SEE a flock of sheep I see exactly that, a flock. A rabble of wool. A herd of hooves. I don’t see a sheep. I see sheep. All alike. None different. That’s what I see.

But not so with the shepherd. To him every sheep is different. Every face is special. Every face has a story. And every sheep has a name.The one with the sad eyes, that’s Droopy. And the fellow with one ear up and the other down, I call him Oscar. And the small one with the black patch on his leg, he’s an orphan with no brothers. I call him Joseph.

The shepherd knows his sheep. He calls them by name.

When we see a crowd, we see exactly that, a crowd. Filling a stadium or flooding a mall. When we see a crowd, we see people, not persons, but people. A herd of humans. A flock of faces. That’s what we see.

But not so with the Shepherd. To him every face is different. Every face is a story. Every face is a child. Every child has a name. The one with the sad eyes, that’s Sally. The old fellow with one eyebrow up and the other down, Harry’s his name. And the young one with the limp? He’s an orphan with no brothers. I call him Joey.

The Shepherd knows his sheep. He knows each one by name. The Shepherd knows you. He knows your name. And he will never forget it. I have written your name on my hand (Isa. 49:16).

Quite a thought, isn’t it? Your name on God’s hand. Your name on God’s lips. Maybe you’ve seen your name in some special places. On an award or diploma or walnut door. Or maybe you’ve heard your name from some important people—a coach, a celebrity, a teacher. But to think that your name is on God’s hand and on God’s lips . . . my, could it be?

Or perhaps you’ve never seen your name honored. And you can’t remember when you heard it spoken with kindness. If so, it may be more difficult for you to believe that God knows your name.

But he does. Written on his hand. Spoken by his mouth. Whispered by his lips. Your name. And not only the name you now have, but the name he has in store for you. A new name he will give you . . .

When God Whispers Your Name is a book of hope. A book whose sole aim is to encourage. I’ve harvested thoughts from a landscape of fields. And though their size and flavors are varied, their purpose is singular: to provide you, the reader, with a word of hope. I thought you could use it.

You’ve been on my mind as I’ve been writing. I’ve thought of you often. I honestly have. Over the years I’ve gotten to know some of you folks well. I’ve read your letters, shaken your hands, and watched your eyes. I think I know you.

You’re busy. Time passes before your tasks are finished. And if you get a chance to read, it’s a slim chance indeed.

You’re anxious. Bad news outpaces the good. Problems outnumber solutions. And you are concerned. What future do your children have on this earth? What future do you have?

You’re cautious. You don’t trust as easily as you once did.

Politicians lied. The system failed. The minister compromised. Your spouse cheated. It’s not easy to trust. It’s not that you don’t want to. It’s just that you want to be careful.

There is one other thing. You’ve made some mistakes. I met one of you at a bookstore in Michigan. A businessman, you seldom came out of your office at all and never to meet an author. But then you did. You were regretting the many hours at work and the few hours at home and wanted to talk.

And the single mom in Chicago. One kid was tugging, the other crying, but juggling them both, you made your point. “I made mistakes,” you explained, “but I really want to try again.”

And there was that night in Fresno. The musician sang and I spoke and you came. You almost didn’t. You almost stayed home. Just that day you’d found the note from your wife. She was leaving you. But you came anyway. Hoping I’d have something for the pain. Hoping I’d have an answer. Where is God at a time like this?

And so as I wrote, I thought about you. All of you. You aren’t malicious. You aren’t evil. You aren’t hardhearted, (hardheaded occasionally, but not hardhearted). You really want to do what is right. But sometimes life turns south. Occasionally we need a reminder.

Not a sermon.

A reminder.

A reminder that God knows your name.

The Message of First Peter

Peter’s Readers

In the first book that carries his name, Peter writes as an apostle of Jesus Christ and he writes to believers who have been scattered all over the Roman Empire by persecution. When you read all of the names of the places where these churches existed, it reminds you of Peter’s first sermon in Acts 2, where there were Jews from all over the Roman world visiting Jerusalem for the Passover. The same names of these places are mentioned in Acts 2 and some of the 3,000 saved that day went back home and took the gospel with them, starting churches. It is to these pilgrims, chosen by God that he writes to help them understand some important issues of the Christian experience. These believers were suffering the severe adversities foretold by Jesus (Jn16:33) and some of them were very discouraged because they didn’t understand why God was allowing such intense and difficult circumstances to challenge their faith. Peter writes to explain what was going on in their lives.

You might also be suffering with tremendous adversities in your life and wondering what good purpose God might have for allowing these things to occur. Read on as we follow Peter’s discussion and explanation of the eternal plan of God.

Three Important Issues

Peter writes to these suffering believers to discuss three important ideas that he has learned from walking with Jesus in His earthly ministry and then later from walking with the Spirit in his daily life. Peter has experienced his own suffering and intense adversities and he writes to share what he has learned.

The first issue he writes about is the foreknowledge of God that chose them in Christ and was aware of their suffering. The foreknowledge of God takes us all the way back into eternity past where God issued His divine decrees. The second important concept is the sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit. From our new birth until we are transferred into eternity with God, we are involved with the sanctifying process that God uses to purify us from our old life and initiate us into our new life in Christ. The third issue is the fruit of sanctification, our obedience to the Lord and the sprinkling of the blood of Christ that cleanses us on a daily basis.

In this article, we want to discuss the first important issue, the foreknowledge and eternal plan of God.

The Foreknowledge of God

God is the most amazing person in the universe. As part of His essence, He is eternal life meaning that God has always existed, forever and ever as we think of time. For all eternity God has existed in three persons, Father, Son and Spirit and all three have lived in perfect harmony, with perfect knowledge and with a perfect plan. Peter

The Plan of God

In eternity past, God-Father devised a plan to share their glory and character with creatures that they would create. First they would create angels, allow 1/3 of them to fall through Lucifer’s leadership, bring them under judgment and then allow Satan to appeal the judgment. Then God would create mankind, allow them to fall in the same way and then use man to demonstrate all the issues of the appeal. Satan would be allowed to present his arguments by influencing man to follow his philosophies and showing that any creature would rebel if treated as unfairly as God treated him. God would present His side of the appeal by showing that some men, born as sinners would choose to humble themselves by accepting His grace gifts and that the fallen angels could have done the same. God’s plan foresaw every detail of both angelic and human history before any of it happened, but His foreknowledge did not force any creature’s volition to choose any specific course of action. One of the great mysteries of God’s plan is that He foreknows everything, maintains Sovereign control of everything and yet allows every creature to make his/her own choices. The following discussion about God’s knowledge will help us understand how He could do this.

Omniscience, Divine Decrees & Foreknowledge

God’s knowledge exists in two categories, Omniscience which is God’s knowledge of everything both actual and possible and foreknowledge which is limited to only actual future history. The Divine Decrees is God choosing to make what was only possible to become the actual history we are now living. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Omniscience

God’s Omniscience knows everything, the possible and the actual. He was able to examine every variable of every possible way that He could devise creation. He knew that if He changed only one variable how it would have changed every other variable that would have resulted from it. He saw that any change, every change would have resulted in a totally different scenario of events unfolding and therefore a different angelic and human history. Using His Omniscience, He examined every possible scenario of every possible historical result and when He saw the history that is actually unfolding, He chose it and decreed that it would become actual history. Before God chose to create anything, He visualized every possible history and then chose the one He wanted to happen.

