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A Biblical Examination Matthew 11:13-14  For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John [the Baptist]. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Matthew 17:10-13  His disciples asked him, saying, “Then why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus answered them, “Elijah indeed comes first, and will restore all things, but I tell you that Elijah has come already, and they didn’t recognize him, but did to him whatever they wanted to. Even so the Son of Man  [Jesus]  will also suffer by them.” Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptizer. First, we should note that both Elijah and John the Baptist were so exceptional that whatever happened in their case is most unlikely to apply to anyone else. Elijah never died: 2 Kings 2:1  As they continued on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. . . . He [Elisha] also took up Elijah’s mantle that fell from him . . . This was no metaphor: other prophets were so certain that Elijah had been alive when taken that they sent out fifty people to hunt for him lest the fiery chariot had deposited Elijah somewhere (2 Kings 2:16-18). Not surprisingly, what happened to Elijah was such an abnormal event that of all the thousands of deaths recorded in Scripture, it contains no other account of anyone else ending their time on earth via a fiery chariot. John the Baptist, too, was exceptional to the extreme. Jesus declared this man was the greatest of all prophets: Luke 7:24-28  When John’s messengers had departed, he began to tell the multitudes about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? . . . A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet. . . . For I tell you, among those who are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptizer, yet he who is least in God’s Kingdom is greater than he.” More than this, however, the angel Gabriel told John’s father that John would “be filled with the Holy Spirit  even from his mother’s womb ” (Luke 1:15 – emphasis mine), and while he was still in the womb he recognized Jesus in Mary’s womb as being the Messiah: Luke 1:41-44  When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She called out with a loud voice, and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! . . . when the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy! . . .” Most Christians see it as so exceptional as to be almost incomprehensible that John the Baptist had the Spirit of God upon him not just from an early age but from before his birth – before he even had a chance to seek spiritual cleansing. So both John the Baptist and Elijah were so exceptional it would be really stretching it to say that if reincarnation occurred in John’s case it would normally happen for other people. But there is more than this against using it as a suggestion that it suggests reincarnation. The angel Gabriel, declared to the father of John the Baptist about his son: Luke 1:17  He will go before him  in the spirit and power of Elijah , ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to prepare a people prepared for the Lord. This is a reference to the Old Testament prophecy: Malachi 4:5-6  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. Note that Malachi says the prophet will be Elijah but the angel Gabriel clarified the meaning to John the Baptist’s father by declaring that John would be “in the spirit and power of Elijah” i.e. not literally Elijah but having his spiritual anointing. Someone having Elijah’s “spirit” had already occurred previously. Soon after Elijah was taken alive into heaven, we read: 2 Kings 2:15  When the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho over against him saw him, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” They came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him. That was in fulfilment on this promise: 2 Kings 2:9-10  When they had gone over, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let a double portion of your spirit be on me.” He said, “You have asked a hard thing. If you see me when I am taken from you, it will be so for you . . .” Of course, Elijah did not reincarnate into Elisha. Elisha had been Elijah’s assistant for years (1 Kings 19:19-21). There is also precedent for the spirit of a prophet coming upon other people even while the prophet remained on earth: Numbers 11:17, 25  I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit which is on you, and will put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you not bear it yourself alone. . . . The Lord came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was on him  [Moses], and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied . . . Deuteronomy 34:9  Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands on him. The children of Israel listened to him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. Clearly, this has nothing to do with reincarnation but with spiritual anointing. Likewise, it is highly unlikely that the Bible means that John the Baptist was literally Elijah but that he had the same spiritual anointing as Elijah. Consider also this: Luke 9:29-33  As he [Jesus] was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became white and dazzling. Behold, two men were talking with him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory, and spoke of his departure . . . As they were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let’s make three tents: one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah,” not knowing what he said. This appearance of Elijah is also recorded in Matthew 17 and Mark 9 and in all three accounts of this event there is no mention of John the Baptist. The man Jesus spoke with was consistently and solely referred to as Elijah. The disciples had been extremely close to John the Baptist (e.g. John 1:35-42) and if the two prophets were the one person and he appeared speaking with Jesus, one would expect them to instinctively think of this person as Jesus’ cousin (Luke 1:36), John the Baptist, not as Elijah. Moreover, when John the Baptist was questioned as to whether he was Elijah, he specifically denied it: John 1:19, 21  This is John’s testimony, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” . . . They asked him, “What then?  Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not .”. . . The simplest explanation of this emphatic denial is that John the Baptist was not literally Elijah, nor was this ever the meaning of Malachi’s prophecy. He simply had a prophetic calling and spiritual gifting of the magnitude of Elijah’s powerful anointing, just as Elisha was not literally Elijah but had “the spirit of Elijah” – his amazing prophetic gifting, and as the seventy elders received the Spirit that was on Moses, thus empowering them to prophesy.

Jesus’ “Lost” Years The people of India are of extreme importance to God – so much so that the eternal Son of God visited this planet in human form specifically to offer his sinless life as the only sacrifice holy enough to atone for human spiritual shortcomings so that Indians could have full access to the terrifyingly holy Almighty God of the universe. The same is true for every tribe and language and people group on this planet: Revelation 5:9-13  They sang a new song, saying, “You are worthy to take the book, and to open its seals: for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood, out of every tribe, language, people, and nation, and made us kings and priests to our God, and we will reign on earth.” . . . As the risen Lord, Jesus not only visits India but reigns in the hearts of large numbers of Indians – and Chinese, Africans, Europeans and so on. But did Jesus visit India sometime within the short period between the time he reached maturity and the age of thirty when he commenced the ministry in Israel that lead to his sacrifice in Jerusalem? Ground Rules I have a dilemma. Things I wish I could instantly download into your mind take decades of study to fully appreciate. I am keen to avoid weighing down anyone with details and yet it is ignorance of those very details that causes people to entertain notions that do not fit the facts. I have relegated most of these details to links scattered throughout the webpage but if you really want truth, these links need to be read. Then you will be armed with the unadulterated facts on which to build your own conclusion. Unless you prefer a meaningless fantasy trip, I am forced to keep citing the most ancient, most attested and most historically accurate documents we have about Jesus. There are several criteria one must consider: * How soon after Jesus’ death the document was written * The time gap between the writing of the account and the earliest surviving manuscripts * The number of surviving ancient manuscripts * The degree of agreement among the ancient manuscripts * The extent to which geographical, cultural and historical details in the account agree with facts known from other sources * The reliance upon eyewitnesses and careful investigation of the facts (a rarity in ancient times). The documents that stand head and shoulders above any other contenders happen to be the ancient library now known as the New Testament. For an example of the care taken, see Luke 1:1-4. For confirmation that these documents are without rival, see F. F. Bruce The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? To avoid giving an inflated impression of how frequently Jesus did or said various things, I have striven to avoid citing additional accounts of the same event in other Gospels. Although in authenticity and dependability, no other source of information about Jesus remotely approaches the diverse writings that now form the New Testament, a few skeptics wonder whether all this detailed documentation of Jesus’ life and teaching might have somehow been doctored by Jewish sympathizers to remove all reference to India and to Indian influence on Jesus. We will see later why it is not feasible to suppose such doctoring of multiple accounts (all of which we now know were completed close in time to the events they record and accurately preserved since then). But here’s the clincher: how could those who compiled these records think of themselves as faithful followers of Jesus – as the writers clearly considered themselves to be – while being so ashamed of Jesus as to deliberately mutilate accounts of his teaching? More disturbing still: it is an insult to God himself to suppose that these ancient accounts of Jesus’ ministry might have prejudicially removed reference to key aspects of Jesus’ life. If Jesus’ staggering claims are true, such as “No one comes to [God] the Father, except through me” (John 14:6), for Almighty God to have allowed the record of Jesus’ message to have been lost or distorted for subsequent generations would be a tragedy beyond belief. Moreover, Jesus declared, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mark 13:31). What makes it such an insult to query the accuracy of the records is that Jesus, after devoting considerable prayer, handpicked the twelve apostles to personally train them as the custodians of his message and he commissioned them to “Go into all the world, and preach the Good News to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). To them he declared, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8). If being Jewish created a bias that Jesus objected to, why did he entrust exclusively to them the responsibility of being the earliest, most critically important custodians of his message? In fact, Jesus kept insisting that it was no historical accident that certain people were the original carriers of his message. “You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you . . .” (John 15:16) he told the select few of whom he said, “Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations. But when they deliver you up, don’t be anxious how or what you will say, for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Matthew 10:18-20). And at the end of his earthly mission it was to them that he said, “. . . As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. . . . If you forgive anyone’s sins, they have been forgiven them. If you retain anyone’s sins, they have been retained” (John 20:21, 23). On top of that, Jesus proclaimed that after his death he would always be with them through God’s Spirit and that they would be divinely empowered with special abilities that would supernaturally equip them both to accurately recall Jesus’ message and to understand its spiritual meaning: John 14:16-18, 26; 15:15, 19-20, 26-27; 16:12-13, 15  I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor, that he may be with you forever,— the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive; for it doesn’t see him, neither knows him. You know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. . . . But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,  he will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you . . . . No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. . . . If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. . . . When the Counsellor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. . . . I have yet many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. However when he,  the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth . . . . he takes of mine, and will declare it to you.  (Emphasis mine.) If their Jewish background gave them a bias that Jesus objected to, why did he entrust exclusively to them the responsibility of being the earliest, most critically important, custodians of his message? Furthermore, in one of the only recorded instances of Jesus ever conversing with a non-Jew, he declared, “You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). Since Jesus opted not to leave behind any of his own writings, almost nothing in the universe was as critical as the responsibility of those he chose to transmit his message to subsequent generations. There is even a sense in which their role was greater than Jesus’ because if they failed it would have rendered Jesus’ life and death a waste. If Jesus got wrong his choice of people to transmit his message, he is not the eternal Son of God but a fallible human who could neither foresee nor influence the future. This would make him unworthy to be followed as a spiritual leader, much less worshipped. In reality, Jesus always knew exactly what he was doing. He knew, for example, that Judas would betray him and that Peter and the other disciples would deny him but afterward be faithful. To zero in on the bare facts of Jesus’ teaching and shun Christian interpretation or bias, I will primarily cite the actual recorded words of Jesus and mostly side-step mentioning comments in the Gospels make by the authors. I will also largely avoid mentioning other significant early Christian writings (the rest of the Christian Bible). This voluntary restriction is despite the fact that: (1) they reinforce my arguments (2) besides the Gospels themselves, these are the writings of people who were more familiar with Jesus’ life and message than anyone else from whom we can gain information and the ones to whom Jesus entrusted the transmission of his message. The Unique Value of the Apostle Paul’s Writings to Understanding Jesus As a highly intelligent and well informed Jewish scholar authorized by the Jewish hierarchy to stamp out Christianity, Paul had full access to all the dirt on Jesus (if any existed) and all the arguments against the Christian interpretation of Jesus’ life and message. What makes this particularly relevant is that any perceived influence on Jesus by a foreign religion would have been seen as scandalous by orthodox Jews. It would have so infuriated them as to have dominated their whole attack on Christianity. The first of the Ten Commandment is “You shall have no other gods before me,” and the second is “You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God . . .” (Exodus 20:2-5). Although the Apostle Paul was not a disciple of Jesus while Jesus was living, Paul’s message was fully approved by Peter and the other disciples: Galatians 2:1-2,6-9  Then after a period of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. I went up by revelation, and I laid before them the Good News which I preach among the Gentiles . . . But from those who were reputed to be important (whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God doesn’t show partiality to man)—they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me, but to the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the Good News for the circumcision (for he who appointed Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision appointed me also to the Gentiles); and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision.   Acts 9:26-28  When Saul [also known as Paul] had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join himself to the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. He was with them entering into Jerusalem.   Acts 15:2, 4 , 7 ,12-13,22,25-26   . . . they appointed Paul and Barnabas, and some others of them, to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. . . . When they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the assembly and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them . . . When there had been much discussion, Peter rose up and said to them . . . All the multitude kept silence, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul reporting what signs and wonders God had done among the nations through them. After they were silent, James answered . . . Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole assembly, to choose men out of their company, and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas . . . it seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose out men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.   2 Peter 3:15  Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you.   Although I have primarily limited myself to the words of Jesus himself, it turns out that there are no obvious contradictions between his actual words and the Jewish Scriptures and the rest of the New Testament. I should confess my own bias. I am not in any sense a Jew; neither (to my knowledge) by remote ancestry, nor by religion. Neither am I an Indian. It might at first seem strange but one does not have to study Jesus’ life and teachings for long before discovering that no genuine examination of whether Jesus visited India can avoid frequent citations of the Jewish Scriptures. These are the writings that today are commonly called the Old Testament; the part of the Bible written before Jesus was born. I don’t expect anyone to accept what I say until carefully considering the evidence presented deeper in this series of webpage but, as surprising as it might initially seem, it turns out that what makes an extensive understanding of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) so critical is not only the unique role Jesus assigns to it as the prime source of spiritual truth, but there is a real sense in which these Jewish Scriptures are the dictionary containing all the definitions of the words Jesus used. The Plunge If we let our imaginations run wild, we might guess that Jesus did spectacular things prior to age thirty – when the records say he was anointed and empowered for ministry by the Holy Spirit of God. Such flights of fantasy, however, are not supported by the facts. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which by his contemporaries’ standards was a long way from Nazareth, and he spent his early days in Egypt, yet he spent so long in Nazareth before he turned thirty that much is made in the historical accounts of the fact that that he was known as Jesus of Nazareth. Nazareth was in the province of Galilee and so there are other references to Jesus being from Galilee . Galileans had a distinctive accent that differed from other parts of Palestine. I spent just a few months in an Asian country and returned home with a different accent but there is no hint that Jesus’ accent differed from other Galileans. Reincarnation teaches a much closer connection between animals and humans than most other religions teach. It is partly because of this that although there is a huge range of conflicting Indian religions, vegetarianism is fundamental to most of them. So if Jesus were not a vegetarian he could not be accepted by those religions. And if Jesus rejected vegetarianism, he would not only be indicating that he disagreed with those religions for which vegetarianism is a fundamental tenant; it would be hard to claim that he was even mildly influenced by them. This makes another webpage in this series vitally important: Was Jesus a Vegetarian? The time for the truth about Jesus to be fully revealed was not in Jesus’ younger days, nor even his latter earthly years but after his death and resurrection. This applied even for Jesus’ inner circle, who were granted spiritual insights, interpretation of parables and so on that were denied everyone else (Mark 4:10-11). He told them: John 14:19-20, 25-26; 16:7, 13-14  Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also.  In that day  you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. . . . I have said these things to you, while still living with you. But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,  he will teach you all things  . . . Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I don’t go away, the Counsellor won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. . . . However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth . . . He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you.   Note that it was not until after Jesus’ resurrection that the following exchange took place between Jesus and his apostles:   Luke 24:45-48  Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures. He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. . . .”   Here’s further confirmation:   John 12:16  His disciples didn’t understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him, and that they had done these things to him.   Being kept in the dark until after Jesus’ resurrection was even more emphatic for Jesus’ other Jewish contemporaries:   Matthew 12:15-16   . . . Great multitudes followed him; and he healed them all,  and commanded them that they should not make him known .   Matthew 16:16-17, 20  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. . . .”  Then he commanded the disciples that they should tell no one that he was Jesus the Christ .   Mark 9:9  As they were coming down from the mountain  [where Jesus had been transfigured], he  commanded them that they should tell no one what things they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead .   And keeping things hidden until after Jesus’ resurrection applied still more to people who were not Jews:   Matthew 10:5-6  Jesus sent these twelve out, and commanded them, saying, “Don’t go among the Gentiles, and don’t enter into any city of the Samaritans. Rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. . . .”   The Hebrew word Messiah and its Greek equivalent (Christ) both mean “anointed by the Spirit of God”. Since the entire concept in based on the Jewish Scriptures, one must understand that Jewish kings, priests and prophets were anointed. Here are some examples:   Exodus 30:30-32  You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and sanctify them, that they may minister to me in the priest’s office. You shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘This shall be a holy anointing oil to me throughout your generations. It shall not be poured on man’s flesh  [i.e. on ordinary people] , and do not make any like it, according to its composition. It is holy. It shall be holy to you.   Leviticus 21:10, 12  He who is the high priest among his brothers, upon whose head the anointing oil is poured . . . the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him. . . .   1 Samuel 10:1, 6-7  Then Samuel took the vial of oil, and poured it on his head, and kissed him, and said, “Hasn’t the Lord anointed you to be prince over his inheritance? . . . Then the Lord’s Spirit will come mightily on you, and you will prophesy with them, and will be turned into another man. Let it be, when these signs have come to you, that you do what is appropriate for the occasion; for God is with you.   1 Samuel 16:13  Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the middle of his brothers. Then the Lord’s Spirit came mightily on David from that day forward. . . .   The anointing was the time when they were called by God for a special role and endowed with the spiritual resources to fulfil that calling. Jesus was not just anointed, he was  the  anointed one– the one uniquely called and spiritually empowered as priest, spiritual King of kings and the prophet  par excellence .   Matthew 16:13-17, 20  Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” They said, “Some say John the Baptizer, some, Elijah, and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”  [Note how even while Jesus was on earth all sorts of myths and mistaken ideas about Jesus developed but Jesus cut through all of this by ensuring his apostles correctly understood.] He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ  [ anointed one], the Son of the living God.”Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. . . .” Then he commanded the disciples that they should tell no one that he was Jesus the Christ.  [Note again how the truth about Jesus was kept from the masses until after Jesus’ resurrection.]   The time when Jesus was anointed – spiritually empowered to minister – was when the Holy Spirit came upon him at his baptism. Note that the following is one block of Scripture, separated only by my comments in square brackets:   Matthew 2:19-3:3  But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for those who sought the young child’s life are dead.” He arose and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in the place of his father, Herod, he was afraid to go there. Being warned in a dream, he withdrew into the region of Galilee, and came and lived in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.” In those days  [ie the days when Jesus was still in Nazareth. There is not the slightest hint of a gap when Jesus was not living there.], John the Baptizer came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” For this is he who was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”   Then follows a description of John’s ministry, followed immediately by:   Matthew 3:13  Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. Let’s examine Luke’s account of what happened: Luke 3:21-23  Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus also had been baptized, and was praying. The sky was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove on him; and a voice came out of the sky, saying “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.” Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years old . . . Time Out I will continue with Luke’s narrative shortly but first I should comment on the above and also quote from elsewhere to show it dovetails perfectly other ancient accounts.   Note that the text says: “Jesus himself was about thirty years old  when he began his ministry ”. His ministry did not begin until he was baptized in the Spirit at age thirty.   According Jewish Scriptures the age of thirty is significant. It was the age at which, God’s chosen ones, born for the role of serving God in his temple (Levites), were allowed to commence service (Numbers 4:3). It was the age at which Ezekiel began his prophetic ministry (Ezekiel 1:1) and it was age that Joseph “stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Genesis 41:46). Joseph was one of many people in the Jewish Scriptures who had aspects of their lives that were divinely crafted to bear similarities to the Messiah.   This is consistent with John’s Gospel which says about him turning water into wine:   John 2:11  This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.   This was the  first  of his miracles.   It is also consistent with what we read in Luke’s second book,  Acts:   Acts 1:1-2  The first book I wrote, Theophilus, concerned  all that Jesus began both to do  and to teach, until the day in which he was received up . . .   After Judas’s death, it was decided that someone highly familiar with Jesus’ entire ministry must replace him. Note the italicized words:   Acts 1:20-22   . . . ‘Let another take his office.’ “Of the men therefore who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,  beginning from the baptism of John , to the day that he was received up from us, of these one must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”   Despite Jesus having great plans for his disciples, he told them after his resurrection to remain where they were and simply wait until they were empowered by the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4-8). The same applied to Jesus, their Leader and Example. He, too, had to wait – put his ministry on hold – until the spiritual empowering that took at this baptism. Timing was everything to Jesus. Consider this exchange with his brothers:   John 7:3-8  His brothers therefore said to him, “Depart from here, and go into Judea, that your disciples also may see your works which you do. For no one does anything in secret, and himself seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, reveal yourself to the world.” . . . Jesus therefore said to them, “My time has not yet come . . . my time is not yet fulfilled.”   Again, when his mother sought a miracle he said:   John 2:4  Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My hour has not yet come.” One might guess that because Jesus taught and performed miracles after his baptism that he must also have acted that way beforehand. Nevertheless, not only is this contrary to the evidence, the records provide powerful spiritual reasons for his baptism being a watershed moment that radically altered Jesus. Even after his anointing, however, Jesus was very careful to restrict his ministry not just geographically but even ethnically. Despite his immense compassion for all people, consider his extreme reluctance to work a solitary miracle for a non-Jew: Matthew 15:22-28  Behold, a Canaanite woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, you son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!” But he answered her not a word. His disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away; for she cries after us.” But he answered, “ I wasn’t sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel .” But she came and worshiped him, saying, “Lord, help me.” But he answered, “It is not appropriate to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she said, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Be it done to you even as you desire.” . . . (Emphasis mine.) Likewise, despite his stupendous compassion – and plans – for every people group on the entire planet, while Jesus remained on earth he instructed his disciples to limit themselves to Jews: Matthew 10:6-8  Rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, preach, saying, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. . . . Jesus knew the time would come (after his resurrection) when he would commission his disciples to go into the entire world and he would go with them in spirit and through them preach and work miracles in every nation (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-20). As we have seen, however, timing was critically important to Jesus. Back to Luke’s Narrative We had been quoting from Luke’s first book about Jesus’ baptism. Let’s return to that text. It states that immediately after his baptism, Jesus, filled with the Spirit, was led into the wilderness where he was tempted: Luke 4:1-2  Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. . . . Immediately after an account of the temptations we read: Luke 4:13-30  When the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him until another time. Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and news about him spread through all the surrounding area. He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He entered, as was his custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began to tell them, “ Today , this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All testified about him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, and they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will tell me this parable, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done at Capernaum, do also here in your hometown.’ ”  [The people Jesus had grown up with were so unfamiliar with Jesus’ miracles that they wanted to see some for themselves.]  He said, “Most certainly I tell you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. . . .” They were all filled with wrath in the synagogue, as they heard these things. They rose up, threw him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill that their city was built on, that they might throw him off the cliff. But he, passing through the middle of them, went his way. Note how this passage emphasizes the importance of Jesus’ anointing and that it had only recently occurred. Also note in the above that those in his hometown had not seen Jesus’ miracles. Consider also the following that took place later: Mark 6:1-5  He went out from there. He came into his own country, and his disciples followed him. When the Sabbath had come, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many hearing him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things?” and, “What is the wisdom that is given to this man, that such mighty works come about by his hands?  [Here again we find that those who best knew Jesus prior to his baptism were flabbergasted that he was now performing miracles and displaying spiritual wisdom. (And we shall later see that the wisdom they refer to was thoroughly Jewish and showed no trace of Indian wisdom.) It is yet another proof of the radical transformation brought about by Jesus’ spiritual anointing when he was empowered by the Holy Spirit.]  Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judah, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?”  [They considered a person’s family to be a fundamental part of his background and who he is and everything they had gleaned about Jesus over all those years prior to his baptism screamed that there was nothing special about him.]  They were offended at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own relatives, and in his own house.” He could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people, and healed them. The so called “lost years” were simply years Jesus spent in Nazareth during which his life was so ordinary that there was nothing worth mentioning. We quoted Matthew chapter 2 earlier, where it states that while, still a child, Jesus went to live in Nazareth. Jews were expected to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the feasts and there is no hint that after his brief exile in Egypt as a baby, he ever again went further from home. Luke gives this same impression: Luke 2:39-42,51-3:2  When they had accomplished all things that were according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. The child was growing, and was becoming strong in spirit, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. His parents went every year to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast . . . And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth. He was subject to them, and his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John  [the Baptist], the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. The Uniqueness of Jesus This section is critical to a serious discussion of whether Jesus visited Indian and yet is typically missed by those who fantasize about Jesus visiting India. Jesus made it clear that John the Baptist was the prophet  par excellence  sent by God to prepare the way for Jesus. Here is John’s testimony of Jesus: John 1:29  The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! . . .” Jesus’ primary role in coming to earth was to remove the spiritual consequences of not just Israel’s sin, but the sins of the entire world. The term  Lamb of God  is powerfully significant. All of John’s original hearers knew as emphatically as each knew his/her own name, the connection between a lamb, God and sin. A central aspect of the Jewish Scriptures is that lambs were innocent, undefiled creatures that were sacrificed to God for human sin. Their spiritual purpose was not, of course, to teach but to bridge the abyss between the fearsomely holy God and spiritually defiled humanity. By their own sacrificial death, lambs paid the penalty for human sin, making it possible for humans to commune with the Holy Lord of creation. Jesus, however, was not just  a  lamb but  the  Lamb – the ultimate sacrifice for humanity’s sin. All religious sacrifices were mere symbols; Jesus was the real thing. Here is Jesus’ description of his purpose in coming to earth: Mark 10:45  For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. All of humanity had been kidnapped by evil and the only ransom that could secure our release is the death of God’s only Son. To quote Jesus again: John 3:14-18  As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness [Numbers 21:6-9], even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Just before he was arrested and crucified, Jesus instructed his disciples as to what they should forever focus on when thinking of what he achieved through coming to earth. In the words of the apostle Paul (the gospel accounts are similar): 1 Corinthians 11:23-26  For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread. When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you.  Do this in memory of me .” In the same way he also took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes .  (Emphasis mine.) Jesus did not come to earth to teach us how to connect with God but to  be  our connection with God. Spiritually, we are drowning in our sin. Jesus came not to teach us how to swim but to dive into the deadly waters and rescue us at the cost of his own life. None of us has what it takes to save ourselves. Jesus insisted that as a branch cut off from a tree would shrivel up and die, so your spiritual survival hinges on having a perpetual union with him as total, intimate and life-giving as a branch’s union with a tree: John 15:4-6  Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for  apart from me you can do nothing . If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is  thrown out  as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. (Emphasis mine.) Again to quote Jesus: John 10:9-11, 27-30  I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved . . . I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. . . . My sheep . . . follow me. I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. . . . My Father  [God], who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. John 11:25   . . . I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Matthew 11:27   . . . neither does anyone know the Father  [God], except the Son  [Jesus], and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him. John 5:21-29  For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son  [Jesus]  also gives life to whom he desires. For the Father [God] judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him. “Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Most certainly, I tell you, the hour comes, and now is, when the dead will hear the Son of God’s voice; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man. Don’t marvel at this, for the hour comes, in which all that are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come out; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment. John 6:51-54  I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. . . . Most certainly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  [Jesus’ followers found this saying so incomprehensible that many left him because of it. Those who stayed with him eventually discovered that Jesus was referring to his sacrificial death, which we must spiritually partake in if we are to have spiritual life.] Peter, fresh from intensive years learning from Jesus and then being divinely endowed both to understand and communicate spiritual truth, summarized Jesus’ ministry this way: Acts 4:12  There is salvation in none other, for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, by which we must be saved! To quote two other ancient sources: 1 Timothy 2:5-6  For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all; the testimony in its own times. 1 Peter 3:18, 21-22  Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit . . . which now saves you—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him. 1 John 5:11-12   . . . God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life. In the words of the Apostle Paul: Colossians 1:15-23  who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things are held together. He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him; and through him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on the earth, or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross. You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil deeds, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without defect and blameless before him, if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard, which is being proclaimed in all creation under heaven; of which I, Paul, was made a servant. There is no spiritual alternative to Jesus. He is not merely a teacher but the world’s only spiritual Savior; humanity’s only hope of connecting with God. Don’t pretend that you can reject that truth without rejecting Jesus. Note his staggering words: John 14:6  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father  [God], except through me. . . .” Jesus did not come to teach the way to God; he  is  the way. He did not come to reach spiritual truth; he  is  the truth. Neither did he come to show us how to live; if we want spiritual life, he  is  our life.  