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Blasphemous Thoughts Against the Holy Spirit Brought Me Closer to God   A Testimony of Hope   About this page:   Brandon wrote the following in response to the webpages on this site. In accordance with my policy, this testimony is shared only with his permission.   Grantley Morris Founder of Netburst.net and ghostwriter of this webpage   The Testimony   I’ve been a Christian since I was about 4 and am now 16. My faith had been slightly wishy-washy until a few months ago. Then, out of the blue, Satan suddenly unleashed a howitzer of blasphemous thoughts at me against the Holy Spirit and also against Jesus and God the Father. I panicked and almost had to change my pants, so I got home from school and found your website. It brought me peace and understanding of the situation.   I thank the Holy Spirit for using my guilt over the thoughts Satan gave me, to bring me closer to Jesus. Your website was a God send, and the reason I am the passionate Christian I am today. Despite that fact that even now the blasphemous thoughts return, I am closer to God than I’ve ever been.   Thanks for the very amazing website information you have.   Wrap Up   We serve an amazing God who lovingly weaves together for good  all things  – even unwanted thoughts that shake us to the core – for those who love him (Romans 8:28). Brandon will continue to suffer attacks. Not even the holy Son of God, who was tempted in all ways as we are, could avoid being attacked by satanic thoughts such as bowing down and worshiping Satan (Matthew 4:9). We are told, nevertheless, to rejoice in trials (Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-3) because they make us spiritually strong as surely as regular workouts in a gym will make us physically strong.   There’s so Much More! Like a dentist emphasizing the importance of daily flossing and brushing, I must stress the importance of daily reading of these webpages for people plagued by spiritual worries. Your reading should include  Scrupulosity: Help When Worried about Salvation, Blasphemous Thoughts or Continual Guilt Feelings  and all the pages it leads to. For theological and biblical help with these matters see all the pages listed at  Condemned? How to Cope When Riddled with Guilt . And for reassurance of God’s love for you, see  How Much does God Love Me?   The next testimony describes a mammoth battle with feeling unforgivable. It will inspire many.   Next Testimony: My Battle to Stop Intrusive Thoughts

My Deepest Secret   A Testimony About the Unforgivable Sin   For years tormented by blasphemous thoughts and feeling unforgivable   By Christy     I am now twenty-one and I have struggled since the age of twelve with a mind filled with words of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and the fear that I was guilty of the unpardonable sin.   I was saved at the age of five. When I was twelve I read the Scripture about the unforgivable sin. From then on I started having curse words in my head towards the Holy Spirit. Despite doing my best to reject the thoughts, I could not get rid of them. I was too embarrassed and afraid to tell anyone about my mental torture. I thought everyone would disown me and tell me I was going to hell.   As I grew older, the thoughts became even more intense and disgusting against each member of the Holy Trinity. So horrible were the thoughts that I have never actually spoken them, other than once confiding some of them to my husband so he could understand and pray for me.   The whole thing pushed me into a deep depression most of my teen years. As a result, I dropped out of high school twice and partied a lot. By seventeen I rededicated my life to Christ, but I always thought that I was somehow not really saved because of the unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. What particularly bothered me is that some of those things in my head I had said  in anger  towards the Holy Spirit. I think the bad thoughts sometimes were the devil but sometimes they were my flesh.   I dated the same guy since I was fourteen and married him at nineteen. He was the only person I trusted on earth and told about my problem. He would always try to reassure me that I had not lost my salvation. We had only been married for six months when my husband joined the army. When he finished his basic training I was so excited that we were finally able to be together. Nevertheless, I soon fell into severe depression because of my fears about the unforgivable sin. The horrible thoughts that I could not get rid of had returned and worsened. I cried all day and could not eat or get out of bed. Sometimes I would scream at the top of my lungs because the pain of my depression was so severe.   My husband was so concerned he wanted to admit me into hospital. Nevertheless, he stuck with doing all he could to support me and praying over me many times a day. I put Scriptures all over my walls in our apartment and I sought Christian counseling and actively started to research what the unforgivable sin was all about. (I had not tried such research earlier because I was always afraid it would confirm that I had lost my salvation.)   The counseling helped me conquer what had been torturing me all these years. It helped me realize that what Jesus had done on the cross was final. Previously, I had walked around scared of my very mind, because at some unlikely moment a horrible thought would pop into my mind. I would try to get rid of the thoughts by praying and casting them out or reading my Bible but nothing seemed to work. I now think it was because I didn’t realize that Jesus died on the cross, not just for some sins but for  all  sins.   It was very hard for me to understand that the fact that I was looking for forgiveness was proof that I could be forgiven. I just had to realize that God longs to forgive everyone of everything, just as he says in his Word: “. . . whoever comes to me I will never drive away” ( John 6:37). Today, I cannot even explain what it was that kept me from believing God’s promises and  trusting  him, but with much grace, God revealed to me that all my fears were lies of the devil.   It is hard to tell people like me just to get over it and believe that God forgives. That approach never worked with me. For me, the best thing was my husband’s support. It helped me so much to have my husband tell me everyday that I was saved and that I was going to heaven and to pray over me. Even when I asked him if he thought I was going to heaven he still always said, “Yes,” and showed me the Scriptures on my walls. I felt if he could know what I had done and still love me, then surely God, who is so much more loving and forgiving than any human, could also love and forgive me.   To me, God’s great plan of salvation seemed too perfect to be true. That is where I went wrong. God is perfect and because of that he will never leave us or forsake us.   I often used to ask myself, “Why would God ever want such a bad sinner as me in heaven with him?” At last I know that that’s the wonderful beauty of it: he really wants us no matter what. That’s why he died a horrible death – so we could be with him in paradise forever. Isn’t that wonderful!   God has worked me through so many things. He restores everything that we have lost, and the Lord is doing that on a daily basis for me. He has given me a son who is five months old and allowed me to handle my husband being in Iraq  without  depression, which is a huge testimony for me.   I felt better after my counseling but the disturbing thing was that I could never find information about the unpardonable sin.   Never have I heard anyone preach on the subject, nor have I found any books about it. It was tempting to wrongly assume that if Christians do not talk about the unforgivable sin, it must mean that if you did anything remotely close to it, then you were such a goner that there is no point trying to warn or help such a person.   So I was thrilled to find your wonderful website. I was on the Internet, not even looking for anything related to this subject and could not believe I had found it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It has confirmed many things for me.   No one knew of my secret for years. But now I know that the Lord is a wonderful God who forgives me for anything as long as I come to him. It didn’t happen over night. It took years of prayer and I am still healing. I still get thoughts every now and again but I am better able to take hold of them and cast them out because I now have a spiritual understanding of what Christ did for me and now know that I am secure in my salvation. I know God could have delivered me instantly, but an instant deliverance wasn’t in his plan for me. I look back over my life and realize that my struggles were all in God’s plan to bring me to where I am today.   Healed by God,   Christy   All the Help You Need To keep worrying that God is displeased with you or cannot forgive you is like worrying that God might die. Nevertheless, anyone hounded by such worries both needs and deserves an enormous amount of support. It’s all here for you, provided free so that you have no excuse, but to access it all, you will have to read it all, and for daily support you will need to return every day to read it.   Next Testimony: Blasphemous Thoughts Against the Holy Spirit Brought Me Closer to God

God’s Extreme Grace   The Christian Who Kept Doing All he Could To Force God to Reject Him     Hope When You Feel Unforgivable   About this page:   This testimony is extreme. Few people will understand why Jake has acted the way he has. This is because few people have suffered like him or have had the required depth of counseling experience.   So although I understand, I don’t expect many readers to grasp  why  Jake has behaved like he has in his Christian walk, but I do expect you to be moved by the proof of God’s love revealed in this testimony.   I share Jake’s story not because of how much God loves  Jake , (as if to insult God by implying he could love Jake more than you) but I share it because this testimony features the God who likewise loves you with all that he has.   Unlike fairy tales, real people have highs and lows. Real people make great progress and then slip back again. Casual observers cannot understand why, for instance, many former addicts, after enjoying freedom and victory, fall back into their old bondage. What observers could only know if they were inside a former addicts’ skin is the wearying craving for former highs. In the case of abuse survivors like Jake, it is the lingering, nagging doubts about God’s love, the intense fear that God will reject them as so many others have, and the continual, draining inner fights against feeling depraved and unlovable. Like the continual dripping of Chinese water torture; like termites continually gnawing away at a building’s support beams, the accumulative affect of the Deceiver’s malicious whisperings is an enormous challenge to one’s faith. That doesn’t mean we are forced to give in, but it explains why those who have been deeply hurt typically fall, over and over again, and why God keeps forgiving and forgiving.   Jake is in his forties. I have been in contact with him, an average of several times a week, for over a year. During that time, I have gained a deep respect for Jake’s walk with God, even though throughout that time he has had regular battles like that described below.   Although Jake’s behavior has been unusual, I know from extensive experience with people who are guilt ridden that they need exceptional testimonies because they are inevitably tempted to think that they are the worst sinners on the planet and that virtually everyone is forgivable but them.   Grantley Morris Founder of Netburst.net and ghostwriter of this webpage     The Testimony   My father violently killed my eldest sister when she was a baby. The details were covered up and my mother stayed with him, so they were free to expend their sexual abuse and sadism on me. I’ll spare you details but you need a little information to understand me.   I can’t be sure how close to being a newborn I was when my mistreatment began, but it was certainly in full swing when I was still a baby. A sister who survived, recalls being ordered to clean my blood and excrement off the walls after one episode. She saw me in the crib and thought I was dead.   An example of my toilet training was being yelled at while having my bodily movements smeared all over me, including in my mouth. Other times my head was forced into the toilet after it was filled with filth. I felt sure they were going to drown me. Many of these experiences were so damaging psychologically that for years I suppressed the memory. This suppression kept me from understanding why for much of my Christian life I always despised myself and even thought that I stunk to God.   Throughout my most impressionable years and beyond, my parents kept insisting that I deserved the treatment they dished out. This indoctrination from my tenderest years left me so disturbed that during my adult life I would act out such abuse on myself, without understanding why, but feeling that I deserved it.   My parents claimed their abuse was for my own good and was because they loved me. This left me with a deep fear of love – even God’s love. Of course, I knew intellectually that God’s love is perfect and is nothing like what I experienced as a child but, as anyone who fears harmless spiders or snakes can attest, intellectual knowledge does not dispel crippling fear.   By the time I was in my mid teens, I had been sexually abused by my mother and at least eight males. I was addicted to lust of every kind. I was even involved in the occult, asking demons and sexual spirits to have sex with me. I vowed to always be in control and never yield to anyone, not even God.   Nevertheless, at the age of nineteen I had a true encounter with the Lord Jesus and made him my Savior. I had joined the military to learn how to kill people. I would use pages of the Bible as rolling papers for the marijuana joints I smoked. I hated God and I was sure he hated me. I had long since given myself to Satan, thinking that he had power that I wanted. If a Christian would tell me of Jesus I would completely lose it, yelling, cussing, raising my fist and spitting in the air at God. At least once I got within an inch of a Christian’s face and spat on him. The way that Christians did not retaliate made me presume they were wimps.   I joined an army shooting competition. A Christian there was the best soldier I have ever had the pleasure to meet. He was a strong man, and he could run like the wind just like me. I noticed that when he was ridiculed he did not ridicule back, yet it seemed that he was unafraid of anyone who would give him grief. There was a peace about him that seemed to go wherever he went. That is what I craved. He would tell me of Jesus but I just did not get it.   I was posted overseas and while there I read the book of Revelation from the Gideon’s Bible. For months I was fearful least I die and go to hell. I could find no one to tell me of Jesus.   One day I took a turn way too fast on a slick, muddy road. The trailer jackknifed and my jeep started spinning. I was careering towards a three hundred foot drop. “God help me!” I cried, with real meaning for the first time in my life. Suddenly, in defiance of the laws of physics, the jeep began spinning in the opposite direction. I emerged without a scratch, convinced that there is a God who cares. Some unseen force had to have reversed the motion of that vehicle.   After that I had a dream. I was being shot at by snipers and my aunt pulled up in a car and said; “Get in and get saved.” Afterwards, I phoned my aunt and found that she had been praying for my salvation. She asked me to take leave and come home. I flew in and sat with her pastor while he explained the Gospel. In my boot was a survival knife and I was about to use it on him. Something restrained me. I flew back to my base, thinking I must be saved because I now believed there was a Jesus Christ who died on the cross and rose from the dead to pay for my sins. I presumed I was going to heaven but I could not figure out why my life did not change. I hated my life and I hated my sin. I was in despair and could not stop taking drugs. Even worse, I could not change my heart nor the pain that seemed so deep and the reasons for it were still unknown to me due to so many suppressed memories.   The Christian that had been on the shooting team with me was assigned to my unit. He invited me to church, where he gave his testimony. When I returned to my barracks that night I fell on my knees and cried out to Jesus to come into my heart. No one needed to tell me about the need to repent. My sin weighed heavy on my heart. It was as if I could feel the fires of hell rising up into my very soul, scorching my heart. I wept bitter tears, asking Jesus over and over to be my Lord and Savior. Finally I heard the Spirit of God say that asking once was enough.   I got up from my knees, climbed into bed, and had the best sleep of my life. I arose in the morning to find that the black cloud that had followed me all the days of my life was gone. During formation that morning my fellow soldiers could see the joy on my face and asked me what had happened. I told them that last night I got saved and my sins were forgiven.   I could not get enough of God’s Word. I devoured it as a famished man. I lost most of my friends. No one wanted to hang with me. I would always speak of the cross of Christ and share the gospel whenever possible. On Sunday mornings when we were on maneuvers some of the troops would come and get me to preach to them. At first this really frightened me until I found that every time I stood to speak, the Holy Spirit would just empower me to preach the story of Jesus.   Once I addressed a gathering of over two hundred soldiers. I had no training, nor did I have great knowledge, but such was my passion for my Jesus that I could not hold it in. The words would burn as a fire in my heart. My whole life changed drastically. No longer was I a druggie, nor did I even desire drugs. I would spend wonderful times in the Word and prayer, sometimes four hours a day or more.   A carefully edited version of my testimony would be impressive, but though it shames me, every Christian who feels beyond forgiveness needs to know the side of me that only God sees. The contrast is almost unbelievable. So damaging was my childhood suffering that even after I was well and truly saved I still had bouts of screaming at God to leave me alone. Could he not see that I was useless, no good, and stunk? Never having experienced anything different, I was hounded by the deep feeling that God had to be like my former abusers. The scars were so deep and the haunting memories so strong that they kept overpowering any attempt at logic and filling me with the expectation that God would end up acting like my many abusers.   Having been molested by my mother in my infancy was particularly damaging because I remained haunted by the memory of hating the abuse and yet simultaneously being afflicted with physical pleasure as it occurred. For most of my adult life I did not understand that feeling physical pleasure under such circumstances is like hating being tickled and yet uncontrollably laughing. Not realizing that it was a physical reaction, not an indicator of morality, the memory of having felt pleasure – and even the memory bringing me a mixture of revulsion and sexual excitement – kept making me fear that I was unforgivably perverse. But my mistake ran deeper still: I had failed to grasp that Jesus had died for the forgiveness of  all  sin, no matter how deliberate or perverse or repeated.   Despite growing in Bible knowledge and having wonderful times with God, the wounds of my childhood suffering kept making me feel as if God were setting me up for the most painful of experiences – me falling deeply in love with him and then him rejecting me.   In fact, it seemed to me so certain that God would end up rejecting me – acting just like those in my childhood who claimed to love me – that I often found myself hell-bent on proving to God that he could not possibly love me. Feeling convinced that it was what I deserved, I would actually ask the devil to possess me and tell him to rape me and use me as a whore. And yes, I did this countless times after I was definitely born again.   For my whole life I have craved genuine, pure, tender, intimate love. Yet very often when God presented it in undeniable ways, I would run from it and strike out at him. I would tell God to kill me, because I was just too ugly and dirty. I would cuss and swear at him in anger because he kept saying he loved me.   The fear of God’s rejection and the feeling that rejection was inevitable were so intense that in between beautiful times with God I kept having countless times of doing everything I could to end the agony of never knowing when the rejection would occur. To me, the obvious way to stop prolonging the agony was to bring on that “inevitable” rejection that very instant.   I told God to leave and Satan to be my father because that is what I deserved. I told Jesus that I renounce him and the cross. I often felt as if I had gone too far into sin to ever be restored – back into the occult that I was once delivered from. Yet my Savior refused to hate me but still kept on wooing me.   I was filled with bitterness toward myself for enjoying my mother’s touch when she had sexually abused me as a child. What a torment it is, even now at times. I would hear screaming in my head directed at me, “You whore! Look at your mother! How can God help you?” Feeling repulsively filthy, I would yet again run from Jesus, clenching my fist at him and daring/commanding him to strike me dead as I would cuss at him. I would wake in the middle of the night hitting myself, thinking and feeling that I needed to be punished. I felt sure I was the scum of the earth.   “You’re a liar!” I told God in response to his claims to love me. “You cannot possibly love me and I will prove it to you!” I would cover myself with bodily filth to show God how disgusting I was. I would plunge into porn and masturbation. I would again call demons my father and ask them to punish me. Such was my compulsion to prove to God that he could not possibly love me.   