Divine Decrees

After God had eliminated all other possible scenarios and decided on the chain of events we are now experiencing, He declared that this actual history would come to be. God is Sovereign, meaning that at all times, in every circumstance, God remains in total control of everything. His Sovereignty, based on His Omniscience, decreed the angelic and human history He wanted and His decree makes this chain of events certain to happen.

Foreknowledge

God’s omniscience knows everything while His foreknowledge knows only what is going to actually happen. His Foreknowledge looks at His decree and simply acknowledges every detail of the decree as future history. When Peter speaks of God’s foreknowledge, he is referencing God’s perfect plan that He decreed in eternity past and that is unfolding every day in our experience. Foreknowledge is knowledge of future history.

Foreknowledge Knows Everything about Us.

When Peter tells his readers that they are chosen according to God’s foreknowledge, he is reminding them that God knows everything they are going through and has made perfect provision for their circumstances. His letter is written to inform them about God’s plan and encourage them to trust Him through the adverse circumstances they are suffering.

Peter wants them to remember that God knows what they need financially, what they need physically, what they need relationally and we could go on. He knows everything about your life, every detail and He has gone ahead and set in place every provision needed to take care of us and to glorify Him in every circumstance. There is never any reason to be afraid because our God who loves us is never taken by surprise by our adversities. In fact, He knew about all of our circumstances long before they happened and His sovereignty is in complete control. He only allows the events of our life to go so far and then only under His control. God is in control!

In the coming verses, Peter will explain what God is doing in our lives and why He allows adversity to come our way. His explanation will arm us so that we can use our adversities for growth and glory.

In our next article we will discuss the sanctification process of God-Holy Spirit.

Audio Link    http://brettell.org/webex.htm

In a recent web conference, I gave the following message to a group of fellow believers all around the world. The “webinar” was generated and hosted by Dr. Jim Brettell, a Christian pastor and leader located in Little Rock Arkansas. Dr. Brettell is a pioneer in the internet church, one of the latest movements in the church where men and women have gone to the web to publish the word of God. It is believed that in the next few years, millions of people will actually go to church using the internet, tuning into live and recorded services, hearing the word of God taught while sitting in their own homes. While the internet church has its obvious drawbacks, it is a reality in 2010 and a reality that motivated Christian leaders ignore at their own peril. I have become one of those Chrisitan leaders who gladly use the internet to promote the message of Christ to a world of men and women who need Him so desperately as the day of His return comes on e day closer.

The theme of the Web Conference was “One Day Closer”, with each different teacher communicating what that phrase meant to him. When I heard the phrase, One Day Closer, I was moved to discuss the day when Christ will have defeated all of His enemies and placed them in their eternal abodes, when He will have submitted the kingdom to God-Father and when all free creatures in God’s universe will exist in a state of perfect righteousness. On that day, there will be only righteous thinking, feeling, speaking and acting in the life of all His creatures living with Him. All those who trust in Christ will be together with Christ and all of us will live free from sin and evil.

Imagine the world, ruled by Christ, full of angels and resurrected human beings, filled with righteousness, free from all sin, expressing love to one another and living this way forever. Gone will be the bad news we hear every single day, gone the hurt and pain caused by one person’s selfishness against another and gone the possibility that sin will ever harm us again. What a glorious day!

These following notes were used in my message that was delivered on Friday, 3/5/10. Dr. Brettell has also posted the recording of this message on a dedicated page on his website. If you wish to hear the audio of this message, go to http://brettell.org/webex.htm When you open the page, scroll down and look for my name connected with session # 2 and simply click on it. The link will take you to a Webex page and the recording will begin automatically. Thanks for tuning in. Continue growing in your faith and in your love for the Lord Jesus Christ to whom belongs all glory and worship forever.

Web Conference 3/6/10
One Day Closer Righteousness Rules

I. Introduction

Historical Context:
At the eternal life conference in eternity past, God-F, God-S & God-HS decided to create the universe and creatures to live in it. These creatures were made to worship and serve God. The creation of both angels and mankind have striking parallels that are pertinent to our discussion, the most important of these is the capacity to choose and the freedom to do so. First He created angels with volition and allowed them to choose sin and evil. 1/3 of the angels chose to reject whatever grace God offered them and they now exist in a permanent state of unrighteousness. Their minds and daily decisions within the A/C are guided by unrighteous goals, priorities and ideas. Then God made mankind and also allowed him to choose sin and evil for himself. The creation of mankind is God’s plan for winning the appeal trial of these fallen angels.

We find ourselves at this point in human history with a completed system of grace salvation being offered to the human race, with some having accepted God’s grace, others having rejected God’s grace and others not yet having made their decision. It is by accepting God’s grace that we prove out His point in the appeal of fallen angels, that no creature can live on his own apart from God’s grace. Fallen angels & humans who choose to live independent of God will demonstrate this truth forever.

The issue at hand in our time together is the unrighteous thinking, speaking and actions of creatures both angelic and human. The unrighteousness choices of creatures have caused the world in which we live to be a place dominated by sin and evil. Every human soul born into this life, experiences damage to their souls and endures great pain and grief.

1. Fallen angels – choose evil which is to live in opposition to God’s plan with the goal of defeating God’s plan in even the smallest way, to prove that He is not +R and perfect. If God could be found to be –R or imperfect, this would allow Satan a basis for a successful appeal on the grounds that God makes mistakes.
2. Unbelievers – choose sin and evil mostly unknowingly, without clear understanding of the implications of their choices or the havoc they cause through sinful choices.
3. Believers – 2 cag
a. Negative to truth – live as saved people but choose to reject knowledge of their Old Man beliefs/behaviors and therefore choose to live dominated by their sin nature causing pain to everyone in their lives because of their –R way of life.
b. Positive to truth – live as saved people who have yielded to the Spirit to have their hearts transformed into the likeness of Christ and therefore choose sin and evil less and less as their operating system. These believers gain the capacity to produce divine good giving aid to others and blessing everyone in their life.

Christ has defeated the devil through His work of death, burial and resurrection. God is allowing the forces of evil to play out the appeal trial, proving out the will of God that life without God is doomed to failure and must be condemned.

When the appeal trial is completed, Christ will take every –R creature in the universe and throw them into the Lake of Fire. At this time He will submit the universe to His Father and His +R will once again be the only standard by which creatures choose to act. There will be no more bad decisions and no more people damaging others through sin and evil. Every soul living with God in His kingdom will be free to live +R life and God’s +R will rule the universe. Come Lord Jesus Come!!