No one  comes to God except through him. It is highly significant that not only in the above quote but over and over Jesus kept referring to God as Father. You might have many friends and many teachers but you can only have one father. This very term destroys both polytheism (belief in more than one god) and the pantheism (belief that God is impersonal and exists in rocks, plants and so on) that was present in most forms of Indian religion that existed when Jesus lived on this planet. A father gives a child life and might be superior to the child but has a nature that has much in common with his offspring. Rocks don’t father children; fish don’t beget giraffes. If we can think and feel, so can God. Moreover, Jesus emphasized that to be like God a father should not be cold and impersonal but must love and nurture his children and be deeply moved by his children’s needs and requests: Matthew 7:9-11  Or who is there among you, who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! The God that Jesus portrayed was not the God of Indian religions. Moreover, Jesus is not an alternative or add on to any religion; not just a light in a dark world, but light of the entire world (John 8:12); humanity’s one and only hope: 2 John 1:9  Whoever transgresses and doesn’t remain in the teaching of Christ, doesn’t have God. He who remains in the teaching, the same has both the Father and the Son. You can choose to risk eternity and gamble that you do not need Jesus as utterly as he insisted that you do. You can think there are substitutes that will let you survive spiritually. To believe this, however, is to reject Jesus’ teaching and to claim to be more truthful and spiritually enlightened than him. Jesus maintained that the consequences of ignoring him are catastrophic but if he is just another teacher, then what he did and believed, in reference to India or anything else, is of little consequence. Maybe you could even risk other people’s eternity and try to seduce Christians into straying from Jesus and embracing another religion. The Story so Far and Beyond The Gospel accounts are attested as historical records of immense authenticity. They are emphatic that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, taken to Egypt as a child, later settled in Nazareth, had an itinerant ministry in Israel and offered his life as the ultimate in Jerusalem. Each of these geographical movements are not just carefully documented but emphasized as being so much of the divine plan that they were prophesied centuries before they happened . Not only is there no evidence or even a hint in all the New Testament records that Jesus that ever ventured out of Palestine, except for his childhood sojourn in Egypt, all evidence and the thrust of the entire Bible is to the contrary. Furthermore, as will be further confirmed in the next webpage, we find multiple ancient accounts, each showing Jesus’ teaching to be distinctive and unique, and yet thoroughly Jewish and devoid of Indian influence. Every authenticated record of Jesus’ teaching is Jewish to the extreme. But what would have been the point of Jesus travelling what in his era was the enormous distance to India if he had nothing to gain from the journey? And if he did learn anything it would have stood out in his teaching like a giraffe with sore neck. If, in fact, Jesus had been influenced by Indian religions, the removal of all hint of it have had to be an exceedingly deliberate act by many people, it requires intellects beyond that of your average full-time fishermen. Such doctoring would have had to have been highly consistent and extensive because there simply is not a trace of Indian influence in all biblical records of Jesus’ teachings. At first thought, this might not surprise, since Jesus’ apostles were Jewish. However, the slightest hint of Indian influence in Jesus’ original teaching – or in even in his accent – would have stood out like a flashing neon target, seizing every Palestinian Jew’s attention and sending everyone’s tongue into overdrive. Fierce, unrelenting opposition to other religions was central to Jewish beliefs. Consider, for example, the Ten Commandments, the first two of which are: Exodus 20:3-5  You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God . . . A huge proportion of the Jewish Scriptures is filled with warnings about the dire consequences of introducing aspects of other religions into their own and with descriptions of the terrible divine punishments that resulted. Anyone guilty of enticing a Jew to do this incurred the death penalty. Please read the following from the Jewish Scriptures to see just how serious this was: Deuteronomy 13:1-16  If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, “Let us go after other gods” (which you have not known) “and let us serve them”; you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God, fear him, keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and you shall serve him, and cling to him. That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he has spoken rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to draw you aside out of the way which the Lord your God commanded you to walk in. So you shall remove the evil from among you. If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend, who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods,” which you have not known, you, nor your fathers; of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; you shall not consent to him, nor listen to him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him; but you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he has sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. All Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall not do any more wickedness like this among you. If you shall hear about one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives you to dwell there, that certain base fellows have gone out from among you, and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods,” which you have not known; then you shall inquire, and make search, and ask diligently. Behold, if it is true, and the thing certain, that such abomination was done among you, you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, with all that is therein and its livestock, with the edge of the sword. You shall gather all its plunder into the middle of its street, and shall burn with fire the city, and all every bit of its plunder, to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. Even if, for some perverse reason, those closest to Jesus were so ashamed of their Lord that they wanted to doctor his teaching, the removal of all Indian influence in the accounts would not have changed what was heard by all the Jewish leaders eager to condemn Jesus and the countless thousands in the crowds listening to his sermons. Anything so foreign to their beliefs would have been indelibly edged into their minds and vigorously gossiped about throughout Judaism. Anyone seeking to counter this would have had to go anywhere by merely ignoring it; he would have gone into serious damage control, trying to put a positive spin on the undeniable facts. Moreover, Jesus’ religious enemies were eager to accuse him of heresy and were continually trying to trap him and yet they could find nothing except Jesus’ own staggering claims about himself (Mark 2:7; Mark 14:61-64) and failed accusations of Jesus not being as fanatically rigid as they were about the lengths one should go to in keeping the Sabbath. And how could all the writers of the New Testament – the one’s Jesus carefully entrusted with the responsibility of recording his message for posterity – consider themselves disciples of Jesus if they were so ashamed of a stand out feature of their Master’s teachings that they not only did not teach it themselves but removed all trace from their accounts of Jesus’ teachings? Isn’t it preposterous that they would willingly suffer extreme flogging (Acts 5:40; 2 Corinthians 12:23-28) and death (Acts 7:59-60) for Jesus if they believed he was so wrong that his teaching contained doctrinal errors? And if Jesus’ faithful followers carefully removed non-Jewish aspects of Jesus’ teaching from their records, what would have been their motivation? All of the synoptic gospels (John’s account was even later) end with Jesus’ commission to preach the message far beyond Jewish borders. With non-Jews quickly proving receptive to the Gospel message, and if there were aspects of non-Jewish beliefs in Jesus’ message, why would so many go to such extremes to try to rip out every trace of them? One of the most radical aspects of early Christianity is that it moved out of the Jewish world to embrace non-Jews of all races. This was a source of considerable controversy at first because Jesus’ initial followers were Jews and they considered they had a special place in God’s heart. At this time when they were seeking to prove that this move to preach the gospel to non-Jews was truly of God, they would have been quick to seize the fact that Jesus went to India as proof that by going to non-Jews they were following in Jesus’ lead. Yet they never mentioned it. There are three more webpages in this series. Each removes still further any possibility of Jesus having any cause to visit India. They show that Jesus rejected some basic tenants of most Indian religions and was not in any way influenced by Indian religion or thinking. The first webpage,  Jesus’ Use of the Jewish Bible , reveals Jesus’ amazingly strong, consistent and exclusive commitment to the Jesus Scriptures as the source of spiritual truth. In stark contrast to most Indian religions, eating meat (including cows) was of great importance to the Jewish Scriptures. The second webpage,  Was Jesus a vegetarian?  proves that Jesus both approved of eating meat and ate meat himself.    The third webpage, Reincarnation & Jesus, the Bible & Christianity , shows that Jesus did not believe in reincarnation. Next webpage: Jesus’ Use of the Jewish Bible

Jesus & Vegetarianism This discussion is not about fault-finding. It focuses solely on Jesus’ beliefs and behavior; not on whether, for example, it is honoring to Jesus to be a vegetarian or a meat eater. For those interested only in vegetarianism, this webpage may be read alone, even though it is part of a series examining whether Jesus visited India. Unless you prefer a meaningless fantasy trip, I am forced to keep citing the most ancient, most attested and most historically accurate documents we have about Jesus. There are several criteria one must consider: *  How soon after Jesus’ death the document was written *  The time gap between the writing of the account and the earliest surviving manuscripts *  The number of surviving ancient manuscripts *  The degree of agreement among the ancient manuscripts *  The extent to which geographical, cultural and historical details in the account agree with facts known from other sources *  The reliance upon eyewitnesses and careful investigation of the facts (a rarity in ancient times). The documents that stand head and shoulders above any other contenders happen to be the ancient library now known as the New Testament. For an example of the care taken, see Luke 1:1-4. For confirmation that these documents are without rival, see F. F. Bruce  The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? To avoid giving an inflated impression of how frequently Jesus did or said various things, I have striven to avoid citing additional accounts of the same event in other Gospels. Although in authenticity and dependability, no other source of information about Jesus remotely approaches the diverse writings that now form the New Testament, a few skeptics wonder whether all this detailed documentation of Jesus’ life and teaching might have somehow been doctored by Jewish sympathizers to remove all reference to India and to Indian influence on Jesus. We will see later why it is not feasible to suppose such doctoring of multiple accounts (all of which we now know were completed close in time to the events they record and accurately preserved since then). But here’s the clincher: how could those who compiled these records think of themselves as faithful followers of Jesus – as the writers clearly considered themselves to be – while being so ashamed of Jesus as to deliberately mutilate accounts of his teaching? More disturbing still: it is an insult to God himself to suppose that these ancient accounts of Jesus’ ministry might have prejudicially removed reference to key aspects of Jesus’ life. If Jesus’ staggering claims are true, such as “No one comes to [God] the Father except through me” (John 14:6), for Almighty God to have allowed the record of Jesus’ message to have been lost or distorted for subsequent generations would be a tragedy beyond belief. Moreover, Jesus declared, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Mark 13:31). What makes it such an insult to query the accuracy of the records is that Jesus, after devoting considerable prayer, handpicked the twelve apostles to personally train them as the custodians of his message and he commissioned them to “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). To them he declared, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” (Acts 1:8). If being Jewish created a bias that Jesus objected to, why did he entrust exclusively to them the responsibility of being the earliest, most critically important custodians of his message? In fact, Jesus kept insisting that it was no historical accident that certain people were the original carriers of his message. “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you . . .” (John 15:16) he told the select few of whom he said, “On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you,” ( Matthew 10:18-20).   And at the end of his earthly mission it was to them that he said, “. . . As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. . . . If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven,” (John 20:21,23). On top of that, Jesus proclaimed that after his death he would always be with them through God’s Spirit and that they would be divinely empowered with special abilities that would supernaturally equip them both to accurately recall Jesus’ message and to understand its spiritual meaning: John 14:26; 15:15,19,20,26,27; 16:12,13,15  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. . . . But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,  will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you . . . . 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.  . . . If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. . . . When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he,  the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth . . . . the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.  (Emphasis mine.) If their Jewish background gave them a bias that Jesus objected to, why did he entrust exclusively to them the responsibility of being the earliest, most critically important, custodians of his message? Furthermore, in one of the only recorded instances of Jesus ever conversing with a non-Jew, he declared, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews,” (John 4:22). Since Jesus opted not to leave behind any of his own writings, almost nothing in the universe was as critical as the responsibility of those he chose to transmit his message to subsequent generations. There is even a sense in which their role was greater than Jesus’ because if they failed it would have rendered Jesus’ life and death a waste. If Jesus got wrong his choice of people to transmit his message, he is not the eternal Son of God but a fallible human who could neither foresee nor influence the future. This would make him unworthy to be followed as a spiritual leader, much less worshipped. In reality, Jesus always knew exactly what he was doing. He knew, for example, that Judas would betray him and that Peter and the other disciples would deny him but afterward be faithful. To zero in on the bare facts of Jesus’ teaching and shun Christian interpretation or bias, I will primarily cite the actual recorded words of Jesus and mostly side-step mentioning comments in the Gospels make by the authors. I will also largely avoid mentioning other significant early Christian writings (the rest of the Christian Bible). This voluntary restriction is despite the fact that: (1) they reinforce my arguments (2) besides the Gospels themselves, these are the writings of people who were more familiar with Jesus’ life and message than anyone else from whom we can gain information and the ones to whom Jesus entrusted the transmission of his message. (For more see  The Unique Value of the Apostle Paul’s Writings to Understanding Jesus .) Although I have primarily limited myself to the words of Jesus himself, it turns out that there are no obvious contradictions between his actual words and the Jewish Scriptures and the rest of the New Testament. I should confess my own bias. I am not in any sense a Jew; neither (to my knowledge) by remote ancestry, nor by religion. Neither am I an Indian.   I have no doubt that Jesus ate fruit and vegetables but one has to dig deep to find the slightest specific reference to Jesus doing so. This is indicative of how little we know of Jesus’ diet and of how thorough our search must be to find any conclusive evidence about whether Jesus was a vegetarian. Dig deep enough, however, and the evidence can be found. Jesus & Fish With at least one third (four out of twelve) of Jesus’ apostles, and all of his inner circle (Peter, James and John) being fishermen, Jesus spent most of his three years of ministry with fishermen. Additionally, he spent much time in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee or the River Jordan. In Jesus’ era, meat would usually be less available and more expensive than fish. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, for instance, the father deemed the return of his son worthy of celebrating by killing the fatted calf. Both a servant and the elder brother made a big deal of this (Luke 15:27,29-30), and understandably so: it would have been costly and a significant loss. How many calves would you expect an average pre-industrial peasant farmer in a low rainfall country to have? So if Jesus were not a vegetarian, one would expect him to eat fish more often than meat. Jesus likened the kingdom of God (something exceedingly holy) to being like a fisherman catching fish to eat. He thought it was perfectly natural for parents to feed children fish and called this “good”. Not once, but twice he supernaturally helped fishermen catch an unusually large number of fish and on yet another occassion he told Peter to catch a fish by line. Furthermore, on two additional occasions he not only encouraged people to eat fish, he fed it to large crowds. Instead of discarding the fish and feeding them only the bread (which is likely to have been considerably more wholesome than much modern bread) he opted to include fish in the meals he provided. The supernatural was involved, but the original fish had still been caught for food. Moreover, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the supernatural element displayed divine approval of the eating of fish. Jesus even cooked fish for the disciples to eat and on yet another occasion he is specifically stated to have eaten fish. Jesus & Meat Jesus felt tenderly toward animals. Nevertheless, his immense compassion ran deeper still for people. He repeatedly taught that people were significantly more precious than animals: Luke 12:24  Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them.  And how much more valuable you are than birds! Luke 12:6-7  Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid;  you are worth more than many sparrows . Matthew 12:11-12  He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?  How much more valuable is a man than a sheep!  Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” (Emphasis mine.) Jesus defines his God as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:26). All three of these were meat-eaters. Abraham, for example, slaughtered a calf and fed it to three heavenly visitors (Genesis 18). Isaac not only loved eating meat, Jacob cooked a special meat dish and served it to Isaac in order to receive a spiritually significant blessing (Genesis 27). When Jesus taught, he never spoke into a vacuum. He was addressing specific people. For effective communication we all instinctively adapt our language according to our audience. So to use Jesus’ meaning, and use it as a mirror to his heart, we must understand the views of his original hearers. For instance, because he lived in a society that abhorred cannibalism Jesus was free to say, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,” (John 6:54) without fear of people taking him literally. Similarly, one would expect that what he chose to denounce or remain silent about would depend on which unacceptable practices were rife in the society he lived in. To correctly understand any statement one must consider not just the verbal context but what one might call the situational context (the circumstances in which it was uttered) and the cultural context (the way people in his society would have interpreted his words). This applies to everything any sane person says, but let’s choose an example highly relevant to our discussion. When Jesus said, “Thou shalt not kill,” was he forbidding the killing of  anything  – including weeds, microbes and plant pests? Did he mean one must not eat such things as sprouts and carrots and maybe even grains (since that involves the death of a plant)? If these words had been addressed to Hindus, or Jesus was quoting from Hindu Scriptures, the statement might be intended to include animals as well as humans. However, Jesus introduced the statement with “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago,” (Matthew 5:21) and, on another occasion, “You know the commandments,” (Mark 10:19). He was clearly not inventing a new saying. He was speaking to Jews who knew their Scriptures well, and anyone even slightly familiar with the Jewish Scriptures knows it is from the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:13; repeated in Deuteronomy 5:17), where the statement could not possibly include animals as both of these parts of the Jewish Scriptures emphasize the critical importance of animal sacrifice. So for proof that Jesus was a vegetarian, we will have to look elsewhere and we will always have to consider how Jesus’ original audience would have understood him. When Jesus was twelve, he spent even more time in the temple than his devout parents. He stayed there so long that his parents were a full day into their journey home before they realized that Jesus was nowhere among the large company of returning pilgrims. When they eventually found him, the anxious parents asked why he was there. He replied, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Years later, he again called the temple “my Father’s house,” (John 2:16). The temple was not just the heart of Judaism; it was the place – in fact, the  only  place – where all the countless Jewish animal sacrifices were made. Jesus spent long periods of time there. He got so angry at Jewish officials for not treating the temple with the reverence he believed it should be given that at considerable risk to himself he forcibly ejected moneychangers and the like (present for religious purposes) from the temple. That is how much the temple meant to him and the extremes to which he would go to ensure that only what he approved of took place there. And yet this was the very place where animal sacrifices were made every day of the year. And he did nothing about it. As gross as it is, mention of animal sacrifice cannot be avoided because animal sacrifice was seen as essential and foundational to the religion of the people Jesus lived with and taught. If Jesus actually accepted this practice, it is highly relevant to his views on vegetarianism, since eating meat involves the killing of animals. Moreover, portions of most Jewish animal sacrifices were eaten – a means whereby their death gave life. An understanding of Jewish animal sacrifices is also critical to any analysis of whether Jesus’ views and sensitivities had any kinship with Indian religion or might even have been influenced by it. I feel for anyone who finds this section distasteful. I have no wish to offend but I must be true to the historical facts. In fairness, however, I should point out that this pivotal aspect of the religion of Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries  had  to be distasteful. Animal sacrifices occurred because of human sin (the most minor of which is repulsive to the Holy Lord) and they prophetically pointed to the ultimate sacrifice for human sin – Jesus’ highly distasteful death. Nevertheless, Jewish animal sacrifices were actually considerably more merciful – a much quicker death – than Jesus’ prolonged, torturous death. Back before the first sin – the only time when humanity enjoyed total innocence – God told them, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food,” (Genesis 1:29). And that’s the only mention of food. Animals receive attention in the account, but not as a food source. Many radical changes occurred immediately after the first sin, including Adam and Eve becoming aware of their nakedness. In compassion, God gave them “garments of [animal] skin” (Genesis 3:21). This implies the death of animals because of their sin. Soon after, we read for the first time of animal sacrifices. Cain and Abel, (Adam and Eve’s children) came to blows because Abel offered God an animal sacrifice, which was accepted by God. Instead of an animal, Cain offered God what he had grown from the soil and this was not accepted by God ( Genesis 4:1-8). I should also mention that the religion of the Jewish Scriptures was compassionate toward animals. Compassion for Animals Examples in the Jewish Scriptures Proverbs 12:10  A righteous man respects the life of his animal . . .   Deuteronomy 22:10  You shall not plough with an ox and a donkey together. [Their different size and gait would make this unpleasant for them.]   Deuteronomy 25:4  You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain.   Exodus 23:4-5  If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of him who hates you fallen down under his burden, don’t leave him, you shall surely help him with it.   2 Samuel 12:3  but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him, and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him.   Genesis 33:13  Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have their young, and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die. . . .”   Numbers 22:32-33  The Lord’s angel said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me, and turned aside before me these three times. Unless she had turned aside from me, surely now I would have killed you, and saved her alive.”   Psalms 36:6  Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like a great deep. The Lord, you preserve man and animal.   Psalms 145:9  The Lord is good to all. His tender mercies are over  all  his works.   Psalms 147:9  He provides food for the livestock, and for the young ravens when they call.   Psalms 104:25,27-28  There is the sea, great and wide, in which are innumerable living things, both small and large animals. . . . These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season. You give to them; they gather. You open your hand; they are satisfied with good.   Genesis 8:1  God remembered Noah,  all  the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship . . .   Jonah 4:10-11  The Lord said, “You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also  much livestock ?” (Emphasis mine.)   The New Testament summarized the Jewish Scriptures this way: Hebrews 9:22  In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. That the law of God (Old Testament religion) “requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood” (i.e. by the blood of sacrificed animals) is serious enough but it goes on to say that without these animal sacrifices there can be no forgiveness (i.e. without it, it is impossible for anyone to be close to, or accepted by, the Holy Lord). Does it make sense to you that no one could approach the terrifyingly holy King of the universe unless the holy, eternal Son of God entered the human race to pay the death penalty for all human sin? Anyone for whom this does not make sense is living proof of the need for animal sacrifice to help people get their head around the concept. Literally millions of animals were slaughtered as an act of worship. Just to celebrate a special day, 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep and goats were sacrificed (1 Kings 8:63). Additionally, during a lifetime, every individual needed very many animal sacrifices made specifically for him or her. On top this, the firstborn of every domestic animal had to be sacrificed and eaten: Deuteronomy 14:23  Eat . . . the firstborn of your herds [cattle/oxen] and flocks [sheep and goats] If the animal were an unclean species, it had either to be killed or a lamb was killed and eaten in its place. Likewise: Leviticus 27:32  The entire tithe of the herd and flock – every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod – will be holy to the LORD. All of these cattle, sheep, goats were to be sacrificed and eaten. Animal sacrifice is mentioned in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles . . . and the list keeps going on and on. Also saturating the Jewish Scriptures is the concept of clean and unclean animals. Its entire purpose was to pronounce which species of animals could be eaten and sacrificed. Cows, the eating of which is regarded as taboo in Hinduism, were specifically designated as fit to eat. Shortly after the birth of any child, an animal and a bird (or just birds if the parents were poor) had to be sacrificed (Leviticus 12:1-8). The records specifically state that this happened in Jesus’ case. Jesus, of course, was too young to arrange this himself but Joseph and Mary were divinely selected to be Jesus’ human parents. Moreover, when he healed a leper: Mark 1:43-44  Jesus sent him away at once with a  strong warning : “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and  offer the sacrifices  that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”  (Emphasis mine.) This is a huge problem for anyone imagining that Jesus was influenced by or agreed with Indian religion and/or vegetarianism. It is bad enough to remain silent about a practice one disapproves of, but it is quite another to actually tell someone do it, and yet Jesus insisted that this man arrange sacrifices. This involved the killing of an assortment of several creatures (one to three lambs plus one to three birds) and two or three of them (of which at least one had to be a lamb) were to be  eaten . The priests – in one sense the most holy people among the Jews as they were divinely chosen and consecrated for holy service – were divinely required to eat significant quantities meat. Jesus’ insistence on offering these sacrifices is repeated in Matthew 8:4 and Luke 5:14. Moreover, in his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told the crowd, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar . . . First go and be reconciled to your brother;  then come and offer your gift ” (Matthew 5:23 – emphasis mine). In a parable, Jesus spoke approvingly of a father who slaughtered a calf for food. In fact, killing the calf for food is such a key part of the parable that it is mentioned three times in this short parable. Moreover, the father in Jesus’ parable represented not some heathen but  God himself . In yet another parable Jesus said: Matthew 22:2,4  The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. . . . and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ In a society that not only ate meat but emphatically believed it was commanded by God to do so, a vegetarian, unless he always ate in private, would stand out like an embarrassed giraffe hoping to blend in with a flock of sheep. However, not only was Jesus not renowned for having a restricted diet or eating in private, he was widely criticized for being on the opposite extreme of being indiscriminate about what he ate and who he ate with.. Moreover, if being poor by modern western standards caused many of Jesus’ contemporaries to view meat as somewhat of a luxury, that made it even more likely to have been provided for an honored guest. If vegetarianism were of even minor importance to Jesus he would, at the very least, have encouraged his closest followers not to eat meat. And, given Jewish eating habits, for Jesus’ disciples to avoid meat they would have had to be extremely selective about accepting any meals their fellow Jews offered them. However, not only did Jesus  not  suggest his disciples refuse meat dishes, he did the exact opposite. He sent them out to stay in Jewish villages without any money and made them completely dependent upon whatever hospitality they were offered. Moreover, he insisted that they eat whatever they were given. Jesus emphasized how much he delighted in partaking in the Passover Feast (Luke 22:15). Bread baked with a raising agent (leaven) was the staple food of Jesus’ contemporaries. So food over the Passover period stood out because only unleavened bread was allowed. Nevertheless, the central aspect of the Passover Feast was the eating of specially selected lambs that had to be slaughtered in the temple in Jerusalem, the city Jesus had travelled to for the Passover. The Passover was such a significant event that, as declared in the Jewish Scriptures, it became the Jewish New Year. It commemorated the time when, immediately before the Israelites escaped from Egypt, young sheep and goats were slaughtered so that their blood could be used to sprinkle over the doorways to their houses, and because of this blood the Lord would  pass over  that house, sparing those inside from a plague that would have killed their firstborn. That night, those inside had to eat the animal. The official account of the original event, plus the requirements for all Jews to celebrate the feast annually, are spelled out in the part of the Jewish Scriptures that is appropriately called the Law. There was nothing optional about it. Every Jew old enough to eat meat who could possibly travel to Jerusalem was obligated to eat the meat of the Passover lamb (or goat). The Jewish Law On the Passover - The First Passover   Exodus 12:1-14  The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be to you the beginning of months.  It shall be the first month of the year  to you Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month,  they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household ; and if the household is too little for a lamb, then he and his neighbor next to his house shall take one according to the number of the souls; according to what everyone can  eat  you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without defect, a male a year old. You shall take it  from the sheep, or from the goats : and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall  kill it  at evening. They shall take some of the  blood , and put it on the two door posts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they shall eat it. They shall  eat the flesh  in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs. Don’t eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire; with its head, its legs and its inner parts. You shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. This is how you shall eat it: with your belt on your waist, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord’s Passover. For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are: and  when I see the blood, I will pass over you , and there shall no plague be on you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be to you for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord: throughout your generations you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. . . .”   Subsequent Requirements to Partake of the Feast   Exodus 12:43,46-47  The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover. . . . It  must be eaten  In one house. You shall not carry any of the  meat  outside of the house. Do not break any of its bones. All the congregation of Israel  shall  keep it. . . .”   Numbers 9:10-13  Say to the children of Israel, ‘If any man of you or of your generations is unclean by reason of a dead body, or is on a journey far away, he shall still keep the Passover to the Lord. In the second month, on the fourteenth day at evening they shall keep it; they shall  eat it  with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break a bone of it. According to all the statute of the Passover they shall keep it. But the man who is clean, and is not on a journey, and  fails to keep the Passover, that soul shall be cut off from his people . Because he didn’t offer the offering of the Lord in its appointed season,  that man shall bear his sin .   Deuteronomy 16:1-7  Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God; for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. You shall  sacrifice  the Passover to the Lord your God,  of the flock and the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there  [Jerusalem]. You shall eat no leavened bread with it. You shall eat unleavened bread with it seven days, even the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste; that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. No yeast shall be seen with you in all your borders seven days; neither shall any of the  flesh, which you sacrifice  the first day at evening, remain all night until the morning. You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates, which the Lord your God gives you; but at the place which the Lord your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell in, there you shall  sacrifice the Passover  at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came out of Egypt. You shall roast and  eat  it in the place which the Lord your God chooses. In the morning you shall return to your tents. (Emphasis mine.)   This is further confirmed in the rest of the Jewish Scriptures by many accounts of keeping the Passover. They document the slaughter and eating of very many thousands of animals for this purpose. Note carefully what Jesus declared: Matthew 5:18-19  I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. That’s a huge blow to anyone hoping that Jesus objected to animal sacrifices and eating of them as demanded by the Law (the Jewish Scriptures). Nevertheless, Jesus could have (hypocritically?) chosen to break the Law and not go to Jerusalem during the Passover. Or, peculiarly, he could have made the effort to travel all the way to Jerusalem – which he did – and then (hypocritically?) refused to partake of the feast. Nevertheless, the Last Supper was, in fact, the feast that revolved around the eating the roasted meat of the Passover. The Last Supper: A Passover Feast Luke 22:7-17  The day of unleavened bread came, on which the  Passover must be sacrificed . He sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and  prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat .” They said to him, “Where do you want us to prepare?” He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered into the city  [Jerusalem] , a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him into the house which he enters. Tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room, where I may  eat the Passover  with my disciples?”’ He will show you a large, furnished upper room. Make preparations there.” They went, found things as he had told them, and they prepared  the Passover . When the hour had come, he sat down with the twelve apostles. He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to. When the hour had come, he sat down with the twelve apostles. He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to  eat this Passover  with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I will no longer by any means eat of it until it is fulfilled in God’s Kingdom.” He received a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, “Take this, and share it among yourselves . . .”   Matthew 26:2,17-19  “You know that after two days  the Passover  the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” . . . Now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying to him, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat  the Passover ?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain person, and tell him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is at hand. I will keep  the Passover  at your house with my disciples.”’” The disciples did as Jesus commanded them, and they prepared  the Passover .   Mark 14:12,14,16  On the first day of unleavened bread, when they  sacrificed the Passover , his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare that you may  eat the Passover ?” . . . and wherever he enters in, tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is the guest room, where I may  eat the Passover  with my disciples?”’ . . . His disciples went out, and came into the city, and found things as he had said to them, and they prepared  the Passover . (Emphasis mine.)   In fact, it was Jesus’ custom since his early childhood to partake of the Passover Feast. The Repulsiveness of Meat-Eating Surely any soft-hearted person will squirm at the thought of killing innocent animals for food. For some people it induces such disgust as to even begin to approach the heart-wrenching repugnance God feels when his loved ones sin. Spiritually, however, it conveys a powerful truth. Eating meat allows the death of an innocent animal to bring life to the guilty (those directly or indirectly responsible for the animal’s death). This finds its ultimate spiritual fulfilment in Jesus, the only truly innocent human, whose death brings spiritual life to all who are willing to admit that they are so guilty – worthy of eternal death – that their sole hope of spiritual life is in partaking of the death of the Innocent One. This is what Jesus was getting at when he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man [Jesus] and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life . . .” (John 6:53-54). This saying was so offensive to Jesus’ followers that many left him because of it. Even those closest to him reeled at the incomprehensibility of what Jesus was saying. They knew he could not have meant it literally but whatever it meant, it sounded disgusting. Jesus asked if they, too, would leave him because of this saying. Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). What you eat not only gives life and energy; it builds and repairs the cells of your body, becoming an inseparable part of you. That astounding union is a picture of what God longs to do with you. If you let him, you can spiritually merge with Jesus. Through that inseparable union, your sin becomes his – that’s what killed him – and his moral perfection becomes yours – that’s what empowered him to defeat death and give you eternal life. Animal sacrifice was divinely given as precursor to Jesus’ sacrifice because it helped prepare people for the concept that an innocent could somehow pay for the sins of the guilty. Like eating meat, however, animal sacrifice is unable to bring spiritual life. It was just a shadow of the real thing: the voluntary sacrifice of humanity’s only Innocent for the sins of all who dare admit they need it. Just as an animal’s death can bring life only if it is eaten, so we can benefit from Jesus’ death only if we spiritually partake of him. Certain followers of Indian religion – showing far more understanding of, and loyalty to, their religion than to Jesus – have claimed that Jesus was including animals when saying that one should not kill. This allegation shows such an appalling disrespect of Jesus as to ignore even the rest of Jesus’ sentence where he clearly indicates he was quoting the Jewish Scriptures. In the religion he regarded as foundational to his life and teaching, and in the sacred writings that Jesus kept quoting and revered as the very Word of God, killing (sacrificing) animals and meat-eating were not merely encouraged but were a fundamental religious requirement. If the records were silent about Jesus and vegetarianism, that very silence would strongly suggest that he was  not  a vegetarian. Had Jesus been a vegetarian, it would have caused quite a stir among his observers and if he wanted anyone else to be a vegetarian, he would have had to emphasize it, because it was so contrary to their religious understanding. Nevertheless, we do not have to use silence to establish a case. We have not even relied on one or two isolated incidents but we have uncovered a very consistent picture both of Jesus’ teaching and his behavior. Several times, Jesus told various disciples to catch fish and supernaturally helped them in the task. He cooked fish, served fish to large numbers of people and ate fish himself. He not only told a parable in which he likened God to a fisherman, in two parables he likened God to someone who in celebration kills animals for food. He put his followers in a situation where they were highly likely to be served meat and then told them to eat whatever they were served. And he ate meat himself. What is of critical importance, however, is not whether or not we choose vegetarianism, but whether we choose to partake of the spiritual benefits of Jesus’ sacrifice. For help with this, see  You Can Find Love .