Then I would again come to my senses and repent. And to my astonishment, God always accepted me back. I told him that I do not understand why he has not killed me with the things I have done.   I had always thought that if I had let God get too close to me that he would use and hurt me. He never did.   Special Revelation   My wife used to say at times that the Lord had spoken to her. I would reply that God does not and cannot speak to anyone except by his Word. I would claim that visions, dreams and such were most likely from the enemy. I had thought I had heard the Lord speak to me during my earliest Christian years but I had since accepted the teaching of my church that this was impossible. I never considered that if the devil could speak lies to us using the method that God did in Bible times, why could the Almighty and All-knowing God no longer speak truth to us this way?   A turning point came one day when I was about to touch something and I felt the Lord telling me not to. Investigation revealed that hidden inside was a black widow spider.   After initially being exceptionally cautious, I now find that God speaks to me often.   Every time I have heard from him it has always come with Scripture to back it up, just to assure me that it is God who is really speaking to me. Whenever I hear his voice and or see a vision or dream, I always ask, “Who is Jesus Christ?” The response has always been, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”   I always question where the divine encounter is leading me. Is it leading me to a deeper relationship with the one true God or away? Is it leading me to live more holy and pure? Does it line up with God’s Word, and has it come with God’s Word? Then I check myself to ensure that my desire is not to chase after exotic experiences but to run after the living God and have a closer relationship with him. Sometimes the Lord has graciously provided powerful confirmation that I am truly hearing from him. For example, when I was recently ministering to a distressed friend, the Lord gave me a vision about her. To her amazed joy, what I saw was identical to a vision about herself that she had received more than twenty years ago. Not surprisingly, she was profoundly encouraged.   Once I wrote in my journal:   There is bitterness and rebellion in my heart that keeps me from you. Jesus, I will expectantly wait for you to bring me spiritual and emotional healing.   That night, or the very next, I do not recall which, something happened. I know not if it were a dream or a vision. What I do know is that it was real. I was a child and God was holding me and loving me in a very clean, pure, innocent way. I had never experienced that type of love in my life. How it dispelled fear and pain, and brought an overwhelming sense of joy!   Afterwards, I wrote in my journal:   Thank you for your gentleness with me. When I rebelled and struck out at you there was no retaliation. When I kicked at you there was no strike back.   Through such experiences I learned to see God as the Daddy I have always craved but never found in a human.   I now believe that God probably wept whenever I acted out. I think it was not because of the pain I inflicted on him that he wept, but for me and the injuries I have kept inflicting on myself. What love!   Yet my bouts of resisting his love continued. I punished myself, not to try to gain favor with God, but because at times I would feel his love and want to cry and punish myself to prove to him that I am unlovable and unlovely.   Once I had a terrible flashback from my childhood of bodily filth being smeared all over me. I kept asking God in an accusing manner, “Where were you when all this happened?” Then I saw him as the abuse occurred, kneeling beside me, weeping. Later he told me that I was clean and clothed with the righteousness of Christ. I kept arguing with him, “Yes, Daddy, I am wearing the white robe of Jesus’ righteousness but I am getting the inside of the robe dirty from the filth that was put on me, and the filth is bleeding through.”   Soon after, I had another flashback of childhood abuse and when it was over God gave me a vision of himself, the great and perfectly good Daddy, cleaning all of the filth off me with his own hand. It really struck me that in the vision there was no fear of his touch. He was gentler than the tenderest mother. After seeing myself so thoroughly cleansed, I could not argue that I would get the inside of the righteousness robe dirty. Instead, my argument turned to this: “I am clean on the outside but I am still dirty on the inside.”   Before long, I had another vision of Daddy with his own hands wrapping my body and limbs with clean pure linen cloth that had been dipped in the blood of Christ. I felt this righteousness seep into every cell of my being, and he assured me that even the tiniest part of every cell had been wiped completely clean – not just the outside but right to the inside of the smallest parts of every cell, even the parts so tiny that science does not know of.   Then Daddy wrapped me in a large, clean and pure baby blanket, as an infant is wrapped up tight to make it feel safe and warm. He held me to his chest, smiling down on me, quieting me with his love. It seemed as if he was actually counting all the hairs of my head and studying my face and cooing.   I wish I could say that all these wonderful experiences with God have stopped me from ever again treating God so vilely. There have still been times when I have slipped, but God has never stopped loving me. Maybe this is because he would rather set us on high as a trophy of his love and grace than tear us down.   I am crying now for joy and love as I write this. His eyes are full of compassion and love. His arms desire to build up, not tear down. His desire is to see me grow into a man that he can be so proud of. His love is soft. This is not to be confused with weakness, for in his softness and tenderness is great strength. He can hold me in his arms so that I have no need to fear falling. I so much need him to hold me in this holy way.   Yet so often when I have been close to him and felt his comfort, I have been afraid it will turn to pain and rejection. It truly amazes me that his desire is to delight in me as I delight in him. I never had anyone want to delight in me. Nor have I ever had anyone look at me with such eyes of love.   “Why is God so gentle to me?” I have often asked. I’ve been so very angry with myself. Even the reader’s patience with me would have folded years ago at the way I kept reverting to atrocious behavior but God’s patience has kept going.   If only I could say all the countless manifestations I’ve received of God’s enormous patience ended my shameful outbursts against God, but they didn’t. It’s as if I am two persons: one that can accept God’s love and forgiveness, and one that cannot. I’m embarrassed to admit that I have kept flip-flopping from one to the other, over and over and over throughout more than twenty years of walking with God.   As the disciples doubted even after witnessing so many miracles, so when new painful flashbacks come, I still doubt. It blows me away that even if I doubt, he is still so patient with me. Despite the doubts, however, I am able to remind myself of the truth. Gradually, I have come to the point of rarely arguing with Daddy that I am unclean. I just tell him that I  feel  a certain way, not that I  am  that way.   Once I yelled out to God that I forgive my mother. The Lord knew I meant it. I had traveled the painful forgiveness road many a time. But this time he asked something else: would I forgive myself for all my real and imaginary guilt?   My decades-long struggle has not been in getting God to forgive me, but in me forgiving myself.   Through all my struggles, Jesus has been visiting me as the tender Daddy that I never had as a child. He has also nurtured me – and continues to – as the most loving and perfect of mothers. At no time and in no way has he ever condemned me. “It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?” the Word says (Romans 8:33-34).   A couple of years ago I gave Jesus permission to come into every dark area of my heart and open it up so that I could be entirely his. I asked him to go into all the rooms that I have locked away, thinking that he did not see. Nothing was a shock to him. As Jesus began opening the doors to my heart, new memories came that were previously unknown to me. It says in the gospels that Jesus had no need for anyone to tell him what was in people’s hearts, for he knew. Likewise, he knew what was in my heart: pain beyond what even I had realized, and a great sense of shame.   His Word says Jesus has come to heal the broken hearted and bind up all their wounds. I have found this to be true. One of Jesus’ names is Wonderful Counselor. The Holy Spirit is also called Counselor or Helper. His counsel is true and right. He has never failed. He is still in the process of counseling me. He daily walks with me.   I deeply regret the way I have treated my Lord. I have no desire to abuse his magnificent grace. For most of my life I never thought that a man could be a man and be pure or desire pureness, holiness and beauty. It is now coming to me. It is a thing to be attained that is more desired than gold or any false pleasure that this world could offer.   With Grantley’s support, the Lord is showing me the hidden causes of my puzzling behavior. At last, I’m healing from the psychological damage inflicted on me from babyhood right through to my late teens. I have shared my testimony, however, not because I think many will be able to identify with my affliction, but because I hope it will help everyone who is repentant and yet still feels beyond Jesus’ forgiveness to see through those deceptive feelings to the tender heart of God and the forgiving power of the cross. I’ve kept repenting and God’s kept forgiving, through the power of Christ’s sacrifice. He’ll do the same for you.   Making Sense of This   – By Grantley   Our neighbor’s grass always seems greener than ours. One of life’s illusions is that everyone else seems more favored by God than us. Few of us would envy Jake’s upbringing but, like me, most of us have had nothing remotely like the powerful experiences with God that Jake has had. His testimony, however, confirms what we see over and over in the Bible: people doubting after witnessing tremendous miracles. Clearly, special experiences with God are not nearly as effective in building faith as we might suppose. Spiritual highs quickly evaporate. Personal miracles just make us more accountable; they don’t lower anyone’s need to hold on in bare faith when tough times come. Despite our temptation to think otherwise, every Christian’s profound need is not for signs but for sheer faith.   After reading Jake’s testimony, someone battling guilt feelings wrote to me:   Some time ago, God speaking through you gave me real hope and changed my life. I am not saying I don’t still struggle at times with feeling false guilt over things Christ has cleansed me of, but God is now very tangible to me and I understand that he is with me  no matter what  I am going through.   I have discovered that true healing and progress comes from simple, raw faith – the kind of white knuckle faith you must hold on to no matter what. This is the true blessing: keeping faith, no matter what.   Just as Scripture records miracles, not merely for the benefit of those who witnessed them, but for  our  sake, so we benefit from Jake’s encounters with his (and our) Daddy. Even though Scripture’s affirmations alone should suffice, Jake’s intimate experiences with God confirm to us that despite all Jake’s bouts of defiance against his Savior, he is truly forgiven. And that same God – the God who declares that he is no respecter of persons – will keep forgiving you, if you keep maintaining a repentant attitude and keep putting your faith in Christ’s power to forgive.   You Need More To be haunted by guilt feelings, spiritual worries and repulsive thoughts is like trying to drive safely through traffic in the midst of continual distractions. This website has the vast number of webpages you need in order to stay focused. Read them daily. Next Testimony: My Deepest Secret:Tormented by Blasphemous Thoughts

Inspiring Testimonies   They Thought They Were Unforgivable   Christians who found forgiveness after being sure they had blasphemed the Holy Spirit and committed the unpardonable sin       1 Corinthians 10:13 [No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.]   sets in black and white God’s iron clad commitment to ensuring that no matter how severe the temptation, you can escape unharmed. This powerful Scripture begins by declaring that no temptation has gripped you (“seized you” is how the NIV words it) except what is common to humanity. From this I learn that the first line of defense in every spiritual battle is the realization that the temptations raging against you are normal. No matter how weird the temptations seem to you, they are commonplace. Countless thousands of your fellow Christians have suffered, are suffering or will suffer attacks virtually identical to what is currently distressing you.   The Evil One’s terrifying strategy is to divide and conquer. He knows that his slim chance of victory increases if he can make you feel isolated from other Christians – make you feel peculiar or even perverse to suffer the temptations he is putting upon you. His dirty trick is to try to make you feel guilty or abnormal because of thoughts plaguing your mind that do not even come from you but are actually  his  words or images fired into your head. He is particularly delighted if he can con you into feeling too ashamed about this common situation to seek from fellow sufferers the comfort and support you deserve.   A woman, whose story you will read later, told me how she was mentally tortured by blasphemous thoughts she did not want. “I was too embarrassed and afraid to tell anyone,” she said, “as I thought everyone would disown me and tell me I was going to hell.”   Having counseled many victims of child abuse, those words sound extremely familiar. They remind me so much of the way sexually abused children are conned into feeling, and the false shame and guilt that keeps them from seeking help and being rescued. Then I remembered one of my favorite sayings that temptation is spiritual rape. Truly our spiritual enemy is the Evil One! How dare he torment us and then do his utmost to fill us with false shame and feelings of hopelessness to try to keep us from receiving the love and comfort from other Christians that we deserve!   There are Christians who feel that God has rejected them and mistakenly suppose that their Lord will probably spurn them for all of eternity and yet, despite it all, these amazing men and women of God continue to do their best to serve the Lord. Most Christians can only gasp in awe that anyone feeling this way would continue with God. I am convinced that such people will be exalted forever as heaven’s heroes.   I’m not surprised, however, when people who feel that God will never forgive them have bouts of anger and bitterness towards God. Their anger is not really at God, but at a non-existent being – a cold, unforgiving ogre whom the Deceiver tries to portray as God.   To help you realize that you are in excellent company as you battle fears that you are unforgivable, I want to share some testimonies with you. These testimonies will both inspire you and assure you that you are not alone. The cherished data banks in heaven’s hall of fame are crammed with testimonies like these:   First Testimony: I found forgiveness despite many reasons for being certain I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit

Just a short note on email communications.  If you have positive feedback, Grantley needs the encouragement, so please don't hesitate to drop him an email.   He immensely regrets, however, not having the health needed to provide personal support. (His chronic fatigue has currently worsened to the point where it is like trying to function physically and mentally after being chronically sleep deprived for months.) Nevertheless, any need for personalized support is minimal because he has devoted virtually his entire life to creating a website packed with all the help he can possibly give, and totally without charge. A complication associated with his worsening health was a mistake that caused much of the vast website to go offline. It is being restored as fast as finances and available expertise allow.   (If you are interested in contributing, ways you might be able to help include proofreading, computer expertise, or finance, please email  us with an outline of what interests you, or how you could help.)   An archive of the site can be found here if you wish to search specific topics that have not yet been added to the new website.   We are not sure how long the archive will be available, but for now it is still there.

CHAPTER 2 If you have serious doubts about Christianity, INTRODUCTION Some Bible scholars find the Scriptural evidence for angelic music less than compelling. We are indeed exploring the very frontiers of revealed knowledge. That’s what makes this chapter important. We will examine the realm of human experience to see how it conforms to some of the Biblical expositions given in chapters one and three. Down through history there have been innumerable reports from reliable Christian witnesses of angelic visitations. A number of these are particularly relevant to musicians. Though this subject seems bizarre, reports are too numerous and the implications too profound to be ignored in a serious work on the Christian view of music. Our final authority is Scripture alone. Yet few would deny that testimonies of conversions can help our dull minds see with greater clarity what Scripture means by being born again. Similarly, Christian testimony may help sharpen the image of music drawn from our Biblical research. Even if the phenomena described were a mere trick of the human mind (and I don’t believe they are), they could still be indirect evidence for the existence of music in the next world. The possibility of such music seems so strongly stamped upon the human psyche as to invite the conclusion that it was placed there by the One who made us. If so, I cannot imagine God placing within us expectations that will never be satisfied. The conviction that heaven is a place of music has practical implications. Our beliefs remarkably influence our music. John Cage’s belief that the entire world is the product of nothing but chance caused his music to degenerate into literally random sounds. As another example, consider a musician whose general attitude to life is that what’s new is best. Such a person will almost inevitably produce quite different music to someone who believes in ‘the good old days’. Likewise, a Christian’s belief in heavenly music is likely to affect his or her musical composition. In fact, heavenly strains have apparently directly influenced some Christian music (Examples are given in Chapter 10) The material presented in this chapter has the potential to increase our faith in the possibility of receiving heavenly inspiration or heavenly interaction with our music. The result could transport our music from the mediocre to the miraculous. In addition, this survey should strengthen our conviction that music is very much more than a temporal amusement. The more we grasp the full significance of music, the higher will be our motivation to bestow upon it the prayerful dedication it deserves. I have agonized over this chapter. I feel a responsibility to take on this expedition Christians with totally opposed views of the supernatural. Some will find it the most thrilling part of the book. Others, especially those who need it the most, may initially have a very different reaction. I ask no-one to compromise his or her convictions. If you feel the urge to burn me at the stake, I simply ask for a fair trial – and a rainy day. Hopefully, as you read further, your fears will prove unfounded. If the atmosphere becomes too rarefied, temporarily abort this part of the mission and go to the security of regions more thoroughly charted by Scripture. This you will find in subsequent chapters, especially chapter four. Alternatively, if you have no qualms about this subject, I ask your patience with those who require what may seem superfluous explanations. Though this chapter meanders through background information to help you better evaluate the authenticity of each report, don’t lose sight of the goal: to expand our knowledge of music beyond planet earth to better equip us to view music from God’s glorious perspective, and then to allow this fresh vision to impact your life and your music as the Spirit leads. If your faith in the reality of heavenly music increases by a fraction of a mustard seed, it will be more than worth it. If, moreover, your understanding of the nature of heavenly music increases, it is priceless. And if heaven’s music begins to influence your own music. . . . Words fail. INDIA I sat enthralled as a humble Indian man addressed a large congregation in Adelaide, South Australia. Rev. Larno Longchar was describing an amazing revival sweeping the length and breadth of his home state of Nagaland. His local church alone now had 15,000 members. Four times in one year its building had to be extended to accommodate those who were being saved. The ‘outpouring’ began in 1976 after the ‘Baptist’ churches in Nagaland had kept their pledge to pray for revival. Their twenty-four-hour-a-day prayer chain had continued unbroken for an entire year. As a direct result of the revival, the state’s smoking, drinking, cinema attendance, divorce and suicide rates all dramatically fell. A flabbergasted magistrate reported that in six months only one criminal case had appeared before his city’s courts. Repentance was so widespread and genuine that precautions like locking houses became quite unnecessary. Former Hindus and head-hunters joined the ranks of fervent Christians confessing their sins and praying for hours at a time. I could detect no boasting in Rev. Longchar’s address. He spoke of himself surprisingly little. A major recurring theme was that there was nothing unique about his state’s experience. He insisted that we could have the same type of revival. The following is a slightly condensed transcript of part of the message I heard on March 8, 1981 (used by permission). The incident described would have occurred no more than five years previous. Rev. Longchar told us: In one of the district capitals, near Burma, we had [a] revival meeting for four days. There were 35,000 people in a crusade. One of our friends was preaching. God used him in a very wonderful way that morning. About 10,000 people rushed to the pulpit to confess their sins – to acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ in their hearts. There was a deep confession of sin going on. We were helping the people – about five hundred of us – as counsellors. When we were praying, we heard a sound of angels singing – a huge group of people singing in the sky above. [It was a] very lovely song: Jesus is coming soon: Troublous times, Jesus is coming soon. Repent, repent, repent. [My comment: If you think this prophecy to be premature, I don’t know what you will make of Revelation 22:20.] It was so lovely. For ten minutes the angels continued to sing. We didn’t see them, but we heard the sound. Oh, it was so wonderful! One of my friends took his tape recorder and recorded this song. Our people love to sing that song – all over Nagaland today. They receive much blessing through singing it.’ Rev. Longchar’s description of the angelic singing as ‘so lovely’ should not be taken lightly. After visiting Nagaland, Pastor Des Short, of New Zealand, described the Naga people as ‘exceptionally musical.’ He claimed that, in marked contrast to western people, the majority of Naga people are born with perfect pitch. Even children at play sing in four-part harmony. WALES Commencing at Beddgelert in 1817, a powerful move of God resulted in the salvation of multiplied thousands of Welsh people. From the midst of this move comes a report of people transfixed by what seemed to be massed heavenly choirs in the air singing songs of praise. Decades later, (1851-2) in a small Montgomeryshire village, angelic singing signaled the commencement of a local Welsh revival. It was heard by a few disheartened Christians leaving their church after a seemingly fruitless week-long series of prayer meetings for revival. The ‘indistinct’ (Because it was in an angelic language?) but melodious sounds seemed to come from high above the church they had just left. Next day, they discovered that many others in the district had heard the same beautiful music. Some had even gone outside to hear it and concluded it must be angelic. No other explanation was ever found. Soon hundreds were flocking to the churches and experiencing the prayed-for outpouring of the Spirit. FRANCE A remarkable parallel occurred across the English Channel, nearly two centuries earlier. A revival in ‘the valleys of Dauphiny,’ amongst Protestants in late Seventeenth Century France, was cited by John Wesley as proof that God acts in a supernatural way. This Cevennes revival was preceded by widespread reports of ‘strange sounds in the air: the sound of a trumpet and a harmony of voices.’ And in Orthès it was said that in every house resided at least one person who had heard heavenly music. CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP Angels are moved by human activities. They long to see persecuted saints avenged ( Revelation 16:5-6 ; 18:20-21 , 24 ). They serve us, ( Hebrews 1:14 ) responding to our physical needs (eg, 1 Kings 19:5-6 ) and our prayers (e.g. Daniel 10:12 ). They protect us from danger (e.g. 2 Kings 6.16-17 Psalm 34:7 , Acts 12:6 ff) even in situations requiring almost instantaneous reaction (e.g. Psalm 91:11-12 ; Daniel 6:22 ). Scripture leaves us in no doubt that our actions greatly influence heavenly beings. Paul even urged women to cover their heads ‘because of the angels’ ( 1 Corinthians 11:10 , cf Ephesians 3:10 ). Moreover, terrestrial events and celestial music are frequently intertwined. If angels rejoice over the salvation of the lost, ( Luke 15:7 , 10 ) it is hard to imagine such sophisticated beings celebrating without music (cf Luke 15:23-25 ). The angelic Christmas carol heard by startled shepherds focused upon earthly events ( Luke 2:10-14 ). Note also the earth-centered lyrics of the song of heavenly beings in Revelation 5:9-10 , praising the Lamb who redeemed people from ‘every tribe and language and people and nation’ to ‘reign on the earth’. Earth-bound psalmists urged angelic hosts to bless the Lord, (e.g. Psalm 103:20-21 ; 148:2 ) and in Revelation 5:13 we find angels uniting with people in praise that is quite possibly musical. Scripture even speaks of the exalted Son of God singing in our midst, ( Hebrews 2:12 ) and of God the Father singing ‘over’ His people ( Zephaniah 3:17 ). Clearly, heaven’s music often focuses on humans or is a response to human activities. So it seems consistent with Scriptural revelation that many people insist they have heard angels singing above the sound of congregational musical praise. These claims – too numerous too innumerate here – often originate from people whose extensive familiarity with the building and congregation render it unlikely that they could be deceived by acoustics or by the musical ability of the congregation. Taken individually, one may wonder just how objective these reports are. However, their number, consistency and the range of sources, render them difficult to dismiss. These accounts suggest the possibility of our musical praise inspiring heavenly beings to join us in worship. This seems to fit nicely the above-mentioned pieces of the jigsaw Scripture provides. We recognize that our musical praise ascends to heaven. So it is hardly surprising if the reverse sometimes happens, and heaven’s strains reach human ears. And the time when this is most likely to occur is when a whole congregation is focusing upon heaven, engaged in what must be the favorite activity of heavenly beings – musical praise. If these beautiful creatures get excited about our initial coming to the Lord, it must thrill them to see us unitedly pouring out our praises to the One both we and they love so deeply. Surely, at such times, they must long to mingle their song with ours as it ascends to heaven’s Throne. Rev. Colin Urquhart announced the hymn: Wesley’s ‘O for a thousand tongues.’ There certainly weren’t a thousand in the congregation. Encouraging them, the Anglican priest said they were joining heaven’s hosts in praising the Lord. They should ask God to make them conscious of this, he suggested. During the second verse, trumpet-playing was heard. Rev. Urquhart was unmoved. It must be the church trumpeter. As the music continued, however, he discovered the trumpeter was not even present. Moreover, it was not one, but several trumpets melodiously merging with the organ. Others in the congregation heard it too. The organist also had a fascinating story to tell. Inexplicably, the organ trumpet stop had refused to work throughout the hymn. It functioned perfectly before and after. This incident bubbles with stimulating concepts. Perhaps few took it seriously, but the congregation actually prayed for a revelation about heavenly music. I wonder of how many Christians it could be said, ‘You heard not because you asked not’ (cf James 4.2 ) With such things, we expect heaven to take the initiative. But heaven has already taken the initiative, two thousand years ago, when Jesus said, ‘Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full’ ( John 16:24 ). Sceptics will say the fact that they prayed for an awareness of an angelic presence proves the phenomenon was due to auto-suggestion. But note that Rev. Urquhart’s mind immediately leapt to a natural explanation. Further, most Christians are preconditioned to expect, if anything, a heavenly choir, not trumpets. Moreover, auto-suggestion would produce individual differences: some would see angels, some hear voices, others hear harps, and so on. Then there’s the mystery of the trumpet stop to explain away. Rev. Urquhart’s description suggests heavenly trumpets are capable of far greater precision than those of Bible times. We must not imagine that just because heaven is described in the Bible, heaven’s ‘technology’ is stuck in the horse-and-chariot era. I think we can all feel rather flattered by the fact that in this instance, heavenly musicians were content to quietly accompany earthly music, rather than dominate the whole event. Truly, such glorious, angelic beings are ‘all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation’ ( Hebrews 1:14 ). As we leave this incident, we should note that it didn’t occur in just any church service. It was in the midst of a significant revival. Just twenty days into the 1980s Mrs. Rhonda Walters, engaged in short-term ministry in India, attended a church service on the flat roof of a house on the outskirts of Coimbatore, out from Madras. There were no musical instruments. The congregation had only their clapping hands and overflowing hands to embellish their singing. ‘A wave of holiness’ was one of Rhonda’s attempts to describe the Spirit-charged atmosphere as those Indian Christians worshipped their Lord in song. Though words failed her, she was sure of one thing – those Christians had something she had never experienced in her homeland of Australia. With eyes closed, engulfed in wonder and worship, she became conscious of instrumental music. Some of them must have gone home and returned with instruments , she thought. She assumed one instrument was a guitar. She could also hear what might have been a harp and violin. There was no percussion or wind instruments. The music, which had started so softly and unobtrusively in harmony with the singing, began to crescendo. The orchestra of stringed instruments grew louder and louder. Rhonda opened her eyes to see who was playing and to her amazement there was no-one. The music came in waves and finally faded away. The experience shook her, being so contrary to anything she had ever known. It was several weeks before she dared mention it to anyone. When I interviewed Rhonda several years later the experience was still vivid in her mind. I’ve heard of a report that above the sound of congregational worship was once heard the singing of a beautiful male voice. Frank Longino writes of something similar. ‘A few times, I have been in services where we rose to such heights [in worship] that we began to be conscious of a tremendously overwhelming note rising out of the mass of sound; higher than any I’d heard, richer than any I’d experienced.’ (From a magazine article published November 1976. At that time Longino was senior pastor of Valley Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He is a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in that city.) In both reports the phenomenon was interpreted not as being angelic, but as the singing of the Son of God Himself. What Bible-believer could deny the possibility? We should note, however, that a heavenly musical response to our music need not necessarily be audible to our ears. Just as angels probably intervene in our lives more often than we realize, celestial music and our music might be more interwoven than we imagine. GRACE MURPHY In 1937, Grace Murphy had a fascinating experience: she died. Billy Graham stated that many Christians on the verge of death report hearing heavenly strains. Unfortunately, he does not elucidate. Mrs. Murphy, however, having been raised from the dead, was able to provide us with a fuller account. Medical technology being what it is, an increasing number of people are being revived after clinical death. I am very skeptical of so-called out-of-body experiences sometimes associated with this. Medical studies suggest that whatever this phenomenon is, it cannot be categorized as hallucination or drug-induced. However, Satan goes to considerable lengths to give people a false understanding of life-after-death through such things as séances. I believe non-Christians are wide open for similar deception nearing death. We should be careful, however, not to allow a commendable eagerness to reject Satan’s sludge become so intense that we discard God’s gold as well. Blind faith in the spiritual experiences of non-Christians is foolish. But neither is blind, unthinking rejection of the testimonies of people redeemed by the blood of the Lamb the epitome of wisdom. Reports from committed Christians at a time when they were being earnestly prayed for, are worthy of closer examination, especially when the results seem to be glorifying to God and align with Scriptural revelation. Nevertheless, non-Christians have so distorted and perverted this subject that I can deeply identify with anyone on the verge of converting the following pages into paper darts. For many of us, exposure to non-Christian accounts of life after (clinical) death has either eroded our confidence even in Christian accounts, or has raised doubts as to the reality of hell. It is hard to imagine an experience more deeply branded with the marks of God than Mrs. Murphy’s. The following facts, drawn from her daughter’s book, strongly argue for the authenticity of her amazing claim to have heard music in Paradise. 1. She had definitely been born again. The genuineness of her conversion is clearly confirmed by her daughter’s detailed account. 2. The Lord revealed to Mrs. Murphy that she would suddenly die that very day. So certain was she, that she told her stunned pastor and made funeral arrangements, even though there was no physical indication that death was imminent. She had complete peace about it all. 3. From start to finish, the whole episode was immersed in prayer. The revelation that she would die occurred while she was in prayer. Being a Sunday morning, she was able to attend church twice, share with her pastor and devote more time to the Lord than would otherwise have been possible. She died in the evening, while in prayer with her daughter, Jean. Finally, she came back to life as a result of Jean’s fervent, faith-filled prayer. 4. She was pronounced dead by a registered nurse who would have dearly wanted to detect signs of life. 5. Her doctor, arriving after she had revived, examined the damage done to her body and could not understand how she could have undergone such a major heart-attack without dying. 6. There was no possibility of a drug-induced hallucination. No anesthetic or medication was used. 7. The Lord Jesus predominated in her visit to paradise. He appeared to her just before she died, escorted her to heaven and, in response to Jean’s prayer, led her back to earth again. 8. In her heavenly visit, she met biblical characters whose names she had never heard of before. By consulting a concordance, Jean confirmed that they were godly people mentioned in the Bible. This astounded Jean because she knew her newly converted mother had only recently commenced church attendance and had very limited Bible knowledge. 9. Mrs. Murphy gained the impression that her father was not in Paradise – thus indirectly supporting the Christian conviction that not all of Adam’s descendants will receive eternal life. 10. Orphaned when only three days old, Grace Murphy had no recollection of her mother’s likeness, yet she claimed to have met her in her journey to the next world. Some months later, her mother’s sister gave her a trunk that had been stored away from before Grace’s birth. Sifting through the contents for the first time, Grace instantly spotted her mother in a group photo, saying she was the one she had seen in heaven. Her aunt was stunned. As far as is known, that was the only photograph of her mother ever taken. 11. She had no desire to brag about her peep behind death’s veil. Indeed, she regarded it as too sacred to speak about. She spoke of it once to Jean and gave her permission to share it if she thought it would glorify God, but determined never to personally mention it again. 12. As might be expected if the Lord were in it, Grace fully recovered from her serious illness. Music assumed high priority in her description of Paradise. The whole atmosphere seemed to be music. She described it as sounding something like an orchestra and organ playing together. Pastel colors moved and merged in harmony with the thrilling sounds. It is noteworthy that several times afterward, Mrs. Murphy would become conscious of music that she recognized as being the same as she had heard in her heavenly encounter. Could it be that at times some of us hear such music and dismiss it without realizing its source? After all, we are even now spiritually seated with Christ in the heavenlies ( Ephesians 2:6 ). Perhaps we are more in tune with heaven than most of us dare think.

This webpage is for everyone, even though it is of particular relevance to all abuse survivors, whether child abuse, sexual abuse or domestic abuse . If you have suffered abuse and do not have multiple personalities (Dissociative Identity Disorder) , part of you probably fears that God is like your abuser, without you being very conscious of that fear. Having alters (different “personalities”) merely reveals more directly the hidden, hurting part of you. It is appallingly common for people to use the word love when they really mean the exact opposite. They mean lust – a selfish longing to exploit a person. For them, “love” is getting what they want. In contrast, true love is generously giving what the other person wants. It is respecting people and wanting their happiness above one’s own. Genuine love is so beautiful and so rare that it seems almost unbelievable, especially when so many of us have only ever seen the fake. Some child abusers even claim it is an act of love to beat their children senseless, but here’s the truth: “Love is patient, love is kind . . . it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. . . . It always protects, always trusts . . . (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). Having God in one’s life produces “. . . patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, . . . gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Arrogant self-righteousness deeply grieves the God who “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:7) and would not so much as break what everyone else regards as a good-for-nothing bruised reed, or snuff out a smelly, smoldering wick (Matthew 12:20). We tend to think that since God is holy and all-powerful he must be cold, harsh, intolerant and scary, but God is not only holy; he is pure, selfless love, like we have never seen in a human. This means he longs to respect you, honor you, believe in you, and exalt you. That can seem too good to be true, but God is so good that he is in a totally different category to anyone else. “No one is good – except God alone,” said Jesus (Mark 10:18). God wants to be on your side as your defender and to shower you with blessings. He so passionately yearns to be your best friend that he has gone to the greatest imaginable extreme to make it possible. This is why the eternal Son of God left heaven’s throne to be abused, humiliated and tortured to death. By swapping places with you, the Lord’s holy requirements can be met, freeing him to treat you as he would treat his favorite – his one and only holy child, the Lord Jesus. Yes, God will treat you as his favorite! The Perfect One is the exact opposite of an abuser. Despite all his power, he chooses to be ever so gentle and treat you with dignity. So, regardless of his intense ache to lavish you with his blessings and be your best friend and confidant and defender, he restrains himself, waiting for you to let him. Even though the exalted Son of God suffered beyond words for you, he will allow all that agony to go to waste, rather than force his goodness and total cleansing upon you against your will. Once you allow Jesus into your life, however, the one thing hindering the Holy One from getting close to you – unforgiven sin – disappears. He who knows your worst secrets, the Judge of all humanity, joyfully declares you innocent and would defend your innocence to the death. In fact, Jesus has literally done just that. Once you accept Jesus’ forgiveness, the most powerful person in the universe is free to be to you what he yearns to be – as warm, safe and comforting as a teddy bear. As proved by Jesus’ sacrifice, he would take the bullet for you. He is on your side and fights your battles. He feels your pain. He weeps for you. He is an oasis in the desert; a soft, cuddly blanket to snuggle into on a chilly night; the best and most exciting friend anyone could ever have. God and his angels are not the only spiritual beings. There are also evil spiritual beings – Satan and his angels. These evil beings not only inspired those who have hurt you, they are intent on hindering every Christian’s relationship with God. Being evil, they play dirty and specialize in deception and in exploiting any hurt or wound within us. They delight not only in initiating evil, but in trying to fool us into blaming God for their dirty work. The enemy of our souls is the master deceiver because that is all he can do. The devil cannot change reality. He cannot change the fact that God is selflessly devoted to you with all of his unlimited love and that Christ suffered for the sins of the entire world, which has to include every sin that ever touched you. The filthiest sinner who puts his/her faith in the power of Christ’s forgiveness is instantly made as pure as crystal, as holy as God himself, in God’s eyes (2 Corinthians 5:21). So all the devil can do is to blast you with deceptively strong fear or guilt feelings, hoping that you will start to believe them rather than believe in the power of Christ’s forgiveness and the tender love of God. It is of critical importance that you focus on God’s great love for you and not let deceptive spirits trick you into thinking that God frowns on you when you fall into sin. Yes, God is disappointed, but when a little child with good parents runs off and falls, what’s the first thing he does? He looks to mommy or daddy for comfort. You, too, should run into Daddy’s arms for the comfort you need. God is on your side. He cares deeply for you. Your spiritual enemies, however, want to make you feel uneasy about running to God. So they swamp you with feelings of condemnation, hoping you will believe those feelings rather than believe the truth about God that he is tenderly forgiving toward all who put their faith in Christ. This is a major strategy of these deceivers because they know we instinctively recoil from anyone we fear might be angry or displeased with us. We can’t help but inwardly keep a person at arm’s length, if we suspect he is displeased with us. So your