This study will cover Mat 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
We will discuss:
Hunger & thirst
God’s Righteousness
Results of living God’s +R

II. Hunger & Thirst for Righteousness

NAS Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Mt 5 begins the Sermon on the Mount and contains the Beatitudes (declarations of blessing). The S/M is addressed to Israel during the Age of Israel and so does not directly apply to the church, but to the Kingdom to come when the Lord returns.

Vs 6 – blessed – makarios – happinesses; those who fulfill these qualifications will be the recipients of many types of happiness

Vs 6 the ones hungering and thirsting – spiritual appetite, desire for God & +R

The S/M is for the Millennium and for believers of that dispensation and so this concept does not directly apply to the Church Age believer. What does apply to the church are the principles that transcend every dispensation. An example of concepts that transcend dispensations would be the Laws of Divine Establishment, the principles that God designed to govern both believer and unbeliever throughout all of human history.
a. Freedom – the right to use volition to choose for self
b. Marriage – marriage is found in every dispensation
c. Family – children are found in every dispensation
d. Nations – after the flood, God formed nations to protect freedom

One of the things that has existed in every dispensation and every generation is certain individuals who have a spiritual appetite . God designed the human soul with a need for God that we experience as desire, longings and yearnings deep in the heart. It is this spiritual hunger that characterizes those who are positive to the truth.

Gen 4:25-26 – With the birth of Seth, men began to call upon the name of the Lord
· The hunger in man’s heart led men to seek for the Lord
Psm 42:2 My soul is thirsty for God
· During the Jewish Age, men had a desire to know God
Mt 5:6 Hunger and thirst for +R; Jn 7:37 thirst for God
· Jesus’ day there were those who desired to be +R before God.
Gal 5:17 – desire produced by God-HS in the soul of the believer.

Spiritual Hunger & Thirst
1. God created the human soul with needs. Man is not meant to live on is own but to live in relationships with God and one another.
Gen 2:18 – not good for man to be alone
2. Some needs are intended to be met by God and others are intended to be met by other humans.
Jn 7:37 a thirst that only God can fill; Gen 2:18 – a need that only a mate can fill
3. Man is born spiritually dead and therefore separated from God.
a. We don’t have access to God to meet our inborn needs.
b. 1Cor 2:14 We are unable to process spiritual things to know truth
c. We don’t even know we are missing God, believe people are the answer
d. Man attaches all of his needs to man in the absence of God.
4. Living with unmet needs causes man to experience soul pain.
5. Man’s failure to find fulfillment through people causes him to find substitutes.
a. Phil 3:18-19 men obey their appetites and turn to worldly things
b. Eph 4:17-19 men develop addictions to ease their pain
6. The failure to find fulfillment through other humans can lead to opening the heart to seek for God.
Act 17:27 God has made us to seek Him, feel after Him and find Him.
a. When our initial strategies fail, some will realize that God is the only answer.
b. Others will use their failures to simply change strategies and continue seeking fulfillment through man and worldliness.

The ones who hunger and thirst in Mt 5:6 are those who have realized that there is more to life than what can be seen with their eyes and known with human logic. They have opened their minds to something bigger than themselves. They have realized their need for forgiveness and realized that they cannot earn it themselves. They have looked into their own hearts and have discovered their hunger and thirst. They hunger to be loved in spite of their flaws and failures and they thirst for an existence that is free from the sin and evil that has broken their hearts and kicked a hole in everyone they love.

The people in view here are hungering & thirsting for +R. What does Jesus mean? What does it mean to hunger/thirst for +R? Let’s look at +R.

Vs 6 Righteousness – dikaiosune – the thinking of a Judge, the standard by which the judge determines right/wrong, guilt/innocence; The righteousness of God.

God’s Righteousness
1. God’s righteousness is perfect rightness and is absolute.
2. Perfect rightness is whatever the Creator says is right/wrong.
3. Absolute means that His +R is 100% and can’t accept anything less.
4. God’s +R is the standard by which He determines if creatures are worthy to be blessed or cursed – Act 17:31
5. If a creature is 100% +R, then God blesses; If a creature falls short of 100% +R, then God curses.
6. Creatures who stand before God for judgment who possess 100% +R will be blessed to live with Him forever in a state of perfect +H.
7. Creatures who stand before Him for judgment who fall short of 100% +R will be rejected from His presence and live in a state of misery forever.

Christians will experience God’s +R in 3 primary ways
A. Imputed +R given at salvation to all who believe the gospel
Rom 3:22 This +R comes from God by faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe
· Faith (in the gospel) is the requirement for God to credit His +R to us.
2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
· Christ took our sins upon Himself and gave His +R to us through our union with Him
1. The moment we trust Christ for salvation we are imputed (credited) with His +R
2. In the courtroom of heaven our sins are counted as paid and God’s +R is counted as ours through union with Christ – Justification.
3. Every believer has faced and seen the last of God’s Justice in a punitive sense.
4. Imputation of divine +R has made us worth the same as Christ – worthy/blessing

B. Experiential +R developed through spiritual growth, accomplished by the transformation process whereby the believer takes off his/her old man beliefs/behaviors and puts on the new man beliefs and behaviors.
Heb 12:11 – divine discipline; God’s training & growth program yields peaceful fruit +R.
· Discipline strips down the Old Man and inspires obedience to New Man – NM is +R
Eph 4:24 – NM is created in likeness of God in +R and holiness from the truth
· NM is the thinking of Jesus/humanity and is aligned with God’s +R from the truth

C. God’s +R will rule the free universe among all who live with God.

1 Cor 15:24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

1. At the present time, while the appeal trial of satan continues, Christ has been given all authority in heaven and earth, holds the highest position of authority.
2. While Christ holds the highest position, creatures continue to freely live by their own sinful standards and methods.
3. At the end, when Christ has brought human history to a close, all creatures who rejected Him will be confined forever to the Lake of Fire.
4. Even then, though they might continue to reject His right to rule them, they will bow down to Him and confess that He is the Lord – Phil 2:10-11.
5. In contrast, those who live with God forever will be enabled to think, feel and act out God’s +R with every thought brought into captivity to Christ.
6. For those of us who live with God forever, we will enjoy total freedom from sin, evil and every form of harm that we now endure in the present state.

To hunger & thirst for +R, is to deeply desire to receive God’s own +R imputed at salvation, then the desire to attain a mature status as a Christian to be able to live according to experiential +R and finally, every creature who knows God hungers and thirsts for the day when all sin and evil will have been eliminated from us and from all those we love.

1. From birth until death, every human being lives within an environment where sin and evil dominate every relationship and all human interaction in general.
2. Being born into sin, experiencing human development while dominated by a sin nature, being raised by sinful parents, living among other sinful people has harmed the soul of every human being.
3. Every human being has experienced soul pain from having a sin nature and relating to other people who are dominated by their sin nature.
4. When a sinful person encounters God and is given a vision of life without sin, life without hurtful interactions with others, it causes a hunger to be formed.
5. This hunger/thirst is attached to an image of life where no one does wrong, no one acts selfishly and where no one is harmed.
6. As a believer learns what the bible says about the eternal state, his hunger becomes a hope, a confidence that one day this will actually occur.
7. The hope that every believer possesses is that one day, at the end, God will eliminate sin/evil and create an environment where our every thought and deed edifies others.
8. The bible describes this future, perfect life with the following words:

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Eldridge says it well in this one.