The Blessing of our amazing Lord be upon you! So many webpages are up and we are very much seeing God’s grace. Grantley has been unwell and yet God has sent a beautiful soul to help us with the website. Please enjoy and be blessed as I have by Grantley’s writings. He checks his emails as he can. Your Sister Vicki Morris

The Spiritual Essentials For Accurate Bible Interpretation Beyond Academic Methods (Hermeneutics)   Why Christians Disagree in Doctrine and Biblical Understanding   Down-to-Earth Help   In   How to Understand the Bible   How to Rightly Divide the Word of Truth   For spiritual truth, we need the Bible, but to understand the Bible, the same God who inspired its writers must inspire its readers.   This webpage searches the Scriptures to identify and learn how to remove personal blockages to divine revelation, lest we fall into error.   Why can good Christians study the same Bible passages, be certain that they have found God’s truth and yet end up with contradictory beliefs about what God means? The scary truth is that these disagreements exist even when full-on, Spirit-filled Christians or highly skilled Bible scholars and theologians interpret Scripture. We all believe we are “rightly dividing the word of truth” but, disturbingly, our contradictory interpretations prove that probably all of us are at least sometimes in error. Our errors might not be so grave as to threaten our salvation, but isn’t the God we serve a God of Truth? Any error is likely to have undesirable effects.   My prayer is that this webpage be simple but profound. Because this exciting subject is vital to all Christians I avoid theological jargon. I confess an ulterior motive, however, in making one exception. I will introduce one word – hermeneutics – that will be new to many readers, though well known to pastors, theologians and seminary or Bible college students. When seeking a webpage like this one, such people will most likely type “hermeneutics” into search engines. So mentioning it a few times here will help us find each other. The majority of us who use more down-to-earth language are equally important to me and, of course, to God. Hermeneutics focuses on intellectual helps to accurate Bible interpretation – considering the context, understanding the era in which it was written, and so on.   I’m a firm believer in good hermeneutics. I have even written a small book on the subject. As you drift through this webpage, however, you will become increasingly certain that as important as hermeneutics is, the Bible teaches that the key factors in correctly interpreting the Bible are spiritual, not intellectual.   One might argue that the hermeneutics commonly taught in theological institutions is  rational  hermeneutics – principles of Bible interpretation that both Christians and non-Christians can profitably use. This is no criticism: God is not irrational. He created us with intellects, and the most important of his commands is that we love him with everything within us, including our minds. An exclusively intellectual approach to the Bible, however, is incomplete, because in the words of Jesus:   John 4:24   God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit  . . . Matthew 13:11  . . . To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them. Matthew 16:23   . . . You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. John 8:43-44   Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word. You are of your father, the devil  . . . And in the words of Paul: Romans 8:7   . . . the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. 1 Corinthians 2:12-14   But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God. Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit . . . he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned. So as important as rational hermeneutics is, the focus of this page is what might be called  spiritual  hermeneutics – discerning spiritual truth in the Bible by means that only Christians can access and/or understand. If that statement trips alarm bells within you, I’m not surprised. It sounds flaky and yet we’ll discover that this is repeatedly emphasized in Scripture – the book that claims supernatural origins. We’ll also discover that this is not a cue for flaky claims and unsubstantiated speculation. Instead, it is a sobering call for God-fearing, yet joyous, dependence upon humanity’s Creator and Judge for revelation and understanding. We all know that “ the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving ” ( 2 Corinthians 4:4 ) . It’s not that they lack intelligence, nor even that they lack knowledge. Unbelievers are subject to insidious spiritual interference that keeps them blinded to truth that would have set them free. But does becoming a believer mean the end of all such attacks? Do we instantly have 20/20 vision concerning every spiritual truth in the universe? No more than the first step takes an adventurer to the summit of Mount Everest. It was for Spirit-filled believers that Paul prayed: Ephesians 1:17-18   t hat the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints  . . . These were the very people whom Paul said were already enthroned with Christ  (Ephesians 2:6 ) and have been “ blessed . . . with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ ” ( Ephesians 1:3 ). Yet despite their spiritual status and divine insight, Paul knew that as Christians they needed still more revelation. Moreover – and this might astound some of us – he knew that neither his letters, nor rigorous study was enough to give them the revelation they needed. He knew that a critical factor in them receiving spiritual understanding was nothing less than repeated prayer for revelation. While all the theologians were oblivious to their Messiah’s birth, sheep minders received a divine invitation to worship baby Jesus. Heaven’s databanks are crammed with such stories. Jesus rejoiced in the Almighty hiding his secrets from those who are wise [in their own eyes and/or in the eyes of the world]. Instead of revealing his spiritual truths to the theologically skilled, the Lord of lords chose the ultimate insult to those who pride themselves in their intellect by revealing these liberating spiritual secrets to the unschooled. Like it or not, God is God. He determines what he reveals and to whom. Matthew 11:25  At that time, Jesus answered, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants .  . . .” The “wise and learned” that Jesus spoke of were not secular humanists but people whose whole lives revolved around God and the reverent and meticulous study of his Word. They were the Bible scholars, theologians and highly esteemed preachers of his day who had become so intoxicated by their own cleverness and devotion that God kept them blind, deliberately bypassing them and revealing his spiritual secrets to simple people. Here is a key Scripture: John 9:39-41   Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains . . . .” The Pharisees’ significant Bible knowledge and theological skills – which should have been an immense help – proved counterproductive. It’s said a little knowledge is dangerous, but the frightening reality is that more knowledge is even more dangerous because it increases the likelihood of being blinded by pride and becoming unteachable. James hints at this: James 1:22   But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves .  Of course, Bible study is of immense value, but the more emphasis one places on studying Scripture rather than living it, the more deceived one is likely to be. There are those for whom the Bible is an instruction manual and there are those for whom it is fascinating literature. The Bible is a love letter that moves some to fall ever deeper in love with the author. Others just love the letter. “ Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach, ” is a terrifying possibility. No wonder James wrote: James 3:1   Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment. The Bible is a map used to great effect by spiritual adventurers and used to no effect by armchair “heroes” who never venture out of their door spiritually, yet pride themselves in their map reading. Every sport has its champions and it has its fans who pride themselves in their amazing knowledge of the game. Which do you want to be in the game of life? Consider someone whose Bible knowledge is appalling and yet with the little he knows he achieves far more in God than a seminary professor. Which of them does God regard as ignorant? The key, of course, is not to study the Bible less, but to live it more. Psalm 119:11  I have hidden your word in my heart  . . . Why? To gain knowledge? No. The psalmist continues:  . . . that I might not sin against you. His goal was not to win a game of Bible Trivia. His Bible study goal was to learn how to avoid displeasing God. “. . .   Don’t let me wander from your commandments ” he prayed ( Psalm 119:10 ). Again we read: Joshua 1:8   This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. Why?  . . . that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it; for  then  you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. (Emphasis mine) Joshua was divinely commanded to pour over the Scriptures not so that he would fill with knowledge but in order to live Scripture. Yet again we read: Deuteronomy 29:29   The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever  . . . Why?  . . . that we may do all the words of this law. In Jesus’ parable of the man who built his life on the sand and the one who built on the rock, both men knew Jesus’ teaching ( Matthew 7:24-27 ). They differed not in spiritual knowledge. It was what they did with that knowledge that gave them such different destinies. It is a spiritual principle that the person who is faithful in little will be given much (compare  Matthew 24:46-47; 25:21 ). Those who have not got around to putting into practice the biblical truths they already know are unlikely to inspire God to reveal still more truth to them. Further revelation would only make them even more accountable; exposing them to still more judgment. We quoted Jesus telling the Pharisees, “ If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains . . . .” There would have been great hope for them if only they had had the humility to recognize how little their understanding was. Every Christian knows that although God longs to forgive all sin, for our Savior to do so, we must first admit our sin. Likewise, God longs to open our eyes to spiritual truth but we must first admit our blindness. A kindly optician might be eager to correct our eyesight for free, but his hands are tied if we refuse to admit that we need his help or are too proud to wear glasses. Admitting one’s spiritual blindness is rare and difficult for someone with great Bible skills. The Bible isn’t the problem, of course. It’s one’s attitude. It is so hard for a person rich in spiritual knowledge to advance further in the kingdom of God because it is so hard for such a person to recognize how little he really knows and how desperate his need for divine intervention in his understanding of the Bible. 1 Corinthians 8:2   But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know. The same is true of having lofty moral standards and great devotion. It was to highly moral people that Jesus said, “ the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you ” ( Matthew 21:31 ). We dare not slacken in our devotion to God and the study of his Word. If, however, we begin to think the key to spiritual insight is our efforts rather than God’s grace, we are in grave danger of spiritual blindness. It then becomes the equivalent of the hare and the tortoise, with those of little Bible knowledge spiritually overtaking their theological betters. We must model ourselves on the writer of Psalm 119. His knowledge of the Word of God and devotion to it was immense and yet he maintained the humility to keep praying for still greater understanding and pleading with God not to hide from him the true meaning of the Scriptures that everyone thought this man knew inside out. Here is a man after God’s heart; a man who didn’t let his vast store of spiritual knowledge sabotage his spiritual progress. Though so in tune with God that he was in the very act of writing Scripture, the psalmist prayed, “ Don’t hide your commandments from me ” ( Psalm 119:19 ). If the Almighty chooses to keep a truth hidden from someone, the greatest intellect or best hermeneutics in the world won’t help. And anyone who thinks he or she is beyond falling into deception is already deceived. As critical as one’s intellectual approach is, it fades in significance relative to the multitude of spiritual factors influencing Bible interpretation.   To distill a profound truth into a few words:   When seeking spiritual truth, the Bible is God’s lens. We can’t see clearly without it. But God is the light. Without him we can see nothing.   I am not quite deluded enough (but I’m sure the devil is working on it) to consider myself less prone to error than other devoted Christians. My prayer is simply that, together, we discover all the reasons why we Christians come to contradictory conclusions (thus proving that at least some of us are wrong) when we sincerely seek truth from the same Bible. Obviously, the goal of this webpage is to learn how to lower our susceptibility to spiritual error. Nothing could be more important, and yet it seems a neglected subject.   The Limits of the Mind   I do not imagine that all Christian academic institutions have fallen for it, but the temptation hovers over them to focus on training the mind and underplay the fact that correct Bible interpretation is an activity as spiritual as prayer or receiving divine guidance. Any attempt to reduce Bible interpretation to an academic exercise is destined to fail.   Hermeneutics has optimistically been defined as the  science  of Bible interpretation. One of the core elements of science, however, is that when an experiment or observation is repeated by different personnel, the same results are obtained. This doesn’t happen with the Bible, because genuine Bible interpretation is not cold science but hinges on an interpersonal relationship between two complex beings – ourselves and God.   With behavioral science (psychology research) filling my early adult years, and general science continuing to fascinate me, I am quite a fan of science. In the context of Bible interpretation, however, the very word “science” should set off alarm bells, alerting us to the fact that it is an attempt to impose modern western thinking on a spiritual exercise that God entrusted to humanity long before western science came into existence. Though times are changing, we still live in an era in which multitudes are besotted with the power of the human mind, rather than spiritual matters. And Christians are not immune to this pervasive and potentially corrupting distraction.   1 Corinthians 3:18-19   Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.” Accurate Bible interpretation is not found like a dead flower pressed between the covers of a Bible. Correct Bible interpretation is found through a living relationship – heart to heart communion – with the Author. Biblical truth is discovered by getting to know a person, because Truth is a person – the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m all for study but it is important that we don’t let an intellectual approach to the Bible reduce to sterile study what should be the pinnacle of holy intimacy. That would be like trying to reduce romance to chemical equations. Correctly interpreting Scripture is as intimate as feeling a loved one’s breath on your cheek as he shares his deepest secrets. Though it infuriates those who pride themselves in their intellect, the Bible is God’s Word and he decides who will understand what he means. Since God is love, what he treasures is not people’s intellectual power or even studiousness but their intimacy with him. So he is moved to reward with understanding of his Word not those who diligently search the Bible for enlightenment or for the power of knowledge but those who do it to seek  him . Hebrews 11:6   Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek  him . Matthew 6:33   But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. Jeremiah 29:13   You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me  with all your heart . (Emphasis mine.) By wanting you to seek him with all your heart, God is a little like a girl who plays hard to get with the guy she is deeply in love with, hoping it will entice you to fall even more in love with him. If someone who loves you went to great effort to write to you, it would be disrespectful not to read it carefully, but it would also be disrespectful when he visits if you ignore him and just read the letter. Eternal life is not to know the Bible but to know God ( John 17:3 ). The greatest commandment is not to love God’s Word but to love God himself. Yes, if you love God you will love his Word, but you can love Bible study without loving God. Yes, it is vital to read the Bible with a view to living it, but not out of legalism or dreary duty but out of a passionate longing to better know God, the Love of your life, and to delight him. We should read God’s Word with the relish of a little boy eager to grow up and be like Daddy; like a love-crazed teen opening her first love letter; like a mother pouring over a letter from her P.O.W. son, wondering if he is trying to get a deeper message past censors; like a student not content to presume the meaning of a book but constantly asking questions of the teacher he has a crush on. The Lord keeps much of its meaning a closely guarded secret from casual readers because he aches for your love. The Author of the Bible longs for Bible reading to be a time of intimate, two-way conversation. He wants us to come to the Bible asking not merely, “What was the author telling his contemporaries?” but “What are you wanting to tell me right now, Lord?” It is common to engage in an inner dialog when reading the Bible, asking such questions as, “I wonder what this means? Could it mean this?” In contrast, God longs for us to turn it into prayer, saying such things as, “What does this mean, Lord?” Thank you for the truth of this passage. Help me put this verse into practice. Forgive me for what this verse convicts me of.” Don’t just read the Bible but pray the Bible. Come to it not merely to learn but to prompt your prayer life – to provide you with things to talk over with God. Search the Scriptures not for your mind’s sake but for your heart’s sake. The result will not only be more enjoyable and satisfying but it moves God to share his heart with you, opening the Word to you in a very special and accurate way. To abandon hermeneutics would be a mistake, but the best hermeneutics is not enough. This is why Scripture does not give us lessons in hermeneutics but instead emphasizes spiritual and heart issues. In fact, one of the frustrations of modern Bible scholars is that often not even the inspired writers of Scripture followed the principles of Bible interpretation promoted by today’s theologians!   How Blind Are You? Consider the Jews of whom Jesus said: John 5:39-40  You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me. Yet you will not come to me, that you may have life.   Some of these students of the Word wanted Jesus dead. Even after the resurrection, many of them could reverently read the Old Testament and not realize that it points to Jesus, their Messiah. We tend to feel as spiritually superior to them as they felt superior to those who murdered the prophets. In reality, despite our claims to being Spirit-filled, if we had our memories stripped down to the information these Jews had – the Old Testament and the bare facts about Jesus, without any explanation – most of us, like them, would have missed many of Jesus’ fulfillments of Scripture.   How many of us, for example, would have seen Herod’s slaughter of babies in Bethlehem or little Jesus’ stay in Egypt or him growing up in Nazareth as fulfillment of Scripture ( Matthew 2:14-23 )? Had we been trained in modern hermeneutics, it is even more certain that we would have missed most Old Testament allusions to Jesus. We are not as different to those spiritually blind Jews as we suppose.   The Holy Spirit might be our Teacher, but that means the end of spiritual ignorance no more than turning up at Medical School makes one a top surgeon. How much do we listen to our Teacher? To what extent do we follow his instructions? How much do we do our own thing or fill our minds with the instructions of lesser teachers?   Correctly interpreting the Word of God is as supernatural and as dependent upon the Holy Spirit as the original writing of the Bible.   2 Peter 1:20-21   First of all, you must understand that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God . (RSV)   The Bible is a book with supernatural origins divinely intended to be understood only by people who can tap into the supernatural.   Without good hermeneutics, we would be off with the fairies but without personal divine enlightenment we would be equally lost. The Bible is our map; the Holy Spirit is our guide. The scale of the map is so large that we need the guide. The guide is so softly spoken that we need the map to confirm that we have correctly heard. Without close attention to both we’ll get lost. This is not because of any deficiency in either of them. It was always intended that they would work together.   “ You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God ” chided Jesus  ( Matthew 22:29 ). We swell with pride. Jesus’ rebuke does not apply to us! He then went on to say that God telling Moses, “ I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ” proves that the dead are raised. Who of us would have gleaned that from this Scripture?   About those Jews whose intense Bible study actually stopped them from becoming Christians, Paul wrote: 2 Corinthians 3:14-16   But their minds were hardened, for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant [the Old Testament] the same veil remains, because in Christ it passes away. But to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. But whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.   Those who were so tragically mistaken in their understanding of Scripture lacked neither intelligence nor knowledge. In fact, they were superior in both departments to most Christians. As Paul wrote: 1 Corinthians 1:19-29  For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing .” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe. . . not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble . . God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. . . that no flesh should boast before God. It wasn’t intelligence or knowledge, but a spiritual blockage that kept these Jews blinded to the truth.   1 Corinthians 2:9-14   But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man . . .” But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. . . . we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us . . . Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.    We have just noted that the Spirit is given “ that we might know ” ( 1 Corinthians 2:12 )  and  Acts 5:32  tells us that the Spirit is given to those who obey God. These truths combine to form something close to what I consider to be a key insight from Jesus: John 7:17   If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or if I am speaking from myself.   Jesus is saying that whether God gives someone the supernatural insight to discern the divine origin of Jesus’ teaching hinges on that person’s willingness to do God’s will. We find this strongly hinted at elsewhere: Ezekiel 12:2   Son of man, you dwell in the middle of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see, and don’t see, who have ears to hear, and don’t hear; for they are a rebellious house.   Note the strong connection between rebelliousness (resisting God’s will) and an inability to see and hear spiritual truth. This explains many a blockage to spiritual understanding. Are we willing to pay whatever it costs to do God’s will? To what extent do we choose to deny ourselves, sweating as it were drops of blood, while we sob “not my will, but yours” then take up our cross and follow our Lord to a torturous death for God’s sake? That, to a large measure, determines how closed to spiritual truth God will keep us.   It is because correct Bible interpretation is a product not of intellectual skills but of divine revelation, that we have such Scriptures as: Deuteronomy 29:4   But the Lord has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day.   Isaiah 29:10-11  For the Lord has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers. All vision has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed  . . .   Matthew 13:10-16  The disciples came, and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered them, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them. For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have abundance, but whoever doesn’t have, from him will be taken away even that which he has. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they don’t see, and hearing, they don’t hear, neither do they understand. In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, ‘By hearing you will hear, and will in no way understand; Seeing you will see, and will in no way perceive: for this people’s heart has grown callous, their ears are dull of hearing, they have closed their eyes; or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again; and I would heal them.’ “But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear . . . .”   We are continually tempted to dismiss Scripture’s warnings as applying to someone else, not us, as if becoming a Christian renders us immune to deception or spiritual blindness. In the light of what Jesus said above, we might think the disciples would never develop a hardened heart. After all, they were Christ’s chosen; the privileged few to whom “it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven” It was the others who had eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear spiritual truth, right? Well read this: Mark 8:17-18   . . . “ Why do you reason that it’s because you have no bread? Don’t you perceive yet, neither understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, don’t you see? Having ears, don’t you hear?  . . .   No matter how close to Jesus and spiritually privileged we might be, we are not beyond falling into spiritual blindness that stops us from seeing spiritual truths that we desperately need to know.   To be “ever hearing but never understanding” is a terrifying predicament, when it is talking not of trying to operate a DVD recorder but of spiritual truth. And it applied not to the intellectually disadvantaged but to many of Israel’s top Bible scholars. Training one’s mind is important, but Bible interpretation is such an intensely spiritual exercise that one’s heart and spirit are even more critical than one’s mind. Consider, for example, the implications of these Scriptures:   Mark 6:51-52   He got into the boat with them; and the wind ceased, and they were very amazed among themselves, and marveled; for they hadn’t understood about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.  [In other words, their hardened hearts prevented them from discerning from previous revelation who Jesus really was.]   Luke 24:45   Then he opened their minds [ie, it took an act of God], that they might understand the Scriptures .   John 16:13-14  However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth . . . He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you.   Jesus taught in parables that bamboozled listeners. As if that were not enough to lose followers, he even did things that offended people who were seeking to uphold Scripture. For instance, in the eyes of many he seemed to deliberately break one of the Ten Commandments by repeatedly choosing to heal on the Sabbath (which ended at sundown) rather that say, “Come back in a few hours.” He knowingly said offensive things without bothering to explain himself, such as “ unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves ” ( John 6:53 ).   Jesus’ approach was not a one-off for God. Jesus came to reveal the heart of the Father and he did this even in his choice of teaching methods. Like Jesus’ teaching, the Almighty has deliberately made the entire Bible offensive to intellectuals and easy to misinterpret and hard to understand. In fact, the very heart of Christianity – the cross – is like that: 1 Corinthians 1:23  but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks   Our Lord purposely makes spiritual truth and even salvation an offense to people who pride themselves in their intellect or piety. He does this because he longs for us to be genuine – as manifested by our sincerity and humility – and he craves intimacy with us. It is faith, sincerity and humility, not native intelligence or prideful self-sufficiency, that he honors.   When Peter declared that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus said that this revelation came to Peter not from people but from God himself  (Matthew 16:17 ). That is the nature of revelation. It comes not from flesh and blood, nor from intellect and study but from God. True revelation is always consistent with Scripture and usually comes through Scripture – often the rigorous study of Scripture – but it comes from the  Spirit’s  interpretation of Scripture, not from our human attempt at interpretation.   Since the Bible is God’s Word, not ours, it is his prerogative to use it however he wishes. It would be typical of our Lord – you could almost call it his sense of humor – to reveal to a simple person a precious truth that a theologian has utterly missed, and to flabbergast – perhaps even deliberately offend – the scholar by letting that simple person discover the truth by taking a Scripture out of context.   We might not worship idols of stone, but to how many intelligent and/or mature Christians does the Scripture apply, “ Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools ” ( Romans 1:22   )?   Before such a God, I can only fall in adoration, declaring: Romans 11:33-34   Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? ”   Blockages to Spiritual Truth One of the things convincing me that the Gospels are authentic is that if the disciples – the eye witnesses to the inside story – had any tendency to embellish the truth, they would have portrayed themselves in at least a slightly better light. These carriers of the story let themselves be portrayed as not just unremarkable but – to put it politely – as if they had below average intelligence. We see them not only squabbling over petty matters and being regularly chided by Jesus for being of “little faith” but we find them not understanding parables until Jesus privately explained them. What seems almost incomprehensibly ignorant of them, however, is that Jesus kept telling them he would suffer and rise from the dead and it kept going straight over their heads. This is not only hinted at in every Gospel, it is specifically highlighted not just once but twice in the one Gospel: Luke 9:22   saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up .” A week or so later, Jesus said: Luke 9:44-45  “ Let these words sink into your ears, for the Son of Man will be delivered up into the hands of men. ” But they didn’t understand this saying. It was concealed from them, that they should not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying. Nine chapters later, Jesus was still teaching them about his suffering and their understanding was still abysmal.: Luke 18:31-34   He took the twelve aside, and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be completed. For he will be delivered up to the Gentiles, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit on. They will scourge and kill him. On the third day, he will rise again.” They understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they didn’t understand the things that were said. In  Luke  alone, this is the seventh time Jesus had spoken of his future suffering. No doubt part of their difficulty was not realizing that Jesus this time was speaking very literally. Their inability to understand, however, is very significant to us because if these chosen men of God could miss spiritual truth, so can we. In the next page, we will explore this vital matter.   C O N T I N U E D  Next Page