enemies flood you with guilt feelings, hoping to fool you into being standoffish from the only One who can truly deliver you from every problem and defeat their every attempt to bring you down. Rather than see you rejoice in God’s forgiveness they want you to feel miserable and isolated from the warmth of God’s compassion. Sex abusers rarely stop at sexual abuse, and men, women or children engaging in domestic violence rarely stop at physical abuse. They commonly inflict serious psychological abuse in the form of repeated putdowns and slander that so shatters their victims’ self-esteem that, until they find healing, victims stagger through life with, to say the least, a low opinion of themselves. As I’ve noted elsewhere, a diamond is just a hunk of rock. For centuries many cultures considered them as worthless as dirt. A diamond’s value is measured not by what it does, but solely by how much some people are willing to pay to have one. Likewise, your worth is not based on what you do. You are of infinite value because the King of kings, the Lord of the universe, paid a far higher price than all the wealth of a million earths – the willing sacrificial death of his holy Son – to have you as his best friend. And if he has invested so much in you, he will treasure you and cherish you for all eternity. But because so few of us grasp this, it is common for not-yet-healed abuse survivors to hate or blame themselves and/or feel they deserve to be punished. As if this were not distressing enough, they usually assume that God must feel the same way about them. Mistakenly suspecting that God feels negatively toward them has one inevitable but tragic consequence. Without necessarily even realizing it, they instinctively shrink from the One who is truly their best friend, putting at least a little distance between themselves and the One who longs to comfort and heal them. Your mind might be so certain that Jesus is good, perfect and sinless that it seems incomprehensible to you that deep within there could be part of you that feels very differently. Because you know that such a fear is utterly irrational, you might have convinced yourself that there could be no fear lurking in the back of your mind of Jesus acting like an abuser. We need to realize, however, that fear is something we inherit from past trauma; it is not an emotion that submits to rational thought. We must address the subject of fear because no matter how strong we pretend to be, the undeniable fact is that anyone suffering abuse has suffered something so unpleasant that it is only human to be terrified of a repeat. So to avoid being unnecessarily hard on ourselves or living in blind denial of what is going on deep within us, we need to understand the nature of fear. If you suffer from headaches and have a brain scan that proves the headaches are not due to a brain tumor, your headaches will not magically disappear. At most, pain responds only slightly to knowledge. So it is with fear. If someone were terrified of spiders, you might convince the person that a particular spider is harmless but not even that will allow his terror to magically vanish. He will still find it enormously difficult to push through his crippling fear and touch the spider. This is not because he is crazy or is distrusting of whoever says the spider is harmless. It is simply the nature of fear. Becoming intellectually convinced that a certain spider is harmless can help, but theory is not enough. Refusing to cave in to the fear, he must draw close to the spider. Only then will the fear slowly dissipate. Even so, he must keep this up for days or even weeks before every trace of fear leaves. There is no point waiting until all fear disappears before approaching a spider. Overcoming fear simply does not work that way. Likewise, in our relationship with God, theology is not enough to remove all fear. Knowing that God is safe can reduce fear but we must still courageously push through the remaining fear and draw close to God and experience him. Only then will the remaining fear gradually fade. Faith is like Peter courageously getting out of the boat and stepping on the water; not sitting around waiting until the water evaporates! Just as fear barely responds to rational thought, the same is true of the passing of years. The mere fact that the original cause of the fear occurred decades ago will not cause fear to fade. Neither does fear magically disappear if you happen to be male or mature. Fear is not an indication of a man being unmanly, or a person being immature or lacking in courage. Fear, like pain, affects us regardless of gender or maturity or courage. Some people feel pressured to act as if fear is not there, but it is just an act. Pretending not to fear will not make the fear vanish in a puff of smoke, although as we noted with a fear of spiders, continual exposure to whatever is feared should eventually cause the fear to gradually diminish. I will endeavor to pamper you with intellectual assurance that God is safe and that his warm compassion for you is pure, selfless and utterly non-sexual. I wish that this were all it takes to make the tormenting fear within you completely vanish but, like convincing someone that a spider is harmless, I realize there is only so much that addressing the intellect can achieve. You will find significant links at the end of this page addressing all the issues of guilt, self-hate, self-blame and low self-esteem causing us to shrink a little from God because we mistakenly presume that he feels coldly toward us. For now, however, we will focus on what might initially seems ridiculous and yet at a barely conscious level it haunts many survivors of sex abuse – fear that God could be sexually abusive. We have already seen that fear is an almost inevitable consequence of abuse and that any sort of fear barely responds to rational thought or the mere passing of time and it is no respecter of age or gender. We should now examine yet another significant characteristic of fear. Fear spreads beyond whatever originally caused it. Years ago, experimental psychologists proved this by first startling babies with a loud noise as soon as a white rat appeared. Thereafter, the babies would cry whenever they saw a white rat. No surprises there. You might also expect the babies to react the same way when they see other white rats that look similar to the original one. What the psychologists found, however, is that the babies would now cry if they saw a cute white bunny. This is why intense fear generated by one man can spread not only to a fear of being alone with any man but to feeling uneasy about getting close to God, especially if he is regarded as being male. Besides gender, another superficial point of similarly between God and an abuser is that, should he choose to do so, God has the ability to overpower us. Let’s begin by examining the gender issue. Despite the use of the male pronoun and the word “father” and “son”, God the Father and God the Son are sexless. You will find a link at the end of this page to a biblical exploration of this fact and that God is not just like a father but also like mother. But what about the risen Lord? Isn’t he male? The Bible teaches that in the next life we will have glorified bodies. It also declares that, spiritually, there is no male or female. It is logical to expect that our heavenly bodies will reflect this fact by being sexless. In fact, there will be no sex (marital relations) in heaven. Our future bodies will be like the resurrected body that Jesus now has. It is therefore logical to presume that even if our resurrected Lord looks superficially male, he does not have a male body but is genderless, like God the Father and angels and like we, ourselves, will one day be. Regardless of whether we have multiple personalities (alters), we all have parts of us that influence us even though we are, at most, only vaguely aware of how they affect us. Increasing our awareness of those parts can greatly speed our healing and help us identify and resolve things within us that hold us back from running into God’s arms, gleefully yielding to him and falling in love with him. Even though in the remainder of this webpage I will refer to alters, what I have learned from ministering to people with distinct parts is relevant to us all. The most powerful thing anyone can do for alters (or anyone else) is to help them learn to trust Jesus so that they open up to him and discover how wonderful he is. Tragically, alters are often terrified of their Healer and Best Friend and the safest Person in the universe – Jesus. They fear he will act like their abuser did. No matter how groundless or irrational the fear is, the feeling is often devastatingly intense. So when ministering to people with multiple personalities, I devote much time seeking to reassure their alters that Jesus is safe and not the terrifying potential abuser that they fear. I do my utmost to coax and entice them to interact with Jesus and let him minister to them. Of course, I am acutely aware that no matter how important my efforts are, I cannot eliminate their fears. The best I can do is merely to lower their fears. Ultimately, they need to find out for themselves how safe and wonderful Jesus is by taking the “risk” and pushing through their fears to come to Jesus. Jesus understands this so deeply that he is mind-bogglingly gentle, tender, compassionate and patient with alters. (You will find an example of an alter’s experience in a link at the end of this page and that page links to further beautiful examples.) Sometimes we get so carried away with abstract theories about God – that he is holy, all-powerful, exalted, and so on – that we lose touch with biblical revelation. The Jesus of the Gospels was stern with the hard-hearted self-righteous who looked down on others, but he was always so tenderly compassionate toward everyone who was hurting or crushed with guilt. He came to heal the brokenhearted. He will not break even an apparently useless bruised reed, nor snuff out a stinking smoldering wick (Matthew 12:20). Throughout Scripture we see over and over that God continually delights not merely in bringing down those who lord it over others, but in lifting high the oppressed and those weighed down with despair. This is emphatic biblical revelation but it has only been through relating to alters that I have glimpsed the full glory of this facet of our Lord’s beauty. For example, as a result of humiliating potty training as a little girl, a mature woman with D.I.D. often suffered horrific pain, fear, false guilt and enormous embarrassment when using the toilet. More than once, at her alter’s invitation, the exalted King of kings entered the toilet, knelt on the floor and held her hand to comfort her. When Jesus allowed himself to be humiliated for us on the cross, we see not just the past but the eternal heart of our loving, selfless God. He was not just humble and gentle on earth; he is eternally humble and gentle. Over and over, I have known alters to rail against Jesus, grossly insulting the Holy Son of God, and they report that to their amazement the Lord of Lords just stood there with pain in his heart, tenderly absorbing all the verbal abuse (just like he did on the cross). Innumerable times, alters have told me how the all-powerful Lord has let them order him around when, out of fear, they have demanded that he keep his distance, or leave, or whatever. The resurrected Lord not only rules the universe, he is still the humblest, most selfless Person you will ever find. He lives by the highest conceivable moral standards. No one is as trustworthy as him. Abuse survivors have had their trust violated in a most appalling manner. Suffering such devastation makes trusting anyone exceedingly difficult. Of all people, however, Jesus is utterly trustworthy. He truly understands. He is patiently waiting, aching for you to draw close to you so that he can take your pain upon himself and heal you.

Help & Support for Both Genders To have been sexually interfered with is more common and the consequences are far deeper and longer lasting than even many victims realize When Boys are Sexually Interfered With (Of Interest to Both Genders) For both genders, being sexually interfered with is highly damaging and, unless dealt with, the damage will last a lifetime, even though with both genders, some innocents initially find the experience as pleasurable as sex is meant to feel, whereas for others it is nothing but terrifying agony. The molesters’ method, not the victims’ morality, creates the difference. This website caters for both genders. Male survivors are mentioned first on this page simply to reassure them that this website is not like the many that overlook them. Pain and confusion are not lowered by being a man but the pressure to agonize in silence is raised alarmingly. There is no distinction: when sexually interfered with, both genders suffer enormously – and usually more than they realize. As unbelievable as it might seem, both female and male survivors suffer in surprisingly similar ways. This means everyone can benefit from all of the links, except for the section on loss of physical evidence of virginity. Only “Minor” Sex Abuse? It is not weakness to still be devastated decades after what you might try to dismiss as “minor” sex abuse. Healing is available, but any sexual abuse wreaks such havoc within our being that there can be no such thing as “minor” sexual abuse. “I had always thought it was my fault!” It is common for people to wrongly be convinced that they were to blame for being molested as a child. The more certain you are that it was your fault, the more you need to read: Incest Under normal circumstances, there is a strong natural bond and trust between family members. And sex is divinely designed to bond two people together in a unique and powerful way. The upshot is that it is highly confusing to have been sexually molested as a child by a loved one; especially if the offender pleasured the child tenderly and claimed that the victim was privileged to have experienced that degree of intimacy. Often, even as adults, survivors of this type of abuse so much long to think highly of that loved one that victims find it astonishingly hard to believe that it ever happened. Even those who realize that it occurred, find it hard to accept that this makes the offender guilty of a horrific crime and that the offender is likely to be a danger to other children. These unresolved issues can play havoc with one’s mind and can even end up endangering one’s own children and grandchildren. For spiritual help in getting one’s head around this, The Dilemma of Feeling Pleasure When Abused So powerful is sex that it is almost inevitable that any sexual encounter – no matter how despised and unwanted – will contain elements of pleasure and deep bonding. In an unwanted encounter, these are highly obnoxious consequences of sex but they are such an integral part of sex that they are almost impossible to completely remove from forced sex. This fact is so rarely understood that sex crime victims usually end up loathing themselves or at least being confused and deeply disturbed over what is just a normal reaction to unwanted sex. Vast numbers of abuse survivors know from bitter experience that pleasure inflicted by a sexual predator can be more damaging than severe physical pain. Some survivors, however, have experiences so different that they find this incomprehensible or even offensive. Experiences differ for the simple reason that abusers differ in their techniques. If predators are sufficiently skilled, the pleasure they inflict will be sexual. Otherwise – in the case of pedophiles – the pleasure their victims feel will be the gifts they bribe children with or the attention they give love-starved children. Rapists can even force unwilling adult victims to experience sexual pleasure. This very pleasure inflicts horrific, but quite unnecessary, pangs of guilt. A degree of pleasure or bonding in no way justifies the offender, nor in any way hints that the victim might be perverted or immoral. The memory of pleasure suffered (yes, “suffered” is the right word) during abuse might currently be suppressed but it could surface at any time. So it is good to prepare oneself by learning about this rarely understood consequence of unwanted sex. Short Video about Sexual Abuse Abuse Recovery Video/Documentary During his childhood, Cory’s grandmother repeatedly abused him sexually and physically. This ten minute video provides a mild account and a brief overview of the healing he eventually found. Our uniqueness means there are sure to be aspects of Cory’s experience that differ from yours. Even so, it could help you feel less alone and encourage you to deepen your healing. If You Suffered Childhood Trauma . . . Although it is not uncommon to live in denial of it, if you suffered trauma as a child, the traumatized part of you could have separated from the adult part of you and need special attention. Understanding this can be critical for healing. A webpage that considers what the person who hurt you deserves. The execution of justice on your behalf. Turn hate into healing. For a moving, enlightening and therapeutic experience that could forever change your life, see: Sweet revenge! For another insightful webpage, see Raw emotions: Hate & anger at the injustice of sex abuse Masturbation: Relieving or Reliving the Past? Former generations commonly called masturbation (solitary sex) self abuse. Never is this term more appropriate than when abuse survivors masturbate. It is tragically common for survivors to find themselves uncontrollably hooked on combining this highly addictive behavior with fantasizing about something related to their abuse. If they don’t directly fantasize about their abuse while masturbating, they imagine someone else being abused or they view porn that is somehow associated with the type of sex their abuser had with them. By doing this, comfort, sexual highs, distasteful experiences and self-loathing all get rolled into one destructive package that is as addictively enslaving as heroin. The last thing anyone needs is to add guilt to the mix, but survivors need to be freed from this because, like nothing else it locks a person into continually reliving one’s past abuse and never moving on. Becoming a Winner! This begins a series of webpages about how to break unwanted habits. Sex addiction It is very common for abuse survivors to suffer sexual craving and even addictions to sexual highs. For understanding and compassionate help see Sex Abuse & Sexual Addiction Survivors Feeling Uncomfortable About God Despite their earnest attempts to think differently, it is tragically common for abuse survivors to feel deep down that God, the One who longs to support and heal them, does not like them or might even be like their abusers. For help with this critical issue, see: Fear of God or Fearing Jesus & Healing Sex Abuse Discovering You Don’t Hate God After All In your pain it was natural for you to lash out at the hideous, unfeeling monster you supposed was God. The God you thought you hated is just a figment of your tormented imagination. It’s time you met the real God – your Healer. Where was God when you suffered unspeakable horrors? Life’s Mysteries Explained Discovering God’s love for you Tragically, so many people bungle through life living shallow, wasted lives. Through Jesus we can leave behind a meaningless life of selfishness headed for endless regret. We can choose a life in which every second counts for all eternity, achieving the highest good in union with the God who made you and loves you more than life itself. Life can be crammed with so many urgent things that we forget the really important ones. Don’t let this wonderful opportunity slip from your grasp. Make life’s most important issue top priority. You Can Find Love: What your fantasies reveal A most significant webpage The key to supernatural healing Why Christ’s suffering can change your life. You are loved When you can’t feel God’s love Release from Blaming Yourself Handling guilt is the first of many helpful and encouraging webpages about overcoming guilt feelings. Overcoming Feelings of Worthlessness To God, you are special Power to Escape the Trap of Bitterness Should you forgive your abuser? This most serious, often misunderstood, issue is carefully examined in two special webpages listed below. It is vital for your healing that you read them. So much hinges on this delicate matter. I am convinced that just as martyrs are especially honored in heaven, so are those who have suffered greatly and yet have forgiven. Forgiving others is tough. It is so critical to our own emotional and spiritual well being that our spiritual enemy strongly attacks us on this issue. Nevertheless, divine help is available. People suffering great difficulty in forgiving others usually have as the basis of their agony the (sometimes subconscious) pain of having great difficulty forgiving themselves. The two sides of forgiveness – forgiving yourself and forgiving others – rise or fall together. Many people raging against someone else’s guilt are pressured by a subconscious urge to keep suppressed the tortured screams of their own conscience. Peace soothes our troubled mind when we dwell on the extent of the forgiveness and purity that we have in Christ. When we realize how much God has forgiven us, it becomes easier to act more Godlike and have that same forgiving attitude toward ourselves and others. For this reason, I recommend beginning with the webpages about handling guilt. Breaking the stranglehold of bitterness: Unforgivable! Lord, make him regret what he did to me! How to Stop Degrading Oneself & Find True Fulfillment Sadly, in a desperate attempt to find the peace and comfort they deserve, abuse survivors often end up resorting to inappropriate sexual highs, not realizing that by so doing they end up wounding themselves over and over, and sabotaging their healing. Sex abuse survivors are often among the countless thousands who find themselves trapped in a cycle of guilt, low self-esteem and some form of degrading sex addition (porn, masturbation, sex fantasy, or whatever). For the thrilling news as to how to be set free, see: Overcoming Destructive Thinking Whether it be the desire to hurt yourself, or to hate yourself, or to hate others, it is a temptation. Becoming a Winner! begins a series of webpages about overcoming temptation. Follow the links.

