Freedom from Guilt and Shame

"For God did not send his Son [Jesus] into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."1

Shame is similar to false guilt in that it is caused largely by someone who "shamed us" especially when we were young. That is, whenever we did something wrong, we got the message (verbal or non-verbal), "Shame on you." "You are a bad person." "You are a disappointment to me!" "I am so ashamed of you," etc., etc.

Such criticisms are psychologically damaging. As the old saying goes, "Give a dog a name and he will live up to it." People will too—especially if a person was constantly ridiculed, put down and shamed as a child.

True guilt says you have DONE badly but shame says you ARE bad. If a person comes to believe that he or she is a bad person, s/he will act badly. In real life we don't always act consistently with what we profess, but we always act consistently with what we believe. So if we believe we are a bad person, that's the way we will act.

When disciplining our children and confronting another person who has acted "badly," we need to "condemn" the deed NOT the person! Example: "I love you but what you have done [name it] makes me feel angry and/or very disappointed."

We need God's help so we will learn to treat others the way God treats us. While he hates our sin because it destroys those whom he loves (us), he loves the sinner and doesn't condemn or shame us. Shame and false guilt never come from God. They are man-induced.

Fortunately with God, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."2 When we confess our sins to God and ask for his forgiveness, and ask God's Son, Jesus Christ, to come into our heart and life as personal Lord and Savior, God forgives us fully and loves us totally. Again, false guilt and shame never come from God.

"Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you that you love me no matter what I have ever done or failed to do. Please forgive all my sins and, Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and life to be my personal Lord and Savior. Please help me to forgive myself and overcome all false guilt and shame and help me never to shame others. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."

NOTE: If you prayed and asked God for forgiveness and asked Jesus to come into your heart and life, please let us know by going to: http://tinyurl.com/pgntm. If you need further help, click on: http://tinyurl.com/8glq9.

1. Jesus (John 3:17, NIV).
2. The Apostle Paul (Romans 8:1).

Credit: Dait Encounter

100th Post!!!!

It surely is a very beautiful day. I have been wondering over the past couple of days what to write to you guys since reaching this milestone. As some of you may know, I started this Blog on December 31st 2006 and over the past 11mths or so life has truly been challenging.
I can not lie, I have been through so many trials and testings this past year I wondered to myslef - "What am I to learn from all of this?"

I have seen God personally take his own hands and delivered me from traps and absolute damnation. For this Lord I am forever endbeted to you. For my life, which you saved in August 2006 to my family and face which you saved in 2007.

Today I encourage all of you guys, dont give up. God is not like man. When he looks at us he does not see our faults but our needs. When he looks at us he sees what we can be in him and not who we currently are.

He truly is an awesome, loving and forgiving God. I am therefore truly humbled by his love for me INSPITE of my iniquities. I am truly humbled and blessed to be a child of the great King of Kings for he who is forgiven much, LOVES MUCH!!!!

To all of you who contributed to making this Blog a success in your own way, I thank you. To my friend Steups, thanks for all the love and support you have extended to me over the past year. To my other friends - Dana, Gabby, Quanda, Groovy and all others thank you and I love each and everyone of you.

To all the readers of this Blog, I truly wish that at least one of my posts has been a source of inspiration to you in one way or the other since this is the purpose of this Blog.

I am looking forward to continue to bring the good news of Jesus Christ into your lives and hearts.

Hold Tight

"Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, unto which you are called."1

I checked the following story on snopes.com but it wasn't listed, so I can't confirm it either way. At any rate it makes an excellent parable. According to the story: "On a commuter flight from Portland, Maine, to Boston in 1987, the pilot heard an unusual noise near the rear of the plane. Henry Dempsey turned the controls over to the co-pilot and went back to check it out. As he reached the tail section, the plane hit an air pocket, and Dempsey was tossed against the rear door. He quickly discovered the source of the mysterious noise. The rear door had been improperly latched prior to take-off, and it flew open. Dempsey was instantly sucked out of the tiny jet.

"The co-pilot saw the red light that indicated an open door. He radioed the nearest airport requesting permission for an emergency landing. He reported that the pilot had fallen out of the plane and wanted a helicopter to search the area. After the plane landed, the ground crew found Dempsey holding on to the outdoor ladder of the aircraft. Somehow he had caught the ladder and held on for ten minutes as the plane flew 200 mph at an altitude of 4,000 feet, and then, when landing, he kept his head from hitting the runway, which was only 12 inches away. "

In today's pressured world it is very easy to be "sucked into" all sorts of temptations—which, if we give in to them, could easily destroy us. So we need to hold on tenaciously to eternal values and the eternal life that God has given to all who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please give me the strength and courage to hold on to you, to my faith, and to eternal values no matter what trials and temptations may come my way. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."

1. The Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 6:12).

Credit: Daily Encounter

Yes there are Angels!!!!

Morning guys, its truly wonderful to speak to you today. I got this email from my friend Theresca about a woman in Indiana and I would love to share it with you. I hope that this story will be a blessing. I Love You All!!! God Bless.

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two.

Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared.Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either.

If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.

The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck.

The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince who ever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids.