Condemned to Hell?   A Testimony of Hope About the Unforgivable Sin   I found forgiveness after being certain I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit and was rendered unpardonable by being guilty of many different types of sin, so grave that each seemed unforgivable.         How I overcame chronic fear, condemnation and uncontrollable blasphemous thoughts.     About this page:   You are about to read of someone who not only had many reasons for being sure he was unforgivable, he felt he was one of the worst sinners on the planet. Some testimonies given further on in this series of webpages are by people who have lived more sheltered lives and dearly love their Lord even while disgusting and blasphemous thoughts rage through their minds. Regardless of which of the testimonies you can better identify with, you will still benefit from this current webpage because it gives vital help and inspiration in showing us how to deal with feeling unforgivable and coping with vile, unwanted thoughts.   This dear brother has battled years of feeling convinced that his many grave offenses had rendered him unforgivable. You need to read the full page to know all the different reasons why he felt this way, but to entice you, let me list some of them now.   My friend didn’t just turn his back on God. He crashed all the way from having tried so hard to be a good Christian to blaming Christianity for all his problems and hating God. He’s not the first person to quit church, but after doing so, if he ever entered a church he would hear foul language in his mind. He would walk out sick to his stomach. Day and night, thoughts screamed at him that he was damned to hell and had sold his soul to the devil. Whenever he tried to get close to God, his mind would go into overdrive, cursing God and his Son. It wasn’t long before the Holy Spirit was included in the gross and disgusting thoughts flooding his mind. In addition to being bombarded with uncontrollable blasphemous thoughts, however, he has also  deliberately  called God every offensive swear word he could think of. As you read his story, you will learn how, despite it all, he now enjoys God’s forgiveness.   Precisely because getting to the point of believing God forgives him has been a hard slog, his prolonged fight with condemnation has empowered him to help set others free in a way that those who have had easier lives cannot do. In my eyes he is a hero – perhaps the greatest I have had contact with – because of what it has taken for him to reach his current spiritual position. And I believe heaven sees him this way.     My friend finds himself in a dilemma in that he loves his family and in no way wants to embarrass them and yet he longs to be completely open with you. These conflicting goals are best achieved by not mentioning his name.   Grantley Morris - Founder of Netburst.net and ghostwriter of this webpage     The Testimony   I saw God as far meaner than my abusive father could ever be. Let me explain:   My dad hated everyone he came in contact with. He would not only punish me – I could accept that – but half the time I had no idea what I had done to cause it. Whenever he accused me, the truth wasn’t enough. He would beat me until I told him the version he wanted to hear, which was usually a lie just to get him to stop. Then as I cried hysterically, I was hit again and again until I could make myself stop crying. I particularly hated being lifted completely off the floor by my hair and then – still held by my hair alone – dragged up the steps to my room. The beatings seemed to last for as long as he was in a bad mood. I was the oldest child and seemed to be blamed for everything and take everyone’s punishment.   I honestly can’t recall a single moment in my childhood when I was happy. Even at a young age I had suicidal tendencies. I remember beating my head on the steps till I bled. I was always amazed at other families. They were so nice.   I was told God is love, but I could never see it. I thought if my earthly father is like he is, God must be far worse.   Church Horrors   My father only sent me to church as a free baby sitter. I remember my second time at Sunday school. I brought a Bible with me and had it confiscated because it wasn’t the old King James Version. I think my Sunday school teacher burned it. I wanted to read God’s Word but I couldn’t understand old English.   This church said I was going to hell because I couldn’t speak in tongues. That devastated me. They taught that if I ever left the church I was turning my back on God and he would never forgive me. They gave vivid descriptions of hell and repeatedly said that if I didn’t witness to others I would be held responsible for them going to hell. My friends would scream my name from hell asking why I never told them about God. But I was so extremely shy that for me to tell others about God seemed next to impossible.   I was constantly tormented with fear because I couldn’t speak in tongues and I had many nightmares that I was left behind in the rapture. I thought I knew God’s word pretty well but I somehow used it to condemn myself. I thought I had to be literally perfect or I’d go to hell. I was constantly paranoid about God.   Hating God   When I was 13, my family moved house and I stopped attending church. It was a relief, actually. Slowly I plunged from being a good kid to being a mean-spirited, hateful person. After having tried so hard to be a good Christian, I ended up hating the God I believed had rejected me and always would.   Over the years I’ve read a lot of Christian testimonies but after each I would say, “Well, God forgave that person but I’ve been far more sinful than him.” I’ve since discovered that making people suppose they are worse than almost everyone else is a favorite trick of the Evil One. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt in my mind that if anyone is guilty it’s me.   I threw a rock through a church window. I beat up my friends who went to church. I ripped up a Bible and I told my parents I hate Jesus. I told God I would never worship him; I would worship Satan instead. I postered my bedroom walls with 666 and satanic symbols. What I liked most about my favorite band was that they had a demon as their mascot and sang songs like “Children of the Damned,” and “Number of the Beast”.   I was drinking and on drugs by the age of 14. I found that when I was on drugs or drinking I didn’t have to think about God. It also seemed to numb my conscience. I had no idea it was not God who was tormenting me with guilt and fear, but Satan pretending to be God.   I would often visualize killing my dad. My brother and I plotted to kill him but we couldn’t come up with a good enough plan. At least that’s how I saw it. My brother didn’t care what the plan was; he just wanted my help to murder our father.   I often used to beat my brother; pounding him over and over. I feel guilt to this day because he is the most violent person I have ever known. I surely didn’t help. I remember him lifting weights saying, “I’m going to beat you and Dad up one day.” He has, several times. I don’t blame him. He has just been released from prison; having served two years for felony domestic violence.   At about 18 years of age, thoughts that I was damned to hell and had sold my soul to the devil began hounding me night and day. I had had terrible fears before but this was my first taste of extreme fear. It threw me into such severe depression that I was hospitalized for about two weeks. I was eventually given medication that made the thoughts go away. One day I noticed the thoughts were gone. I told myself I would go back to the Lord. Only I never did.   Inner torment like a volcano seething within me fueled an explosive temper. I have often smashed my own possessions in rage and punched holes in walls. I would get so angry while driving that I ran over street signs and other things. I had such little desire to live that I would do reckless things like racing towards train tracks at high speed, not caring if a train was coming.   On the rare times I entered a church I would hear swearing in my mind and I would fill with repulsive, sexually orientated thoughts about Jesus. I would leave feeling disgusted.   My mind would fill with cursing God and Jesus. This drove me to conclude I had committed the unforgivable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t long before the Holy Spirit himself was included in the obscene thoughts. It seemed like the more I wanted the thoughts to stop the more they started. I even had thoughts that I was the Antichrist. Thoughts that God was going to strike me down led to thoughts of rebellion and defiant dares like, “Go ahead, God, kill me!”   With filthy, blasphemous and distressing thoughts usually coming whenever I tried to get close to God, I found the easiest way was to stay out of religion. I began to look at Christianity as the cause of my problem.   Comment by Grantley: Evil Spirits   My friend is so sensitive to the differing needs of readers that he wants no one to feel uncomfortable over the fact that he has already mentioned the devil and there is more to come. So before proceeding, let me put your mind at ease by explaining why this is not a scary or kinky subject.   The mind-boggling rate at which new scientific discoveries are being made affirms not only how much we are learning, but how much more is yet to be discovered. Today’s science is so much in its infancy that not long ago it was believed that the most scientific way to study human psychology was to consider behavior alone and completely ignore the fact that humans have thoughts. If even thoughts are virtually beyond the reach of present-day science, it is not surprising that the spirit realm is too much for current scientific investigation to handle.   Some people know God exists, and yet do not think evil spirits exist. That is ridiculous. We just have to look at the world to see there is much good and much evil. If God is the spiritual power behind the good, then the evil around us also has spiritual powers behind it. Being evil, these powers feel no obligation to be truthful. They love being deceptive and do all they can to give God a bad name.   It is common for Christians to speak of Satan trying to tempt or deceive them by putting thoughts into their minds. (Technically, it is usually Satan’s agents – demons – who do the actual work, but it is legitimate to see Satan as the ultimate source.) At first thought, one might suppose that a person would have to be evil for Satan to put thoughts into his/her mind. Nothing could be further from the truth.   The apostle Paul was not writing to demon-possessed madmen when he wrote, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but . . . against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). Not only was Paul writing to ordinary Christians, he included himself by saying “  our  struggle”. So this is normal.   All of us are influenced by the spirit world (God and his angels and Satan and his angels – demons) and it happens far more frequently in our lives than most of us realize. The Bible says Satan spoke to the Holy Son of God, tempting him. So not even the most saintly people can avoid it. In fact, the more godly the person, the more you might expect that person to be a target.   The most common way for the Tempter to operate is to put thoughts in our minds that seem indistinguishable from our own thoughts. So there is nothing scary about having thoughts whispered into our minds that have their source in intelligences other than our own. In fact, it is comforting to realize that many of the evil thoughts that plague us and fill us with guilt and shame are not even our own thoughts. We don’t have to own them.   Let’s return to my friend’s story.   Failed Attempts to Return to God   I often tried to return to God. I’ve said the sinner’s prayer countless times – my best estimate is literally a hundred times. Having been taught as a child at church that I should pray for the Holy Spirit and that it would be a moving experience, I was associating God with a feeling. Rather than trusting God’s Word concerning salvation, I was looking for a positive feeling as an indication that God had accepted me. Each time I tried to reach out to God, I waited for something positive to happen, only to feel spurned by God. Not only was there no positive feeling within the timeframe that I had hoped – that would have been disconcerting enough – but I would hit a wall of fear. I have been in life-threatening situations and felt less fear. So oppressive was the guilt and fear whenever I considered returning to God, that I always felt compelled to turn away from God.   Believing that the fear was from God, I concluded that only he could take it away. I sat in a prison of fear waiting for God to release me, not realizing that Jesus had already paid the price for my release. I had no idea I was putting myself through unnecessary mental torment. I could have just ignored the fear and walked out the prison door. Rather than pushing through the fear, I gave into the awful feeling, having wrongly thought the fear was God letting me know I was doomed because my gross sins had rendered me unforgivable. This belief would often push me into depression. I would then get on medication and return to my sinful lifestyle. I kept going through this same cycle over and over.   It seemed the only way I could function was to eliminate God from my life, so I did just that. Things went fine for a while. I got married and had a son. I got off illicit drugs and alcohol. I even started a business. For the first time in my life I was finally happy.   Then I began to think that all these good things were from God. I told myself, “It can’t be! There is no God!”   I logged on to an atheist website and assured myself God doesn’t exist.   Facing my Fears   “Why do so many people love God?” I puzzled, “He wants only to send everyone to hell.” Wondering if I had overlooked something, I explored a number of websites and learned a lot about God. I asked myself, “Why do I despise God so much?” Within a couple of days I was once again overwhelmed by fear. I told myself, “This fear is surely God again; I remember this from years ago.” I immediately cried and began repenting. I resolved to turn my back on everything evil in my life and face my fear of God.   I started reading the Bible but was afraid it would only confirm that I’m condemned. Before long, it felt like everything in the Bible somehow condemned me. My mother worried about my spiritual state and visited me a lot. I would often tell her, “Look, this verse right here proves I’m going to hell!” We would then go over it and discover its meaning was totally different. I couldn’t figure out why I could have gotten such a condemning message from it.   With verses seeming to scream condemnation at me I would fill with fear and stop reading the Bible.   I bought a book about spiritual warfare. All was fine for a while, then even that book seemed to be condemning me and I put it down. Eventually, I forced myself to open the book again. I re-read the condemning sentence I had underlined. To my surprise, I couldn’t find anything in it that could lead me to feel condemned.   I began to notice that as I read, fear would overwhelm me, causing me to throw the book down without finishing the sentence.   It took me a long while to realize it, but finally the truth of 2 Timothy 1:7 hit my spirit: “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” This discovery changed everything. Contrary to what I had always thought, the fear and condemnation I suffered were not from God. Clinging to this truth has revolutionized my life. The truth of that verse has become so real to me that I now look back and can hardly believe that for most of my life I had not realized that my fear of drawing close to God was not from God but from the devil who wanted to keep me from God.   It is so ironic that I feared my Savior – the one person who was truly able to rescue me. If only I had realized years ago that he longed to help me, and loved me with infinite love.   I look back on all the unpleasant things in my life that I had considered were from God and realize that they were not from him at all. I had not been rebelling against the true God but against a beast that not only did not love me but who continually rejected me and filled me with fear. It turned out that this beast was not the true God but just Satan trying to fool me.   Prayer Was So Very Hard   Whenever I prayed, repulsive, uncontrollable blasphemous thoughts would swamp my mind. Appalled, I would stop praying. Slowly I convinced myself that despite the blasphemies buzzing through my head, God wanted to hear from me. So one day, instead of stopping because of the thoughts, I told myself, “Too bad! I’m going to pray to God everyday, regardless!” I prayed hard, ignoring the thoughts. If the thoughts increased, I prayed longer. It was a daily battle, but now when I pray my mind is usually quiet and peaceful. I guess the devil eventually figured out his trick no longer worked with me, since no matter what he threw at me I kept praying anyhow.   I used to pray really quickly. Now I pray 15-20 minutes and lose track of time. I get up from prayer feeling refreshed. I have new thoughts of happiness I’ve never felt before. Just occasionally, a disgusting thought might come but I refuse to let it rock me. I’m winning.   Yes, these days I usually feel comforted when I pray and I find it satisfying, but I only got there by forcing myself to pray no matter how I felt.   Battling Negative Thoughts   I always told people, “I can’t think positive because I feel so horrible.”   Thoughts would come, saying no one likes me, I’m not worthy to worship God, don’t leave the house, I’m worthless, I’m a failure, I’ll never feel better, there’s no hope, just give up. These thoughts used to devastate me. They were so bad that I could pretty much do the opposite of what I was thinking and it would be the right answer.   For so long I had accepted thoughts that I was no good or that I was evil; supposing the thoughts to be from God. I now know that they were tricks from Satan, whom the Bible calls the Accuser.   Slowly I learned to identify my enemy. I’ve discovered that the Deceiver’s thoughts blend in with my own. At first I was unable to tell where my thoughts ended and Satan’s began. In a split second he can finish my own thought with a swear word. I no longer consider this abnormal. I believe everyone is inwardly attacked with thoughts that are not his/her own. Some people have been better than me at ignoring the thoughts and not accepting them as their own or as coming from God. These people have had an easier life, but now I’m catching up by teaching myself not to accept thoughts that do not line up with the Bible’s teaching that God is good, patient, loving and forgiving. By continually training myself, I have become increasingly skilled at knowing what thoughts are not my own and should be rejected.   The Deceiver tries to get people to turn inwards. I have learned to avoid this. Rather than analyze undesirable thoughts or let myself feel upset by them, I do my best to ignore them and focus on other things. I might read the Bible or help someone. If the thoughts are blasphemous, I refuse to be fooled into thinking they are my own thoughts. I know they are from the devil and I refuse to blame myself for what he whispers in my head. Since salvation hinges on faith (what one believes) not works (what one does), I would only become responsible if I believed the blasphemies echoing in my head. And even if I were stupid enough to believe them, forgiveness would be waiting for me the moment I came to my senses and changed my beliefs.   The Enemy Uses Feelings to his Advantage   When overwhelmed by intense guilt and fear, it is very hard not to cave in to these false but highly convincing feelings and revert to believing them, rather than believing reality. I used to let my feelings control me. Now my goal is to control my feelings. I don’t always win but I’m getting there because every time I refuse to believe the guilt and fear, it is a major victory that weakens the deceiving power of these feelings.   Sometimes, to help me see reality, I think of it this way: no matter how atrocious my sins might have been, can I imagine God telling his Son Jesus that he had not suffered enough to forgive my sins? When Jesus suffered for the sins of the world, he took my blame upon himself. For me to blame myself and hold on to guilt would render Jesus’ suffering a waste. So to honor him I do my best not to keep blaming myself.   I have often thought God’s patience and love for me has run out but I have to remember that he is God. He has far more patience and love than any human will ever have. I lived most of my life feeling like God was always waiting for me to mess up so that he could condemn me to hell, but Jesus said he didn’t come to condemn the world. I had thought God was like my dad, but now that I’m a father I can look at God being like a father in an entirely different light. No matter how my own father acted, I know I’m never hoping for my son to make a mistake or looking for a reason to write him out of my will.   I still get unwanted thoughts and feelings but nowhere near as often. Now, when I get a bad thought, I find myself laughing because I’ll recognize it as a lie. I’ll say to the devil, “Get lost, looser!”   Comment by Grantley: Continued Attacks   What makes this testimony so true to life is that although the attacks have lessened, they have not completely stopped. This is exactly what every victorious Christian can expect. People who quit smoking, for instance, end up having less cravings then when they first quit but even years later they will have the occasional yearning for a cigarette.   When, during his 40 days of fasting, Jesus had total victory over every temptation thrown at him, the devil left him “for a season” or, as the NIV puts it, “until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). With the Bible condensing Jesus’ 30 year ministry into booklet sized gospels, one wouldn’t expect his every temptation to be listed. When Jesus had to say, “Get behind me, Satan,” while Peter was trying to talk him out of going the way of the cross, it was almost certainly a satanic attack. Likewise, the devil surely played a role when Jesus was in the garden agonizing over doing God’s will. There were no doubt other incidents of satanic attack in Jesus’ life.   Clinging to Truth   Jesus called Satan the father of lies. How can I fight Satan unless I know the truth? No wonder I used to get so attacked with false condemnation and fear when I read the Bible. The Enemy was desperate to keep me away from the liberating truth of God’s Word. You know how I had to keep persisting with reading it, despite all the false but terrifying condemnation. Gradually, however, I began finding immense help in the Bible.   John 10:10 really helped me out: “The thief comes only to steal kill and destroy, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”   I liked this so much that I printed it and attached it to my bulletin board. I read this verse every time I was tempted to sin. The first part is a reminder that if I let sin have its way it would destroy me. The second part gives me hope of a better life.   Another Scripture I found invaluable is James 4:7, “Submit yourselves, then, to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.”   Keeping this verse in my mind reminds me that when in faith I hold on to the power of God’s Word, the devil has to flee. I broke many bad habits by resisting. Instead of my bad habits, I gained a good habit: resisting bad thoughts the instant they entered my mind. I learned that thinking about a temptation gives it time to snowball into something greater and so rejecting the thought immediately makes it easier to resist.   It took me a long while to realize that I make the devil’s day whenever I start worrying about demons or imagining things. He loves to play on the imagination. Most of my temptations and negative thoughts came to me while daydreaming. I need to take my thoughts captive and not let them run off and disturb me.   I paid attention to every thought I had, asking myself, “Is this a good thought or a bad thought.” If it was bad I called it a lie. I refused to act on any bad thought. Over time I recognized these thoughts as from the devil or a demon. I had one telling me to smoke. (I used to smoke two packs a day.) Every time it told me to light a cigarette or take just one hit I immediately spoke loudly, calling it a liar. When in public I said it in my head.   I resisted the devil by not believing his lies. But I also hit him with the truth. That makes me feel real good. I only use short statements of truth. The devil wants me to have a debate with him but that would be giving him the upper hand. I’ve found it’s important not to get too involved with the Tempter. Jesus didn’t strike up a conversation or debate with the devil. He boldly and emphatically declared Bible verses and told him to get lost – nothing more! (Matthew 4:1-10) I’ve discovered that’s all any of us have to do. So I don’t bother arguing with the devil; I know the truth and I’m holding on to it, no matter what.   The devil might throw a bad feeling at me but I remember he’s hurting ten times worse. Every time Satan hears me saying, “That’s a lie!” it hurts him bad. The feelings he puts on me are just his desperate attempt to get me to stop because he’s scared. He knows he’s losing.   If demons want to put awful thoughts into my head, they are going to hate being near me because I’m committed to worshipping Jesus until the day I die. For the first time in my life I’m winning and I’m not going to let some thought or feeling rob me and drag me back to the black hole in which I used to live.   I used the same tactics when fighting urges to look at porn or women other than my wife. If the thought wasn’t good, I called it a lie. If the Bible doesn’t say it is true, I called it a lie. When I feel unforgiven, I call it a lie. It worked. The devil has little power over me now.   This is not the power of positive thinking. It works only with the help of the Lord. I pray in the morning, afternoon and night.   Early on, the devil did his best to trick me into going it alone. I thought I’d get myself cleaned up, quit smoking and then I’ll go back to the Lord. Wrong! Gradually I learnt that Jesus is with me every step. He was already by my side; I just didn’t realize it. I couldn’t fight it alone, nor did I have to try to.   Rather than dwelling on upsetting thoughts that would plague my mind, I tried to focus on establishing a relationship with God through prayer and to make uplifting thoughts of Jesus the center of my attention.   Medication   I originally had doctors treat me with medication. It helped but my problem returned after I stopped the medication. I’m not against medication. I believe it helps people until they are strong enough to fight without drugs. This time, however, I’m asking the Lord for help. I like the fact that I’m not masking the problem.   Faith is something we work at. It doesn’t come all at once. If we are not healed we shouldn’t blame ourselves; we just keep on believing. Eventually we may reach a point where we can find healing.   I achieved much in just 40 days. I’ve been held back and missed so much. But now for the first time in 32 years I’m winning. If I don’t read the Bible or say go to church I find myself slipping into depression and fear. I’ve discovered that prayer, Bible reading and church – the very things that for so many years I avoided because I would get so attacked whenever I did them – are what I need for a fulfilling, victorious life.   Discovering God’s Goodness   I can never fully understand God’s wisdom, but I now know that even when I don’t understand, he has a loving reason for everything he does. If God had healed my depression I would have mistakenly seen healing not as an act of grace – which all healing is – but as divine acceptance of what at the time was my sinful lifestyle. So the healing I desperately wanted would have ended up doing more harm than good by keeping me in bondage to sin.   I used to get upset because God never answered certain prayers. Then I realized I wasn’t worshipping God; I was using him for my personal needs. I was treating him like a Santa Claus. I didn’t pick up on it for a while but now I know better and now I give God the praise he deserves.   My Battle with Panic Attacks   Three or four years ago, I developed a form of social anxiety disorder. Mentioning this might seem to be straying from the thrust of the webpage but it is common for people suffering false condemnation to be prone to such mental afflictions as anxiety or panic attacks. Moreover, the way I am overcoming this challenge reinforces the method I have successfully used to fight condemnation.   A back injury forced me to change jobs. Since I look young for my 32 years, many of my new customers thought I must lack the experience to fix their problem. Trying to convince them otherwise was so difficult that I began to fear having to confront people who doubted my abilities. My fears escalated until I was having panic attacks on the way to their door. There’s nothing more scary than trying to conduct business when you feel like you’re having a heart attack. I persevered for as long as I could, but I finally had to give up the job, despite having pretty much mastered the trade.   Things grew worse until I was having a panic attack over just about any social occasion. I even found myself unable to leave my house. I knew in my head there was nothing to fear, but still I would panic.   After studying the subject I’ve concluded that with this problem it is best not to push oneself too hard. I had forced myself to face these fears and it led only to more anxiety and more fears. It’s like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.   I’ve just started to fight this battle but here’s what I’ve been doing. First, I have put all my trust in God. I have learnt that when a fear comes I must eliminate it immediately. If I let myself think about it, then in just two or three seconds it will begin to mushroom. Then I’m daydreaming and having anticipation anxiety. I can never beat it by thinking about it.   When a fearful thought pops in my head I treat it like it’s the devil talking to me. I immediately say to myself, “That’s a lie!” and put the thought out of my mind. I don’t take the thought any further than that. Sometimes I back it up with a relevant quote from the Bible, much like Jesus did when the devil tried to tempt him.   When I first started doing this I found myself saying, “That’s a lie!” all day long. That doesn’t matter. Even that is progress.   We have a bodily reaction to every thought. This, for instance, is how lie detectors (polygraphs) work. I’m finally learning to turn this fact of life around for good. When I find myself getting fearful I start thinking good thoughts about God and worshiping him inwardly. This not only helps take my mind off the fear, it ends up calming my whole body.   Achieving this degree of control hasn’t come easily. I’ve had to train myself to monitor my thoughts and, upon identifying a negative thought, respond by redirecting my thoughts to more uplifting things. While I’m thinking about fear I’m not thinking about God, and vice versa.   A Recent Battle With Condemnation   A couple of years ago, I got drunk and began wondering why God let me suffer all the time. Soon, I was calling God every bad swear word I could think of. Someone had told me it was okay to vent anger at God. He said God could handle it; he’s seen it all. Well, I took it way too far. Just five minutes later I came to my senses and was appalled at what I had done.   Recently, the enemy reminded me of this event and I was again terrified that this past event had rendered me unforgivable. Without Grantley’s web site ( www.netburst.net ) to help me see clearly again, I think I would have gone insane.   Recognizing my previous mistake, however, had given me a new respect for God and a new outlook on life. This experience was a wake-up call that has probably saved me from drifting away from God. I now make every day count.   God forgives instantly but my problem seems to be forgiving myself. Every time I think about not being forgiven I’m thrown into severe depression, usually for a couple days or so. This website helps bring me back to reality.   I struggle repeatedly with the thought that I have committed spiritual suicide. It is easy to see how loving and forgiving our God is when you take away the lies and misconceptions, but I’m repeatedly hit with lies and distorted truths. To counteract this I have to continually keep in the forefront of my mind the truth that God has forgiven me.   My Dad has Changed   Since I have shared less than complimentary impressions of my father as he was while I was growing up, it is only fair to mention that over the years he has changed. I gradually became aware that although he didn’t specifically say it, he was showing me by his actions that he was sorry for his past behavior. I noticed that he didn’t overreact to many things the way he used to and he was treating me more like a son. At first I was angry because I thought he was acting. It took time but I began to have a change of heart towards him and was finally able to forgive.   We must accept the fact that people can drastically change or how can we expect change in our own lives?   Our relationship is now good. We get along well. He treats me with a great deal of respect. He actually goes out of his way to help me out. He’s always there for me and eager to help me.   Wrap Up   The devil had me believing I disliked God because I was pure evil. I now know I disliked God because I really didn’t know him. The Lord is more wonderful than I could have ever dreamed.   By suffering and dying on my behalf, Jesus gave each one of us immense power over the devil, but it took me a long while to learn how to use it. With Satan stripped of power through Christ’s sacrifice, his only ability is to try to trick people with his lies. He can’t harm any of us except when we choose to believe his lies rather than God’s truth.   I have found that if I continue to believe a lie from the devil, he throws me another lie and then another. I used to accept his lies as a part of my thinking. Now that I have discovered his ploy, I try not to let any thought stay in my mind if it’s negative. I see this as a part of my spiritual warfare and I have noticed much improvement since putting it into practice.   There is no quick fix. I do a little better every day. I have some bad days but for the most part I’m doing well. Most of my unhealthy fear of God has gone. I still occasionally struggle with guilt but even then I try to hold my head up high for our Lord.   It takes constant effort not to slip back into my old thought patterns, but with each attempt I am building new thought habits that will slowly become so strong that they will become my natural reaction.   I have now been reading the Bible regularly because I desperately need it to expose the Enemy’s lies. I have learned that all my misconceptions about God came from verses that were used out of context. What scared me the most at church as a child was when they read the book of Revelation. I was terrified of that book! A friend suggested I should read it. My first thought was, “No way!” I eventually faced my fears and read it. I can honestly say I loved it!   I was getting ready for bed a couple of weeks ago and noticed that my mind was quiet. I didn’t hear negative thoughts, such as anger, hate, thoughts of being condemned and so on. For the first time in my life there was peace and quiet in my mind.   This last Sunday I went to church. I didn’t have one bad thought. It was the best service I ever attended. I felt healthy and close to God.   I find myself becoming free more and more. I’m learning to look to God when fear comes. How different this is to when fear used to make me run from God!   I can now see that I’m saved not by my efforts nor even by my faith. I’m saved by his grace. Through his grace I have faith. Maintaining even a speck of faith can seem almost impossible in the midst of a storm of condemning thoughts but even when my faith seems no match for all the doubts, it only takes a tiny mustard seed of faith. Jesus does the rest.   This webpage is one of many very helpful webpages in this website on this subject. I urge you to print them and read them over and over till they sink deep into your spirit. Remember, it’s not going to happen over night. Be patient. I’m still working on some of this myself, but I’ve proven that it’s worth every bit of effort.   Occasionally, I wake up in the night scared to death. Then I come to my senses and laugh because I know I’m winning. I truly believe the blood and power of Jesus is all I need. I finally see the truth: Jesus came to save me, not to condemn me. He  longs  to save me. I can see for the first time in my life why they say he is a God of love and mercy.   Update   It is approaching a year since the above was written. I thought you would appreciate an update to the story to see if this experience can be continued indefinitely. My friend writes:   I’m happy to say that each day gets a little better. There is a definite improvement since I last wrote.   I still get the occasional disturbing thought but it’s very rare now. I think this is the enemy’s way of checking up on me. Handling the thoughts is less of a battle. Usually, I just laugh them off because I know in my heart that I’m saved.   I regularly remind myself that I’m a new person. It’s hard to believe that just a year ago I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and lived a very reckless lifestyle. Life is so much easier. I’m no longer bound to bad habits and sin. This is not to say I’m perfect, just different – and I like the changes!   I still have some issues with social anxiety that I’m working on. The main difference is that now I know that with God’s help I can beat this. I no longer have to feel that I’m bound to this forever. God helps and directs my future.   I would encourage anyone with similar struggles to what I’ve been through to seek God. He will forgive all who want to be forgiven.   The Support you Need As a doctor prescribes daily medication, I prescribe daily reading of these webpages. Ensure that your reading includes  Scrupulosity: Serious Help When Worried about Salvation, Blasphemous Thoughts or Persistent Guilt Feelings  and all the pages it leads to, but there is much more listed  Condemned? How to Cope When Riddled with Guilt  and  How Much does God Love Me? Receiving a Personal Revelation of God’s Love for You .   Next Testimony: Extreme Grace: A Christian who kept doing all he could to force God to reject him