A Second Look at Conjugal Rights Help for Christian Couples When God gave marrieds the gift of sex, he was not handing them a toy. He was entrusting them with nitroglycerin that even within marriage must be handled with holy fear. There are occasions in any woman’s life when marital relations will be painful, frightening, or humiliating. Examples are when a woman has not yet physically healed from illness or childbirth, when she fears intercourse would harm her unborn baby, or when she believes there is a significant risk of a third party invading her privacy. Note that the issue is reality as she perceives it, not as her partner sees it. For women who have suffered sexual abuse, the time that their husbands must restrain themselves will be prolonged. Anyone foolish enough to marry without seriously seeking God’s guidance will have to live with the consequences. Any man, however, to whom God deliberately entrusts a woman who has suffered sexual abuse, is greatly honored. He is like someone into whose care is entrusted an ever-so-delicate, priceless masterpiece, compared to someone who is given an imitation made of unbreakable plastic. One man is treated like someone highly responsible; the other might as well be childishly incompetent in matters of true love. To force sex upon a marriage partner who finds the experience distressing is to take what is divinely intended to be lovemaking and pervert it into sexual abuse. It is sexual abuse, both because it is an abuse of sex and because it is the sexual abuse of the partner. The fact that the abuser is married to the victim makes it no more acceptable than murder becomes acceptable if the murderer is married to his victim. Whether one uses physical force or emotional blackmail – anger, sulking, whining, threatened divorce, etc – makes little moral difference. When marital relations becomes the infliction of significant physical or emotional discomfort, a husband who demands his wife submit to it, has no more right to think God is on his side than a man who tells his daughter she must obey her father when he demands she commit incest with him. If roles were reversed, it would be equally wrong for the wife to attempt spiritual or emotional manipulation to try to force intercourse. Scripture is clear: marriage is divinely designed to give a man the sacred opportunity to be Christlike; sacrificing his life for the woman Christ sacrificed his life for (Ephesians 5:25). Anyone knowingly using sex to inflict physical or emotional pain on his wife has perverted what was intended as an opportunity to be Christlike into an opportunity to be devil-like. My heart goes out to any man whose wife is unable to meet his physical desires. For such a person to do the right thing by his wife will often be sheer agony, but that’s what being Christlike is all about. There was nothing painless about Jesus’ sacrificial death. One man – I’ll call him Ian – tried to tell me that the accumulation of his many years of sexual torment was far worse than what Christ suffered for our sins. I disagree, but Ian’s agony was undeniably intense. However, in contrast to Jesus’ innocence, quite a portion of Ian’s torment was of Ian’s own making. Ian could have continually sought to be filled with the Spirit’s supernatural kindness, gentleness, patience, goodness and self-control, thus empowering him to lay down his life for his wife and be used of God to assist her recovery. Instead, he used porn to inflame his desires and he enslaved himself to sex, letting it drive him to put his wife under horrific emotional pressure – including repeatedly threatening her with divorce or complete marital unfaithfulness if she didn’t comply. By so doing he foolishly made her even more traumatized by sex and so less able to satisfy him. Like all sin, seizing short term pleasure led to his long term loss. Had I swapped places with Ian, my attempts to be Christlike would be shabby, and in my agony, I, too, would have sometimes added to her distress. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge a husband’s duty, and humbly keep seeking the Spirit’s empowering to take us beyond our failings. A woman I’ll call Eve contacted me, desperate to be able to please her husband. She had suffered child sex abuse and had been married for more than ten years. She wrote: You said sex in marriage is a good thing. How can it be so good if it makes me feel so bad? I have never seen sex as lovemaking. It has always been a burden and continually gets worse. I stay up as late as I can, then try to sneak into bed, but that doesn’t work and I find myself having to do my duty, so he won’t get angry with me, so he will speak to me the next day. Each time we “make love” it takes part of me away. I feel totally disgusting, worthless, just plain gross. Each time I fight back the tears until it is finally over – all the time knowing it will happen again and wondering if I can survive another encounter. I don’t want to be this way!! I don’t want to lose my husband. It is a continual nightmare that I cannot wake up from. My heart aches for understanding and release from my torture. My husband likes for me to drink because it used to make me want him. A few times when I was drunk out of my head, I experienced sexual pleasure. That doesn’t even help anymore. I don’t even like drinking. My husband feels he has a right to my body to fulfill his desires and that it is me that is not normal. He says, “Just do it and act like you enjoy it,” and if I can’t enjoy it, he gets mad at me. This man, whom I’ll call Greg, is in league with Eve’s childhood abuser. No doubt the first abuser used all sorts of cruel ways to batter Eve into subjection, making her feel helpless and unable to resist. Exploiting this, Greg took over where her childhood abuser left off. He uses withdrawal of love (refusal to even speak with her) and anger (thus setting off fear, guilt, feelings of inferiority – all the things the former abuser had instilled) to force her into something she is currently unable to do without suffering psychological damage. No wonder that, rather than lessening over time, Eve’s horror of sex was increasing. Such a man is not only a disgrace to Christ, he is a disgrace to manhood. It is no thanks to him that he has not created an alcoholic. Eve was a prime candidate for alcoholism, since alcohol had the effect of temporarily numbing her enormous pain. The Wife’s Responsibility A husband’s duty to sacrifice his life for his wife does not mean the wife should be content to continue to avoid fulfilling her husband’s desires. All marrieds should long for the removal of any obstacles preventing them from giving themselves to their partners. It might take months or years to achieve, but a wife’s goal should be both to thoroughly enjoy marital relations and to satisfy her husband’s every desire. Setting this goal is her responsibility. Achieving it is primarily God’s task, with much responsibility resting upon her husband’s gentleness, self-control and patience. She should be patient with herself and not unwisely hinder her healing – and so ultimately prolong her husband’s distress – by forcing herself to do things for her husband before she is sufficiently healed. The husband’s goal must also be mutual enjoyment, with a particular emphasis upon seeking his wife’s pleasure, ensuring she feels loved, cherished and secure, and seeking the Lord for the grace and wisdom to do all he can to hasten, rather than hinder, her healing. He should focus on delighting in what his wife is presently able to give him, and do his utmost to keep his mind completely off what he is currently missing out on. He should avoid not just physical force but putting any emotional pressure on his wife. Search for the Eternal A time when some women find intercourse painful and/or humiliating is during their menstrual period. I think it significant that under Old Testament law, intercourse was strictly forbidden during a woman’s period – a time when women were ceremonially unclean. Such behavior was forbidden and the penalty for deliberately doing it was severe (Leviticus 20:18). If nothing else, this teaches that even within the confines of marriage, our passions must be subjected to God’s rule. Some Christians believe that a total prohibition on this behavior has, like the whole system of ceremonial uncleanness, been superseded by the New Covenant. I have no comment. My sole concern is to go beyond the specific details of an Old Covenant law to a general principle of indisputable relevance to modern Christians. It seems that by placing limits on marital relations, the Lord was laying down a principle which can be summarized thus: there are times in any woman’s life when God would strongly disapprove of her husband having full marital relations with her. The indisputable occasions when this applies are those when it would cause the wife such distress that for her husband to force himself upon her would be a blatant violation of not some passing law but an eternal principle built into the very nature of God himself – the law of love. Names have been changed.

The following is from someone who has written to me and kindly allowed me to share her story: Twenty-eight years ago I had an abortion. I was on drugs at the time and heavy circumstances convinced me to abort my baby. Six months later, I gave my heart to the Lord and the abortion was one of the things in my heart that I felt regret and hurt for. I asked God’s forgiveness and I knew that he forgave me. I forgave myself and I thought I had let it go. I just tucked it away somewhere inside and thought from time to time about how old she (God had revealed it was a girl) would be but the feeling of being her mother never really occurred to me and I just saw her as an aborted baby with Jesus. Yesterday, a friend and I were talking about where the President stood on abortion and she told me of a woman who believed that abortion was murder and had kept her baby. For some reason, the word murder hit me strongly. I cringed. Then I opened up and confessed that I had had an abortion because I had been using drugs heavily and felt I couldn’t take the chance of severely damaging the baby. As I was saying this to her, a small burst of hurt surfaced. Surprised, I quickly told her I was okay as I was sure God healed me. I had been going through a time where I couldn’t feel God’s presence and I wondered if there was a deeper work God wanted to do in me. Today, I called another friend to pray for me for a breakthrough and I told her it may have to do with me having an abortion so long ago. I told her of God helping me at that time but maybe there was more. We just talked a bit and I was tearful. Then she asked me a question that really stunned me. Had I ever named the baby? I did not know what to say because that baby was a stranger to me. I guess I never thought of her as my child, as I aborted her and she went right to Jesus. I had never even told two of my three other kids about her and somehow that child didn’t seem like mine. Upon being asked that question it became a reality for the first time that she was my baby and was therefore a loss to our family because she would have been a real part of our family had she lived. I was upset with myself for having separated myself from being a mother to her. I cried when my friend told me about her own miscarriage and how as part of her grieving she actually wrote a letter to her child. I was deeply touched and for the first time I realized that my aborted baby was at one time a part of me and she was a loss to me. She was a sister to my three other children and two of them didn’t even know about her. It became very personal for the first time and as we talked more, a name just popped into my mind that I believe the Lord gave me. Her name started with the same letter as all three of my other children starts with. I am still working through this and I wrote a letter, then read it out loud, telling her why I had aborted her and that I was very sorry and that I have missed seeing her grow up. I said some more and told her I gave her a name today. It was all said as if I were talking to her and releasing it at the same time. I feel love for her and a loss at the same time and she is very real to me, not just an aborted baby of twenty-eight years ago. I felt like I had to share this with you. Maybe it could be used for other women who have detached themselves from the aborted baby but still haven’t grieved the loss. God is merciful and he heals. A couple of days later, this woman e-mailed with an update: I have an extra blessing of confirmation that the Lord gave me after I wrote to you. When my friend asked if I had given my baby a name she also told me the true story of a four-year-old boy who died, had several experiences in heaven and lived again. After his recovery, he mentioned meeting his sister in heaven. His parents were puzzled until they remembered their miscarriage. He said his sister was waiting for them to give her a name. That deeply touched my heart. Now for the awesome confirmation: Three months ago another friend gave me a book. I wanted to read it right away with my fourteen-year-old daughter but we had never even opened the cover. The very evening that I shared my story with you – the same day that I had named my baby – I started reading the book with my daughter. To my amazement, it was the very book from which my friend had gained her information about the little boy who said his miscarried sister was waiting to be named. I had been so wanting to read the book as soon I had received it but God had his perfect timing. What are the chances that I would open that book and read about naming the baby on the very day my friend had mentioned it and I gave my baby a name? Wow! I just wept. Footnote: As demonstrated by their views about abortion and euthanasia, Christians regard human life as sacred. In contrast to secular society, they don’t see people as the result of an accident in a primeval swamp, or the meaningless product of human lust. They see the lowliest of us as bearing the image of God himself; made by him and the focus of his love. They believe God values us so highly that he wants to enjoy us for all eternity, and that he has spared nothing to make this possible. © 2012, Grantley Morris . May be freely copied in whole or in part provided : it is not altered; this entire paragraph is included; readers are not charged and it is not used in a webpage. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings available free online at www.netburst.net  Freely you have received, freely give. For use outside these limits, consult the author.

How to Change Your Self-Image & Boost Self-Esteem   Why changing your self-image is so difficult and yet so important       For most of my life I’ve thought it was safe to let my self-esteem flounder. I even thought it would make me more Christlike. I thought I was being biblical – aligning myself with Scripture’s emphasis on humility and dying to self. It turned out I was wrong. Very wrong.     For each of us, our self-image defines reality for us. Our self-image is our North Star. We use it to get our bearings and plot our course through life. If we get our bearings wrong, mistakenly thinking we are at a certain point on a map, we will interpret everything else we see – from close-by all the way to the horizon – according to our mistaken belief. We will get everything wrong and yet, apart from a little confusion, we will have no idea how mistaken we are.     Our self-image is so fundamental that if we get that wrong, we are completely lost and don’t even know it. And that’s such a scary thought that most of us prefer not to question our presumptions.     Should, for example, I think everyone despises me, I would interpret it as an act of spurning me if people typically go about their normal business without interrupting everything to make me the center of their attention. To my warped thinking, people’s normal shyness, fear of rejection, preoccupation with their own affairs, and so on, would “prove” I disgust them. Even if a few people actually went out of their way to say nice things about me, I would dismiss it as an act of insincerity (forcing themselves to be polite, feeling sorry for me, trying to manipulate me, etc.) or based on ignorance (not really knowing me, being poor judges of character, etc.). As a final resort, if anyone acts in a manner I find impossible to squeeze into the categories just mentioned, I would interpret it as “the exception that proves the rule” and would probably even find perverse satisfaction in restoring my equilibrium by deliberately recalling events that seem to confirm my distorted self-image.     So to summarize, for each of us, our self-image seems rock-solid reality, and rather than conclude that we have got it wrong, we interpret everything else to fit our conception of reality. The disturbing thing is that almost all of us have a wrong or distorted self-image, which leads to a wrong or distorted understanding of just how important and loved of God we are and how enormous our ability is to achieve great things.     Everywhere I look, I see people whose lives have been ruined or at least crippled because of a distorted self-image. For example, a heartbreakingly large number of women have confessed to me that they ended up in appallingly abusive marriages because their self-image prevented them from believing they deserved to be treated with kindness, gentleness and respect. Even more people could have glorified their Maker by becoming great achievers, but instead wasted their lives in the mud of mediocrity, simply because they had been deceitfully enticed into the snare of seeing themselves as incompetent.     How We Got in this Mess     With few exceptions, our self-image is not a perspective we have carefully and rationally investigated, but something picked up primarily when we were little, easily influenced, children. We got it from our guess about how we supposed certain people thought of us. These people happened to be very significant in shaping our lives but, like all people, they were very fallible.     We were too young to know any different, but we virtually turned these significant people in our lives into our God – our infallible source of truth. The real God is now challenging us to make him our God, and redefine our sense of reality according to who  he  says we are, rather than the person we have presumed we are – a presumption we have clung to for our entire life, or most of it.     Even those who do not desperately need to redefine their self-image will immensely benefit from the change. Just a small change, however, can seem a scary mega shift. Our whole perception of reality is threatened. It means admitting that we really have been lost and everything we thought was real, was an illusion. Rather than come to terms with that, most of us stubbornly hold on to our twisted and battered self-image; refusing to believe that we have got wrong something so fundamental, even though it was something thrust on us as a child, not an opinion we have carefully – much less, prayerfully – thought through.     Most of us have for so long presumed that we are of little value that we have cemented this lie into our self-image, worshipping it as truth, our North Star. The implications of retaining this false self-image are terrifying, but do we have the courage and sense of adventure to engage in the mega shift of a radically new self-image, or will we remain in the security of the familiar, even though it keeps us languishing in the mud of mediocrity and despair?     All of us were brought up to accept a false self-image. Though we probably did not think of it in these terms, we might have even been subjected to what amounts to relentless brainwashing during our most impressionable years by authoritative-sounding accusations that we are “hopeless’ or “stupid” or other such lies. This so powerfully shapes one’s self-image that the victims accept it as truth and subconsciously reject anything that suggests otherwise.     From the way highly inadequate, but significant, humans in our lives have verbally or even physically abused us, many of us quickly conclude that we are unlovable, and so we interpret everything else in life according to this lie. For instance, our head might tell us that God loves us, but our heart will scream the opposite and refuse to accept the reality of God’s love. Nevertheless, despite what everything in your experience might shriek at you, the truth is astounding: you are of infinite value. That seems beyond belief, so I’ll have to explain.     If we stumbled upon natural diamonds in a wilderness, most of us would ignorantly walk over them and treat them as dirt, having no clue as to their value and how exquisite they would look if expertly cut and polished. Likewise, most people might walk all over you and treat you as dirt, having no clue that you are priceless. Only God sees your true worth because he alone has the astounding expertise to transform you into an exquisite jewel. It matters not what you can do or how others see you. All that matters is the staggering power of God to transform into something of breathtaking beauty what everyone else thinks is a worthless lump.     A diamond is just a piece of rock. It can’t love, talk or think. You can’t eat it, cook with it, hunt with it, keep warm with it, and so for centuries vast numbers of tribal people considered diamonds worthless. A diamond’s worth is based not on what it can do but simply because of what people are willing to pay to have it. You are far more precious to God than tons of diamonds and he paid a far higher price than all the wealth of a million earths – the willing sacrificial death of his holy Son – to have you as his best friend.     Like a huge diamond, your worth is not based on what you do. You are of infinite value because of the infinite price the God of the universe willingly paid for your friendship. And if he has invested so much in you, he will treasure you and cherish you for all eternity.     For your entire life you might have been surrounded by people who were unable to see your value, like primitives who cannot see the value of a diamond. But God’s view of you is astonishingly different.     Who are you going to make your God – your source of truth who determines your self-worth? Will you assign that role to the “ignorant savages” around you, or to the God of infinite wisdom and knowledge who gave his Holy Son for you?     Without Christ, everyone on this planet is a disgusting failure, hopelessly evil and incapable of ever pleasing God. Without Christ, the best of us is ruined, repulsive to God and deserves nothing but an eternity in hell. But you are not without Christ! It is insulting to God to treat yourself as if Christ were a failure; as if all the astounding things he has done at such enormous cost to transform you have achieved nothing. You are divine royalty – a child of the King of kings who is God of the universe.  And God wants you to know it and live it.     Another Big Factor Affecting Self-Image     Let me share a portion of what I have written elsewhere:    Because self-image is so critical and is affected by other people’s opinion:   Your entire life ends up limited by how you suppose other people think about you.     Let’s refine this still further:     How you live is limited by how you suppose other people would think about you  if they knew everything about you.     This addition is critical. It explains why many people can receive an abundance of heart-felt praise and encouragement and it doesn’t do a thing for them. Even if literally millions of people were to think the world of them, they would still feel lonely and unloved and be haunted by an abysmally low self-esteem. Praise is wasted on them because they have no idea whether anyone would praise the person they really are. They have concealed a secret about themselves precisely because they think – usually wrongly – that the truth would completely alter everyone’s view of them.     We can go one step further in our maxim about what determines our self-image and the life we end up living:     How you live is limited by how you think others  whose opinions you respect  would think you are if they knew everything about you.     