I Hate Valentine’s Day
Love & War part 1: He Said
by John Eldredge

“My soul finds rest in God alone…”
(Psalm 62:1)

This week’s devotional is from Love & War by John and Stasi Eldredge.

I hate Valentine’s Day. There, I said it.

Most of the guys reading this just thought, “Yes! I can’t believe he said that.”

Most of the women just thought, “What a jerk! I can’t believe he said that.”

But it’s true. I hate Valentine’s Day. Stasi loves it; it’s one of her favorite holidays. (God, what are you thinking?!) I hate being told, “Today, you will be romantic.. Today, you will be amazing. Today, you will ‘Get It All Right.’ And tonight, you will arrange for one of the most romantic evenings you two will have this year. Tonight, sex will be on a level with the Hallelujah chorus. Hollywood will have wished they had filmed this day.

Who wants to live under that kind of pressure?

The rule of human nature seems to be this: The harder you push, the more the heart flees. The more we demand the heart show up, the more it disappears. We may try to Get It All Right, out of fear or guilt (like most guys on Valentine’s Day), or maybe even out of a desire to be good. But that is not the same as loving.

So I find myself dreading the approach of Valentine’s Day. Can I pull it off? Will she be happy? And now we’ve got a culture crazed with the upgrade of everything. Dinner and a card used to be a home run. That sounds so blasé these days, like you barely even gave it a thought. Now you have got to make it an all day. We have blown this day way out of proportion. It has taken all the fun out of it.

And the truth is, women feel the pressure, too – the pressure to be beautiful, the pressure to have just the right earrings to go with the right dress, the pressure to have the perfect hair – to achieve “sexy” without tipping over into “skanky.” A woman feels the pressure to make all the right conversation, not to order too much at dinner, and certainly don’t eat it all. And a woman feels the sexual pressure coming – either to offer sex “because it’s Valentine’s Day” or because she wants to win her man.

Real romance doesn’t work like that.

Romance seems to happen not because you have turned your google-eyed attention to romance, but because the two of you are focused on other things – a beautiful fall day leads to a spontaneous walk in the woods.. An evening out “just because” becomes lovely after the two of you stumble on a great little restaurant.

Romance requires free hearts.

Pressure, on the other hand, kills everything it touches.

I don’t think most of us have any idea how much pressure we bring to our marriages.

There is the pressure one of you feels from the other “to be happy.” Usually because somebody’s childhood wasn’t all that happy and they can’t bear the threat of unhappiness in the marriage, or because we deeply believe that If you’re not happy it’s because of me. The message comes across loud and clear: “Do not be unhappy.” The spouse feels the unnamed pressure and comes to resent it.

Christian couples feel the added pressure to have a model marriage, to be a “witness” to our families and neighbors. Therefore nothing can ever be wrong. We’ve got to present a good face to the world. We feel the pressure to pray together, to have family devotions, and to love going to church. We feel the pressure to be “Christ-like” in our marriages – and since none of us are even close to that level of sainthood, we feel a lot of guilt and shame. But we feel compelled to hide all that because, after all, we are Christians.

There is the pressure – and how bizarre is this, really – that someone love you. Of course we want to be loved. Of course it hurts when we feel we are not loved, especially by the closest person in our life. But insisting that someone love you is like telling a fawn you have just seen slip into the woods to “Come Back Out,” or commanding a hummingbird to land on your finger and “Stay There.”

And then there is the Biggest Pressure Of All – the pressure we feel to make each other happy. After all, this marriage is supposed to make me happy. Right?

The human heart has an infinite capacity for happiness and an unending need for love, because it was created for an infinite God who is unending love. The desperate turn is when we bring the aching abyss of our hearts to one another with the hope, the plea, “Make me happy. Fill this ache.” And often out of love we do try to make one another happy, and then wonder why it never lasts.

It can’t be done. You will kill yourself trying.

We are broken people, with a famished craving in our hearts. We are fallen, all of us. It happened so early in our story, back in the Garden of Eden, that most of us don’t even realize it happened. But the effects of the Fall are something we live with every day.

Every woman now has an insatiable need for relationship, one that can never be filled. It is an ache in her soul designed to drive her to God. She aches for intimacy, to be known, loved, and chosen. It also explains her deepest fear – abandonment.

Men face a different sort of emptiness. We are forever frustrated in our ability to conquer life (Genesis 3:17-18). A man aches for affirmation, for validation, to know that he has come through. This also explains his deepest fear – failure.

Now, take these fears, brokenness, and this famished craving, throw them together into the same house and lock the door. What ensues is the pain, disappointment, and confusion most people describe as their marriage. But what did you expect?

Of course you are disappointed; your spouse is disappointed, too. How can we possibly be enough for one another? Two broken cups cannot possibly fill one another. Happiness flows through us like water through a volleyball net.

Your unhappiness – and your spouse’s – means you both have a famished craving that only God can meet.

You have to have some place you can turn. For comfort. For understanding. For the healing of your brokenness. For love. To offer life, you must have life. And you can only get this from God.

Trying to sort your way through marriage without God in your life is like trying to be gracious when you are utterly sleep-deprived. At some point, you lose your ability to be kind; you lose all perspective.

We live in a great love story, set in the midst of war. The great and terrible clash between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness continues. They are fighting for the human heart.

Jesus is the hero of this love story and we are His Beloved. So the greatest gift you can give to your marriage is for you to develop a real relationship with Jesus Christ, where you are finding in God the life and love your soul so desperately needs.

This Week
Ask the Lord to show where you have put pressure on yourself and your spouse to be enough to satisfy the craving in your soul, then ask Him to meet you there so that you can know the rest that is found in Him alone.

Prayer
“Lord, help me to have such a powerful relationship with you that I can give and receive love freely, without the pressure to be or need to demand from others that which only You can provide.”

Our baby – Our Delight
We all love or children and want them to find happiness in life. When they are first born, we delight in their every act, every funny expression, their first smile, their first step and words. We allow them the full range of expression of their personalities and desires, setting boundaries only for safety. They are selfish, demanding little dictators who do their very best to take control of everyone and everything in the periphery.

Child Training
At some point, we realize that we have to get a grip on them and their behavior lest they become juvenile delinquents and end up in prison. So we begin to place demands on them to change their behavior to comply with social norms. We teach them manners, respect for adults, respect for the rights of others and a whole list of ideas that “good” people teach their children. We use whatever means we can conceive that “work” on our children to make them comply with our new rules. We bribe them with our praise and approval. We scare them by spanking them when they resist our demands.