Help If You Sometimes Do Such Things As: * Punish yourself * Hurt yourself * Cut yourself * Abuse yourself * Hit yourself * Pinch yourself * Beat yourself * Mutilate yourself * Whip yourself * Slap yourself * Punch yourself * Stab yourself * Starve yourself * Hit your head against a wall * Deliberately make yourself miserable * Overwork * Try to make yourself ugly by overeating or how you dress * Fantasize about suffering (being raped, tortured, mistreated, or whatever) * Deny yourself legitimate pleasures or happiness * Sabotage relationships that would make you happy Healing and Compassionate Understanding If right now you are teetering on the edge of self-harm and cannot hold off while you delve into longer lasting solutions, go to Self-Harm Alternatives: Emergency Relief and return to this page when you are more able to focus If you feel like hurting yourself, you are not alone, you are not weird and you are not a failure. In fact – although you will need to read much more to understand why – self-harmers fill me with admiration. More Effective Help With the exact mix of factors behind self-harm varying from person to person, an adequate webpage on this subject cannot be short. If you are sometimes attacked by an urge to afflict yourself with pain or harm, you deserve nothing less than answers powerful enough to end your torment. So revolutionary are the answers to self-injury and/or self-hate, that no matter how they are presented they can initially seem off-the-planet or not personally applicable to your situation until you have fully absorbed the entire webpage. So despite any initial qualms, I urge you to keep reading. It could change your life. Self-loathing and/or self-injury is an exceedingly complex issue because it is an expression of the depths of one’s humanity. Self-harm is a manifestation of a need that totally eclipses animals or machines – the need to comprehend complex concepts and emotions and to communicate them with an equally intelligent being. It reveals that you, like all humans, are a breathtakingly intricate, sophisticated and noble being with lofty ideals and a deep yearning to understand and be understood. As beyond belief as it seems, our dilemma is not that we are alone and not understood but simply that we have not grasped how totally known, valued and accepted we really are. When Truth Seems Untrue I will quickly run through what we have just said, providing more confirmation that it is true but before this I should explain why it is so critical, and why it seems so unbelievable. It might have been so much part of your life that you have accepted it as normal but if you engage in self-harm you have almost certainly been repeatedly and horrifically slandered – probably beginning in your most impressionable years. You might have been told by someone whose opinion you respect that you are hopeless, a loser, evil, stupid, or slut or some other putdown. The inevitable consequence is that, like being subjected to years of the cruellest brainwashing, you have come to accept those lies as truth. It has so distorted your perception of yourself that you have most likely deepened the insidious brainwashing still further by repeating the lies to yourself for years. Like becoming an addict through being forcibly given drugs as a child, repeatedly putting yourself down and telling yourself negative things has become an addiction. Just as knowing that heroin is destroying you does not make it easy to stop, so it is with this habit. Anyone, no matter how smart, who has suffered as you have, would end up this way. A genius finds it just as hard to break an addiction as someone less intelligent. The delusion now feels more real to you than the truth. Key people in your life might have treated you like trash but that says nothing about your value and everything about the depravity of those who treated you that way. No matter how numerous, respected or adamant they were; no matter how self-righteous, how much older and how much they beat it into you, they were wrong. People typically get it wrong. They even treated atrociously the most honorable person in the universe. The eternal Son of God was good like no one else. He was innocent, perfect and always right. They repeatedly accused him of being demon possessed and people wanted him dead. Before long, they got their way and the most respected people in the land had him tortured to death like the vilest criminal. Their appalling behavior said nothing about Jesus’ worth. It simply highlighted how wrong they were. So it is with the way people have treated you. In How to Change your Self-Image I explain how difficult it is to break free from the brainwashing of continual mistreatment and putdowns. It can become almost impossible to resist their lies. They might have knocked all the fight out of you, but the truth remains: they were wrong. Not all the slander in the world can change someone’s worth. No matter how much he is slandered, Jesus is truth. Neither can a mountain of slander render mistaken his assessment that you are of infinite worth. Put yourself in a bygone era on a year-long trek through unexplored South American jungles. Your highly experienced guide points the way but everything within you screams that the correct route is in a very different direction. Your life hinges on whether you believe your skilled guide or your highly insistent gut feeling. That is close to the dilemma you now find yourself in. Your well-being and entire future teeters on whether you choose to believe what everything within you screams is true, or whether you put your faith in an entirely different Source of information that says something unbelievably different. Permit me to identify that other Source. I graduated university with an honors degree in psychology but I chose not to follow that path because I discovered something far more powerful in meeting people’s deep needs. Had I pursued psychology I would have more status. It certainly would not have led to riches but I would have made a much more comfortable living than choosing to do everything for free as I do. Nevertheless, having discovered something more powerful than psychology could ever tap into, I refuse to offer half cures. You deserve the best. And that involves something you might have prematurely dismissed. The Creator of the galaxies has infinite knowledge and understanding but that is not the issue: the rest of your life hangs on whether you choose to believe him, when everything within you insists – and your entire life experience seems to confirm – that the opposite is true. God is truth and he longs for you to know the staggering truths about him – and about yourself – that will set you free. But since God is lovingly gentle and not some abusive tyrant who forces himself upon you, to be freed from the enslaving power of those deceptive lies, you must choose to co-operate with God by accepting the truth – even while it feels utterly unreal – and refusing the lies – even though they seem so seductively believable. This is what faith in God is all about – deciding that Almighty God is a more reliable source of truth than your feelings and so choosing to believe what he says, rather than what your feelings say. The Almost Unbelievable Now, as promised, I will briefly expound a few points mentioned earlier, with a view to helping you grapple with some seemingly unbelievable truths. I can write – God’s compassion compels me to – but only you can persist in prayerfully reading. Your self-esteem has been so crushed that it will take you enormous effort for even a small fraction of these truths to sink in, but since, as the proverb says, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, it is important to begin by making every effort to try to absorb the following and doing your utmost to resist the temptation to imagine that you – or anyone else – could somehow nullify the infinity of God’s love. Why I Admire People Tempted to Self-Harm People who feel so tormented that they feel like harming themselves unquestionably deserve deep compassion. More than this, however, they fill me with admiration. Here is one reason: Almost everyone engaged in self-harm sees himself as a loser but in my eyes every such person is not just a winner but a hero. I know how right your negative view of yourself feels to you but, nevertheless, I am certain that my view is the most realistic one. To explain, I’ll quote something I’ve written elsewhere: An athlete, in the midst of a record-breaking run, has never in his life been so fit and strong. Yet his pain-racked body may have never felt so weak. Likewise, in the midst of a spiritual trial, it is not uncommon to be stronger and yet feel weaker than ever before. And to fellow Christians you might seem hopeless. An ultra-marathon champion staggering up the final hill looks pathetic. A child could do better. Anyone not understanding what this man has gone through would shrink from him in disgust. Only someone with all the facts would be awed by his stamina as he stumbles on. Consider Scott and his team, who struggled to the South Pole only to discover their honor of being the first to reach the Pole was lost forever. Amundsen had beaten them by about a month. To add to the futility, they endured further blizzards, illness, frostbite and starvation only to perish; the last three dying just a few miles from safety. Yet today their miserable defeat ending with death in frozen isolation, witnessed by not a living soul, is hailed as one of the greatest ever epics of human exploration and endurance. Every fiber of my being is convinced that their glory is just a shadow of what you can achieve. Though you suffer in isolation and apparent futility, with the depths of your trial known to no one on earth, your name could be blazed in heaven’s lights, honored forever by heaven’s throngs for your epic struggle with illness, bereavement, or whatever. The day is coming when what is endured in secret will be shouted from the housetops. Look at Job: bewildered, maligned, misunderstood; battling not some epic foe but essentially common things - a financial reversal, bereavement, illness; - not cheered on by screaming fans, just booed by some one-time friends. If even on this crazy planet Job is honored today, I can’t imagine the acclaim awaiting you when all is revealed. Your battle with life’s miseries can be as daring as David’s encounter with Goliath. Don’t worry that others don’t understand this at present. One day they will. And that day will never end. Anyone feeling drawn to self-harm is suffering immense inner agony and yet instead of going the cowardly way of suicide he staggers on. That is heroic. Self-harm can be a dire cry for help and desperately craved attention. Such motivation in no way lowers the heroism: the inner pain is just as intense as when it is not a cry for help. Here’s yet another reason for self-harmers capturing my admiration: If you analyze it you will discover that what drives most people to self-harm is distress over their continual failure to reach the standards they believe they should achieve. They are so hard on themselves, however, that they forget that a lesser person would reduce his inner pain by lowering his standards – something self-harmers won’t let themselves do. They continue to maintain their ideals even though it brings them deep torment. How admirable is that! Sadly, self-loathing could have so wounded you that not only this, but much of the following, will initially stagger belief or bounce off as if it did not apply to you. Imagine someone languishing in poverty despite receiving a check for ten million dollars. With the gift seeming too good to be true, he presumed it must be a hoax and never bothered to cash the check. I beg you not to be like that person. Please don’t miss out simply because what the good Lord has done seems too good to be true. Even though God’s standards are terrifyingly higher than ours, anyone thinking himself not good enough is seeing things through human eyes, not divine eyes. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, reaches the Holy Lord’s humanly unattainable standards of absolute perfection. Again, this will seem unbelievable or irrelevant mumbo jumbo without serious grappling with truth and seeking divine revelation. You Are a Sophisticated Being I claw at words trying to describe you. Words like noble, regal, intelligent, important and valuable all fall short. “Priceless” and “irreplaceable” are applicable but still fail to embrace the full magnificence of who you are. You are God-like – and you are not some shabby imitation of God but the Almighty God of Perfection made you with God-like qualities. Genesis 1:27 God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them. This is solid proof that when the Bible speaks of “man” or “men” in general, it applies with equal force to females as to males. It is so important to God that we grasp this gender issue that he lays it out in the very beginning of the Bible. Moreover, Scripture also implies that God’s nature is most fully reflected not by males alone but by a combination of what is distinctively masculine and what is distinctively feminine. For more, see Gender in the Bible. So, under the inspiration of God himself, Genesis 1:27, is declaring that, without exception, every human is in the image of the divine. Tragically, many children have been so grossly mistreated that they grow up to feel less than human. The devastating feeling of being less than human can be so strong that that degrading feeling can seem to be the truth. No matter how loudly they scream, however, mere feelings cannot change what God pronounces to be true. The truth is that you are fully human, which means you reflect the very nature of God – so much so that Jesus said, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?” (John 10:34). Jesus was referring to this Scripture: Psalms 82:6-7 I said, “You are gods, all of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you shall die like men, and fall like one of the rulers.” In this Word from God, our mortality – a consequence of our fallen nature – is brutally recognized and yet still the Godlike aspects of our nature remain undeniable. Finally, here are two more Scriptures affirming how exalted all humans are: Psalm 139:14 I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. Psalm 8:3-6 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained; what is man, that you think of him? What is the son of man, that you care for him? For you have made him a little lower than God, and crowned him with glory and honor. You make him ruler over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet. You Are Not Alone Let’s briefly explore several aspects to the comforting, liberating truth that no matter how alone you feel, you are not alone. There is something devastatingly lonely and isolating about pain. No one but God could slip inside your head and feel your pain. And how you feel just cannot be put into words. Yet we yearn to break the torment of solitary confinement and be understood. We yearn to express the inexpressible. It is a sad fact that because not everyone understands self-harm, some people conclude in their ignorance that self-harm is weird. In reality, you are not alone because almost the entire human race has engaged in some form of self-harm, even if it is just people wounding themselves emotionally by telling themselves they are stupid after doing something that is below their best. For anyone to regard his own form of self-harm as acceptable and think someone else’s is weird is hypocritical. It simply boils down to personal familiarity with certain forms of self-abuse. Not just emotional self-harm but full-on self-injury occurs around the globe in every continent, and probably every culture. A dear friend of mine writes: I have had the honor of talking to many people who have self-harmed. They are of all ages, from all walks of life and from several countries, especially Latin America and Africa. My son has chatted with people from all over Asia who self-harm. Currently, in immigration detention centers all over the world, huge numbers are cutting themselves and self-harming. They have suffered torture, war and crimes in such places as Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. They feel trapped, isolated, oppressed. Their “crime” is wanting to live in a world that apparently does not want them. (Sound familiar? It sure does to me.) They are unwanted anywhere. The country they have fled to does not want them and they might be killed if forced to return to the land they risked their lives to flee from. They feel rejects, unworthy to be alive, and are plagued with nightmarish memories of what drove them to become refugees in the first place. They are among the countless thousands of people who are hurting and feeling deep pain right now. Oppression incites anger. When the anger is unified (in a mass demonstration or a revolution, for example) the whole world takes notice. When it remains confined to individuals, however, the anger and a loss of any sense of justice can intensify even more. Anger cries out for expression. It demands a voice. People all over the world struggle like me to be heard, to be understood, to be free from inner pain. They feel what I feel. If we swapped stories they would say I am okay. They know. Even if we never meet, this connects me to them. I am not alone with this pain after all. They understand. I am one with all the voiceless people out there who are screaming with their own bodies to be understood and allowed to exist like normal people do. I think of an African friend who begged me to understand that she wasn’t worthless. She was smart. She would have been someone, instead of a worthless refugee in a country that doesn’t want her, if only she had not been brought up in a war-torn country. She has terrifying nightmares and she self-harms. She learned that I self-harmed and we talked. We share a secret. We are not alone. We speak to each other. We connect. We have a voice together. It comforts me. More than this, my friend is discovering something amazing flowing from the unique way that her suffering connects her with other hurting people: it empowers her to bring them hope and comfort like no one who has had an easier life can possibly achieve. Her suffering broke God’s heart and was the tragic consequence of living in a world that refuses to imitate God but acts in rebellion against his kind, gentle, loving ways. Nevertheless, that suffering has lifted her to a place of special honor in God’s eyes because it puts her in a unique position to help other suffering people – all of whom are so dear to his heart. To her astonishment, she has discovered that her past anguish, rather than being the useless waste it had once seemed, has immense meaning and value. You Are Totally Known and Understood Earlier we stated the obvious: No one but God could slip inside your head and feel your pain. But guess what! That is exactly what God does! “Laugh, and the world laughs with you, cry, and you cry alone,” can only be true if you leave God out of the equation. And the stupendous news is that we don’t have to leave God out. You are of such astounding importance and value to the Lord of the universe that every minute aspect of your life captivates his attention. He knew you and yearned for your companionship long before you had ever heard of him – before you even gained consciousness, in fact. He cares for you so much that ever since the moment of your conception, God has been with you, observing the multiplication of your every cell as you slowly formed within the womb. Invest time trying to contemplate the overwhelming vastness of the number of grains of sand in a single bucket. Then multiply that by the total amount of sand on every beach on the entire planet and add the grains of sand in every desert. That incomprehensible number is equivalent to the number of thoughts God has had about you. Whether you are asleep or awake, no detail of your life, no matter how hidden and secret or insignificant or embarrassing, past or future will ever escape his intimate awareness. He has known your every thought and he knew every word you would speak before you even uttered it. And this mind-bogglingly intense level of concern for you will keep hurtling on like an unstoppable freight train fuelled by limitless love for all eternity. Add infinite intelligence to this unlimited knowledge and you are totally understood – not just more than any other human can possibly understand you but exceedingly more than you could even hope to understand yourself. In the most intensely intimate, infinitely detailed sense of the word, God knows what you are going through. Keep reading and you will see that your pain matters – so astoundingly so that, rather than luxuriate in ease, the most important Person in the entire cosmos would willingly suffer every trace of your pain for you. The stupendous Lord of the Galaxies, the Source of all beauty, feels for you so immensely that it would actually relieve his distress for him to fully bear your torment himself. You are not alone: even though you are rarely even conscious of it, from the moment of your conception and for the rest of eternity you have the ultimate companion who is infinitely concerned about the tiniest aspects of your life. For biblical confirmation of this, see Psalm 139. God Has Taken Your Pain Upon Himself God is highly personal. He is no machine storing incomprehensibly vast quantities of information. God is love. Infinite love not only cares enough to want to know everything about you; love feels . Your pain and distress sends him reeling in pain. Even imperfect humans can love with such intensity that they would rather suffer themselves than see their loved one suffer. And this is what God has done. Study this: Isaiah 53:4-12 Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering . . . But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed. . . . the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . . and stricken for the disobedience of my people . . . you make his soul an offering for sin . . . he will bear their iniquities. . . . yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. It is almost as if the magnitude of the agony God feels in identifying with your distress drove him to self-harm – except that it was so much more than just an emotional reaction; it was the meticulously planned solution for your needs. By identifying with you so utterly that he was tortured to death on your behalf, the eternal Son of God opened the way for your healing and other wonders of immense significance in your life. Now all that it takes is for you to accept it. Just as marriage requires not just love and commitment from one partner, but the other must also agree to the union, so it is with you and God. No matter how much love yearns to help, love refuses to force itself upon another. At whatever personal cost it takes, love restrains itself until the loved one is willing to receive. You Are Valued Beyond Measure To explain, let me quote from something I’ve written elsewhere: A diamond is just a bit of rock. It can’t love, talk, think. Its worth is based not on what it can do but on what people are willing to pay for it. Diamonds are considered of great value simply because people will pay much to have one. 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 to have you as his best friend. You have an irreplaceable place in God’s own heart. He loves you dearly and tenderly and devotedly. He paid the highest possible price – the willing sacrificial death of his holy Son – to have you as his best friend. Types of Self-Harm If you feel pressured to inflict pain or discomfort upon yourself or make yourself miserable, a common response is cutting oneself but the range of possibilities is almost endless. You might, for example, bite yourself, not allow sores to heal by repeatedly picking at them, refuse to relieve yourself until the pain becomes intolerable, or deny yourself needed medical treatment. Eating disorders not only result in self-harm, they are often driven by forces similar to those behind other types of self-harm. It is not always the case, of course, but even overwork or sabotaging relationships that fill you with joy can likewise be a form of self-inflicted pain that this webpage addresses. Irrespective of whether you happen to express your extreme distress in one of the possibilities listed in this page or you are even more creative in your choice of self-affliction, you are by no means a freak, nor are you alone in your distress. Less well-publicized forms of self-harm can seem bizarre and inexplicable even to those hurting themselves. The perplexing behavior suddenly makes sense, however, when the person’s past is revealed. Strange forms of self-abuse often turn out to be re-enactments of sometimes-forgotten childhood abuse. Real-life examples can prove highly illuminating for some sufferers, but for a few people, details might trigger memories they are currently not brave enough to face. In some cases, self-harm originates not from deliberate childhood abuse but from significant people in one’s life inadvertently giving the dangerously wrong impression that you are not quite good enough to be loved. Some people with eating disorders, for example, have gained – sometimes mistakenly – the impression that they are almost at the point of being accepted but they need to do just that bit extra to make it. Although the way they were treated is very mild compared to what abused children have received, they can still find it devastating and feel compelled to go to extremes to try to prove themselves worthy of acceptance. Children’s need for parental love and approval almost rivals their need for oxygen, but even quite good parents can be rather miserly in giving it. It might simply be that the parent – especially common in fathers – is emotionally reserved and has no idea how much he or she is leaving the child with a gnawing ache for parental affection and/or approval. The result is what can feel like an unfillable hole in the child that refuses to diminish even after the child has matured into a capable adult. People suffering this way usually downgrade the significance of having felt love-deprived as a child. They see it as minor, relative to obvious child abuse, but just as malnutrition in childhood can have serious, long-term implications, so can feeling love-starved. An unmet craving for parental approval can not only last a lifetime, it can transmute into a gut-wrenching feeling of inadequacy that produces an endless striving to be “good enough,” or even result in self-loathing. Even highly successful people can stagger through life little moved by world acclaim, but desperately pining for their parents’ approval, and never feeling they can get it. Sometimes an eating disorder, or some other unusual behavior, is a manifestation of this desperate attempt to be “good enough.” The critical factor is not how loved, desirable, successful or capable we really are, but how we suppose we measure up. This, in turn, is usually strongly influenced by the self-image we gained during our most impressionable years – our childhood. In cases of blatant abuse, even more devastating than the inflicted physical pain is the long-lasting psychological wounding. Abusers typically try to ease their own conscience for their shameful acts of cruelty by either forcefully declaring or implying that their victims are useless, or worse. The torment they inflict is so emotionally shattering that it leaves an indelible impression on their victims. Putdowns can have serious implications, however, regardless of whether they come in the form of violent abuse, are solely verbal, or just the rationing of parental love. And regardless of whether the child is correct or mistaken in interpreting it as a putdown. What makes suffering perceived putdowns during one’s childhood particularly devastating is that not only did they occur during one’s impressionable years, those treating the child this way were usually older (and therefore smarter), and hence perceived by the child as reliable, authoritative sources of information. Moreover, abusers often keep their bad behavior behind closed doors and are respected by the community or thought by other family members incapable of doing wrong, thus reinforcing a child’s natural tendency to believe what they say. Tragically, though not surprisingly, these factors combine to leave survivors with the mistaken but powerful impression that they must have deserved the abuse they received. Not only do they feel they deserved their past mistreatment, they are often specifically told, or come to conclude, that they are incurably wicked and so deserve continual punishment. For example, for thirty years after her abuse until she was healed, sexual abuse survivor Christine would cry out in her sleep, “I’m bad, I’m bad, I’m bad . . .” Like many people who practice self-injury, what she had suffered as a child amounts to brainwashing that proved far more powerful than her high intelligence in setting in concrete her feelings about herself. Writes a Christian in her early twenties who finally found Christlike love and acceptance: I believed I was worthless inside and that I had to beat myself up because no one else would take the time to do it like I deserved. Eventually I learned that no one else wanted to beat me up because they didn’t see a need to. Even after I revealed some of my darkest secrets to them, they still loved me. For many, self-harm is combined with masturbation and/or pornography – often mixed with fantasies of being humiliated, terrorized or physically hurt. This is particularly common among sexual abuse survivors, which is hardly surprising since their original suffering was associated with sexual stimulation. The Need to Feel When people receive bad news they are usually left numb with shock. How long this lasts varies, with a key factor being how willing the person is to face the reality and full implications of the news. When someone has been traumatized, this numbness lasts indefinitely if the person is unwilling to face the full reality of what happened. People can be so determined not to let themselves feel the natural horror, grief and anger that such an experience produces that they become disconnected from their feelings. An added reason for this happening is that some people believe that anger, hate and bitterness are wrong. Some even feel condemned over experiencing deep sorrow. So, rather than resolve such feelings, many people keep suppressing the feelings, refusing to admit to themselves that these feelings/attitudes are boiling just below the surface. It’s like having cancer and supposing that if you stoically refuse to think about it, the cancer will magically disappear. Just as removing from our consciousness an unhealed part of our body does not cause it to heal, neither does removing unresolved issues from our consciousness cause them to become resolved. This denial of one’s true feelings produces a numbness so unnatural and disconcerting that many people feel driven to inflict pain on themselves simply to give them something they can feel. Pain feels a particularly appropriate choice to them because deep down they know they should be feeling and expressing their pain over past suffering that still haunts them because it remains unresolved. Inner pain is just as real, agonizing and debilitating as physical pain, and yet it seems vague, mysterious and hidden. Physical pain is less complicated, more understandable and psychologically easier to handle. When we have inflicted physical pain upon ourselves, the reason for the pain is obvious, but with inner pain most of us cannot understand why we are so distressed. We typically tell ourselves, “That happened years ago, I should be over it now,” and/or “Others have suffered far worse horrors.” We are particularly likely to underrate the severity of our inner distress if we keep pushing the memory away and refuse to truly examine the extent of what we suffered. It is like a wound that will never heal because we refuse to admit that it needs to be treated. A rewarding feature of self-inflicted pain – what keeps us repeating it – is that it provides a more intelligible reason for us being in pain and can temporarily distract us from the reality of our inner suffering. The real reason for our inner pain often remains buried because we are too scared to face it, and while it remains largely unexplored, the pain it produces remains largely inexplicable to us. Mysterious Inner Pain An emotional wound – the aftermath of a long-passed trauma, for example – is very real. Despite its intensity, however, there is much about inner pain that is frustratingly vague, undefined and hidden. And the mystery is further confounded by most of us trying to cope with the anguish by suppressing memories, refusing to think about it, and so on. In stark contrast, there is nothing complex or bewildering about a flesh wound. No one thinks you are weird for feeling pain when you are bleeding. No one says, “You should be over it by now,” when they see a gaping wound. When there is an obvious physical cause, the pain makes sense. We can be driven to self-harm by the thought that if we are going to be in pain anyhow it might as well be pain that has an obvious cause and is easily defined and understood. Physical pain offers a moment’s respite from the frustratingly difficult to understand inner agony. The anguish within seems inexplicable and yet we still yearn to define it and explain it, not just to others but to ourselves. As already mentioned, this need sets us apart from sub-humans. Refusing to think about the cause of inner pain, rather than being as macho as we might try to fool ourselves into believing, is contrary to our very humanity. It dehumanizes us and does nothing to end the pain. If you have a huge splinter in your foot, trying not to think about the pain or stabbing yourself elsewhere to divert the pain will not end your pain. You cannot hope to be free from pain until you investigate the cause, face the fact that you have a splinter and then remove it. Inner pain might not be as simple but with the help of a counsellor you can do the equivalent and finally find peace. Later in this webpage we will discover solutions to these dilemmas that haunt and stymie us. Further Reasons for Self-Inflicted Pain There are understandable reasons for people hurting themselves by what at first seems bizarre behavior. One man would pay to get raped and treated vilely in order to reinforce to himself that he was despicable and unlovable. How could anyone find such suffering rewarding? He, like many others who engage in quite different forms of degradation and self-inflicted pain, did it to keep killing his hope of being lovable. Yes, crushing his hope filled him with despair but he considered it worth the physical pain and feelings of hopelessness because he saw the relinquishing of all hope as self-protection. He believed he was protecting himself from suffering ever again from the agony of dashed hopes. Some