Psycho Babble

The psycho babble of self-esteem-worth-image etc. is in my opinion dealing primarily with ones soul and has nothing to do with one’s true identity in Christ.
It seems more the rule than the exception that so much misunderstanding or view of the Christian does just that, it revolves around our soulishness, the ying and yang, bio rhythms, personality temperaments flavours etc.

I love this quote and how it ties in with my observations of the co-mingled gospel that has permeated so much of what it means to be a Christian, similar to Jesus’ warning of, “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.”

“The quest to establish an identity on the basis of our own self-sufficiency displaces the real thing in both people and churches. It is nothing less than identity theft.”

Appearances and behaviour have often been that which supposedly defined ones identity, in others it seems to be defined in a healthy sense of person hood derived from an abundance of possessions, social position, or individual achievement.

Our life (identity) does not come about because the abundance one has or the lack thereof!

Rich

Self-Esteem What?

My wife and I were listening to the mid week Into The Wild pod cast from the Free Believers Net work entitled Rebuilding Self-Esteem as she was driving me to the hospital for an appointment, you can if you like, listen to it here.

What I want to share here in light of listening and not agreeing with pretty much most of what was being shared, is hopefully going to shed some light on this whole thang dealing with self-esteem.
It seems that because of the blindness in us all especially dealing with the self, there is an impetus behind the scenes working most clandestinely usually keeping us oblivious to any inkling of its insidious affect upon our seeing straight.
After listening to the aforementioned pod cast, I want to point you to a few thoughts by Oswald Chambers, you can read them here. And Every Virtue We Posses.

I’m going to include a few thoughts from a brother who wrote a book a number of years ago entitled “Christ-Esteem, (Where the Search For Self-Esteem Ends) and how this, along with what Oz shares is most elucidating.

"Most Christians today do not realize how important weakness, failure, discouragement, disappointment, suffering, testing, and trials are in the development of their Christian life. Through these dealings of God our natural sinful pride is being dealt with. God calls us away from ourselves so that through burying, rejecting, and denying self we may turn in faith unto our Lord Jesus and experience life, peace, joy, and power. The apostle Paul wrote, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

The Real Enemy

Even though the Bible clearly teaches that every branch that bears fruit gets pruned and that “the Lord disciplines those he loves,” many Bible teachers today promote the heresy that Jesus has taken upon himself all the dealings of the Father so that we might experience his positive blessings, be enlarged, and be comfortable and prosperous in this world. They fail to recognize that we are the problem and God’s purpose is to daily deliver us to the work of the cross so that we might leave self behind. Those who offer this teaching to the church are thereby confirming the children of God in childish immaturity.
Because of this error, many Christians have failed to learn the value of the disciplining work of God and never come to the place of turning away from self. Rather, contrary to his will, they seek God to enlarge and prosper self. For this reason, they never mature in their relationship with God nor discover all their sufficiency in Christ Jesus. They are unable to understand how it is that they can experience various sufferings and even be allowed to fall into sin. Even though they go through their ritualistic binding of the devil and confess the positive promises of the Word of God, nothing works. This seductive “faith teaching” is embraced by many Christians. It is far more popular to blame the devil than to see yourself as the cause of your own problems. To claim “the devil made me do it” is a cop-out.
In dealing with Christians, the devil does not operate through direct confrontation. While he is shrewdly working behind the scenes, the manifest enemy is not the devil, but our sinful, self-centered, and proud human existence. In the Garden of Eden, it was not the purpose of the devil to tempt Eve to make a choice between worshiping him and worshiping God. Eve would have never given into that temptation. The choice was between human pride—the desire to be like God—and worshiping and serving God himself. After Adam and Eve fell into sin, the devil drops out of the picture. You hear very little about him in the Old Testament. Once man is corrupted and turns in on himself, he will disobey God and destroy his fellowman without the devil reminding him to do so.

When Jesus determined to do the will of his Father in heaven and thereby deny his life, the devil appeared on the scene. The three temptations that he used in the wilderness against Jesus were not directed at committing and great sins against God but were temptations directing Jesus to live unto himself, to be concerned with his own comforts, and to preserve his own life.
Many people are concerned today by the increase in occult activities and the growing popularity of Satan worship. While these activities are certainly dangerous and destructive they also serve as a smoke screen blinding us to the real enemy in the church which is self-esteem, positive confession, and positive-self-image teaching. These teachings seduce the people of God into focusing their attention upon enlarging themselves, feeling good about themselves, and even in some situations, desiring to be like God. Many people today have fallen into this snare of the devil.
The devil doesn’t care how religious we are as long as we live for ourselves, remain consciously wrapped up in ourselves, try to feel good about ourselves, and cover up the nakedness of empty, meaningless lives through a spiritual charade. Martin Luther wrote concerning self-indulgence and human pride: “Against this secret villain we must pray God daily suppress our self-esteem.”