Personhood is not Behavior
Well informed parents recognize the distinction between a child’s person (real self) and their behaviors. The real self, while selfish and demanding is also tender, easily hurt and certain to misunderstand why parents implement their ever increasing demands. Loving parents who understand how vulnerable their children are try to protect and reassure their children while they tighten behavioral boundaries. They teach their children why they have created rules about behavior and help them to align their true desires with the expectations of society. The goal is to allow their children to express their true self and channel them into constructive avenues without suppressing the real self. It is not possible to avoid suppressing their desires but in love, parents try to minimize it as much as possible. I pray that I have given my children the love and approval they need, taught them the truth about why Christians do what they do and most of all been a good model of a Christian who serves the Lord with all of his heart because I love Him. I wish the same for you.

Real Self – False Self

The following principles have been developed from the observations of psychologists who study the patterns of human behavior. These concepts describe the adaptations children make based on conclusions they reach when they enter into the socialization process. Children adapt to the pressures exerted on them by parents and authority figures by practicing behaviors that are demanded of them. Children conclude that by adopting these overt behaviors they can gain the approval, acceptance and praise from parents, authority figures and peers and protect themselves from the pain of rejection by these same people.

These concepts track the adaptations of the real self, our original, authentic, honest self that is egocentric, selfish, demanding and resistant to authority. Under pressure to conform overt behaviors to meet social expectations, children create a false self, actually layers of false selves that serve as masks and roles played that please the authority figures over them. The adoption of overt behaviors that conflict with the true desires in their hearts causes children to abandon their real feelings and identify their personhood with these false constructs termed the false self.

1. Synonyms for Real Self: True self, Child within, Inner child, Deepest self, Inner core.

2. At the core of our inner experience, under the layers of learned behavior and defensive adaptations, is the real self, the childish self with which we began.
· We began life as a child with childish thoughts, feelings and expressions.
· At our core, we are still the child who is genuine, authentic, honest & real.
· Our real self is needy, selfish, self indulgent, fearful and demanding of others
· Our real self is genuinely simple, uncomplicated, need focused & relational
· Our real self is naïve, believes easily, acts on what he/she believes
· Our real self is shamelessly aware of our needs, unafraid to selfishly pursue our needs, willing to use any means to receive our needs from others.

3. The false self is a learned strategy that is put around the real self to evoke approval, acceptance & praise from people and prevent disapproval, rejection & anger from significant people in our life.
· Real self’s honest, selfish, demanding approach is not acceptable in society.
· Parents & other authority figures exert pressure on children to comply with their demands and adopt acceptable behaviors in exchange for approval & praise.
· Children, unable to orient to God, comply with the demands of parents, authority to gain the approval, acceptance & praise they crave.
· False self consists of overt behaviors that play the part, assume the characteristics that were expected for the purpose of pleasing parents in exchange for their approval.
· Children build a false self, built in layers, by putting on specific behaviors that comply with expectations during different phases of human development.
· At every stage of growth, new and different demands are made and forced upon children who comply by playing the part expected, to gain the needed approval.

4. Initially, parents accept & delight in our real self, overlook our selfishness, comply with our demands and express affection unconditionally regardless of our behavior.
· Parents are delighted with babies, lavish affection on them without expectation of any behaviors and praise them for every action they perform.
· From birth until parents begin to train children, the child is allowed and even encouraged to express his real self for which he is praised and rewarded with laughter and affection.

5. When parents begin to train children, to bring them into compliance with social norms, the rules of the game change for children.
· Specific behaviors are demanded in exchange for approval & praise.
· When children resist, parents often use pain to induce obedience
· When children resist, parents can withhold affection, approval and praise.
· When children comply with parental demands, approval is used as a reward
· Children confuse love that gives them self worth with the approval for compliance
· Children believe that the love they need is dependent upon their compliance with parental demands to practice specific overt behaviors.
· Children adopt and practice behaviors they believe will give approval and praise.
· Children learn a human works system that succeeds in gaining the approval they crave from parents, peers and everyone they deem important.

6. Under pressure from others, children learn to practice specific desired behaviors in order to gain or maintain the approval/love they crave.
· These overt behaviors are not a genuine expression of a child’s changed belief system
· The overt behaviors adopted are in conflict with the child’s genuine desires and natural ways of expressing himself.
· The overt behaviors become a necessary role that children play to be accepted.
· Children adopt a false self, a self that is not in concert with their inner desires but a self that does whatever is expected to gain the pleasure of approval and avoids the pain of disapproval from those they need to meet their needs.

7. The real self is left behind & forgotten in the child’s heart as layer upon layer of different roles are adopted in order to comply with parental and peer expectations.
· The child rightly concludes that the honest expression of his selfish, demanding real self is not valued but produces pain and rejection from parents.
· The child rightly concludes that his real self has no value to produce approval from parents or peers because only specific overt behaviors are accepted.
· The child devalues his real self, abandons his honest cravings & feelings by repressing them, he becomes numb to his true self, no longer aware of his real self.

8. The child builds layers of pretense by compliance with social demands, loses touch with his real self and identifies his self with the false self he has constructed.
· The real self has no value to produce approval, therefore he/she concludes that he/she has no intrinsic value – this causes the self the ultimate pain of rejection.
· The pain of rejection must be minimized so the self implements the defense mechanism of repression through going numb & forgetting the real self.
· The child views self as the false self that produces the desired result – approval.

9. By the time we reach adulthood, we have put on layers of expected behaviors from parents, peers, teachers, coaches, the world and anyone else we give the power to accept or reject us by caring about them and what they think of us.
· Peter had long ago lost touch with the real condition of his soul, had identified himself with his pretense of manhood and was committed to playing his part.
· Peter truly believes he can produce courage and loyalty from his human will, believes that is what God desires from him and believes if he is able to produce courage and loyalty that God will be pleased.
· Peter’s real self is still needy, fearful and totally alienated from the reality of God’s grace and what God truly desires from the believer.
· New believers learn the system of desired behaviors, learn what is considered worthy of approval and adopt these behaviors as a new role to play out using the power of human ability and human will.
· We enter into the Christian life using the only skills we know, using the only strategies that have ever worked for us and assume that God expects the same things that our parents, peers and others expected.

10. At the moment of salvation, God gives us His righteousness in Christ making our real self as worthy as Jesus, by grace, before we have a chance to perform any behaviors.
· God invests value in our real self, rejects our false self, rejects the strategies that built the false self and has no interest in works produced by human ability or will power.
· God never asks or expects us to produce overt behaviors that are not in concert with our inner desires and true motives.
· God never asks or expects us to play a part or produce overt behaviors that create the appearance of spirituality apart from the power of the Spirit in concert with genuine love for Him and desire to please Him.
· God’s plan is for us to lay aside the false self, to reject role playing, reject man’s expectations and reject the practice of overt behaviors to gain man’s approval.
· God’s plan is for us to become totally honest about what we truly want, what we are thinking, what we are truly feeling at any moment regardless of whether our desires, thoughts and feelings align with His essence or not.

11. God gives us a new nature that is connected to the real self and enters us into His plan of transformation that takes off the false self/old man and replaces it with the new man that is aligned with the beliefs of Christ.
· We must take off the layers of the false self, the human works systems, the human good systems that we have used to gain approval from man.
· The old man is populated by these different false systems of behaviors we use to please people and gain their approval.
· The new nature and new man is totally honest, genuine, pretends about nothing, uses only truth, practices only truthfulness, rejects pretense and works only because he loves God, never to gain man’s approval.