people do such things as cut themselves, overeat, dress drably or neglect personal hygiene to kill hope. By creating good reason to expect to be rejected, they are not caught off guard or bitterly disappointed when rejection comes. Others engage in the same behavior to repel people because they fear attracting an abuser. Many, of course, are moved by both factors. Self-abuse is often an attempt to protect oneself from what are essentially the minor risks of life – such as the possibility of attracting sexual assault by dressing normally – but to the person, these unlikely dangers seem highly likely. As far as general population is concerned, their view is statistically distorted, but it is statistically significant in terms of how often it occurred in the person’s own experience. To enjoy life in all its richness, these people need to learn to trust again. In this webpage we will look at how this can happen. People who have suffered sexual abuse often combine masturbation with ugly fantasies in order to ensure that they remain totally turned off sex. They do this to protect themselves from the possibility of their sex drive or longing for love pushing them into a relationship that could end up hurting them. For some, the inner pain and deep distress within them erupts in the form of inexplicable anger or intense frustration, that might be expressed as self-mutilation or some violent act upon themselves. Some dear people see self-harm as the only alternative to expelling their pent up feelings upon other people. They fear that if they don’t physically hurt themselves they will physically hurt someone else. A girl was determined to keep her inner pain secret. By keeping herself injured she would always have something physical to point to if anyone caught her crying and wondered why she was upset. As she matured into a woman, that specific motivation for self-harm faded but it had helped to establish the habit. As she grew, other motives, such as an expression of her hatred of herself, then took over. Someone filled with pent up anger and frustration might slam a table or even a wall with his fist, thus hurting himself. His aim is not to hurt himself but to release the explosive mix of feelings erupting within him. It is not a carefully thought-out plan; it is a barely-controllable reaction to extreme pressure. Here is a variation on this: a child, enraged by the horrific abuse meted out on him, filled with an explosive yearning to violently retaliate against his abuser but the adult’s far superior strength made that impossible. The only option allowed him to express his irresistible craving for violent revenge was to direct it toward himself. This became a habit that lasted long into his adult life. Tragically, even if hurting oneself momentarily reduces some of the pressure, it is not merely a poor way of coping with inner turmoil, it actually magnifies the problem because by deliberately hurting yourself you become your own enemy, with you 24/7. Such examples vividly demonstrate the adage that unforgiveness usually hurts us more than it hurts the other person. On the other hand, what passes as forgiveness is often little more than cowardly truth-avoidance – an escapist attempt to live in denial of the reality that we have truly suffered grave injustice and that he deserves to be punished. As I explain in webpages on forgiveness, fully facing up to the gravity of what was done to us is an essential step on the path to genuine forgiveness. In our brief overview we have by no means exhausted all possible reasons for self-inflicted pain or injury. What is particularly bewildering to many of us is that the exact cause of our distress can be so suppressed that we have no idea what is causing these intense feelings. The all-knowing Lord knows all the factors involved and as you keep seeking him for answers he will reveal them so that you can heal. A Life Transformed The truth that will heal you is so mind-boggling that I must reveal it carefully and gradually lest you think I am out of my mind. Let me start by proving that no matter how ridiculous they initially seem, these healing principles really work. I’ll do this by sharing with you Christine’s story. Past sexual abuse featured strongly in her torment. The source of your distress might be very different, but the secret of Christine’s transformation applies to us all. A key factor in Christine being freed from self-harm was the realization that she was innocent. The first thing she grasped through reading my webpages was that feeling pleasure when being sexually abused is a normal bodily reaction, not a moral issue. Just as feeling pain is an unavoidable response to being severely beaten, so is feeling pleasure an unavoidable response to being forcibly, but sensually, molested. That’s a helpful insight that almost any counselor could have provided, but then she discovered something far more powerful. Let’s read her story: I expect I’ll remember till my dying day exactly where I was standing when the truth exploded within me and set me free. I was on my cell phone talking to Grantley (writer of this webpage), thanking him for his webpages that explain that the sexual pleasure inflicted on me by my childhood abuser was not my fault. I was thrilled to finally realize that my sexual feelings were an involuntary reaction to the abuse and in no way suggest immorality on my part. I could sense that Grantley was hesitant; wanting to agree with me, but sounding as if I had missed something vital. “What if you hadn’t been so innocent?” he asked. “Would you then be doomed to live with crippling guilt for the rest of your life?” Grantley had studied to be a psychologist but after graduating with honors he abandoned the field because he had found a way of healing that has far more power than psychology offers. He began to remind me of an ancient spiritual truth that has transformed the lives of countless millions. Suddenly I realized the ultimate in liberating truths: I don’t have to try to justify myself because God has justified me! The Judge of all humanity sees me as not merely no worse than average people; he sees me as spotlessly pure and perfect, just like his holy Son. This might at first seem uncomfortably religious but hold on while I explain how it transformed my life. On the cross, the Innocent One swapped places with me; suffering my humiliation so that I could gain his endless honor and, to use the astounding expression the Bible uses, he has made me “the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). I had been aware of the truth before but now it hit me like a divine revelation. Suddenly Christ’s sacrifice became the most beautiful act ever made. I am fully accepted by the Judge of all humanity, the greatest intellect and highest moral authority in the universe, and since it was all finalized and sealed two thousand years ago, there is nothing I can do to mess it up. All I need do is cling to Jesus and bask in the wonder of what he has done for me and enjoy all the benefits. I am not just as good as most people but, in heaven’s eyes, I’m as pure and holy as God, because of Jesus – and I’m sharing this because it can be just as powerfully your experience as mine. It’s so mind-blowing that I’ve had to keep repeating the Scripture over and over to myself: 2 Corinthians 5:21 For him [Jesus] who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Until making this discovery, whenever anyone criticized me I would go into a tailspin; not only inwardly agreeing with the putdown but telling myself that I’m incurably wicked and deserve to be treated as dirt and ruthlessly punished. Quickly, the oppressive feeling would balloon until it was so overwhelming that I felt compelled to hurt myself (usually by cutting myself). After that, I’d feel so miserable that I’d be pressured to masturbate in a vain attempt to comfort myself. Now, everything has changed! Is Christine Out of Her Mind? I interrupt Christine to admit that what she has been saying initially seems not merely ridiculous but downright impossible. To help you grasp a difficult concept would you mind letting your imagination run wild for a few moments before returning to cold reality? Suppose you had amnesia. After forgetting all of your past, snippets of memories are slowly returning. Eventually some of the jigsaw pieces slot together and to your horror you realize that in your past you had committed a hideous crime. For weeks you are petrified day and night that someone will find out and you’ll be jailed for life. Finally, you can bear the mental torment no longer. You turn yourself in to the police and confess. They confirm that you have correctly remembered part of your past. They inform you, however, that there are still parts you have forgotten. Years ago, you had been arrested and tried for that crime. You were given a surprisingly light sentence and you have already served the time. Imagine how relieved you would feel! Now let’s plunge back into icy reality. What has happened to you is similar, but even more amazing. You are horrified by snippets of your past that you recall. It is nightmare material. You have been hurting yourself because you suppose you have not suffered enough, but what has been wiped from your consciousness is that there is a mysterious but very real sense in which you have already suffered for the past far, far more than you realize – so immensely, in fact, that every bit of punishment you deserve has been paid in full and you are now completely free. Now here comes the part that seems utterly ridiculous: you have already paid the full penalty because Jesus was tortured to death for your past, totally absorbing within himself all your shame, pain and blame until not a shred remained. “You’re mad!” you object, “Perhaps it somehow transformed Christine but no matter how kind Jesus might have been, and no matter what he did, he’s not me. What he did is largely irrelevant.” I have to admit that you are right – if Jesus were an ordinary person. What he achieved makes no sense until we realize that Jesus is not just a spectacularly special man, nor even the world’s greatest ever miracle worker; he is divine. With him, nothing is impossible. He is supernatural and he longs to give you the most profound supernatural experience imaginable – a supernatural union in which you and he merge with each other, melting into one so that, as the Bible declares, he is in you and you are in him. Since Jesus is no abuser, he seeks your full consent before proceeding, but he is so devoted to your lifelong well-being and eternal happiness that he wants to bond with you so that you and he are inseparable. When this happens, both of you have the same spiritual bank account, the same status, the same spiritual genes, the same past (that’s why he suffered) and the same future (that’s why your future is unbelievably bright). For Scriptures about the amazing oneness with Christ that he wants you to enjoy, see One With Christ. Even though we Christians tend to understate it, this staggering miracle makes you a totally new being, complete with supernatural powers and immortality. Marriage makes a man and woman one flesh, with pooled assets and a shared destiny. Eventually their very genes permanently unite to form offspring. As this marvel commences with a few spoken words in a marriage ceremony, so a few words in a heart-felt prayer can usher in the spiritual transformation in which you and the spotlessly pure, eternal Son of God become one, with the same past and the same future. (For more about how you can experience this, see You Can Find Love. ) Often we hurt ourselves because we believe our stupidity or wickedness needs to be punished, but every trace of it has already been fully punished – with inhuman severity – when Jesus took upon himself all our imbecile goof-ups and depravity and was tortured to death for them. All the punishment was exhausted on him. There is nothing left. When you are in spiritual union with the holy Son of God, you both have the same past. What happened to Jesus happened to you, and what happened to you happened to Jesus. Do you think you need to be cut or deserve to be whipped or beaten? His skin was flayed to shreds. Think you need to bleed? All the blood was drained from his body. Think you should suffer? His agony was indescribable. Think you should die? It’s impossible to be deader than his corpse. And because it happened to him, it has already happened to you. When you and he are one, for you to punish yourself is utterly needless. The person who did things worthy of punishment is not only dead and buried, he died almost two thousand years ago. Let me plunder a piece of fiction I wrote years ago: In my mind’s eye I saw myself charging into a burning building to rescue someone I loved more than life itself. Every movement began to slow down. Shielding her body, I suffer horrific burns to carry her to safety, where I collapse, writhing in agony. But it is worth every throb of pain because the love of my life is completely untouched by the fire. All that matters is that she’s unharmed. Seeing my wounds she says, “I don’t deserve such love!” I look on in horror as, overwhelmed by a feeling of unworthiness, she then runs back into the fire and kills herself; breaking my heart by her death and rendering all my suffering an utter waste. I had been on the brink of treating my heroic Savior like that. How dare I let Jesus’ agony be wasted! If I beat myself, Jesus was beaten for nothing. If I get angry with myself, Jesus bore God’s wrath for nothing. If I let shame overwhelm me, Jesus was humiliated for nothing. If I think of myself as morally defiled, the Innocent One was treated as a criminal for nothing. If I think I’m inferior, the King of kings was treated as dirt for nothing. The Lord of all suffered horrifically to give me the right of access to all God’s riches. For his sake, I must refuse to throw aside such a costly sacrifice. For some reason – sheer love I guess – he considered me worth it. I won’t let him down. No matter what false feelings flood over me, I’ll refuse to believe them. I’ll enjoy life for his sake. “FOR HIS SAKE!” I yelled. At last I found peace. “Yes, for Jesus’ sake!” I shouted in joyous relief, “For the sake of the One who died for me!” By thinking of myself as unworthy, I was seeing myself as I truly would be had Jesus never hung upon the cross for me. But he was crucified. He was tortured to death to swap my sin for his sinlessness. He took my guilt and gave me his innocence. And here I was on the brink of pushing it aside and, by caving into feelings of inferiority, reducing to a senseless waste his agonizing death for me. Some children are beaten under the guise of the punishment making them good. Some carry that thought into adulthood. But for us to be punished doesn’t make us good. What makes us good is Jesus being so fully punished on our account that there is no punishment left. And in exchange for him taking our humiliation, idiotic mistakes and evil upon himself, he gives us his moral perfection and dignity. Christ’s nature and achievements are so much ours that Scripture states such things as: John 17:22 The glory which you have given me . . . 1 Corinthians 1:30  . . . you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption 1 Corinthians 2:16  . . . we have Christ’s mind. 2 Peter 1:4  . . . he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature . . . He became human so that divinity could flow through you. The Eternal died so that you could be more alive than ever before; took on your mortality to give you immortality. He wore your limitations so you could enjoy his infinity. The Almighty crumbled with your weakness to give you supernatural strength. The Pride of the universe agonized with your loneliness so that you would never be alone again; suffered your isolation so that you and he could be inseparable. The King of kings bore your shame and darkness so that you could be radiant with his honor; was humiliated with your depravity to infuse you with his holy majesty; lowered himself to the dust of death so that you could be enthroned with him in highest heaven. God’s noble Son shamed himself with your foolishness to give you his intellect; exchanging your dirty, cloudy thinking for his crystal purity; suffering for your idiotic blunders so that you could be dignified as a superior being, graced with divine wisdom. He let your sorrow crush him to let you beam with his joy; was impoverished by your debts so that you could revel in his riches. He absorbed within himself all your inadequacies so that you could overflow with his abundance. Through your union with the holy King of kings, every trace of filth has been flushed out by a torrent of divine purity; all your guilt replaced by pristine innocence; all your shame by royal dignity; all your ugliness transformed into dazzling beauty. You are exalted to the very heavens as someone worthy of eternal honor. Who could punish such a person? What makes it hardest for us to believe that we can enjoy this holy union that frees us from the pain, blame and shame of our past is that we know we don’t deserve it. “Why would God suffer such agony to lavish his goodness upon me ?” we ask in utter bewilderment. The answer is that it is God’s very nature to do such things. He is a giver, not a taker. There is more that is mind boggling about him than the incomprehensible immensity of his physical power and intellect. God doesn’t just love us sometimes, he is love – overwhelmingly powerful, pure, selfless love that refuses to give up or count the cost. I am reluctant to use the “L” word when talking about God. Too few people understand that genuine love has nothing to do with lust. Even those not using the word to con and exploit and hurt people, tend to use it as an excuse to seek their own happiness and pamper their egos. With so many people misusing the word, the true meaning drains away and it mutates into something hideous. True love is so exquisitely beautiful and rare that you might not have witnessed even a shadow of it in humanity. Divine love is selfless giving taken to extreme levels. It is pure, nonsexual, humble, self-sacrificing and wants nothing but the other person’s greatest good. This rare beauty overwhelms God’s heart and flows freely to us all. He gives and gives and gives, not because of anything in us, but because of his goodness. He is so filled, driven and intoxicated by unlimited kindness, generosity, gentleness and purity that it is impossible for him to stop wanting to give you the best in his uniquely glorious, selfless, holy way. This is hard for us to believe because it is so contrary to our experience with humans. But God is utterly different to frail humanity. He knows no human inadequacies, selfishness or lust. He is kind, warm and gentle, yet all-powerful and flawless. His motives are pure. Now let’s return to Christine: Grantley taught me how to gain maximum benefit from my new understanding of how loved and accepted I am by God. I can now stop myself from spiraling out of control. I can pull myself out of a nose dive the instant it begins. Here’s how it works: the moment I sense myself beginning to feel negative about myself I inwardly shout, “No, that’s not true!” and begin thanking God that because of Jesus, God accepts me and believes in me. The Perfect One thinks I’m important, declares me to be good and pure and righteous, and has wonderful plans for my life. On and on I go, reminding myself of how loved by God I am; thanking and praising Jesus for being punished so that I need never punish myself, and rejoicing in all of God’s goodness to me. As I continue, savoring the implications of the cleansing that is mine through Christ, and of me being royalty – a child of the King of kings – my spirit soars to the point where the urge to hurt myself fades and I feel no need to seek empty comfort by degrading myself by masturbating. Just as bad habits are hard to break, good habits are hard to build. It’s been hard to keep remembering each time I begin to enter a downward spiral to pull myself up, tell myself, “No, that’s not true!” and begin thanking God for the way he sees me through rose-colored glasses – through the precious blood of Jesus drained for me. And it’s been hard dredging up a multitude of positive things about God’s view of me to keep thanking God for, and to keep praise flowing for long enough for my depressing thoughts to fade. But as I keep persisting, it is getting easier and easier, and I’m discovering that, once established, good habits grow strong and serve us well. I’ve also learned to, as it were, put money in the bank for a rainy day. Even when things are going well I regularly rehearse uplifting Scriptures and savor God’s love. Then when oppressive thoughts cloud in, I have in my mind a ready store of positive material to recall that will enrich my thinking. Gradually, to think well of myself – seeing myself through God’s eyes – is becoming second nature to me. As a result, self-harm and degrading myself by having sex with myself and ugly fantasies are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Moreover, life is becoming more exciting than ever before. Christ’s sacrifice is my anchor. No matter how violently stormy seas bounce me around, I’m safe because the anchor of my soul is embedded in the immovable, two-thousand-year-old bedrock of the holy Son of God swapping places with me. Christ has made me acceptable and lovable. It was settled two thousand years ago and nothing can change it. Cutting Oneself Mentioned in Bible? It was the showdown: Elijah versus 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 18:19). Whose God was more powerful? The Baal devotees prayed. No response. They prayed some more – and more and more. Still no response. Things were getting desperate. They used their ultimate weapon in getting their god to respond: 1 Kings 18:28-29 They cried aloud, and cut themselves in their way with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. When midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the evening offering; but there was no voice, no answer, and nobody paid attention. We can be strongly tempted to act like them; thinking that God or loved ones might take pity on us if we afflict ourselves enough or make ourselves sufficiently miserable. But God’s heart is already breaking over your distress. The last thing the loving, tender Lord wants is for you to further increase your suffering. In the Bible, those who cut themselves were pagans who did not understand the heart of God. The emphatic teaching of Jesus is that faith is the key to answered prayer and to moving the hand of God. That makes praising God explosively powerful because praise is faith so purified and concentrated as to reduce problems to dust. Praising and thanking God are not reserved for when things go well. They form a lethal spiritual weapon against everything that seeks to distress, depress or destroy us. Ephesians 5:20 giving thanks always concerning all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . Philippians 4:6 In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving , let your requests be made known to God. Colossians 3:17 Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you. Hebrews 13:15 Through him, then, let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually  . . . (Emphasis mine) This is what Christine was working on. Her automatic, unthinking response to distress had been to stab or cut herself. Now she is establishing a new way of responding. This new habit, instead of acting like a drug that brings temporary relief but actually worsens the situation, is healing her inner pain, and dissipating her distress. Instead of begging God to intervene, she puts running shoes on her faith by thanking and praising God for loving and purifying and beautifying and exalting her. When feeling down, thanking and praising God is as hard as dragging yourself out of a cozy bed on an icy morning, but despite the effort it takes, you soon discover that praising God transports you from frigid depression to the cheery warmth of victory over defeatism. Louise, who often suffers deep depression, wrote a beautiful poem about a shoot pushing through a seed until finally emerging into the sunshine, only to be hit by the stench of fertilizer. That fertilizer, however, causes it to grow. Gradually the stench disappears and the plant blooms, producing a beautiful fragrance. “Beauty comes at a price,” says her poem, which I suggest you read. In a personal e-mail to me, Louise made a comment about the poem. I’m reluctant to share it because of the language but it will be very meaningful to many readers: I keep saying, I am a piece of ----, but I am not. I am, however, covered with it from time to time in order to grow, to push up through it and be strengthened by it. Practical Help Anyone wrestling with self-harm is in a uniquely stressful dilemma. In any violent act, to be the victim is traumatic. It is even traumatic to be the attacker, since the attacker must act contrary to good conscience. But in self-harm, you are both the victim and the offender. How traumatic is that! How can you flee from your enemy when you are your own enemy? How can you get any joy out of the defeat of your enemy when you are that enemy? Forgiving oneself is a critical ingredient of feeling good about oneself and ending self-harm. Over the years, very many hurting people have shared their secrets with me. Their experiences have rammed home to me that forgiving oneself, feeling forgiven by God, and forgiving other people, travel together. They might separate a little, but progress with one type of forgiveness moves the others forward; holding back with one, holds back the others. So here’s a practical tip of great importance in ending self-harm: when, despite your best efforts, you seem to have reached a stalemate with one type of forgiveness, try working on one or both of the other types. Each type of forgiveness can be exceedingly stubborn but as you keep working on all three, while looking to God for supernatural help, one of the three will eventually move a little and this will make progress on the others a little easier. Since they are travel mates, each type of forgiveness is critical to feeling good about yourself and hence reducing the pressure to harm yourself. We dare not neglect any of the three types of forgiveness, so let’s list them one final time: * feeling/believing you are forgiven by God * forgiving yourself * forgiving other people Becoming Whole Near the beginning of this webpage we mentioned that people could feel unnaturally numb through being too scared or proud to connect with their true feelings about past traumas. This paralyzing reluctance to connect is highly understandable but gnaws away at a person. In an attempt to break the numbness and feel something akin to the magnitude of what they sense they should be feeling, many of these people inflict physical pain on themselves. After all, physical pain is less complicated, more understandable and psychologically easier to handle than the things that are really troubling them. We can kid ourselves that burying or hiding past difficulties proves us to be the “strong silent type” but the truth is very different. It prevents us from emotionally connecting and coming to terms with what is really troubling us. It can keep us perpetually distressed; one possible manifestation of which can be self-harm. Acting this way can not only cause enormous problems, it is inconsistent with the Healing Lord’s ways. The God of truth says such things as: Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his sins doesn’t prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. James 5:16 Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. . . . 1 Chronicles 28:9  . . . for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. . . . Psalms 44:21  . . . he knows the secrets of the heart. 1 Corinthians 4:5  . . . the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Hebrews 4:13 There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. This is not scary because, as stated in Proverbs 28 (quoted above), even when sin is involved, it is only the person who conceals it who has cause for alarm. Like air into a vacuum, divine mercy and forgiveness rush in to fill whoever admits to sin and genuinely wants to be free from it. The beautiful thing is that we never have to revisit the dark places alone. We can take with us a warm Friend who dispels darkness. He is the Light of the world. We don’t have to fear our emotions because we have a God who deeply understands and empathizes. Jesus himself prayed “with strong crying and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). Elsewhere it says about Jesus: Hebrews 4:15-18 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace for help in time of need. We don’t have to fear our emotions getting out of control, because he will carefully monitor them. He will not allow us to suffer what we cannot bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). And if we have anger, bitterness or hate, he does not condemn but freely forgives and cleanses, and empowers us to resolve destructive attitudes so that we can heal. Breakthrough I have a down-to-earth prayer that could change your life. I’m not asking you to pray it. Simply read it. If you find it expresses your heart, you could then turn it into a prayer by reading it to God. Dear God, Could it really be that you are gentle and loving toward me? It seems too good to be true. I’ve loathed myself more times than I can count and I’ve assumed you felt like I do about myself. Could it really be that you see me so differently and are eager to warmly embrace me with your forgiveness and approving smile? You are an infinite God, so I concede that you have infinite love. That has to mean that your love far exceeds my own. But you are terrifyingly holy. How could you be less judgmental toward my failings than I am? Could Jesus dying for my sins have made that much difference? Could it really be that at last the pressure is off and I can bask in the sunshine of Almighty God knowing all about me and yet fully accepting me as his precious child? Could I be like Saint Paul, who saw himself as the worst of sinners and yet be special to God? Like that man of God, could I say, “ . . . but what I hate, that I do. . . . that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. . . . the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. . . . What a wretched man I am! . . .” and then immediately follow that pathetic lamentation with, “I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! . . . There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 7:15,18,19,24,25; 8:1)? I need more than fire insurance against hell. To live with myself I need somehow to be able to see myself as being of immense value and morally good. Is this possible for me? You have given your word that if I confess my sins, you will cleanse me from all unrighteousness, and in that same promise you vow you will do this not because I reach some arbitrary standard (we’ve all fallen short, anyhow – Romans 3:23) but simply because you are faithful and just (1 John 1:9). It would be so wonderful to be cleansed. According to the Scripture just mentioned, you and I both have a role to play in bringing this about. You have to be faithful and just; I have to confess my failings. I don’t have to ask you to do your part. Since you are perfect and good, you’ll never be anything but faithful and just. So I’ll do my part and confess to all the things that make me feel so awful– what I’ve done and even what has been done to me that devastates me. I’d prefer to bury the past and live in denial, but the truth is that the past still eats at me, no matter how much I try to suppress it. My sins and the acts of those who have sinned against me seem too disgusting for you to want to hear about them, and yet you are so interested in everything that hurts me that you ask me to confess them – to tell you about them. I don’t find this easy, but I’ve already prolonged my torment for far too long. I need to get this over and done with, so here goes . . . [I suggest you now share your heart with God, pouring out to him details of all the things that tend to make you feel guilty, ashamed or uncomfortable. You might find it helpful to write it out as a letter to God. Any moral means of expressing your heart to God touches him deeply.] Jesus was tortured to death to secure my forgiveness and yet here I am still torturing myself and at times wishing I were dead, as if I were unforgivable, when Jesus sealed my forgiveness two thousand years ago. Forgiveness certainly isn’t my strong point. I remember when Saul, who later become the great apostle Paul, was still hating and scheming to hurt Christians, the risen Lord suddenly appeared and said, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14). I’m told the picture is of an ox angrily kicking against a spike. Every time the ox kicks, he hurts only himself. Have I been like that? Am I hurting myself every time I inwardly lash out in anger or unforgiveness against you or against those who have hurt me? I recall the Lord’s prayer: “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” Could it be that my difficulty in believing that my sins have been divinely forgiven – supernaturally wiped out – is connected to my reluctance to forgive those who have sinned against me? I wish Jesus hadn’t kept linking me receiving the forgiveness I crave with me forgiving others. How can I forgive anyone else when I find it so hard to forgive myself? And yet somehow these different types of forgiveness are inseparably bound, like different facets on the same diamond. I desperately need to forgive myself and to enjoy your forgiveness, so by an act of will, whether I feel like or it not, I activate the remaining aspect of forgiveness. I choose to forgive all who have hurt me. I don’t excuse what they did, nor pretend that what they did was even slightly defensible, but nevertheless, I forgive, just as I want you to forgive me. “The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” said Saint Paul (1 Timothy 1:15). He did some atrocious things, including torturing innocent Christians in the hope of forcing them to blaspheme the One who died for their salvation and turn their back on their Savior. Even if I were a thousand times worse than I’ve ever imagined, however, it cannot change the fact that Jesus died for the full forgiveness of the very worst of sinners – whoever that might be. So forgiveness is mine through Jesus swapping places with me on the cross and letting himself be shamed and violated so that I could be honored. I exchange my need to be punished for the fact that he was punished for me. I gladly remove my filthy, sin-stained clothes that fill me with shame. Here they are, Lord: I hand you my guilt and condemnation, placing it upon the bleeding body of my Savior and trade my shame for your forgiveness and the divine purity and honor that it brings. I swap my dirty rags, I put on Jesus’ robe of righteousness. Your forgiveness clothes me from head to toe. I accept you as Lord, and now, through the supernatural transformation you promise, I am born of you. As your Word boldly declares, I am your righteousness because of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Now we belong to each other. We are one. No matter how atrocious my failings and how much they haunt me, the truth is that in God’s eyes all of us have messed up so badly that Jesus had to suffer