Some people respect their own opinions so strongly that they are little influenced by the views of others. As Christians, the opinion we most respect should be God’s. In theory, no other opinion should matter to us. In practice, it is almost impossible for us to think God thinks a certain way about us if we suspect that all of God’s earthly servants would think otherwise if they knew all there is to know about us.     Of course, even the refined maxim does not define exactly who you are, but it determines your self-image. It is what you end up genuinely believing about yourself. And it is as difficult as trying to act out of character to avoid acting in complete conformity with your self-image. The self-image God wants Christians to have – the one he has painstakingly portrayed in his Word – is a continual inspiration that fills us with zest for life. The self-image our spiritual enemies want us to have is an oppressive straightjacket.     The Twelve Steps Programs have a powerful saying:     “You are only as sick as your secrets”     The agents of darkness lose much of their power when hidden things are brought into the light. To hide the things that haunt us, treating them as dark secrets to be kept from other Christians, is to try to fight the forces of darkness on their own turf. It is to play into their hands, foolishly putting ourselves at a dangerous and totally unnecessary disadvantage in our spiritual fight.     “ . . . in; the multitude of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14). The cunning enemies of our soul are well aware that their chances of hoodwinking us soar if they can somehow pressure us into isolating ourselves from our greatest human sources of comfort and spiritual wisdom. Their evil strategy is to keep us from sharing with other Christians our deepest concerns because these spiritual con artists know that feedback from God’s children will bring us back to reality and help us see through the lies deceptive spirits have kept whispering in our lonely ears. The forces of evil want exclusive access to the most vulnerable area of our lives.     Every street-wise city dweller knows that to walk alone in the dark is the scariest, most unwise place to be. There is security in numbers.     Beasts of prey are forever on the prowl for sheep that become separated from the flock. To try to isolate us from the counsel and comfort of every Christian on the planet is a truly devilish trick. And this is exactly what happens when we are conned into condemning ourselves to the icy loneliness of keeping an area of our life hidden from even the most trusted of our friends and the most warmly accepting, Christlike person we know. The enemy is happy for us to receive affirmation in those parts of our life in which we don’t need help, as long as we are duped into cutting ourselves off from every trace of love and support in the very area of our life that is causing us the greatest torment. Refusing to unburden ourselves to anyone Christlike makes us terrifyingly vulnerable to spiritual blackmail, demonic delusions, groundless fears, suicidal despair, and being cheated out of all the wondrous privileges that cost Christ everything to lavish upon us.     Child molesters have the condemnation of society and the full force of the law against them and yet still they turn innocent children into long-term helpless victims. It would almost seem impossible they could get away with it, and yet they do because they fill childish minds with false guilt and with despicable lies about the consequences of spilling the beans. They might say, “If you breathe a word of this, whoever hears it will know it is all your fault and that you are the most repulsively wicked person on earth. They will tell your parents who will be so angry and cry for days, wishing they had never had you and punishing you worse than you could ever imagine. Then they’ll have to tell the police, who will arrest you and keep beating you to make sure you tell them every single detail. The story will be headlines in all the newspapers and television, and everyone in the whole world will hate you. Mobs will march through streets burning photos of you and demanding you be executed. The police will throw you in jail for life and all the other prisoners will be do cruel things to you because they know you are so much worse than any of them.”     Such threats are made to seem so real to little children that they dare not say a word, but in terrified silence they suffer unspeakable horrors alone, cut off from all the comfort and protection that would have been theirs.     Thus these law-breakers keep their victims suffering horrifically when in reality help is so close at hand and it is the molesters who should be guilt-ridden and terrified of being discovered. Demonic powers – the slimy agents of evil that lust after your soul and long to dominate you – use the same evil tactics, hounding you with groundless fears in the hope that you won’t breathe a word to someone who could give you the love and comfort and relief you so desperately deserve.     The spiritual lowlife arrayed against us aren’t too excited about us having good, Christian friends that we let into 99% of our life. Nevertheless, they are thrilled if there is just a small but vulnerable area of our life in which we act like loners. We give our spiritual opponents the upper hand whenever, by giving in to false shame, we in effect block everyone out of the very part of our life that is under spiritual attack. That way our enemies have a wounded part of us that they can cause to fester because we won’t let others touch it with the healing balm of their love and understanding and acceptance. They seek an area of your life into which they can keep pouring in false accusations unchallenged by the truth that God imparts through other Christians.     Throughout history, one of the hallmarks of genuine revivals has been the open confession of sin. What seems scary, turns out to be one of the most liberating experiences known to humanity. The ending of guilty secrets brings heaven – that joyous place of transparent honesty – to earth.     One of the most astounding tragedies is that many of those who feel the loneliest, most unloved people on the planet have wonderfully loving friends, families and marriage partners. Their lives seem flooded with love and yet to them it feels like a sham because they are living a lie. You are doomed never to know you are capable of being loved if you shrink from letting anyone know the real you. You can never feel loved while hiding in the bleak, scary, lonely hole of secrecy. Holding on to a guilty secret is the loneliest place in the universe. It is locking yourself up in a haunted dungeon filled with ghosts from the past. It is sentencing yourself to being constantly on edge, afraid of shadows.     The time will come when every secret will be exposed. Get it over with now so that you can start living. Leave it much longer and it could be too late. To freely confess will be your glory. To have it exposed against your wishes will be to your eternal shame.     You might suppose you have no need to share your secret with anyone because it is a matter between you and God. There is no question that God’s view is paramount. If, however, you are too ashamed to tell others about something God says is totally forgiven and is no longer a part of you, it would seem most peculiar. It means you are cutting yourself off from much of the comfort God wants you to have through his children. Moreover, it suggests you are struggling to believe the past has really been cancelled. If so, you would greatly benefit from the support of other Christians and from the knowledge that they accept the real you.     Furthermore, by maintaining the secret, you are keeping others from a blessing. Too many of us act as if our mighty Savior is as pathetic as petty humans who can only forgive “small” sins. We reinforce this heresy when we participate in the giant cover up in which Christians dare not glorify their Savior by declaring the extent of God’s forgiveness in their own lives for fear fellow believers prove unable to believe – or at least unable to act as if they believe – that God is as forgiving as the Bible says. Open confession helps break the satanic conspiracy of silence that causes so many Christians to clam up and makes each think that they alone in their congregation have serious battles with sin. It is the breaking of this silence that helps power revivals.     Help in Breaking Free from the Need to Keep Secrets     Keeping secrets messes us up but what makes bursting out of that dark, icy cold dungeon so scary is that we do not know how people will react. They might reject us or gossip about us or, if we have done something illegal, turn us over to authorities.     We need to be wise and prayerful about who we select to tell. We need to know their integrity and how well they can maintain confidentiality. We also need to somehow get an accurate idea of how what we tell them would affect the way they view us.     I would like to help you get a feel for how people would respond if you were to confess to them. If you are considering confessing to a friend, tell the person, “I have heard of a game to improve friends’ understanding of each other. Could I play it with you? It simply involves dreaming up weird, largely out-of-character scenarios and taking turns asking how the other thinks he/she would respond to that situation. It takes us beyond what we have experienced with each other and so gives us new insights into each other’s attitudes.”     Use your imagination to list every shameful and embarrassing thing you can think of. Fill in the dots below and add any other situations you can think of. If you feel the response you receive is too shallow, question your friend deeper about how he/she would react if the situation were true. Ask your friend, “How would you feel and what would you do if I told you that:     *  I had lied to you all my life about . . .     *  I am addicted to . . .     *  I have told others that you . . .     *  I have secretly thought . . . about you.     *  I have these spiritual doubts . . .     *  I have these daydreams and longings . . .     *  I have cheated you out of . . .”     Don’t restrict yourself to just one possibility per statement. You might like to make it even harder for your friend to guess why you are doing this by adding some scenarios that are not confessions, such as, “What if in the future I . . .”     If you find your friend’s response favorable, slip in your confession, but treat it just like the others, not letting on that it is genuine. Then later decide if you can trust the person sufficiently to confess.     When All Else Fails, the Best is Still to Come     Sadly, it can sometimes be exceedingly difficult to find friends who truly understand us, warmly accept us and think highly of us despite knowing our greatest shame. It is especially difficult if we lack the courage to keep doing everything possible to find such people.     Even for those who persist, however, finding trustworthy friends in their locality might be impossible. For example, I do all I can to support people who have multiple personalities. It is often heart wrenchingly difficult for them to find ordinary people they can unburden themselves with and reveal their condition. The average person would freak out, letting their imagination fly to ridiculous extremes, suddenly fearing the person is dangerous, has demons, or whatever.     No matter what, however, there is always one Person who truly understands you, and what is particularly thrilling is that this Person is the only one whose opinion truly counts because he alone is always right. Every view other than his will end up proved wrong.     To explore the exciting implications, let me plunder something else I’ve written:     You are passionately loved. In the eyes of the one Person who really counts, you are special. To other people you might be just one of thousands, but not to the One who made you. You mean so much to him that what God wants with you is like a perfect marriage in which you can enjoy each other forever.     Believing in the opposite sex does not make one married. Neither does believing a creed give us the right to live with God. It is not enough to walk down a church aisle. True marriage is believing in someone so completely that you commit all that you are, and all that you have, to that person for life. Your Maker is eager to be that devoted to you, but for marriage to work, the commitment must be mutual.     If a street kid married a millionaire, she would get his riches and he would get her debts. He would be tarred with her shame and she would gain his honor. For this to happen, she must turn from rival relationships and bind herself and her meager possessions to this man in marriage. Everything he owns would become hers, if she lets everything of hers become his.     Similarly, if we entrust to God everything we have – our time, abilities, relationships and possessions – he will reciprocate, embracing us with divine extravagance. We hand our depravity to Jesus, relinquishing even our fondest sin. It becomes his. That’s what killed him. In return, Jesus’ sinless perfection envelops us, enabling us to be on intimate terms with the Holy God.     In entering this love pact, we give God the right to do whatever he likes with our assets, but the Owner of the universe makes his riches available to us. We trade our talents, for his omnipotence; our attempts to run our lives, for his unlimited wisdom. We give him our time on earth and he gives us eternity.     In every way we benefit from this proposal and God gets the raw end. But God is in love with you. He wants this holy union more than you can imagine. Don’t break his heart and miss out on the ultimate human experience by holding back.     When Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, instantly she was royalty. Suddenly, she was rich, famous and important. She was one with Charles. His assets and honor became hers, as much as they had ever been his. That is rather like your transformation, the moment you were born again. Your status and assets skyrocketed, although at the time you were only vaguely conscious of the enormity of what happened. (For a little more about the staggering benefits of your union with Christ, see  Spiritual Riches .)     After that famous wedding, Princess Diana underwent a second, much slower and uneven transformation. Step by faltering step, a shy, plainly dressed girl gradually became a confident, sophisticated, superbly dressed woman who captured the admiration of millions. That second change was only possible because she firmly believed in the reality of the first transformation – that she really was royal, rich, important and famous. Had she kept telling herself that she was insignificant, that she had no right to Charles’ money, that nothing she did was of any consequence, she would still have had much, but that second change would never have occurred. As it was, she would probably have blossomed further, had she felt more secure in Charles’ love and in the acceptance and approval of the royal family.     As I stumble to find words to describe the breathtaking transformation of your status and what has taken place within you, let me quote from more of my writings:     Something stupendous happened the moment you spiritually united to Christ. Instantly, your status and potential rocketed heavenward, leaving the person you used to be so mind-bogglingly far behind that, along with every other Christian, you actually need divine psychiatric help (Ephesians 1:16-19; Colossians 1:9; Philemon 6) to grasp the merest fraction of the enormity of what has happened to you.     We Christians are like paupers ecstatic because we think we have inherited $10,000, when we’ve actually received $1 billion. We live chronically impoverished lives and the less we know of our spiritual inheritance, the greater the tragedy.     The gulf between who you think you are and who you really are is so serious and so beyond normal comprehension (Ephesians 3:19-20; 1 John 3:1-2) that whereas some psychiatric patients have delusions of grandeur – supposing themselves to be ridiculously more important than they really are – you and I suffer the opposite problem. What God did within us, without us even knowing it, was so staggering that even Christians with dangerously inflated egos suffer from what I call delusions of insignificance.     The psychiatric definition of a delusion is a false notion that cannot be altered by reasoning. That’s why I could write a million words and the implications still won’t hit home without supernatural revelation. A major task of the Holy Spirit is to help us grasp the enormity of the transformation that has taken place within us (John 16:14; 1 Corinthians 2:9-15; 1 John 4:13; Ephesians 3:3-5; John 14:26; 16:13). It is vital that we keep probing the Scriptures (2 Corinthians 4:6-7) and pleading for spiritual revelation as to who we are in Christ.     Drown the doubts, insecurities and guilt feelings. Cling to the emphatic Word of God that affirms that God’s estimation of you is far too immense for human fame or shame to budge it (e.g., Galatians 2:6; Ephesians 6:9; Job 34:19). Whether the high point of your Sundays is counting the souls you have won or counting the specks on your pew, the King delights in you.     What has happened is so far beyond our expectations that even after glimpsing a little of who we now are, we keep reverting to our old self-image. You are so different to what you once were that it will be a long, uphill battle just to turn your thinking around until your thinking is consistently even in the right direction, to say nothing of it being as far as it should be.     It is so frustratingly easy to let go of the truth about God’s view of ourselves and slip back into our former depressed thinking. Keep praying for a revelation. Keep trying to claw your faith higher. Keep pushing out the million doubts. Keep flooding your mind with the glorious truths that will set you free. And rest in the certainty that Almighty God has invested everything – even the death of his precious Son – to ensure you make it.     Our current mindset and self-image took our entire life to form and harden. To reverse this and create a new self-image corresponding to how the King of kings sees us is a long and laborious process in which it is perversely easy to slip back into our old dreary mode of thinking. In a flash we changed in God’s eyes from a debased child of the devil to an exalted child of God. For us to catch up with this in the way we view ourselves, however, is a slow, arduous slog. In fact, we will need to keep working on it for the rest of our lives.     No Longer the Person People Think You Are     Here’s another quote of mine with the power to change your life if you can fully absorb it:   You Are a New Creation  (you could almost say a new species)     Your old guilt-ridden self is dead and buried. That’s the most wonderful news anyone could hear! Gleefully devour the  Scriptures  that make this announcement to the world! You are a totally different person to the one who sinned. Just as you are utterly innocent of the sins of another person, so you are innocent of your past sins. The devil has no more right to accuse you for Charles Mason’s or Jack the Ripper’s sins than for your past sins.   2 Corinthians 5:17  declares you to be a new creation – a totally new person – because of what Christ has done. The old has passed away. The person who was defeated, the person who sinned, the person who didn’t radiate the beauty of Christ, is dead. You are someone new, a completely different person to the one who, like all of us outside of Christ, had reason to feel ashamed.   Satan could accuse you as much as he liked for Hitler’s sin or Fred Nerd’s folly, but the accusations would be meaningless. You would ignore them because you know you’re not Hitler or Fred Nerd. Likewise, he can accuse as much as he likes about the person you once were, but you can ignore it. That person is dead. It’s not you. It was someone else who did those shameful things. You have a whole new identity. The new you, the person you now are, is pure and holy and righteous and filled with the beauty of God; a prince or princess – a child of the King of kings – heir to the riches of God, someone in whom God delights and is proud of.   No one likes being slandered and that is what Satan is trying with you, but it’s a case of mistaken identity. Satan is accusing the wrong person. The person he’s accusing is dead and buried with Christ. Just ignore him.   When the Accuser Knocks, He’s at the Wrong Address! Imagine you’ve just moved into a new apartment. It so happens that the previous tenant had foolishly amassed a huge debt and then died. The day after moving in, there’s a knock on the door. It’s a debt collector claiming you owe quarter of a million dollars. ‘You’ve got the wrong person,’ you tell him.   ‘I was given this address,’ he replies.   ‘Maybe so, but I’m not the person who owes the money.’   ‘No, this is the address, alright!’   ‘The person you want is  dead! ’   ‘Look! I’ll bring the full weight of the law down on you!’   ‘Please do!’ you reply, ‘the law will prove I’m not the person you claim I am.’   Suppose this goes on day after day. Each time you could slam the door in his face and refuse to listen to his groundless accusations. Or you could choose to waste hours every day arguing with him. Or you could meekly listen to all his insults and foolishly begin to believe him. No alternative would be entirely pain-free. And none of them would change the fact that you are innocent. But clearly some responses would be far more upsetting and disruptive to your life than others.   This, of course, describes your situation, and that of every Christian. You live at the same address as the guilty person – your body. But the person living at that address is a new tenant. No matter who comes knocking at your door, the law (of God) is always on your side. God pronounces you innocent. It’s up to you how much you let the Accuser annoy you. You won’t be able to stop him knocking at your door, but it’s your choice whether you keep ignoring him or invite him in and give weight to his lies. Either way, you are still innocent, but why put yourself through unnecessary torment?   The Old You Died With Christ –  Galatians 2:20   So the old you, the person who had reason to feel dirty, ashamed and inferior, is dead. Christ now lives in you – Christ in all His beauty and purity and perfection; Christ in all his goodness, splendor and favor with God. A little girl, when asked how she dealt with temptation, said that when the devil knocks, she sends Jesus to the door. That’s what you can do. Christ has taken up residence within you. The previous tenant is dead. Christ now lives at your address. You don’t even have to worry about trying to forgive yourself, because the real you, the person you now are in Christ, never did anything that needed forgiveness. The old you, the person who needed forgiveness, no longer exists.   You have been born again –  John 3:3; 1 Peter 1:3;23   Sadly, overuse of the term born again has sapped this mind-boggling expression of its power. It is such an astounding concept as to be almost beyond our powers of intellect to grasp. What more powerful way could there be to convey the fact that, spiritually, you have no past? You weren’t even born when the things your mind accuses you of took place! You can’t get any more innocent than that! What a miracle! What a display of love, for God to do that for you!   (If the sins that haunt you happened  after  you were born again, don’t be disturbed. Once repented of, later sins, like surgically removed tumors, are no longer a part of you. They are a dead issue, a non-event, consigned to the same fate as pre-conversion sins; wiped from heaven’s data banks. (As you keep following the main link at the bottom of each page you will discover entire webpages devoted to reassuring you about sins committed after conversion.)   Maintaining the breakthrough   God has promised you everything mentioned in this webpage, but he never promised you would  feel  it. Father God expects his children to place their confidence not in their fickle feelings, but in the integrity of the one who rises the sun each morning. The Christian religion is rightly called the Christian  Faith . Faith is paramount.   