For the last 11 Sunday evenings 7-9 PM, I have been working with Dr. Jim Brettell using Webex, a program that creates an internet classroom. Listeners sign into Webex on the internet and are able to listen to Dr. Brettell and I discuss Christian Spirituality, with an emphasis on taking off our Old Man. The bible uses the term Old Man to indicate the habitual, sub-conscious beliefs, thoughts, feelings and behaviors that every human being developed in their life before Christ. Many of the articles on this site discuss our old way of life. The following link takes you to a page on Dr. Brettell’s website where you will find links to all 11 audio recordings of our sessions.

If you are serious about understanding why you can know the truth but be unable to fully implement it into your life, why you try with all your might to be and do what the bible commands, but still find yourself giving in to old patterns of behavior, then these sessions are a place to begin a journey that will open your eyes to the difficult reaalities of the spiritual war. I encourage you to listen to these 11 sessions, to read the articles you find there and here so you can develop the spiritual strength and maturity to live a life that is compatible with the Lord Jesus Himself. I wish you well on your journey to intimacy with God, the sweetest experience available in this life and the next.

http://brettell.org/webex.htm

God designed man to be needy. He created us with different kinds of needs, both physical and needs in the soul. Our physical needs are met by logistical grace that provides all that we need to function in the physical world. Our soulish needs are related to our inner longings for love and relationships. In this article we will discuss how mankind is confused about how to have our needs met and from whom. We will give a representative list of human needs and explain what Jesus said about fulfilling the emptiness of the soul.

Celebrating Human Strength
The world tells us that we should admire other human beings that use their human ability to be strong. Darwinism, the dominant idea of our day, tells us that “the strong survive” and emphasizes “the survival of the fittest”. Many of our popular movies lionize those who are callous, have no compassion and have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. It is no wonder that the world celebrates human strength since it is all the world has on which to depend. The world admires those who use their own abilities to meet their own needs or even better, those who successfully pretend that they have no needs. The bible tells us another story.

Weakness Made Strong
God did not make us to be strong. He made us to be weak and needy. The human soul is incredibly fragile and needy. In fact, in the real world, which is the spiritual world, we are totally helpless. Helpless to save ourselves, make ourselves spiritual or meet the God given needs He placed within us. We are needy by design. God made our souls in such a way that we need Him in order for us to be complete and fulfilled. His great mercy designed us to need Him so that perhaps we might seek Him, having exhausted every other means of achieving happiness. The bible teaches that if we will enter into an intimate relationship with God, then our hearts will find rest and fulfillment.

Dependence on People
We are confused though. Instead of needing God, we think we need people. Born without God and having only people with whom we can relate, we conclude that our needs are to be fulfilled through people. All of our relational strategies are built around the goal of inducing people to like, admire and accept us. We believe that if we can maximize our human assets to cause other people to praise us then our souls will be complete. This is why we are so fearful of rejection, conflict and loss of human support. If you have raised children, you have seen the power of peer pressure, which is the raw evidence of our false dependence on people.

Dependence on Human Ability
We are also confused about the role of human ability. Most churches teach us to use our human abilities to produce Christian works as the way to please God. We learn what God considers right and wrong and we try to comply with His standards through human will. We focus on producing the appearance of spirituality so that other humans will give us respect and approval. We believe that this approval will fulfill our souls and even believe that human approval is the same as God’s approval. Having developed our beliefs using people as the objects of our needs, we hunger for the love of man more than the love of God. We must come to understand that in our humanity we are bankrupt, helpless and totally dependent on God for our happiness.

God made the human soul with needs. Those needs are evident in all of us from the moment of birth. As we reach adult status we learn to hide our neediness with the appearance of strength. We learn how to play the game so that others will think we are strong but our neediness remains. It is this neediness that drives every pursuit of our lives.

Needs Experienced as Desires
We experience our needs as desire and deep longings. Our desires and longings are the expression of our divinely designed needs. In the bible, Jesus calls these needs/desires hunger and thirst. Each of us experiences deep cravings and longings for affection, acceptance, admiration and a sense of accomplishment. Every desire and longing we have shows us that we have needs that ultimately only God can complete. The complete list of human needs is beyond the scope of this article but the following represent our core divinely designed needs.

Man’s Needs – God’s Provision

1. Unconditional love – from God, man & self. We all want to be loved as we are in spite of our flaws and failures. God provides His love in total to all who trust in Christ as their Savior.
Rom 5:5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
· At the moment of salvation God directed all of His love to the baby believer who must then grow into a mature state where he can experience God’s love.

2. To fully know and be know by another – All of us long to be able to fully share our hearts with someone who will understand us.
1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.
· In heaven, we will be able to freely & fully interact with God and others.

3. Acceptance, inclusion and belonging – family – We are herd bound. God made us to crave a position where we belong in a group.
Ephesians 2:19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household
· At the moment of salvation we are accepted as natural citizens of heaven and are adopted into God’s family where we become children of God.

4. Recognition, praise and appreciation for our contributions – All of us desire to be recognized and praised for our accomplishments
Matthew 25:21,23 “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.’ 23 “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
· At the Judgment Seat of Christ, our legitimate Christian service will be evaluated and rewarded by Christ and our need for recognition will be fully met forever.

5. Ability to edify and impact others – make a difference – God designed us to contribute to the betterment of others.
1Cor 12:7 Now to each one (Christians) is given the manifestation of the Spirit (spiritual gifts) used for the common good
· We have been given the power of God through the Holy Spirit and also given a divinely enabled ability to supernaturally serve the members of the church, having an impact and spiritual influence on their lives.

God designed us to have needs that we could not meet on our own. He made us to need Him if our souls would experience the fulfillment of our needs. When we come to God through Christ, at that moment, God provides the supply to meet every need of the human soul. As we grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are able to abandon our attempts to meet our needs through people (take off old man) and accept God’s gracious provision in Christ (put on new man).

Driven by Desire
These core needs drive and motivate all human behavior. All human behavior can be traced to the desire to fulfill these core needs. Both God and the devil use man’s needs/desires to motivate us.

Peter tells us that the corruption in the world is caused by misdirected desire.

2 Peter 1:4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Paul tells us that the corruption of our old belief system is motivated by desire.

Eph 4:22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;

The Holy Spirit also uses our desire system to motivate us to spiritual life.

Gal 5:17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

Phil 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will (desire) and to act according to his good purpose.

Jesus discussed God’s answer to our thirst for relationship in John 7:37-39

John 7:37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from his innermost being 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Thirsty Souls
Jesus called out to those who were “thirsty”, meaning those who were aware of their need for God. Jesus talked about our human needs experienced as hunger and thirst in in Mt 5:6 – hunger & thirst for righteousness – desire for rightness with God; Jn 6:35 –Jesus, who is the Bread of Life – come to Him and you will never hunger; believe on Him never thirst; Jn 4:6-26 – woman at the well – living water & you will never thirst again. Jesus called out to identify those who were aware of their need for God. He knew that we experience our God given needs as deep desires and longings.