a torturous death for us all. The degree of sin isn’t the issue. Without Christ, we are all in the same hopeless predicament, doomed to hell, but no matter how alone and hopeless I often feel, the truth is that I am not without Christ. As Jesus took upon himself my gross inadequacies and shame, I take upon myself his sinlessness and glory. Your righteousness is now my righteousness and your honor is my honor. From now on I will live for you and honor you just as you devote yourself to me and shower me with your honor. I don’t need to punish myself for anything because Jesus has already been punished for it. That’s so mind-boggling that I need to repeat it: the Person who will judge all humanity volunteered to be punished so that I would have no need to be punished – neither punished by God nor by me. Help me grasp the full implications so that this becomes not mere doctrine but life-changing reality. You pronounce me to be a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:21) – an excitingly new divine masterpiece, a work of art crafted by the Master himself. No matter what I see in the mirror, you, the Almighty Lord, declare me to be a totally new person, sparkling with the glory of God; nothing like what I used to be or how I used to see myself. I admit that I don’t feel like a new creature – in fact, I feel as bad as ever – but you don’t lie. I look at myself and see nothing new. I still don’t like what I see. But you say that those whom you declare to be good – your royal children – walk by faith not sight. So I need to believe you, and so believe I am different, no matter what I feel. I am one with Jesus, the holy Son of God, so all the pressure to be good enough, all the humiliation of my past, and all the fear of rejection is over. I want to honor you by breaking out of my former pattern of thinking. Like breaking any habit, it will be hard work but I will do my utmost to act like Christine, so that every time I catch myself beginning to think poorly of myself I will say, “No, that’s not true!” and start thanking you for who I am in your loving eyes. Thank you that although you require my full cooperation, me thinking this way is important to you because you are selflessly devoted to wanting the best for me. Physical Ways of Finding Relief and Comfort Until the healing process takes full effect, however, you can benefit from practical alternatives to self-harm. So we will begin with this and then move on to deeper, longer lasting solutions. Self-harm can seem to offer slight relief but there are many downsides. For example, one friend shared that although self-harm temporarily acted as a diversion, distracting her mind from other pressures, she was left having to cope for days with the soreness of the cuts and the embarrassment of having to dress differently to cover up her wounds. The biggest downside, however, is that self-harm is degrading and lowers even further one’s self-esteem by turning yourself into your own enemy. Consider how you would have every right to be outraged if someone deliberately hurt you physically. It would be a criminal act. To hurt yourself is akin to becoming your own enemy. A dear friend – I’ll call her Emma – told me how, many years ago as a teen, she used to suffer overwhelmingly dark feelings. She found that self-harm brought temporary relief because it externalized inner anguish; affirming that it was real and excruciating and that it truly mattered (and therefore she mattered). The downside, however, is that it achieved this at the huge cost of her not just physically attacking and abusing herself but psychologically harming herself. Bitter experience taught her that self-harm is actually sending oneself a depressingly wrong message. Hurting yourself reinforces the insidious lie that you are worthless, that you don’t matter, that you don’t deserve respect and kindness and that it is right for you to be brutalized and inflicted with pain. Feeling that way about oneself is the last thing anyone needs – especially when already feeling devastatingly low. It mocks and condemns you and ends up further intensifying the inner pain. Knowing no alternative, however, whenever the anguish grew unbearable she grew desperate for the quick fix self-harm offered, even if it ended in a downer. One day, Emma was riddled with an overpowering need to alleviate her distress by physically hurting herself but she could not because her abusers were present. Self-harming in front of them would have incited them to oppress her even more. In desperation, she prayed for a solution. The Lord told her to record her feelings on paper. “But I can’t!” she protested. “They’ll read what I’ve written.” “Use symbols,” replied God. “They know you often doodle. Only you and I will know what the squiggles mean.” She tried it. It worked. She was able to express her deep feelings, and her abusers had no idea what she was doing. Moreover, unlike self-harm, there was no downside. She had avoided the emotional devastation of having sided with her abusers and turned against herself by attacking her body. Once she experienced the benefits, my friend developed the idea. She identified twenty-four different feelings and invented a symbol for each of them. Like me, you might be staggered by that number but producing such a list is easier than I expected. I suggest you develop your own list. For some ideas that might help you start your own, see Starter. Emma found a blank book that she turned into an emotional diary. She would date it and use the symbols to record her feelings. On each occasion, she would keep repeating the appropriate symbols until the oppressive feelings lessened enough to be more manageable. By this means she was expressing the inner pain; releasing it, instead of continually stuffing it inside where it remains vague and indefinable but remains frustrating and agonizing and keeps intensifying. She chose a thick book because she had much to record but when she was away from home, she would carry a smaller notebook with her, use it as necessary, and later transfer the contents into the larger book. That way, Emma had a record as permanent as a scar of how she had felt, but without sending her on the downer that self-harm inevitably leads to. At any time she wished, she could review her diary and see how she was now faring, relative to other occasions. Self-harm can quickly become an enslaving habit – an automatic response to intense inner pain – and like all habits, it will take considerable effort to break it. Our thoughts and beliefs drive us. The critical factor is not what we merely say we believe but what we truly believe in the deepest realms of our being. It is a long process getting new beliefs to stay deep within us so that they completely displace the mistaken beliefs we have harbored for years about God, ourselves and other people. To win a war, it is vital to seize times of relative peace as opportunities to prepare for attacks by making weapons, building defenses, developing strategies, boosting morale and so on. Likewise, to be able to bask in the fulfillment of breaking a powerful habit one must make the most of moments when the pressure is less intense by using them as times to prepare for future attacks. A friend of mine – I’ll call her Anne – who has had many personal battles with self-harm suggested the keeping of what we might call a Comfort Box or an Emergency Kit. In it she keeps things that help her cope with inner distress. As you make this idea your own it might take on an entirely new form. Possibilities include a computer file or, if you have the space, even an entire room. Basically it is gathering together, in an easily accessible place, resources that help defeat old, destructive habits by establishing new, healthy habits. Since people differ, you might immediately dismiss as inappropriate for you some options listed in the link, and other ideas might require experimentation to see how well they work and still others might need modification or be more effective when combined with one or more other options. On the other hand, what you find most effective on one occasion might not be the best option another time. A significant reason for this is that your best option will depend on what you are feeling at the time. On different occasions quite different feelings could be pressuring you to self-harm. So the first thing you should do is to try to identify what you are feeling. This can be quite difficult if you are used to pushing your feelings aside and not connecting with them, but please try. I give examples of how to prepare but, since each of us is unique, only God knows what is the ideal method for you at any given moment and he is keen to share that information with you. For understanding the temptation to self-harm, this divine promise is both enlightening and encouraging: 1 Corinthians 10:13 . . . God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Since God will “make the way of escape”, keep seeking him for alternatives to self-harm that work best for you, remaining mindful that what is best could vary from one occasion to another. Note, however, that there is no promise that the temptation will disappear – only that God will provide the way for you to “endure it.” God believes in you. His plan is to make you strong, not some weakling who caves into pressure, but a spiritual champion. My suggestions appear in a link at the top of this webpage but let’s take music an as example of how the Comfort Box works. Anne keeps in her box certain music CDs that she finds helpful in easing the smoldering turmoil within. You might have your music on an iPod or whatever, or you might have your own musical instrument but you can place in the box a list of certain helpful music and where to find it. Anne uses soothing and/or uplifting music. Another friend uses anger music or songs dealing with loss, oppression or grief. This helps her express some of the deep feelings inside her. You might listen passively or sing and/or dance to the music. Worship music could prove powerful when you allow it to take you into the presence of the divine Healer whose compassion and devotion to you is boundless. In addition, keep in the box such things as art materials, a journal or writing materials, contact details of helpful people who are able distract, comfort or support you, pictures or mementos that remind you of personal achievements or happier times, print-outs of webpages from the huge www.netburst.net website, and so on. Among my suggestions is to put together a video of people weeping and wailing. Since, as I said, finding suitable material will be challenging, it is good to begin a collection long before it is needed. I suggest making copies because web sites tend to have short lives. The big advantage of having all the resources and ideas in one quickly accessible location is that when overwhelmed by intense feelings you could easily find yourself too stressed to try to hunt for them or even to think of all the options. So although in the link I provide some suggestions that cannot be put in a box, use the box to keep a list of the suggestions, in case some elude your memory at a critical time. Here’s some valuable insights from another friend of mine: I used to cut my wrist where I was held down by my abuser. I can’t stand the memory of him holding me there. I used to try to cut it away. Now I rub smooth, nice-smelling lotion where I want to cut. (For most people, the sense of smell is powerful in evoking memories.) Doing the opposite of self-harm (self-care) does help. I’ve now gone 15 months without self-harm, though I originally didn’t give it up for my sake, but for God’s. Damaging his creation – me – must hurt God. If I take a lot of time and care to make something, I would be very upset if someone damaged it. Surely God feels the same way. Keys to a New Life This webpage is so crammed with helps and ideas as to be initially overwhelming. It can initiate a powerful transformation within you, but it is like a spark that will blaze into a huge fire, or be quickly extinguished, depending on whether it is protected and fed. In order to ensure that it changes your life, you will need to re-read it several times to get it deep into your spirit and begin putting it into practice. Not just this webpage but the entire website is like life-saving blood pressure medication: taking it once will do almost nothing. For the promised benefits it must be taken day after day after day. Some people think of self-harm as releasing the inner pain. Some even visualize the blood flowing from self-injury as letting the inner pain out. The sad reality, however, is that this is nothing but a vain fantasy. It is as futile as the owner of a business who, rather than deal with the fact that his trusted employee is embezzling the company, cuts his arm to distract himself from the financial ruin his inaction is causing. Seething inside of many people who self-harm are intense feelings they cannot even identify. Often they mistakenly feel too ashamed to admit even to themselves that they have those feelings. This false shame is devastating and needs to be exposed for the cruel lie that it is. Irrespective of whether they are Christian, most people have a dangerously shallow understanding of morality, Christianity and/or healing from trauma. “You should be over it by now,” is as dumb as saying that someone with a hole in the heart should be running marathons because the hole happened decades ago. Time might heal minor cuts and abrasions but major things will never heal by themselves. “It’s unmanly to be afraid,” is equally dumb. Even war heroes hailed for their bravery can be safely tucked in bed at home years after the war and find themselves trembling in terror over memories of what they suffered. “It’s unchristian to be angry,” is likewise hopelessly mistaken. God himself is angry that people have been so cruel to you. Those who have not felt anger over what they have suffered have usually not fully forgiven at all but have simply short-circuited the forgiving process and deceived themselves into thinking they have forgiven. I expound in a link below how anger is an essential part of the long journey. Denial of one’s feelings is a very different thing to resolving the deep issues within. A good counselor can help you through the maze but never forgot that the best counselor is the one who longs to be your best friend and closest companion; the one who knows you like no one else can and believes in you; the one who has all the answers and all the gentle patience you need – God himself. Like the urge to scratch a skin disease, the urge to self-harm is just a symptom. Scratching might temporarily ease the itch but the itching soon returns and scratching actually ends up worsening the skin condition. To stop the scratching is good but treating the disease is more important still. Likewise, you need to treat the cause of your inner pain. So it is important to focus not merely on self-harm but on healing the underlying cause. For this reason, after fully absorbing into your spirit this webpage you will need to explore all the links below. Each webpage leads to many others, but if you are battling self-harm they are most important for your welfare. Here is what I believe your next steps should be. 1. Save the web address of this webpage. 2. Re-read this webpage at least once. 3. Read through the links below. Keys to Feeling Good About Yourself Self-Harm Alternatives: Emergency Relief Valuable practical help in safely releasing intense feelings The Foolishness of Living in Denial Inspiration to Hea l Serious, Do-It Yourself Healing From Emotional Pain This is crammed with helpful insights into our strong tendency when things go badly wrong to want to blame ourselves, God or others. It explains why this is so destructive and how Jesus’ sacrifice formed the perfect and totally satisfying cure. You Can Find Love How to be one with Jesus Forgiving Yourself God Loves Me! Receive Your Personal Revelation of God’s Love Being Convinced That God Has Forgiven You Forgiving Those Who Have Hurt You

Self-Harm Alternatives Emergency Relief Ask yourself: * What triggered this latest increase in your desire to self-harm? It might, for example, have been a memory, or a song, movie, website, smell, sound, taste, what someone said or did or the person’s physical presence. Are you able to remove the trigger – by switching off the radio, moving to another room or some such thing? * Do you remember feeling this way before? If so, did you find an workable alternative to self-harm? Would it, or a modification of it, work this time? * Try to identify what you are feeling. If you cannot do so, go to General Alternatives but if it is one of the following, click the appropriate link: Anger/Frustration Fear/Anxiety Depression Grief Emotional Numbness Urge to Punish Yourself Feeling a Failure/Extreme Low Self-Esteem Guilt Confusion General Alternatives to Self-Harm Real Healing Anger/Frustration * Play and/or sing anger music * Use a pillow, punching bag, or some such thing that you hit with a stick or punch The most healthy option is to avoid thinking of the object you hit as being yourself or any person. * Use a Wii You might choose a boxing game or some other form of combat or simply something to help you expend energy. * Tear up rags or old clothes, or perhaps books you no longer want, or choose something else you can safely expend energy destroying. The advantage of tearing rather than cutting is that it is important to lessen any connection between stress and cutting. If, however, you feel that cutting these things is the only alternative to cutting yourself then it is obviously preferable to cut them rather than cut yourself. * Write an angry letter Address it, perhaps, to the person who hurt you, detailing the injustices you have suffered and how wrong he or she was. Then, perhaps, tear it up and burn it or cross it out until it is illegible. Or you might write an angry poem or entry in a journal and preserve it. * Hard Physical Exercise Provided it is not so excessive that it endangers your health, hard exercise can be extremely helpful and positive. * Play and/or sing soothing music * Learn How to Scream or Shout * Make a Deliberate Effort to Relax * Get Angry at the Real Cause of Your Torment * For more options, see General Alternatives to Self-Harm * Don’t forget that this webpage offers only temporary relief For long-lasting solutions, see Real Healing Fear/Anxiety * Reassure yourself that you are in physically safe surroundings This might include checking that doors and windows are locked and closing curtains. Alternatively it might involve visiting a friend. * Clothing Some types of clothing might make you feel safer than other types. Sometimes it can be helpful to ground yourself in the present by noting things about your surroundings that affirm you are no longer in the location and/or time in which you were mistreated. * Play Soothing Music * Use Touch Hugging a pillow or stuffed toy or snuggling into a soft blanket helps more people than you might imagine. Patting or playing with a pet might be helpful. * Connect with Nature It might be a hike in a wilderness area, or a stroll along the beach, or gardening, or playing with a pet or whatever is meaningful to you. * Anti-Anxiety Medication It is regrettable that, in some circles, medication has a stigma it does not deserve. Anyone tempted to self-harm is under extreme stress and if the stress has been there for long, your body is almost certainly suffering from a chemical imbalance that medication could help restore. That does not mean that what is currently available will work for everyone. Different people react in different ways to different anti-anxiety medication. Your doctor can only take an educated guess as to what will work best for you, so finding the ideal dosage and type of medication for you is likely to require a little trial and error. * Make a Deliberate Effort to Relax * For more options, see General Alternatives to Self-Harm * Don’t forget that this webpage offers only temporary relief For long-lasting solutions, see Real Healing Depression * Boost your Self-Esteem Almost certainly, your low self-esteem keeps you from recognizing your achievements and good qualities, but try at times when you are not so depressed to build your collection. If you have any trophies or diplomas then, of course, include them but your achievements might be less tangible. You might keep in your box such things as a record of encouraging things that people have said about you, and a list of your accomplishments. * Dress up For women, another help to feeling better about themselves might be to paint their nails, fix their hair, put on makeup and perfume and get dressed up. Perhaps get a professional photo of you looking your best and keep it in the box. * Photos & Mementos You might have pictures or mementos that remind you of happier times or that help you imagine yourself in a happier or safer situation. Sadly, not everyone has loved ones who make life worth living but those who do might use photos of these people to inspire them to resist destructive behavior for their loved one’s sake. * Play uplifting music or sing bright songs. Consider dancing to such music. Praise and worship music is particularly powerful if you let it move you to become actively involved. * Connect with Nature It might be a hike in a wilderness area, or a stroll along the beach, or gardening, or playing with a pet or whatever is meaningful to you. * For more options, see General Alternatives to Self-Harm * Don’t forget that this webpage offers only temporary relief For long-lasting solutions, see Real Healing Grief * Play and/or sing sad songs, or songs dealing with loss, oppression or grief. * Learn to Weep and/or Wail Emotional Numbness If you are feeling emotionally numb there are ways to assure yourself that you can feel without resorting to self-injury. A cold shower is an extreme example. Some people have found it helpful just to run warm water over their hands and gently wash them, focusing on the feelings in their hands. This can be soothing, as well as reassuring that one truly can feel. * Use Touch Hug a pillow or stuffed toy or snuggle into a soft blanket. Pat or play with a pet. * Use Your Sense of Smell If you have at least some sense of smell, consider sniffing smelling salts, perfume and so on, to remind yourself that your senses are truly alive. * For more options, see General Alternatives to Self-Harm * Don’t forget that this webpage offers only temporary relief For long-lasting solutions, see Real Healing Urge to Punish Yourself * Use Blood-like Substances * Most options listed under Anger/Frustration are relevant. * Don’t forget that this webpage offers only temporary relief For long-lasting solutions, see Real Healing Feeling a Failure/Extreme Low Self-Esteem Like the “ugly duckling,” you have been battered by ridicule and false accusations with such devastating frequency that you now find it beyond belief that you really are a beautiful and highly capable swan. You are far more valuable and capable than you dare imagine. * Note the web address of this page so you won’t get lost, then go to Why God Loves No One More Than You * Don’t forget that the webpage you are reading offers only temporary relief For long-lasting solutions, see Real Healing Guilt No matter who you are or what you have done, the moment you come (or return) to Christ, all guilt feelings are nothing but false accusations, as slanderous as accusing the spotless Son of God of moral failure. The person who did those awful things is dead. You are gloriously alive but a totally different person – “a new creation” – mind-bogglingly pure and innocent. Your only problem is that the transformation you have experienced is so unbelievably dramatic that your conscience hasn’t caught up with spiritual reality. Instead of needlessly caving into false feelings, note the web address of this page so you won’t get lost, then discover who you really are by reading Forgiving Yourself and the pages it leads to. * Don’t forget that this webpage offers only temporary relief For long-lasting solutions, see Real Healing Confusion * Ground Yourself in the Present Take special note of your surroundings to reassure yourself that you are not in the time or place where you suffered past trauma. * Contact a friend or counsellor * For more options, see General Alternatives to Self-Harm * Don’t forget that this webpage offers only temporary relief For long-lasting solutions, see Real Healing General Alternatives to Self-Harm Keep an Emotional Diary It can be very helpful to keep a journal in which you record your overwhelming emotions while you are feeling them. It can also help you get more in touch with your feelings if you feel numb. Should you are worried about people reading it, you can develop your own codes that just looks like doodles. Make a Deliberate Effort to Relax Sit in a comfortable chair or lie down or take a warm bath. Once settled, breathe deliberately and calmly. Every time you exhale, picture the tension leaving your body with the breath. Visualize what for you is a deeply soothing scene. It might be sunbaking on a secluded tropical beach. Make it as real as you can. Involve all your senses. See, for example, the gentle lapping of the sparkling sun-soaked water. See fish in the water and palm trees slowly swaying in the refreshing breeze. Are there any butterflies? Feel the soft white sand and the cozy warmth of the sun on your relaxed body. Hear the sea gulls and the soothing rhythmic lap of the sea. As you inhale, what do you smell? Is it the aroma of food cooking on a fire nearby or is it something else? Consciously relax every muscle in your body. Perhaps start with your jaw, then your forehead, then your hands, then your tummy. These are parts of the body where stress is often focused, but gradually move on to other muscle groups as well. Every time you breathe out, relax even more. Feel yourself sinking deeper and deeper into whatever your body is resting on. As you luxuriate in these feelings, assure yourself that you deserve this peace and ease and comfort. Know that through your union with Christ, God is smiling approvingly upon you, his precious child. Get Angry at the Real Cause of Your Torment Despite the appalling frequency with which the apostle Paul was slandered, betrayed, slapped, punched, stoned, whipped and tortured by humans, he wrote: Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Expose the real enemy. Get to the heart of your distress by directing your anger not at yourself, nor at the human drones who treated you so criminally, but at the spiritual entities who instigated and empowered the evil directed at you. Majestically rise up in holy indignation, exercising the terrifying authority invested in you through the Spotless Son of God bearing in his own body the full guilt, degradation, punishment and wrath of God incurred by the atrocities of the entire human race. While snuggling into the comforting, protective embrace of your holy, compassionate, omnipotent Savior, angrily attack every demon that has ever opposed you until they flee from you in wide-eyed terror. Fight Lies with Truth Instead of letting negative thoughts churn through your mind, exercise sheer faith by telling yourself over and over the very opposite of your concern. For example, if you feel useless, keep telling yourself such things as, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (adapted from Philippians 4:13); if you feel guilty, keep telling yourself such things as, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” (Romans 8:1). A most effective way to counteract devastating lies is to keep thanking and praising God that the exact opposite is true. Rather than wallowing in hurtful, depressing lies, fight back by doing your best to rejoice in the truth – even if the lies feel far more real than God’s truth. Let Yourself Scream or Shout This is a helpful, natural way of releasing pent up emotion and yet many find it very difficult to do for either practical reasons – the neighbors thinking you are mad – or because you feel too inhibited. A practical suggestion is to play loud music and scream into a pillow. Another possibility is to hike/drive into some isolated place. If you feel inhibited, you might consider practicing in a place where shouting is considered socially acceptable, such as a major football game. Learn to Weep and/or Wail I explain in my full page about self-harm how, despite the false impression given in some cultures, there is nothing weak or unmanly about this natural expression of emotion. By what has been said or done to them in the past, many people have been robbed of the ability to shed tears freely and without shame. That, in itself, is abuse and should not be tolerated. Fight back. Letting yourself cry in private is a way of not letting such an abuser win. In the Bible and a wide range of other cultures, people skilled at weeping and wailing were paid to visit those whose mourning the death of a loved one. I believe this is psychologically sound in that being surrounded by actors expressing deep grief through tears, shrieks and bodily movements is likely to help those suffering a loss to feel less inhibited about doing the same. It seems these cultures have correctly understood that such emotional release speeds recovery from grief. Those who stifle their emotions are likely to remain deeply affected by the loss for a much longer time. I suggest considering trying something similar to those who use professional mourners by finding videos of people weeping and wailing. Locating suitable material will be challenging but you might be able to find examples on the Internet, and TV news reports often show highly expressive displays of emotion at Middle Eastern funerals and tragedies. Many hurting people fear that if they start crying they will tap into something so deep that they will never be able to stop. This fear is quite unfounded. A Little Creativity Express your feelings in scribbles or more artistically. Besides painting or drawing, possibilities include cutting out a shape in paper or creating something with play dough or clay. Then, perhaps, angrily destroy it or, alternatively, carefully preserve it as a monument to what you have suffered. Writing Keep a journal or notebook in which you can express your thoughts and feelings in words. Or you might write a poem, or short fictitious stories. You don’t have to be articulate. Even scribbling single words could help. Or you might write an e-mail detailing your distress and what you have suffered and send it to someone who cares or even post it to yourself. Worship music Worship music can prove powerful when you allow it to take you into the presence of the divine Healer whose compassion and devotion to you is boundless. Quotes Read special quotes or words from others that can re-direct your thoughts to something more positive and more in line with the loving way God sees you. You might print out pages from the huge www.netburst.net website, record the web address of comforting webpages, put quotes on the walls of your house, and so on. Mental Gymnastics A friend of mine sometimes finds it helpful to distract herself by doing crossword puzzles. For you it might be a computer game or something more in line with your own interests. Contact Helpful People They might be trusted friends, family members or a pastor/counsellor who can help distract, comfort or support you during this difficult time. Prayer so Profound and Passionate that it Breaks the Language Barrier When the King James Bible says, “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD,” (Psalms 100:1), it is translating the normal Hebrew word for a battle cry – a blood curling scream of such ear-splitting intensity that it is intended to unnerve the enemy. Note, however, that what makes so special this scream from the depths of the soul the psalmist urges us to release is that it is directed to the Lord . “Deep calls to deep” says another Psalm (Psalm 42:7) Lamentations 3:55 I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit. Charles Finney (1792-1875) had a divine encounter so intense that he says, “I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my heart.” Like a famous detective seeking to solve a mystery by seeing known facts in a new light, let your mind run wild chasing the implications of these Scriptures: Romans 8:26 . . . the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Mark 14:33-35 . . . he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. . . . Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed . . . Hebrews 5:7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him . . . Paul spoke of prayer that is so deep that it by-passes the limits of one’s mind. It is so extreme as to be incomprehensible to one’s intellect and yet it is divinely effective because one’s very spirit is praying; uttering mysteries in sounds that one’s mind can’t make sense of (1 Corinthians 14:15-15). So let yourself go. Don’t limit yourself to words, or to your own understanding, as your pour out your heart to the heart of God. Don’t hold back as your heart connects with the divine heart that breaks for you. Merge with the heart that feels your anguish with divine intensity and knows you more intimately and exhaustively than even you can know yourself. Use Blood-like Substances The problem with this option is that it reinforces an undesirable link between blood and temporary stress-relief. So I don’t recommend it except as a very last resort when the only alternative seems to be spilling your own blood. * Get ketchup in a plastic container and squeeze hard and repeatedly, letting it flow out. A mostly empty container of somewhat dried up ketchup might be too frustrating for you but it has the advantage of requiring the expenditure of more energy and so allowing you to focus your feelings in that direction. * Squeeze the ketchup on to your body – especially the part you are tempted to injure. * Use your creativity with a red ball pen or whiteboard marker or red paint or beetroot juice or other reddish liquid or the blood from meat. * I know one person who has even found watching a medical show helpful. If You Must Inflict Pain If you feel utterly unable to stop yourself inflicting pain, put a rubber band on your wrist and use it to sting yourself. You do not deserve this but at least it is better than causing physical damage and/or risking infection. Before doing so, however, could you please read the next paragraph. If only you could see yourself through God’s loving eyes you would understand that no matter how atrocious your sins might be, you deserve not pain but comfort and understanding. Whatever you have done, it has been utterly cancelled by what Christ has done for you. It breaks God’s heart that things have become so distorted in your mind that you would choose to hurt yourself when Jesus let himself be tortured to death to render your self-inflicted pain unnecessary. God believes in you. I beg you to talk it over with him. Real Healing If you were in physical pain, the real answer is not to find ways of coping with the pain but to cure the cause of the pain. And the same is true for the inner pain that tempts you to self-harm. To be freed from the urge to hurt yourself, it is important to work on healing the inner turmoil that drives you to seek relief through self-harm. This takes courage and time but is deeply rewarding. For the first steps on this exciting journey to wholeness, see Cure for Self-Harm .