When Jesus successfully resisted every temptation hurled at him in the wilderness, Scripture says Satan left him, not for forever, but for a while  ( Luke 4:13 ). Through Jesus, we too, can have spectacular victories over Satan and he will withdraw,  for a while . He’ll skulk into his hole to lick his wounds, but he’ll be back. That’s not because of any inadequacy in you. He did the same with Jesus. When the battle returns, you’ll need to rush to these webpages to once again take your fill of Scripture’s liberating truths with which to resist the awful, deceptive feelings and accusations he’ll try to land on you. Below are more webpages on the same theme. You might not need them now, but print them off in readiness for when the battle returns.   I also suggest you pamper yourself by regularly reading the following Scripture:   Romans 6:3-12  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin –because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.   Our self-image is of extreme importance because it has serious spiritual implications. For example, an entire generation of Israelites missed out on the promised land and ended up dying in the wilderness because they saw themselves as “grasshoppers” rather than as people who are empowered by Almighty God.   Numbers 13:33   . . . We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.   They based their self-image not on what God said about them but on their past (slaves in Egypt) and their guess as to how others saw them. Actually, despite their seeming logical guess that others viewed them as insignificant, even that was mistaken. (Joshua 2:9-11 For more on this amazing story, see  The Power of Self Esteem: Bible Proof .)   The way we think of ourselves has become a deeply entrenched habit. Any habit is difficult to break, let alone one that has hardened by very many years of constant repetition.   How to Change our Self-Imag e   Earlier I called the way many of us were brought up a form of brainwashing. It literally changes the structure of one’s brain, creating strong neural pathways so that one no longer thinks as other people do. Picture a little child’s brain as a virgin jungle of thorny bushes. When the child has a thought, it is like bashing his way through new territory, leaving behind a few footprints and a few broken twigs. As he slowly matures, every time he takes the same path, that faint path becomes a little more pronounced and easier to take, until it becomes a well-worn track, and eventually a road, and finally a super-highway, along which thoughts effortlessly zoom. For his thoughts to go in another direction, however, is like having to bash his way through virgin jungle again. And if the new thought is not regularly repeated, the faint track is quickly overgrown again, so that he is likely to get lost, even if he makes the huge effort to try to force his thought in that direction. This is a crude analogy of what modern research has discovered actually happens to the structure of one’s brain.   The great tragedy, however, is that most of us who have suffered unhealthy childhood brainwashing end up perpetuating the process by repeating to ourselves over and over the very putdowns that others have told us, even long after these people with flapping gums and shriveled hearts are out of our lives.   Once started, beating oneself up becomes as easy as sliding down a huge Sahara sandhill. It is climbing back up again that is such a hard slog.   It becomes an automatic, almost uncontrollable, response to normal slips to berate oneself with such putdowns as “I’m an idiot!” “I’m a useless waste of space!” “I can never do anything right!” “Everyone hates me!” or whatever becomes one’s favorite way of tearing strips off oneself. This degenerates into a deeply engrained habit, as strong and cruel as heroin addiction and as difficult to break.   There is often a huge difference between what is sometimes called head knowledge and heart knowledge. Put another way: what we intellectually know must be true can be very different to what  feels  true. Usually the only way to move from head knowledge to heart knowledge is by desperately clinging in faith to what we know to be true, and doing all we can to keep on living it and affirming it to ourselves, despite the immense pressure to give up.   What feels true to us largely depends on what we have told ourselves over and over. If we have spent years programing our minds to accept something as truth, reaching the point where the exact opposite  feels  true will be enormously difficult. Each time we tell ourselves something, or accept as truth something someone else says about us, is like putting a weight on one side of a balance. Every time we tell ourselves the opposite is like putting the same size weight on the other side of the balance. If for years we have told ourselves  tens of thousands of times  that we are useless, do you really think the effect on our feelings will be outweighed by affirming to ourselves with conviction a mere  fifty times , “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”?   This does not in any way mean we are doomed to keep believing devastating lies about ourselves, but for a long while we will have to keep clinging to what God declares to be true even though everything within us screams that it does not  feel  true or  seem  true. And it means that we must keep fighting our addiction to repeating lies to ourselves and instead keep repeating to ourselves the truth, as God declares it, over and over until we have done so with conviction enough hundreds of times that it slowly begins to counter the incalculable thousands of times we have repeated lies to ourselves.   But is this Scriptural?   This laborious process is in line with such Scriptures as:   Deuteronomy 6:6-9  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.   Joshua 1:8   Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night , so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.   Psalms 119:11  I have  hidden your word in my heart  that I might not sin against you.   Proverbs 2:1   . . .  store up my commands within you  . . . (Emphasis mine.) It also gels with such Scriptures as:   Luke 10:27   . . . ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and  with all your mind ’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’   Romans 8:5   . . . those who live in accordance with the Spirit  have their minds set  on what the Spirit desires.   Romans 12:2  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by  the renewing of your mind . . . .   Ephesians 4:22-23  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; to be  made new in the attitude of your minds.   Philippians 4:8  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy –  think about such things .   Colossians 3:1-2  Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above , not on earthly things.  (Emphasis mine.) Making the effort to reprogram one’s thought life is even consistent with Scriptures like these:   Proverbs 18:21  The tongue has the power of life and death . . .   Proverbs 18:7  A fool’s mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul.   Matthew 12:36  But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.   Ephesians 4:29  Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.   James 3:6,9-10  The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire . . . With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.   If, as the last Scripture insists, it is wrong to curse anyone made in God’s likeness, it must be equally as wrong to say bad things about yourself because you, too, are in God’s image. And thoughts must be as deadly to us as words, since both we and God hear our thoughts as strongly as if they were screamed at us.   If you beat up a child, loving parents will be upset, no matter which of their children you attack. Regardless of whether it is ourselves or someone else that we despise or hurl insults at, humanity's Maker and Savior takes it personally.   With a little thought, you will see how each of these diverse Scriptures is relevant:   1 John 5:1   . . . everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.   1 John 4:20  If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.   Matthew 5:22  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. . . . anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.   1 Corinthians 6:19-20   . . . You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  . . .   Romans 14:4  Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.   A powerful demonstration of how important God deems self-image is seen in the name changes he initiated, such as Abram – meaning exalted father – being renamed Abraham – exalted father of a multitude (Genesis 17:5), his wife Sarai, becoming Sarah – mother of nations (Genesis 17:5) and Jacob – supplanter – renamed Israel – contender with God (Genesis 32:28). This was not just an Old Testament phenomenon. Jesus gave people new names: Simon, he renamed Peter (John 1:42) and the sons of Zebedee he named the sons of thunder (Mark 3:17). This is also somewhat similar:   John 15:15  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.   Note also the term “Christian name,” which originally referred literally to the name a person receives when baptized.   You might find it helpful to do something similar. If, for example, you use an alias or nickname in emails, you might change it to something that builds your self-esteem. If you use nicknames or pet names with some of your friends, you might also seek a name that uplifts you.   For insight into another biblical example of God seeking to change people’ s self-image, let me again quote myself:   A woman was praying for the home-fellowship I attend when she saw “mighty man of valor” written above me. I don’t care whether you think that was of God; when she shared her experience with me it put steel in my wishbone. That boost has given me an inkling of why God speared those very words into Gideon’s head (Judges 6:12).   I’d have worried about Gideon staggering around with a size 20 head. A healthy self-image must be more important to God than I had thought. Those ego-inflating words coincided with Gideon’s divine call. Faith in those words apparently played a critical role in his future ministry.   Gideon had seen himself as inferior:   Judges 6:15  “But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”   God could not use Gideon until he changed his view of himself.   In fact, most divine encounters recorded in Holy Writ had the effect of highlighting deficiencies in self-image and then correcting the way they saw themselves so as to empower them for ministry. Even though the encounters were supernatural this change of self-image still took effort on their part. The Lord emphasized how he saw them and who they were because of him but they still had to believe it.   Let’s glimpse some examples.   When Moses was called to lead God’s people out of bondage he saw himself as a stuttering no-hoper who lacked what it took to fill this role. The Lord patiently gave him signs – a staff turning into a snake and back again, a hand turning leprous and back again – that the Almighty was with him and that others would accept his authority. Despite these miracles plus the burning bush, Moses still saw himself as incapable until God’s anger was ignited and Moses finally saw this self-image as unacceptable to God (Exodus 3:10-4:14).   Isaiah saw himself as “a man of unclean lips.” Then a seraph touched Isaiah’s mouth with a sacred coal. Thereafter he started seeing himself as having been divinely purified and no longer disqualified from holy service (Isaiah 6:5-8).   Jeremiah saw himself as too young and weak for the task God had assigned him but the Lord told him to change his self-image:   Jeremiah 1:6-9  “Ah, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.”      But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’  . . . Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD. Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth. . . .” “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them. Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land— against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.   Solomon, too, saw himself as too young and stupid to fulfill his calling, so God had to promise him great wisdom (1 Kings 3:7-12). Receiving wisdom was not enough, however. Solomon had to believe he now had the required wisdom or he would never dare use it. There are many highly capable, intelligent people who remain non-achievers because they doubt their God-given abilities. Remember how James says if we lack wisdom, we simply have to ask God for it, but he immediately added that faith is critical (James 1:5-6).   Peter saw himself as an uncouth fisherman so defiled that he should be avoided like a skunk. To Jesus, however, he was someone of immense value to God and to humanity; someone he longed for as a close friend and protégé.   Luke 5:8,9  When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” . . . Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”   Later, after humiliating himself in a cowardly display of disloyalty, Peter slumped to seeing himself as confirmed lowlife with the backbone of a sea slug. Nevertheless, Jesus labored three times to lift Peter’s eyes to see himself as someone who still loved his Lord and as God’s chosen leader of the early church.   John 21:17  The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me? . . . Feed my sheep.”   Paul saw himself as a persecutor of heretics. First, he had to reverse this to seeing himself as a persecutor of the risen Lord and then change his self-image to someone who is on Jesus’ side with the strength to endure great persecution (Acts 9:4-5,16).   The Challenge   Maintaining a revamped self-image is exceedingly hard. Here’s what I wrote near the end of my favorite web book:   Despite my relentless longing to share these truths, it hurts to let this book be published. The more I work on the book, the more immersed in its truths I become. It’s continually washing away layer after grimy layer of negativity and buoying me ever higher. I hate the thought of this process ever ending, but dour experience affirms that it will – soon after I put the book down. I have had to reread it scores of times to halt my slide back into the bog. And still I need it.   Though my need is chronic, I doubt if the mildest affliction could be relieved forever through a single reading of this book. I expect you to feel better after a single dose but regular doses are essential for a permanent cure. So I urge you to keep this book handy, even after completing it. Long-term problems need long-term solutions. I covet a new life for you, not just a momentary easing of the pain. Experience suggests you will need this book year after year. We never reach the point where temptation leaves us forever.   Negative thoughts have been roosting in our heads, pecking away at the fruit beginning to form in our lives. We’ve shooed these pests away, but they will stealthily return. That’s our cue to skim through the book again. Highlight the parts that especially speak to you or uplift you. Personalize them. Write them out. Display them. Memorize them. Add to them. Share them. Live them. They will keep the vermin away and bring you to new levels of fruitfulness.   Find ingenious ways to keep in your consciousness truths you particularly need. At work I must set and use several computer passwords. I might say to myself  I can do all things through Christ , while typing the first letter of each word. ICDATTC then becomes my new password. No one could guess such an apparently random string of letters and I can remember it only by rehearsing in my mind that positive declaration every time I must use it. Perhaps you could put a little heart somewhere to remind you how much you are loved by God. There are thousands of possibilities. Finding some that work for you will be well worth the effort.   I’d be thrilled if my expressions sometimes help. I have tried to shape them to stick in slippery memories. But don’t be chained to my words. Using your words will help the truths become yours. And don’t be confined to the paltriness of my insight. Hound God with the passion and confidence of a cherished lover until you receive your own Bible-based, Christ-centered revelations.   No matter how hot it’s served or how much it’s sweetened, second-hand revelation is as insipid as second-hand tea leaves unless the Holy Spirit comes upon you, exploding those words within you with such power that it becomes your own divine encounter. A hand-me-down word from God might bring a little refreshment, but a truth super-charged by the Spirit of God percolating through one’s life is so superior that no cost is too high a price to pay for it. Fervent prayer and Bible meditation is the usual price.   Though I have prayed incessantly that this book bless you as much as it has me, I fear I’m asking God to break one of his principles. Why should he command us to seek and to ask and devote our lives to poring over Scripture unless that’s the way he prefers to reveal his truth? It is truths in the heart, not words in a book, that set us free. And lodging them there takes spiritual and mental effort. I crave the joy of serving you by doing all the prayer and study, but that’s like trying to play tennis for you – I get the healthy exercise and you miss all the fun.   I admit it: repeating positive truths to ourselves seems like eating chalk much of the time, but it is not something we can afford to be lazy about. Like clawing our way out of a deep hole, causing our self-image – the way we habitually think of ourselves – to align with spiritual reality is hard work, but very much needed.   This is All Wrong   Discerning Christians will realize that this whole webpage is twisted. Only now, however, are some of us ready to face the reality that if our self-image is our North Star, it shouldn’t be.   Instead of focusing on ourselves and our inadequacies, we should be continually reminding ourselves of, and delighting in, our God and his perfection. This is why the Bible is filled with such declarations as:   Psalms 34:1   . . . his praise will always be on my lips.   Psalms 35:28  My tongue will speak of your righteousness and of your praises all day long.   Psalms 63:6  On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.   Psalms 145:2  Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever.   Philippians 4:4  Rejoice  in the Lord  always.  I will say it again: Rejoice! (Emphasis mine.)   Our entire lives fall into a heap when we exalt ourselves or other people as our Judge. That position belongs to God alone.   We often recoil from seeing ourselves through God’s eyes because we have supposed that if even we or other people look down on us, the Almighty must be infinitely more critical.   It is undeniable that the Holy Lord’s standards are terrifyingly more exacting than our own, but we have grossly underestimated the infinity of his love that yearns to forgive and to pronounce us perfect. Moreover, we have failed to grasp how our Judge, at the incredible cost of the perfect Son of God swapping places with us on the cross, has made it possible to pronounce us perfect, despite the appalling magnitude of our sin.   Extolling the Almighty’s greatness over and over and over will accomplish little if we regard God as a remote being. For continually praising God to achieve what he wants, it must be combined with an awareness that not even the deepest imaginable marital union matches the wonder of our union with God through Christ.   1 Corinthians 6:16-17   . . . For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.   To be one flesh is superficial, relative to being one spirit. We are in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 5:17) and he is in us (Ephesians 3:17; Colossians 1:27). We have merged with God on such a profound and intimate level that it surpasses what is humanly possible. We have explored the implications of a street kid entering into a perfect marriage with a millionaire, but this level of oneness is totally eclipsed by our union with God. Unlike human marriage, we do not part, spending much of our lives separate as we go about our own business during most days and sometimes spend little more than evenings and weekends together. Neither do we have a “till death do us part” relationship with God. Indeed, to die is to be “at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).   Like trying to describe the Trinity, our intimacy and extent of our union with God defies analogy. Here are some biblical efforts to describe the indescribable:   God is your shield, behind which you are safe   Psalms 3:3   . . . you are a shield around me, O LORD . . .   Psalms 18:30   . . . He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.   Being continually cradled in God’s arms   Deuteronomy 1:31   . . . the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son . . .   Deuteronomy 33:27  The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. . . .   Psalms 73:23  Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.   Isaiah 40:11  He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart . . .   Isaiah 46:3-4   . . . you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs . . . I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.   Isaiah 63:9  In all their distress he too was distressed . . . In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them . . .   God clothing himself with you   Judges 6:34   . . . the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon with Himself . . . (Amplified Bible)   You clothing yourself with Christ   Galatians 3:27  for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.   Romans 13:14  Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ . . .   Christ being formed within you   Galatians 4:19  My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.   Here is a Scripture about the role of the Holy Spirit that used to puzzle me:   John 16:14-15  He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.   Why is it so vital that the Spirit  make known  the spiritual riches that belong to the risen Lord, rather than simply make those riches available to us? For us, becoming spiritually one with Christ and thus gaining all that is his, is a breeze. Our Lord is so eager for this that he instantly does it the moment we are born anew. Our difficulty lies not in entering the union but in grasping the mind-boggling implications of that union. It is in this area that we need what I earlier called divine psychiatric help.   You are joined to the divine King of kings; a living part of him, as a branch is a part of a vine, with his very life flowing through you, bringing growth and fruit. The God of perfection lives in you, and you in him. The Almighty is your strength, your joy, your love, your life, your hope, your glory. His honor, his victories, his power, his perfection – all that he is – is yours.   To be born of God means you have, as it were, his very genes. And are not just his child – as astonishing as that is – you are a part of the Eternal Son’s very body (1 Corinthians 12:27). Marvel at the implications: it means that he feels everything that happens to you and it affects him profoundly. (Consider, for example, how the head – the brain – is acutely aware even of an itchy back, a speck in the eye, a runny nose, a stubbed toe, an insect in the ear or a burnt finger.) Being part of his body means that where he goes, you go; what he achieves, you achieve. And, as a nose is part of a person’s beauty, you are a part of his beauty.   Serious Blockages to Changing our Self-Image   Blockage 1: Having a Low Opinion of God   Since we are naturally driven to continue accepting as reality the view of ourselves that we have long held, we can even find ourselves despising God’s opinion rather than having our perception of reality shattered. Even if we accept that God sees us in a better light than other people do, we can tell ourselves such things as: “Oh, he’s just God. He  has  to love everyone. I’m not in heaven; I have to live on earth. God’s opinion doesn’t matter much down here.”   Whenever we idolize other people’s opinion, we dethrone God in our lives and worship creatures rather than the Creator.   Ponder the thrilling implications of these Scriptures:   Exodus 23:22  If you . . . do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.   