Empty Souls
He said that we feel these desires in our innermost being. The Greek word koilos means an empty place, a cavity, a hole, it is most often translated as the womb and is used for the stomach. When used for our needs/desires being misdirected toward sinful objects it is translated as our appetites (Rom 16:18; Phil 3:19). What we learn from Jesus is that God designed an empty place in the heart of mankind and from that empty place we feel deep desires. It is also in this empty place in the heart of man that we experience fulfillment when we attach our desires to God. Without God, man chooses to fill the emptiness with false objects of happiness. When we bond and attach or hearts to these false objects of pleasure, it causes us to become addicted to them.

Filled by the Spirit
Finally, Jesus explains that the divine answer to the needs/desires generated by the emptiness in our hearts is found in the ministry of God-Holy Spirit. The living water that fills and overflows from within the heart of the spiritual believer is the ministry of the Spirit. The divine means of meeting our human needs is a relationship with God Himself. The Holy Spirit who indwells our bodies making us the temple of God guides us into the understanding and application of all truth. It is God’s truth that sets us free from our false beliefs that lead us into misery and transforms us and gives us the same joy experienced by Jesus Himself.

Questions to Ask Yourself
Let me prompt your thinking about your needs with some questions:

1. What would you say is your greatest need/desire?

2. What is your most noticeable need/desire in relationships?

3. How successful have you been in your close relationships?

4. Describe your relationship with your parents

5. Did you feel loved and secure as a child?

6. Describe your parent’s relationship. Was it close? Was there a lot of fighting? Did they divorce?

7. Do you find yourself seeking something in your relationship with your spouse that you can’t seem to ever get?

8. Would you be willing to redirect your need/desire toward God?

9. Would you be willing to admit that you are seeking something from a member of the opposite sex that you can only get from God?

10. Are you hungry for praise from people?

11. Are you terrified of rejection?

12. Do you avoid conflict at all costs?

13. Have you been married and divorced a number of times?

14. Are all of your relationships filled with conflict?

15. Are you so disillusioned with relationships that you have given up?

16. Are you truly happy?

17. Are you overly concerned with appearances?

We all begin our lives seeking what we need from people. It never works and eventually after enough conflict and failure, we give up. We may stay married for the children’s sake but our hearts are filled with despair. We lose hope in ever finding happiness in our close relationships. If this describes you, then great!!!

Now, maybe you will stop trying to squeeze from people what you can only get from God. Now perhaps you are ready to seek God in a different way. Stay tuned. I will try to help you learn the new way to meet your needs.

This article was written by Gene Cunningham, a Pastor, missionary and an excellent writer. Enjoy!
“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, and angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be
afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord.’ ” – Luk 2:8-11

The Humility of God
As we near this Christmas celebration I want to dwell deeply on the amazing simplicity of this most amazing of all stories. I do not know your circumstances, but I am sure many of you are alone, far from loved ones at this time. Others will be in financial difficulties, as the “festivities” swirl around them, wondering how to meet the bills that are piling up. Some I know have lost their homes, and others jobs, leaving bleak future prospects. You may feel unloved, unappreciated, and unimportant. It may be that your failures, personal shortcomings, or hardships only add to a sense of loss during this time when we should all be celebrating. It is especially for such as these that I write this offering this Christmas. I pray that God may open our eyes to the greatest of all miracles, and how it touches all of common life, with all its limits, with God’s infinite grace.

What is God saying to us, what lesson was He giving to the world, in the circumstances of our Lord’s humble birth? All true perfection that is found in this broken world is discovered in the providential working of a holy and perfect God working an infinite and eternal plan. From the very beginning, man was made in the image of God (Gen.1:26). With the loss of the fullness of that image, due to the fall of Adam into sin, God’s redemptive plan began to work for its fullest restoration. That restoration and “refreshing” (Act 3:19) would come through the “seed of the woman” (Gen 3:15), “Who is Christ” (Gal 3:16). The Lord Jesus Christ came to bring salvation, justification to sinners, and reconciliation to God. But He also came to illustrate what that restored “image of God” looked like in daily life.

And so in the birth of Christ we see the miracle of “The word become flesh”, combined with the countless other miracles of grace in the commonplace things of life. The eternal King came into a poor peasant family. His birthplace was not in a palace, but as an outcast in a stable, with a manger for a bed. The annunciation of His birth was not made in the Temple, nor the schools of the learned scribes, but in the fields, to shepherds who were themselves outcasts of the religious elites of the Temple service.

The God of Small Things
What kind of God would choose such a setting for the birth of His son, the Savior of the world? What kind of Deity would ignore the entire religious system which for nearly 1500 years was dedicated to His name, in favor of “the off-scouring of the world” (1Co 4:13)? What strange plan would send angelic messenger and the choir of Seraphs to rough and rustic men of sunburned face and calloused hands? As I think on these things I can only say that it is our God, who loves the unloved, who shuns the so-called great and powerful in favor of the weak and forgotten. It is the true God, breaking down all our fabricated images and idols of beauty, power, grandeur, influence, and wealth. It is He who created us in His image, returning in the glory of simplicity, the power of meekness, the wealth of humility, to begin a work of the “restoration of all things” (Act 3:21). He wanted “the eyes of (our) understanding (to be) enlightened; that (we) may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Eph 1:18).

Should we not be astounded that the God of all creation, to whom the angels sing in everlasting chorus, “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Isa 6:3; Rev 4:8) should count as His longed for inheritance those whom He has saved from sin and shame? Did not Christ remind us of this, when He spoke to His Father in the upper room, repeatedly speaking of us as “the men whom You have given Me out of the world” (Joh 17:6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 24)? How remarkable that God truly “raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the beggar from the dung-heap…that He may seat him with princes” (cf.1Sa 2:8; Psa113:7). As Mary declared in her song, “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty” (Luk 1:53). Was it not clear that He came to “turn the world upside down” (Act 17:6) when His first major discourse spoke of the “blessed” condition of all who came to Him from the common-place of daily life and its struggles (Mat 5:3-12). It is from this context we get the phrase, “the salt of the earth” (Mat 5:13).

The True Hidden Treasure
Now what is the meaning of all of this? What practical applications can we find from the essence of the story of the birth of Christ? We can begin by stating without hesitation that God loves the simple things and the common people of this earth. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said, “God must love the common man, He made so many of them.” But beyond this, it is an inescapable truth that God redeems not just “the foolish…weak…base…despised…nothings” (1Co 1:27-30), but also their very circumstances. It is “out of weakness (we are) made strong” (Heb 11:34b). It is in the very midst of affliction that we can find joy through His word ( 1 Th 1:6, Jam 1:2). Our gifts and offerings to Him are not dependant on what we have, but rather are magnified by what we have not (2Co 8:1-3, Luk 21:3). It is not by belonging to some great congregation, but rather by being part of a small despised group that we prevail (Jud 7:3-7).