She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning.

She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.

That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-- fully half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.

One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana ? I wondered. I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too.

I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up.

When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes.

There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning. Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.... THE POWER OF PRAYER.

I believe that God only gives three answers to prayer: "Yes!". "Not yet." "I have something better in mind."God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar. You maybe going through a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you

in a way that you cannot imagine.

Be God for Me

”Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”1

In my counselor training and counseling days I participated in quite a few therapy groups of varying kinds. Some I found very helpful and others I could have done without. However on one occasion I was involved in a secular psychodrama (role-play) group with 25-30 participants.

We were sitting in a circle and a 30-something lady (whom I will call Janine) asked me if I would role play God for her. This was a secular group so why she picked on me I will never know (we hadn’t even met each other). I believe it had to be a God-thing. At any rate she placed a chair in the center of the circle and asked me to sit on it. I was rather nervous to put it mildly. I had never heard of anyone ever role-playing God. So I kept praying under my breath, “God help … God help.”

Janine got down on her knees in front of me and openly confessed that she had been a prostitute and asked for forgiveness. Immediately the words of Jesus came to my mind and I spoke them to Janine, “Your sins are forgiven.”

That was a courageous thing for Janine to do. It was the beginning of her healing. Unfortunately I never kept in contact with her but I hope and pray that she has, since then, genuinely sought to follow after God.

The point is whenever we sin, we are always left with guilt. Even if we repress it from conscious memory, it’s still there and it is a very unhealthy way to live, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The only cure is confession … to at least one trusting soul as well as to God. As God’s Word says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”2

Dear reader, if you have any unconfessed sin in your life, I urge you to see an understanding pastor, priest, trusted friend and/or Christian Counselor. Like David the Psalmist, who committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed, when he confessed his sin, found God’s forgiveness and great release. You and I can do the same.*

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, how can I ever thank you enough for loving me no matter what I have ever done and always forgiving me when I, with genuine sorrow, confess my sins. Help me always to find a trusting person to whom I can confess my sins and weaknesses—as well as confessing them to you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

*For help be sure to read the article, “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian—without having to be religious at: http://tinyurl.com/8glq9

1. King David in Psalm 32:5 (NLT).
2. James 5:16 ( NIV).

Credit: Daily Encounter

Learning to Pray the Right Prayer

"You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask [pray], you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives."1

Some time ago I took a psychological test that, among other things, measured how much I was in touch with my major emotions of love, wonder, guilt and fear. On a scale of 0 to 100 any score below 30 was considered repressed.

On fear I scored 5!

This concerned me because I knew that repressed fear could cause me to act out blindly by setting myself up to fail at work or in relationships. I didn't want to do that so I prayed earnestly that God would deliver me from my buried fear. However, I realized I was praying the wrong prayer. I was focusing on praying for deliverance from the symptom rather than from the cause, so I changed my prayer to:

"Dear God, my real prayer is that I don't want to face that fear. I'm too afraid. That's why I buried it. Please give me the courage to face and deal with the real cause/s of my fear/s."

The point I'm making is that we need to learn to be honest in our praying. For example, if I can't stand my neighbor and, wanting to impress God, piously ask him to bless my neighbor while in my heart I despise my neighbor, which prayer does God hear? He hears what my heart is saying. Only as I admit this can God help me to love my neighbor and bless him through me.

By the way, it took me two years to resolve the fear mentioned above. It was caused by the death of a sister that I loved dearly when I was a small child. My fear was that if I loved someone I might lose them. In time I discovered that I had a few more hidden fears to deal with as well. Since facing and resolving these fears, my close relationships have improved dramatically.

How can you tell if you have any buried fears? Look at any symptoms in your life. Do you have a pattern of failure at work or in relationships? Any phobias? Any floating anxieties that you have no idea where they are coming from? Any physical ills such as ulcers or any addictions that you may be using to avoid facing something you have buried?

And how do we overcome such fears? I don't know any easy solution but for me it began with a genuine desire to overcome them. Next, I needed to accept full responsibility for resolving my fears and stop blaming anyone else for them. Above all, I needed to ask God to help me to be honest with myself, to give me the courage to face my fears, and to lead me to the help I needed to overcome them.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please give me the insight and courage to see and deal with any repressed or hidden fears in my life, and lead me to the help I need to overcome the causes of these. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."

1. James 4:2-3 (NIV).

Credit: Daily Encounter

God Moves In Mysterious Ways

"For in the day of trouble he [God] will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock."1

I have read that William Cowper, like many people today, suffered from times of deep melancholy and depression. One night when he was in a particularly dark mood of despair, he decided to take his life by jumping into the Thames River.

That night the city of London was blanketed with an extremely heavy fog and Mr. Cowper, searching to find the river, lost his way. Stumbling blindly through the fog he was dumbfounded when he found himself on the doorstep of his own home. Going to his room he penned the words of the beautiful hymn:

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.

His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower."

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me in my times of despair and depression to trust in you. Hide me in the shelter of your love and lead me to the place of help that I need. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."

1. King David (Psalm 27:5, NIV).

Credit: Daily Encounter