Rich

Self-Rule, Self-Effort

A New Way Of Living-Continued

Rich

This suffering we endure is the Father’s best for us. The Father uses all things for our good (Rom 8:28-29). The evil doings of Joseph’s brothers was ordained of God and meant for the good. “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good...” (Gen 50:20)

Paul sat in the Roman Caesar’s prison, yet he said he was the “prisoner of the Lord” (Ephes. 4:1a). We see from this that Paul considered his suffering to be actually at the hands of the Lord. Trusting God His Father, Paul learned to be “content in whatever state” the Lord placed Him (Philip 4:11).

Our suffering is often at the hand of other people. People who are ignorant of the truth of the indwelling Christ will often persecute the Christians who desire and seek to walk with Him single mindedly. Frankly, these most often are other Christians who do not know Him intimately. The cruelest sufferings I’ve endured in this life have been at the hands of my “brothers and sisters in Christ”. Paul says we may be may denigrated, defamed, and vilified as we seek to walk with Him. “And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled (vilified), we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: 13Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth (refuse) of the world, and are the offscouring (scum) of all things unto this day.” (1 Cor. 4:12-13). You will be misunderstood if you follow Christ within you. Jesus was misunderstood by the men who reviled and killed Him because He claimed, as we do, to be one with the Father as His offspring bearing His very life.

Peter says it’s not at all strange for a Christian to suffer. It’s the smelting or purifying furnace for God’s glory to be revealed in us. “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery (smelting) trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: 13But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. 14If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.”(1 Pet 4:12-14)

The suffering God prescribes for us, are for our good, since suffering does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We cannot make our self trust God – so it is He that is at work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil 2:13). “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.” (1 Peter 5:10)

Jesus came “in the name of” or authority of the literal Person of the Father. Paul, suffered for Christ’s “name’s sake,” that he might also bear the authority Christ. “But the Lord said unto him (Ananias), Go thy way: for he (Saul/Paul) is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name (my person) before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: 16For I will shew him how great things he (Paul) must suffer for my name’s sake (name = person, for the sake of the expression of Christ’s life)” (Acts 9:15-16).

“The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” will flow out of us in the person (authority) of Christ – but first we must be broken in soul for the release the flow of His Spirit. Many want to speak with God’s authority but this only comes as we submit to or suffer His Lordship from within – then our speaking will be His speaking.

Empty Cup

I so enjoyed these thoughts from Norman Grubb.

Rich

Therefore, let us get it clear; we shall never in this life be free from a sense of self, as well as a realization of the indwelling Christ. We shall never, therefore, be free from temptation in a world that exists to tempt, nor be free from the daily necessity of vigilance and abiding. The chapter of triumphant living, Rom.8, significantly enough is the very chapter which warns against the subtleties of the surrounding flesh, and expresses our groaning amidst our rejoicing, as we long for the final redemption of the body, and are saved, not only by faith, but by hope.

For this reason, then, it is of utmost importance that we understand the exact relationship between the renewed self and the other Glorious Self, Christ Himself who dwells within. It is the hardest lesson we have to learn, and cannot be learned except in the hard way. Nothing but frequent and strong doses of the false activities of self can teach us this lesson. It is peculiarly subtle because it is now not a case of a troublesome bad self, but an anxious, frustrated, condemned good self; not good in the positive sense of being able to do good things, but good in the negative sense of wanting to do good and no longer wanting to do evil; a purified self, but though pure, still empty: just as a cup may be clean, but what really matters is the fluid it contains.

The Self, Master of Disguise

Blindness:

(Jeremiah 17:9)The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

In my opinion there is a most subtle possibility in our being further lead astray, and not because our father is impotent in this regard but, not having eyes to see (revelation) of the reality of there being within us all a component added to us in the fall, called the ‘flesh.’
This all ties in with the language of the ‘good heart, bad heart’ speak that has to be looked at in light of the Truth.

Within each of us is an independent-self, and for those wanting a typical picture of what this looks like go no further than the story in Luke 15, the generous father and his two sons.
One display of this insidious transformation that operates through the independent self is ‘self-righteousness’, outwardly appearing to be holy. The other son is where most of us find ourselves in blatant rebellion and defiance.
One has to remember that the spirit motivating each of these expressions is from the same source, the knowledge of good and evil. The independent self being deceived into believing it is doing its own thing, and that lie works very well.

Why is the world largely blind to spiritual reality? What forces are at work to create such deep ignorance as we see in this area? The principal reason for the confusion in the world regarding our spiritual situation is found in “self-deception.” While the lies of Satan contribute to this ignorance these lies are not the primary cause of humanity’s blindness. It is also not primarily the failure of human institutions such as the institutional church to teach the whole truth that is at fault here. The institutional church’s mistaken teaching and Satan’s lying have not, in themselves, condemned the world to darkness. Both Satan’s activities and the organizational church’s ineptness compound the situation but the root cause of the matter lies elsewhere.

Part two is coming soon.

Rich