Isaiah 40:17  Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing.   Isaiah 54:17  no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me . . .   Isaiah 45:24  They will say of me, “In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.” All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.   And consider these hints at how significant God’s view of us is:   Luke 6:26  Woe to you when all men speak well of you . . .   Luke 12:4-5  I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.   Luke 16:15   . . . What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.   John 12: 41-44  I do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. . . . How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?   Romans 14:4  Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.   1 Corinthians 4:3-5  I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.   1 Thessalonians 2:6  We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else.   We should keep moving towards the point where no one’s opinion matters to us except God’s alone. He alone is Truth.   Blockage 2: Fear of Pride   Sincere Christians can mistakenly think they are avoiding pride (and hence pleasing God) by putting themselves down.   I passionately believe in humility and dying to self but both of these include dying to our own self-image – our perception of truth and how we think others see us – and accepting God’s view of ourselves as the only valid one.   It is not humility, but the height of arrogance to treat our own view of ourselves as more accurate than God’s.   It is vital that we understand the nature of true humility and rid ourselves of all false conceptions. Permit me to adapt what I have written elsewhere:   The issue of pride and humility is a deathtrap strewn with confusion and false concepts. Let’s clear this minefield before anyone else is hurt. We’ll begin with the analogy of a lamb in Bible times.   Pride says, “I can find better pasture than the Shepherd. I’ll always find water. I can handle bears, and lions are probably a myth invented by the Shepherd so he can dominate me.” That’s dangerous.   Godly humility rejoices in the certainty that the Shepherd knows best. Having abandoned faith in itself or in luck, it puts all its hope in the Shepherd, believing that to leave him out of sight for a second is to flirt with disaster. This virtue hugs the Shepherd, delighting in his every whisper, feasting on his goodness. Sometimes humility is led over rocky terrain but ultimately it enjoys the best pasture and the highest security. Not only is it not mauled by predators, it produces the best wool and the best offspring. It sometimes staggers up hills to stay with its Shepherd but it frolics in the warmth of the Shepherd’s love.   There’s an attitude masquerading as humility, however, that beats itself miserable. “I’m dumb. I’m ugly. I’m hopeless.” Give no room to this imposter.   Just to be sure you have grasped the difference between this beautiful quality and the ugly imposter that beats oneself up, let me quote from something else I’ve written:   James 4:6   . . . God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.   For most of my life, scriptures like this have filled me with such dread of the dangerous trap of pride that I felt driven to avoid it at all costs. Tragically, this commendable attitude got me nowhere. My godly intentions were sabotaged by such a mistaken understanding of pride that all I managed was to fall into false humility. I wrongly thought I could foster humility by thinking negatively about myself. To my horror, I eventually discovered that false humility is itself a form of pride.   I correctly understood that if I thought I could achieve anything of lasting value without God’s help, or if I thought I were moral enough to gain God’s approval outside of Christ’s forgiveness, then humbling myself involved lowering my opinion of myself. My mistake was in wrongly concluding from this truth that the basic ingredient of humility is having a low opinion of oneself.   Godly humility flows not from thinking lowly of oneself but from seeing things through God’s eyes. Pride is having the audacity to disagree with God. It is saying I know more than the God of the universe; my puny intellect knows better than the Almighty; the God of truth is wrong and I am right.   Since the God of love sees you as lovable, and true humility involves taking God’s assessment of everything as gospel, humility requires you to see yourself as lovable. If God sees you through eyes of love, how dare you see yourself in a different light, as if your perspective is right and your Creator and Savior is wrong? If God forgives you, to refuse to forgive yourself is to have the audacity to imply that you have higher moral standards than the Judge of all the earth; that you are holier than the Holy Lord. Isn’t that the very pinnacle of pride? Please avoid this deadly trap.   Make God your God by agreeing with him. He says you are the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). Dare you exalt yourself above God by disagreeing with him? Stop wounding yourself by squandering your faith on a lie, thus robbing God of faith that should be invested in him. Refuse the sinful, pride-filled path that deceptively seems humble but is actually implying that you know better than the Almighty. Set yourself free. Embrace God’s truth.   Our goal – and God’s goal – is for us to become increasingly Christlike. But what was Christ like? Jesus’ own behavior confirms that a good self-image is compatible with humility. He maintained a healthy self-image even when telling everyone how humble he is:   Matthew 11:29  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.   “He was only telling the truth,” you protest.   Yes, Jesus is the Truth – he said so himself – but when you put yourself down, you are not declaring God’s truth. Instead, you are copying the devil who is “the accuser of our brothers,” (Revelation 12:10) – and you, too, are among the brethren he would love to accuse – and this accuser is a compulsive liar (the “father of lies” – John 8:44).   We are tempted to disqualify Jesus as a role model because he was divine. The apostle Paul, however, was certainly not divine but under divine inspiration he wrote:   1 Corinthians 4:16   . . . I urge you to imitate me.   1 Corinthians 11:1  Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.   That itself sounds far from putting himself down, but if the Word of God tells us to imitate Paul, let’s examine how he saw himself. Even though he called himself the least of the apostles (1 Corinthians 15:9) and “less than the least of all God’s people,” (Ephesians 3:8) and so on, the apostle had a robust self-image. For more details, see  Jesus’ Self-Image & Paul’s .   Blockage 3: Thinking God Should Change our Self-Image   A dangerous mistake is to presume that God should do for us things he expects us to do. To suppose God should change our self-image or boost our self-esteem is like thinking God should read the Bible for us or give up smoking for us or provide us with an income while we waste our lives away watching daytime television.   Someone has said that God is the world’s fastest chess player – it’s always our move. It is disturbingly easy to squander valuable years waiting for God to move when he is waiting for us to move.   God has already done his part. He loves you. He made you in his image, and despite sin marring the perfection he created, he is using everything that touches you to transform you into the very image of Christ, and he already sees in you the beauty and glory that will one day be visible to the entire universe.   Romans 8:28-29  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son . . .   2 Corinthians 3:16,18  But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. . . . And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.   2 Corinthians 5:17,19,21  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! . . . God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.  . . . God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.   Yes, God has already done his part: your part is to believe it. Over and over, Jesus commended or chided people according to how much faith they exercised (see  Faith is Our Responsibility ). God holds us accountable for how much we believe. Our Lord is way too intelligent and righteous to praise or rebuke people for something that is entirely God’s doing. As in the parable of the talents, God gives but then it is up to us to use and develop it.   Our Lord does not condone laziness. The same God who made our bodies made our spirits. Just as “no pain, no gain” is an unchangeable truth in the physical realm, so it is in the spiritual.   Our goal should be to consistently see ourselves in a way that truly honors the God who loves us and has re-made us. If, however, it takes enormous amounts of practice – irksome repetition – to become a concert pianist, a tennis star, a sniper, or whatever, we cannot expect perfecting our self-image to come easily. Any want-to-be champions who consider countless hours of repetition to be beneath them will languish in mediocrity. No matter how naturally gifted they are, they will be left behind by those willing to put in the effort.   Regardless of how bitterly we complain about sowing being boring and repetitive, and no matter how long it takes before we see the benefits, the fact remains: those who sow little, reap little (2 Corinthians 9:6; Ecclesiastes 11:6; Proverbs 6:10-11). And this truth is preserved in the most spiritual of all books: the Bible.   Although the Almighty occasionally does things for us that take no effort on our behalf, he is too loving and wise to regularly do this for us. This is because, despite what we might think, it turns out not to be in our own best interest. I explain why this is so in a link at the end of this webpage ( Life’s Mysteries Explained ).   Blockage 4: Leaving it to Other People to Determine our Self-Image   Thinking it is the role of others, not us, to boost our self-esteem and encourage us is as foolhardy as letting every decision in our lives be determined by the flip of a coin. Letting other people’s opinion – or whether they ever get around to expressing any good opinion they have of you – determine your self-esteem or your emotional well-being or your motivation, is on par with relinquishing control over your own life and destiny and signing it over to other people.   Final Thoughts   We have seen that it is in our selfish interest to make God our North Star but what a pathetic reason for doing it! In the way we view everything, we should exalt God as our Judge because it is the right thing to do and because only his judgments will stand for all eternity. He truly is Judge and pretending otherwise is burying our head in the sand.   One final, critical point:   Don’t expect to be granted the gift of seeing yourself through God’s eyes if you are unwilling to see everyone else – including those you despise – through God’s loving eyes. Over and over God emphasizes in his Word the necessity of being as nonjudgmental and forgiving of others as we want God to be of us. As we give to others, so it will be given to us.   Let’s stop usurping God. Let’s dare seek his heart until we view ourselves and everything else from God’s perspective – the only perspective that is true. And then the truth shall set us free.   If you are serious about seeing yourself as God does, bookmark this webpage, or record the web address, so that you can read each of the links below and keep returning here for more links.

The Unexpected Reason for God Seeming Distant   The Dark Side of My Life   By Helen Hall      Suddenly there was a brick wall in my spiritual life and I had to find out why.   I had been a Christian for over thirty years when, without warning, the inexplicable hit my spiritual life. It was as though God was never home when I called, his door was slammed shut in my face and even his phone was off the hook. I was bewildered, frustrated and alarmed. God, my best friend, was refusing to talk to me. Why?   Knowing that Psalms 66:18 says, ‘If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened,’ I searched my heart and conscience. I could find nothing that would cause the Lord to give me the silent treatment. God seemed totally disinterested in me, and he wouldn’t even tell me why! I kept begging him to tell me what had gone wrong. Finally, I felt that the Lord put it into my mind to discuss it with Mark, an elder in my church.   I sought out Mark. We chatted for about an hour, but nothing seemed to click. As he closed in prayer he said, ‘Lord, if any of Helen’s difficulty is caused by contact she has had with the occult, please show her.’   A light immediately switched on in my soul!   Yes, I had had such contact. Indeed, I had always been fascinated by the occult – that mysterious supernatural world, where people have strange powers, and can influence the lives of others; the realm of fortune-telling and séances, the paranormal, and – as Mark so clearly pointed out – the realm of Satan and his henchmen. I was stunned. Until that moment, I had had no idea that even the ‘white,’ ‘good’ side of the occult was evil.   I have often heard it said that ‘Ignorance is bliss (perfect happiness).’ But life itself teaches us that statement isn’t true. It is not bliss to be unaware that you have a large debt. It is not bliss to be unaware that you have a mental illness. It is not bliss to be unaware that you have cancer that can only be cured if treated soon. And it is definitely not bliss to be unaware that buried deep inside you is something that could put you in grave spiritual danger.   Mark helped me see that the occult aspects of my life had opened a door through which unclean spirits could reach me. I needed to slam shut that door by specifically asking God’s forgiveness and cleansing from this defilement and making it abundantly clear to the entire spirit realm that anything to do with the occult was now off-limits to me.   Mark instructed me to go home, and ask the Holy Spirit to show me every incident in my life, whether deliberate or not, where the occult had been involved. Once I had written down everything that came to mind, I was to confess each item as sin. This, after Mark’s explanation, I could understand. What puzzled, and rather annoyed me, however, was him saying I should include in my list of sins all involvement in the occult by my parents and grandparents. Why should I confess as  my  sin things others had done?   Mark helped me understand by reminding me of something I couldn’t deny: in the physical realm we can inherit from our ancestors a susceptibility to a heart condition, cancer, and so on. Likewise, in the spiritual realm, he explained, we can inherit a susceptibility to demonic influence if our ancestors invited demonic activity into their lives and families by their involvement in the occult.   As Mark bluntly put it: ‘Suppose you are visiting a Head of State. As you approach the main entrance, you accidentally step in doggie dung. Are you going to leave that stuff on your shoes because you weren’t responsible for it being there? You are not to blame for the filth getting on you. Nevertheless, you should be held accountable for not doing what you could to remove it. Likewise, it is wrong to dishonor the Holy Lord by coming into his presence dirtied by the activities of unclean spirits, no matter how that soiling came about.’   The Bible is filled with the teaching that, until we do what we can to remove the contamination, God can hold us accountable not only for our own sins but for the sins of others. For example, when God brought down the walls of Jericho, the Lord instructed the Israelites to take nothing from the city but to destroy everything. It seemed a senseless waste, but it was God’s command. Just one man – Achan – secretly disobeyed by hiding a few small items in his tent. With the possible exception of his immediate family, no one knew of his sin. Nevertheless, the Lord removed his blessing from the entire nation, as if they had all sinned. Stunned and perplexed, they sought God as to why he was acting as if he were not with them. He revealed to them the sin they had had no personal involvement in it. They then took action, destroyed the hidden items that God had forbidden them to keep, and again enjoyed God’s blessing (Joshua 7).   Confessing someone else’s sins was a totally new concept to me, but Mark showed me that it is thoroughly scriptural.   Nehemiah 9:2  Then those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors. (NRSV)   Daniel 9:8,16  Then those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors. . .  because of our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people have become a disgrace among all our neighbors. (NRSV)   I was particularly moved that Daniel had prayed like this, since I know of  no  specific sin in Daniel’s own life.   And so I learnt that not just my sins, but the wrongful deeds of my ancestors needed to be renounced.   ‘Renounce’ is a word that is not used very often these days. It means to announce your determination to have absolutely nothing to do with something you were previously associated with. You regret ever becoming involved in it and completely turn your back on it; refusing not only the unpleasant consequences, but any supposed benefits.   I drew up my list of involvement with the occult and was astonished at its length. Your list might have just one, seemingly insignificant item, but it could still affect your spiritual life.   On my mother’s side:   *  Her father was a very active Freemason   *  She consulted fortune-tellers and used to take me with her   *  Her favorite book was a non-fiction account of witches and their activities   *  She belonged to a spiritualist ‘church’ – a group that believes in making contact with the dead. This is explicitly forbidden by God:   Deuteronomy 18:10-12  Let no one be found among you who . . . consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD.   On my father’s side:   *  His mother belonged to a spiritualist ‘church’   *  He was an avid reader of books by a popular writer of occult fiction.   *  He was a Freemason.   Many Christians see Freemasonry as just a fraternal organization, doing good works in the community. This is not the whole story, however. By such things as invoking curses on themselves if they break their Freemasonry vows, Freemasons try to contact the supernatural without going through Jesus, and this is always spiritually dangerous and offensive to God.   Having dealt with what I had inherited from my parents, I then, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, closely examined my own life.   *  I, too, loved my mother’s book about witches   *  I had become addicted to the same popular writer of occult fiction as my father   *  I had read my ‘stars’   *  I had been willing to be hypnotized – to let someone other than the Holy Spirit take control of my mind   *  I was fascinated by magic. Those who deliberately, knowingly involve themselves in the occult are after two things: knowledge and power. Through the knowledge of the black magic arts, such as spells, divination, they seek to gain power to control the lives of others. All this sounded very exciting to me. I was particularly interested in astral travel, ESP (extra-sensory perception), and telepathy. I would have loved to have psychic powers.   *  I loved the mythology of pagan Greece and Rome. (It was only recently that I realized that some of these legends had elements of bestiality in them – another practice that is detestable to Almighty God.)   *  I had been guilty of divination – the practice of trying to foretell future events by the aid of supernatural powers. In the days before ultrasounds, while awaiting the birth of one of my children, I had put my wedding ring on a string and used it as a pendulum over my abdomen to find out the sex of my unborn baby.   *  I had once owned a fortune-telling game. Having a flair for the dramatic, I was able to convince people that I was a genuine fortune-teller.   *  As a child, I used to listen to a creepy radio story called, ‘The Witch’s Tale’   *  Later in life I had enjoyed horror movies about the occult.   As Mark suggested, I renounced individually each item on my list. I even repented of having enjoyed an unrealistic television series that portrayed witchcraft as fun. You might think me extreme, but I now wanted to have God’s attitude to the supernatural and he does not see witchcraft as innocent fun.   God says about witches (or sorceresses) and witchcraft:   Exodus 22:18  Do not allow a sorceress to live.   Deuteronomy 18:10-11  Let no one be found among you who . . . practices divination [fortune-telling] or . . . engages in witchcraft, or casts spells.   1 Samuel 15:23  For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft . . .   Galatians 5:19-20  The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft . . .   Many Christians might view this old television series as harmless. After all, it had almost no similarity to real witchcraft. Nevertheless, I wanted to leave the spirit world in no doubt that my rejection of the occult was uncompromising. I was determined to leave no little opening where they might worm their way in, tempting me to compromise little by little until it became serious.   I had done everything on my list in ignorance and so God, in his grace, had tolerated them for a time. But in his grace he now showed me how dangerous these things are and how offensive they are to him, so that I could get rid of them, and thus stop stagnating spiritually, and enjoy even closer fellowship with my Lord.   There were also things I had to get rid of, and I knew that meant destroying them, not giving them away or selling them. These items included:   *  My pendant with my ‘star’ sign   *  An occult board game   *  All the fiction books I had about the occult   *  An Encyclopedic set about telepathy, clairvoyance, tarot cards, and so on. This set was beautifully presented, very artistic, on high quality paper, and had cost me a lot of money. Nevertheless, it had to go. And it did - into the incinerator.   Then once again I enjoyed sweet fellowship with my Lord in my everyday life. What a blessed relief!   I now know that if God hadn’t given me the silent treatment I would not have made every effort to find out what was wrong in my life and put it right. And it was only a few months later that I realized how gracious the Lord’s timing had been.   My husband and I went for a cruise to the South Sea Islands. Entertainment on board the ship included classes on Numerology, Clairvoyance, and so on. Had it not been for my new understanding I would have lapped all those up and perhaps brought myself into further bondage. Now I would sooner be infected by SARS than be involved in such things. SARS can’t damage my fellowship with God!   Mark had warned me about the possible danger of buying typical artifacts from pagan countries. Sometimes the masks and idols they sell have been prayed over with prayers offered to evil spirits. They could therefore become a source of spiritual infection. When my husband wanted to buy these artifacts, I asked him not to, but since he wasn’t born again he didn’t understand. As 1 Corinthians 2:14 says:   The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.   From the moment I knew that my husband had these artifacts in his possession I was able to pray against them, even though I was able to destroy them only after my husband died years later.   There are other things perceived by many people, including Christians, as ‘just fun’, but , are actually occult tools of Satan. See Occult Dangers (below) for a little more on this.   Ephesians 4:30  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.   1 Thessalonians 5:19, 22  Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; . . . Avoid every kind of evil.   Dear reader, if there could be openings in your life to ungodly spirits because of contact you (or your ancestors) have had with the occult, please get it sorted out with the Lord now. You have everything to gain. I recommend most strongly the following webpages I wish they had been around when I was having my lean time.   NOTE:  There are other reasons for God seeming distant. For insight into this, please see: When God Seems Far Away