How can I put this in the most simple and useful way? It would be to urge each of us to look for the true miracle of the life we have in Christ in the face of our husband/wife, in the presence of our children, and in the opportunity to give a word in season, or a helping hand to some downtrodden soul, or a cheery smile on the street. If we will allow the Spirit of God to fill us with the spirit of the first Christ-mas, we will find that God still delights to make His home among the small and humble, and in every heart that will give Him entrance by faith and humility. May each of us be found a fitting “stable” for His incarnation into our lives at this time, and from this time forward. Our world is bankrupt, far more spiritually than financially. On this historically dark and cold Christmas Eve, may the Spirit of Christ bring light and love and hope to you and yours. For the Christmas story is not of the past, but is of an ever-growing spiritual renewal and reconciliation that will continue until His kingdom comes. Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Shamgar had an ox goad
David had a sling
Dorcas had a needle
Rahab had some string
Mary had some ointment
Moses had a rod
What small thing do you have
That you’ll dedicate to God?

Wishing you all the most blessed Christ-filled Christmas,
Gene, Nan and the Cunningham clan

John Piper preaches a Reformed Theology, which teaches a high Calvinist approach to salvation.  He believes in a limited atonement and a limited offer of salvation only to the elect. The elect in Reformed Theology are those God has chosen to believe the gospel and does not include all mankind.  I am in strong disagreement with him in the area of salvation. When it comes to living the Christian life though, he is right on and writes very well. I offer his article on finding meaning in Christmas.

Finding the Greatest Gift of All in The Gospel
John Piper

Christmas turns our attention to gifts like no other season.
We think about giving just the right gift to the people we love; we savor the thrill of receiving gifts from family and friends. And in the midst of all the activity, we try to stop long enough to remind ourselves of why we’re celebrating with gifts in the first place: it’s Jesus’ birthday. This time of year just sings with reminder after reminder of the time when God Himself came down to our planet in the flesh.

The birth of Christ, as humble and great as it was, made even greater gifts possible — spiritual gifts such as grace, mercy, forgiveness, salvation, transformation, freedom, peace, and joy. Yet even these spiritual gifts pale in comparison to the ultimate gift — God Himself.

Here’s how we find the greatest gift of all in the Gospel:

Understand that nothing is truly good unless it leads to God.
Realize that God is the source of all goodness, and all the good gifts He gives must help you connect to Him if they are to bring true goodness to your life. Remember that only God makes the good news good.

Take the focus off yourself and place it on God.
Honestly examine what makes you feel happy. Is it the affirmation of God lavishing gifts on you? Is it a sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing you’re worth God’s attention? Know that your good feelings should be rooted in God’s worth, not your own. Recognize that true joy can only come in the way that God designed it – from knowing and celebrating Him. Understand that the point of the Gospel isn’t just to give you a variety of powerful gifts. It’s to help you see and savor God’s glory. He is the true treasure.

Communicate what salvation really means.
Think about whether or not you’d be truly fulfilled in heaven if God weren’t there with you. Realize that no amount of pleasurable experiences can make up for the lack of His presence. Whenever you present the Gospel message to others, don’t focus on its power to help them avoid the pain of hell or to get into a heaven full of privileges. Instead, emphasize what’s most important about salvation. Let people know that salvation enables them to live with their Creator and enjoy His presence forever. Don’t say, “Salvation is great!” Say, “God is great!” because His saving love is the gift of Himself. He is the Gospel. Understand that the Gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it’s a way to get people to God. Know that if you don’t desire God above all other things, than you haven’t yet truly believed or obeyed the Gospel.

Let the Gospel help you see God’s image.
Rejoice that, although you don’t have any video recordings of Jesus from when He walked the earth as God incarnate, you can see Him when you let the Gospel message and the Holy Spirit’s affirmation of that message draw you closer to Him. As you learn more about Jesus in the Gospel, pray to see His face more clearly and understand the image of His glory more fully.

Ask the Holy Spirit to awaken you.
Understand that the Holy Spirit authenticates the Gospel as God’s own word. Ask the Spirit to awaken your soul to see God’s manifest presence in the Gospel. Rely on the Spirit’s power to help you confirm that the Gospel is both reasonable and spiritual. Remember that God’s glory is what the Gospel events and promises are meant to show.

Realize that seeing God’s glory is the key to becoming more holy yourself.

Understand that you are transformed more into Jesus’ image by means of focusing your attention on His glory. As you admire Jesus’ purity and holiness, your sinful habits will begin to feel foreign and distasteful. His worldview will gradually shape your values, thinking, and decisions. His wisdom, power, and promises will give you greater confidence to choose faith over fear. His glory will inspire you to delight in His fellowship and yearn to see Him face-to-face in heaven. His love will empower you to love others more.

Join God in His joy.
As you see how glad God is to have His Son, Jesus, rejoice with Him that He thought of the perfect plan to extend His love to all people through Jesus. Don’t be somber when pondering the Gospel. Realize that it’s a message of great joy.

Let your love for God lead you to repentance.
Know that you can’t appreciate how the Gospel makes forgiveness possible for you if you don’t first feel genuine remorse for your sins. Recognize that the only way to truly experience that remorse is to ponder how glorious God is, and to let your love for Him motivate you to repent because you want to please Him.

Appreciate how God’s gift of pain leads you to Himself.
Understand that when you’re willing to suffer for the sake of the Gospel message, you’re choosing the beauty of God’s truth over the ugliness of Satan’s lies, and you’ll be able to see God’s beauty more clearly. Remember that you can trust God to meet every genuine need you have, no matter what your circumstances, but true needs are only those that are necessary for you to do God’s will and bring glory to Him. Know that the Gospel’s aim is not an easy life. Rather, it is deeper knowledge of, and trust in, God.

Don’t let miracles distract you from the One who performs them.
Remind yourself that the material world God has created, the spiritual power He gives believers, and the signs and wonders He sometimes unleashes in answer to prayer are meant only to draw you closer to God. Make sure you’re not focusing on God’s miracles at the expense of God Himself.

Consider why you truly want to grow to be more like Jesus.
Ask yourself: “Do I want to be strong like Christ, so I will be admired as strong, or so that I can defeat every adversary that would entice me to settle for any pleasure less than admiring the strongest person in the universe, Christ?”, “Do I want to be wise like Christ, so I will be admired as wise and intelligent, or so that I can discern and admire the One who is most truly wise?”, “Do I want to be holy like Christ, so that I can be admired as holy, or so that I can be free from all unholy inhibitions that keep me from seeing and savoring the holiness of Christ?”, and “Do I want to be loving like Christ, so I will be admired as a loving person, or so that I will enjoy extending to others, even in sufferings, the all-satisfying love of Christ?” Make sure that your goal to become like Jesus is rooted in a passion to see and savor Him in the Gospel message.

Adapted from God is the Gospel by John Piper, copyright 2005 by Desiring God Foundation. Published by Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Ill., www.crossway.com.