My Battle To   Stop Intrusive Thoughts   Why I praise God For   Intrusive Thoughts     A Christian Testimony     Anyone wanting to stop intrusive thoughts must understand that like ants at a picnic, unwanted, offensive thoughts invade everyone’s minds and annoy us all. To stop intrusive thoughts completely is beyond human power, but our reaction determines how much they dominate our lives.   When walking over an ant nest, most of us pay little attention and move on. A different approach, however, could seriously worsen things. If an ant bites as you are walking over a nest and you stop where you are to fight the ant, stomping your foot to try to jolt it off, other ants will swarm and start attacking you. What would have been a minor annoyance turns into a frenzied attack. The more you panic and try to stomp on every ant, the more bites you’ll receive. Something minor escalates into something serious and you may wonder why you are so viciously attacked while others walk through the same area with hardly a bite.   So it is with intrusive thoughts. Most of us dismiss disgusting, unwanted thoughts and mental images as just an annoying fact of life, and move on. Some of us, however, panic and stop in our tracks to try to fight them off, but this very act intensifies the attack.   To change the analogy, intrusive thoughts are like an itch that remains minor if you ignore it but becomes increasingly serious the more you scratch it. Just as it is not easy to ignore an itch and act as if it were not happening, so it is not easy for us to remain calm and unconcerned when attacked by ugly intrusive thoughts, but it is the only way to stop them getting worse.   I am so proud to call Angela my sister in Christ because she clings by faith to the forgiving power of Christ and refuses to give in to false feelings of shame, no matter how strong and oppressive those feelings are. It takes immense, Christ-honoring faith to resist all the fear, false guilt and screaming doubts as Angela does.   We’ll start with the first e-mail Angela sent me and I’ll comment from time to time.   Grantley Morris Founder of Netburst.net   The Testimony   I couldn’t stop myself from crying tears of relief while reading your encouraging webpage. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted, knowing that it’s not my fault for thinking such bad things. You’ve really touched my heart.   I’ve just turned 20, and I remember the first time I had these thoughts. I was about 12 or 13. After a family friend told me about the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, my mind kept making me think such sentences as, “The Holy Spirit is from the Devil,” “Jesus is of the Devil,” and so on. Horrified, I thought for sure that I had just signed my spiritual death certificate, condemning myself to hell. I cried almost uncontrollably. I finally confessed to my dad what I was thinking and he assured me that it was something called intrusive thoughts. Above anything in the world, my biggest fear is being unforgiven by God. I now realize that it is precisely because this is my greatest fear that I found myself repeatedly thinking the worst possible thoughts.   After my dad told me it wasn’t my fault, the thoughts went away for several years.   Comment by Grantley:  This link between Angela’s relief and the fading of the thoughts is highly significant. Angela believed her father so much that her anxiety over the thoughts disappeared. As explained in  Scrupulosity: Religious Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,  intrusive thoughts feed off anxiety. The more you fear them, the more they will keep invading your mind. Having no fear or anxiety to feed off, the unwanted thoughts died down, like a fire starved of oxygen.   Over time, however, it is common for doubts to creep back so that we begin once again to worry that such thoughts might be a terrifyingly serious offense against God. When this fear begins to resurface, rather than just dismiss the thoughts as harmless annoyances, we will frantically try to fight them again. As we panic, the unwanted thoughts will begin to swarm and attack, as surely as stomping on an ant nest. We enter an ever-worsening vicious circle in which anxiety causes the thoughts, which in turn increase our anxiety. So I’m not the slightest surprised that Angela continues:   Since a couple years ago intrusive thoughts have started to come back but in a different way. I’ve tried to get closer to Jesus, but when I did, I started thinking really icky things that I’ve been too ashamed to admit to anyone before. After reading your webpage, however, I know that it’s more common than I thought. I’m by no means the only devoted Christian who thinks unclean things about my Lord and Savior. I still detest the thoughts, of course, but now I know there’s hope.   You’ve really taken a big weight off my shoulders. I hope that now I can become closer to God without my intrusive thoughts.   Comment by Grantley:  If Angela no longer fears the thoughts, they will indeed fade away. Nevertheless, the goal must never be the avoidance of blasphemous thoughts. The harder we try to avoid them, the worse they will get. The goal must always and only be to by faith draw near to God. We do this by clinging to the fact that through the power of Christ’s sacrifice we are accepted by God, no matter what thoughts invade our minds and no matter how much our conscience accuses us.   People write to me hoping God will stop their intrusive thoughts. That’s like hoping God will stop us from ever being tempted, despite the fact that Jesus himself suffered severe temptation. What glory is there in being able to survive when not under attack? Our chance for glory comes when we cling to Christ by faith despite being under such strong attack that everything within us screams that Christ has fled from us in horror.   No one is forgiven because intrusive thoughts no longer occur, nor because of the smallness of his or her sin, but solely because of the greatness of the forgiving power of Christ trading places with us on the cross.   Angela continues:   I take delight knowing that I’m throwing a major wrench in Satan’s plan. Here’s why: I kind of consider my intrusive thoughts a blessing because if I never had them, I never would have looked it up online, and I probably wouldn’t have found NetBurst.Net and I don’t think I would have as good an understanding of how loving and forgiving God is.   It was with a tear stained smile of thankfulness that I jumped at the chance to e-mail Grantley, author of this website. The website has really changed my life, and now I’m closer to God, with more understanding of his love and forgiveness, and I’m getting to know Jesus more than I have ever before.   So instead of making me doubt the power of Christ’s sacrifice, and doubt the love and forgiveness of God, those intrusive thoughts have only driven me closer to God! Having realized that there is so much more hope than I thought there was, I’m much less afraid. I used to feel that I had to live my life perfectly or I’d fall under the judgment of God. Naturally, I want to do what is right, but I now understand that God’s acceptance of me depends not on my futile attempts to be perfect but solely on me trusting the perfection of Christ’s sacrifice for me.   I’ve realized that the most valuable thing we can possibly attain is totally free to anyone who accepts it: Jesus’ sacrifice.   I told my dad about how Satan’s plan backfired and caused me to be closer to God. He agreed and said to watch out, though, because now that I’ve pushed that in Satan’s face, he’s going to try a different attack. Satan might, for example, try a fleshly temptation.   Comment by Grantley:  Angela’s dad is right that the devil is a sore loser and is sure to counter-attack. My experience with people, however, strongly suggests that when the enemy has had a little success with upsetting someone through a particular tactic, he doesn’t change tactics quickly. In other words, I expect Angela to be repeatedly tested in the realm of intrusive thoughts before the devil reluctantly gives up, and even then he will try sneak attacks from time to time.   The intrusive thoughts that kept coming to Angela involved the use of foul, sexually explicit swear words aimed at defiling Jesus. It is not just words, however, but mental images of degrading Jesus physically and sexually in the most atrocious matter. All of this is totally out of character for Angela.   Uncontrollable thoughts reveal how anxious a person is  not  to think such things. They indicate not how bad a person is, but that how good the person is, in that they show that the person is unusually desperate not to think such things.   To better understand what drives devoted Christians to think filthy, obscene things about their Lord, let’s consider a common, non-religious example of people who suffer from intrusive thoughts. It is more common than most people realize for loving mothers with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) to be unable to stop thinking of mutilating and killing their babies with a knife. They are not just upsetting thoughts; these mothers are terrified that they will actually act out those thoughts on the babies they love. Experts insist that such people would never in reality endanger anyone. The uncontrollable nature of these unwanted thoughts, however, often fools these people into mistakenly thinking that they would sink so low as to harm, or even kill, their children. These horrific thoughts keep plaguing them precisely because the thoughts cause these mothers immense distress. And they cause such distress precisely because the thoughts are totally out of character and the last thing they would ever want to do.   Likewise, Christians with a tendency towards Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can suffer hideous thoughts about Christ, precisely because it is completely out of character and the last thing they would ever want to do. Like sweet, non-violent mothers who needlessly fear – and even come to believe – that they have transmuted into virtual monsters, anyone relentlessly subjected to barrages of intrusive thoughts is likely to become so confused as to conclude that such thinking really is part of his/her true character.   In the  previous webpage  in this series, we saw that 1 Corinthians 10:13 implies that our first line of defense when undergoing spiritual attack is the knowledge that many other Christians have suffered similar attacks. This knowledge is such a source of strength that the enemy of our souls usually tries his hardest to fool each of us into thinking that no Christian has done such wicked things as we have. It is to help counteract this lie that Angela has selflessly specified the exact nature of the appalling thoughts and images that have plagued her.   As explained elsewhere in this series, this should be unnecessary, because the Bible insists that Jesus died for the sins of the world – for every sin ever committed on the entire planet. So unless you are in another part of the galaxy using alien technology to hack into earth’s computers, Jesus died for the forgiveness of every sin you have ever committed. Forgiveness is yours, provided you don’t die before believing Jesus for that forgiveness. Only if you don’t believe Jesus for forgiveness, is a sin unforgivable.   So why do I bother writing all these pages when all that is needed is simple faith in the Bible? Unfortunately, people who suffer intrusive thoughts keep demanding ridiculous amounts of proof. To understand this, let’s remember that intrusive thoughts are a manifestation of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and look at another manifestation of this illness.   Many people with OCD keep repeatedly checking the same door to ensure that it is locked. Once should suffice, but not for these people. They are continually and irrationally filled with doubt about whether the door is locked. So you can expect someone with religious OCD to be repeatedly filled with doubt. Like checking a door once, whenever one doubt is removed from such a person, another doubt will come.   Out of compassion for those plagued with this insatiable need for proof, I am writing this webpage and the nearly fifty others in this series. Nevertheless, a million words will not end the doubts of anyone suffering from the medical condition known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This affliction has been called the doubting disease. It causes the mind to keep playing tricks such that no matter how overwhelming the evidence, doubts will continue to surface. The only real answer is for anyone with OCD to accept the continual presence of doubt and guilt feelings as an unavoidable fact of life. Sadly, such people must get used to living with these disturbing feelings and stubbornly refuse to believe their feelings, including feeling that no one is as depraved as them.   Of course, just like contemplating what our loving Lord suffered at the hands of his Roman torturers, it pains not just Angela but all of us to read a description of her thoughts. As Christ’s suffering glorifies his love for us, however, so an account of her thoughts highlights his love and grace, since Angela – like anyone who regrets such thoughts and trusts Christ’s cleansing power – is accepted and pure in the eyes of the Holy One. As the cross reveals, the Pure One would endure anything, including the most depraved slander and obscenities, in order to be our best friend. Because God sees Angela’s heart and knows she wants to honor him, her unwanted thoughts have displeased  her  far more than him. He is thrilled by Angela’s refusal to let intrusive thoughts hamper her relationship with him.   Even humans can vow to be faithful “in sickness and in health.” Jesus would never distance himself from us just because we became physically ill. Likewise he will remain steadfastly with us through any mental illness. Uncontrollable blasphemous thoughts are a manifestation of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which is a form of mental illness. Just as some physical illnesses can affect us without causing us to be bedridden, so this form of mental illness is not so severe as to incapacitate us, but it is an illness, nonetheless.   Writes Angela:   It is going to be  really  hard to explicitly detail my thoughts. I’ve never told anyone what my exact thoughts were. I didn’t think I could do it but with the Lord’s help I have set aside my pride and opened up my heart. I’m doing it for Jesus and my fellow Christians so that, like me, they can be inspired to get closer to God.   I can’t remember all of my gross thoughts, but having offered a heartfelt prayer for strength to do this, I’ll state what I do remember. It will be graphic, but here goes:   A couple of years ago, the anti-Holy Spirit sentences came back. I wasn’t as terrified as when I was younger because I remembered what my dad said years before, but they still scared me a lot and I needed to be reassured again that it wasn’t my fault. They went away for a little awhile, but then the really bad thoughts started coming.   Comment by Grantley:  Intrusive thoughts relentlessly target the very thing their victim least wants and most fears. So if a thought loses its power to terrorize a person, the mind – ably supported by the devil – of anyone susceptible to this mental condition will keep searching for a new thought that will alarm the person. So once the thoughts lost their power to terrify Angela it comes as no surprise that the intrusive thoughts took another form.   Horrid sentences would come to me, often associated with foul, sexually explicit language. I tried so hard to not think such things, but they just grew worse; forcing me to visualize images of Jesus engaging in indecent acts with myself or other people.   I felt extremely sick and filled with shame over these thoughts.   Comment by Grantley:  Angela boldly revealed to me all her thoughts and the language used and was willing for them to be published if they would help you. I’ve tried to tone them down a little, while still hoping to convey how extreme the thoughts are.   Angela has repeated thoughts of bodily defiling and humiliating (sexually and otherwise) the holy Son of God in ways far more disgusting and depraved than even hinted at by the Bible’s description of what Jesus suffered at the hands of the Romans. And the thoughts come with the most vulgar, sexually explicit language to describe these despicable acts. Moreover, it went far beyond words: for countless times she would vividly visualize personally doing it to her Lord.   Sentences would form in her mind, often commencing, “I want to . . .” followed by vulgar language about doing detestable, degrading things to the King of kings, or of wanting him to do it to her.   In reality, she did not want such things, but it would be easy for all victims of such a relentless attack on one’s mind to mistakenly conclude that they must really want such things, since it is within their own minds that such gross expressions keep repeating over and over and over, accompanied by appropriately vile images.   Angela continues:   I also had a few angry-sounding, foul-mouthed outbursts against God or Jesus. It made it hard to read the Bible or engage in any other Christian activities, because I was afraid the vile thoughts would start again.   Comment by Grantley:  What if Angela had not only had obscenely blasphemous thoughts and had genuinely wanted to act out those thoughts but had deliberately declared them to thousands of people in the hope of corrupting them and slandering the King of kings? The purifying power of Christ’s sacrifice is such that Angela would be utterly cleansed through a simple faith-union with Christ. Moreover, there is no reason why she could not then be powerfully used of God for the most earth-shaking and holy ministry.   I have done a little to conceal Angela’s identity and tone down what she has been willing to publish, but she concludes:   I am not afraid to let people know who I am. To hide my identity would be to say that I am ashamed, and it’s Satan who should be ashamed! He is the one who has exploited my obsessive compulsive tendencies. I now know that I have nothing to be ashamed about.   My intrusive thoughts have subsided a lot. I pray that many people suffering from intrusive thoughts are helped by knowing what my exact thoughts were and so realizing that they aren’t alone in suffering such attacks.   Trials are a blessing and a chance to deepen our faith. There is  always  a reason to praise God.   Someone Else’s Experience   Years later, I received an e-mail from Brenda in response to the above. She has kindly given me permission to share it with you. Her experience highlights other aspects of this affliction.   Recently I came across Angela’s testimony. A lot of what she went through is similar to what I’ve experienced.   A little over six months ago I came off a drug, Ambien, which is a sleeping pill. I had been on it for three years every night, but I heard it can have a lot of bad effects, especially on women. I experienced withdrawals, and started having severe panic and anxiety attacks. (I also went through some physical problems as well). From then I started having horrible blasphemous thoughts. I am a Christian and my heart’s desire is to serve the Lord and to do his will in my live and to be an example to my children, family and others.   Comment by Grantley:  The timing is no coincidence. Over time, Brenda’s body had adjusted to the sleeping pill to the point of being so dependent upon it that stopping it threw her body chemistry out of whack. (It is always best to seek medical advice before stopping any medication. Often one is advised to stop only gradually. She should probably have started the cut-back by taking half a pill for a while.) This imbalance caused the anxiety attacks and Brenda’s intrusive thoughts were anxiety-driven. It is a medical issue, not a spiritual one. It has taken a spiritual form only because spiritual things are so important to Brenda.   Like Angela, these are horrible, sexual thoughts about the Godhead. They have tormented me.   Comment by Grantley:  This is only because Brenda  let  the thoughts be a source of torment. Had she regarded them as simply a product of withdrawing from sleeping pills and of having no spiritual consequence, life would have been much easier for her. Like trying to fight a swarm of bees with a sword, trying to fight the thoughts will achieve nothing except stir them into an even greater frenzy.   I pray, read the Bible, listen to tapes of messages to and from work, quote scriptures, and at times it will be better but doesn’t last they come back worse and they are so vile and disgusting they make me sick! I know this is not me. I would never think such thoughts and they are opposite of what’s in my heart!   It makes you feel lost even though in your heart you know that you are saved, but because you’re a Christian you can’t imagine how one can think such horrible thoughts about the Holy God and Savior you love so much.   Comment by Grantley:  Brenda’s bewilderment over how a Christian can think such things is because she does not understand anxiety and how the mind works. For example, it often takes the form of new mothers being hounded by thoughts of harming their newborn. The reason is twofold:   1.     Depression and anxiety are closely linked, and it is well known that new mothers often suffer postnatal depression.   2.     Because harming their baby is the last thing these dear mothers want, their very fear of the thought worsens the situation. They try hard  not  to think such things, which means they will inevitably think of them because they are focusing on those very thoughts.     Only a few family members know what I’ve been going through. They have prayed for me numerous times and my husband as well, but I don’t think they know the depth of how disturbing this is to me.   Comment by Grantley:  I agree that others don’t understand how upsetting it is to Brenda. This is because she worries about it far more than is necessary and this very concern inflames the situation.   I want to be set free to live in God’s peace and joy.   Comment by Grantley:  In Find Peace in the Storm I have proved by an extensive biblical examination that peace and joy are not spiritual drugs. Like the other fruit of the Spirit, they are virtues, and necessitate much persistence and stubborn faith – grimly holding on when everything within wants to panic and give up.   If Brenda’s anxiety levels were to lessen (and her best chance of that is through medication), her unwanted thoughts would lessen but, to be honest, I hope the trial continues because this is Brenda’s opportunity to grow spiritually – an opportunity that few people have on this level. I believe God loves her too much not to allow this to continue so that she can become truly strong in her faith that God is love, compassionate and cleanses us from all sin. We  think  we believe these things but it is only during such a trial that we truly get the chance to exercise strong faith in these glorious truths. When all the props of feelings and signs are stripped away and we are left to cling on to Christ by raw faith alone, we are amazed to discover how weak we really are, but just as someone running a marathon feels weak towards the end of the race – even though the mere fact that he is still plodding on shows he is actually super-strong – so it is when we are forced to hold on by sheer faith. We will feel pathetically weak even though the fact that we are still holding on to Christ shows that we are strong. Like any exercise, with spiritual exercise it is a case of no pain, no gain.   I try to ignore them but that doesn’t seem to work very well, when something horrible comes in my mind I immediately try to push it out of my head and think on something good and holy, such as quote a scripture. There are times it’s so bad I just break down and cry uncontrollably because I don’t want these horrible thoughts in my head. I pray and it gets better until the next time it comes back and starts all over again. I want to be delivered and set free I feel like all I do is pray for myself for God to deliver me.   Comment by Grantley:  Like so many of us, Brenda is praying for the wrong thing. Instead, she should praise God for his love and understanding and for the fact that because of Jesus he is on her side and totally believes in her. She should thank God for this opportunity to grow in faith and to learn to rest in him.   I appreciate any encouragement and thoughts you can share.   Comment by Grantley:  That’s what this entire website is all about. It is most important that Brenda read  Scrupulosity: Worried about Salvation, Blasphemous Thoughts & Severe Guilt Feelings  and then keep following for very many pages the main link towards the bottom of each page. All of us who suffer like Brenda have a strong mental bias to approach this problem in a way that will keep making it worse. We are strongly biased to miss what the pages are clearly saying. This makes it vital that we keep prayerfully  studying  these pages until we eventually get it. It would be helpful if Brenda’s friends, loved ones, counsellors, etc also read these pages because then they will be better equipped to understand what she is suffering from and how to support her.   More Help Needed People keep e-mailing me, desperate for a quick fix so that they can get the relief they crave without having to read all these webpages. They are wasting their time and mine, however, because in all my years of anguished prayer and fervent seeking, I have failed to find an alternative to having to keep reading all these webpages. Take a rest now, if required, but you will need to read more.

Hope When There is No Hope   Hebrews 10:26-29  For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (KJV) A woman confesses to apparently supernaturally receiving condemning Scriptures proving her to be an enemy of God beyond the forgiving power of Christ’s sacrifice. As if confirming her damnation, this sent her mental state deteriorating alarmingly for years, until finally her breakthrough commenced. Memorable Quotes From this Webpage   The Crisis   “I had gone to the Word to find answers and comfort, yet all I found was one of the most condemning and fearful words that God ever recorded.”   “I gripped at my blanket as great pains and cries seared through me. I felt the weight of darkness, hopelessness, utter black. It was as if a chasm of eternity separated me from God.”   “In a matter of six weeks I lost twenty pounds and no one could figure out what was happening to me. Nor could I!”   “My thoughts became utterly despicable. I could not stop them. It seemed that my heart was cursing God over and over. At brief moments I would have a spark of sanity, but for the next year and a half I did nothing else but cry out to God. The mental torment was beyond description.”   “My heart never stopped pounding for weeks. If I spoke, people could recognize the fear in my quivering voice. I had given up hoping this condition would ever change. I could not find peace in life, and to choose death just meant that hell would come quicker.”   “There was a force inside that would not allow belief to stick. It was like one of those dreams where you are trying to run but your legs won’t carry you.”   The Breakthrough   “I have found a new peace with God that is not based on my feelings, but solely on his Word. And when even Scripture seems to condemn me, I think of the cross. . . . When Satan attacks, I am more armed with Scripture, and have gained a better understanding of the haunting verses that would have previously torn me to pieces.”   “What kind of a God would withhold salvation to a soul so desperate to receive it? Not our God! He is mighty to save, and I know he saved me (and is saving me). I must cling to his promises and rest solely in grace through faith in Christ alone. Yes, I did have a wayward walk, full of hypocrisy and deceit. . . . Instead of wishing I had remained in Christ from the start, I need to embrace what God can do with any one of his children, even with their disobedient journeys. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing.” Full Testimony   Three years ago I dealt with a spiritual oppression and darkness that produced shocks of suffering that I feared would never end. I remember thinking that if I ever “got better” I wanted to share my testimony on this website in the hope that it would minister to another burdened soul on this earth. I am so grateful for this website, and for the Lord leading me to find it.   It wasn’t until I was a young teenager that I was told the Gospel and believed. I remember crying to Jesus to forgive and save me. For about three years I thought of Jesus continually and developed a relationship with him. However, I did not stay on that path. I chose to leave the only Christian community I knew in order to chase the world. I started drinking and having fun. It lasted for the next ten years. I still went to Church (sometimes hung-over). I dated a strong Christian for years, but often drank behind his back. Eventually I told him I wanted to be more involved in church and I wanted Christian friends (my friends at the time were known for being “party” girls). He helped me join a Bible Study. I was trying to seek the Lord, but my heart was also seeking after the flesh and I would continue to party until a few years after graduation.   During that whole time I claimed the title of a “Christian,” but there was an obvious contradiction. I continually justified sinful behavior and my faith was largely hypocrisy. I was so off the path that I just could not seem to trust God’s ways, so I had confidence in my own choices instead. Slowly I was spiralling down. I knew the better way, but I would not choose it fully. There is that saying that we have two dogs in us that are always battling; a good dog and a bad dog. And people ask, “What dog wins?” The answer is, “Whichever one you feed.” Well, I fed the bad dog. And before long I was on anti-depressants and had completely fallen apart.   My boyfriend and I broke up. I barely knew God at all. I was depressed, hardened, confused. I immersed myself in work, friends and beer, over-eating, and just about anything else that had nothing to do with the Lord.   About two years later, in his wonderful mercy, God graciously whispered to my soul that he was worth knowing and pursuing and loving. I finally saw through the lies and turned back to God. He immediately provided everything I needed. I was given new and wonderful Christian friends. I was in a solid Bible Study with amazing, godly women who served the Lord and truly loved him. I was offered a new job that tremendously helped my faith grow. It took some time, but the Lord took away so many of the desires I once had for popularity, drinking and worldly success. I experienced so much light and transformation. I was serving, loved my church, and was madly in love with my Savior. Life had never been better. I was so filled with the Spirit that I would often sob tears of joy.   Confusion   After a few years, Satan began creeping into my life and had me confused about my salvation. When did I get saved? As a teenager? Would my life have gone down that path of sin had I truly been a believer? Why hadn’t I had a grand transformation? Was this new faith and new “me” just behavior modification? These thoughts were constant, but they did not bring me down. It was merely a tactic of Satan that the Lord used for good. It prompted more time in Scripture, prayer, and seeking the Lover of my soul. I had my questions and doubts, but was happy to speak to my Lord about them, and ask for clarity. Many times he gave it to me. I knew he was working in my life. I saw many evidences of it.   One time I had been seeking the assurance of God’s grace through prayer. In the middle of the night I woke up instantly to a voice speaking very clearly. It said, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” I laid there in wonder and fear and curiosity. I was still half asleep. I did, however, ask the Lord if that was him. (The phrase was familiar but I could not recall whether it was a popular saying or from Scripture.) I fell back to sleep without an answer and woke up not even remembering this event. That morning when I arrived at work, my sweet Christian friend stopped in my office to chat, as we did this most mornings. Out of nowhere she said to me, “For some reason God’s words, ‘Love keeps no record of wrongs,’ keeps coming to me.” Immediately I remembered being awakened in the night. I asked her if that was a Bible verse. She said it was from Corinthians. Oh yes! I remembered that! The God of love declares that love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5, NIV). And he has set it in black and white for the whole world to see. I praised the Lord for his amazing love and grace, and for being so tender and intimate with me in this way.   Doubts Deepen   However, Satan was at work as well, and his tactics grew stronger and stronger. My doubts began to deepen. Scripture began to haunt me. I began questioning God’s love for me (again), but for the most part, my questions to other people were normal (“Do you ever have doubts that you are saved?” etc.), and many times I’d get the reply, “Oh, I have wondered the same things.”   In October of 2009, I literally watched my uncle pass from life to death. I was so distraught at the look in his eyes that I was unable to cry or react to what I had just seen. My unfading thought was, “Where is he now?” Although he expressed knowledge of Jesus, I had doubts that he was a saved man, and I still wondered if I was saved. I wanted a definite answer for my own soul, so I went home, opened up my Bible, and my eyes instantly fell upon Hebrews 10:26-27, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.” I had gone to the Word to find answers and comfort, yet all I found was one of the most condemning and fearful words that God ever recorded.   I don’t know how to accurately convey what befell me at the moment of reading that verse. In a matter of seconds, I was completely paralyzed on my couch. The physical effects that fear manifests consumed me; the heaviness, sweats, inability to speak, the tingly sensation on every inch of my body, the piercing silence . . . You name it; I was its victim. I lay as prey on that sofa. The next thing I recall was throwing my body across my bed and groaning. I gripped at my blanket as great pains and cries seared through me. I felt the weight of darkness, hopelessness, utter black. It was as if a chasm of eternity separated me from God. There was not one molecule of light in an expanse of eternal blackness. Every sin, every blasphemous thought, every weakness, my impurities, self-righteousness; my whole life lay bare before me. And in that place, that moment, I knew that NOTHING in this world could ever save me from what I deserved, nothing but Jesus Christ. I knew in that moment that I was a sinner – not because I committed sins, but because that is what I was. I wailed every last drop of repentant thought to God and screamed aloud for his forgiveness. “What have I done?!” This mantra of words in my head kept repeating and repeating and repeating. I don’t know how long this lasted; all I do know is I found zero relief. And without that relief, I was certain that it was because God had disapproved of me, and I was forever condemned.   All the sexual sins of my past and party days were brought to my attention. Over and over Satan told me that I was not forgiven. These sins count against me. He used that verse to prove it was true. I had kept on sinning after knowing Jesus. And in black texts were the words from God that proved that no more sacrifice was left. I was truly going to hell.   God did not rescue me. It seemed as though he left me right there, in that spot, and with that frame of mind for months to come. I believed that I had repented, but my feelings did not change and no rescue came from my Lord. This condition remained for countless, unrelenting and horrendous days. In a matter of six weeks I lost twenty pounds and no one could figure out what was happening to me. Nor could I! (I was too ashamed and fearful to admit the blasphemous thoughts and doubts of salvation and God’s love) so I did everything in my power to act normal and put on a smile.   At times I would talk to my friends about what I was feeling or thinking, but I downplayed it tremendously. My thoughts became utterly despicable. I could not stop them. It seemed that my heart was cursing God over and over. At brief moments I would have a spark of sanity, but for the next year and a half I did nothing else but cry out to God. The mental torment was beyond description. I knew that God’s Word was true. I believed Jesus was Savior, and Lord of Lords and King of Kings. I still believed God was love. He claims to be, so I believed him, but at the same time I didn’t believe because I just didn’t think he was those things for  me , and so could not believe he would forgive  me . There was a force inside that would not allow belief to stick. It was like one of those dreams where you are trying to run but your legs won’t carry you – you know how to run, but it just became impossible. That is how my thoughts were. I knew what I believed and what was true, but I could not get those thoughts to stick in my mind. It was like they bounced off some empty cavity in my brain and then eroded away.   I once heard a man say that his eyes were opened to the spiritual world and he saw demons; some the size of buildings. I was certain that if my predicament was caused by that dominion, my demon was the size of a skyscraper. But worse, if the torment was just my wicked and depraved heart and mind, I was beyond all hope and out of the realm of forgiveness and an eternity with the One I loved (yet now believing that perhaps I didn’t love him, or never did). And what did that matter since I thought myself to be unpardonable?   Things Worsen   Early in the mornings I was so certain that the sun was not going to rise. I would wait and wait for light to shine on this world. I feared that it had truly stopped because of me. I eventually became a hermit, for the most part. I still went to work, but as soon as the day was done, I would drive home and get in bed and read anything I could to find relief. My bed was covered with books and commentaries. If I did open my Bible, I would read anything, and it afflicted me. It was so intense that I thought I was the great prostitute mentioned in  Revelation . God says that he will come when you least expect him to, so I thought he had already returned and I was left in this prison of hell forever.   My whole physical being was consumed by the torment. I had dry, cotton mouth every day. My heart never stopped pounding for weeks. If I spoke, people could recognize the fear in my quivering voice. I had given up hoping this condition would ever change. I could find no peace in life, and to choose death just meant that hell would come quicker. Many nights I would just say, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” over and over until I fell asleep. Even those words, and that act, gave me no respite; just more fear, since the Great Shepherd clearly was not mine.   I eventually went to counselling at church. It was unsuccessful. I had been prayed over numerous times. A friend of my mother’s tried casting out demons. I tried other counsellors and therapists. I was still acting very nonchalant about the severity of what I was really going through, so what I portrayed to other people looked very different from my reality. I thought maybe I had a brain tumor so I went to a medical doctor and mentioned that I had extreme anxiety, heart palpitations, and weight loss. The doctor thought it could be a contribution from my thyroid. It was not. I talked to my pastor about that verse in Hebrews (when of course by this time I had read every commentary on it) and he reassured me that verse did not apply to me. I disagreed and found no comfort in his counsel.   I had considered checking myself in to a facility. I could not take it anymore. But then the thought of being trapped in one stopped me. Soon after, in desperation, I ran out of my workplace to an Urgent Care Center and refused leave without something that would ease my anxiety. Medication was the last thing I wanted to do, but for close to a year I had held on but, it seemed to no avail. If God was not going to come through and deliver me, then I would try medication in the hope of at least functioning better, and perhaps my uncontrollable thoughts would stop.   After just a few days, the medication did wonders to help. I felt a little more in control of my mind. My thoughts seemed less intrusive and I actually did social things with some friends. However, the fear of being on medication began to reach new heights so I discontinued them.   Relief Short-Lived   Whenever I would think my doubts and thoughts were improving, something else would happen. One day, while I was home alone, I felt an eerie presence. I was not feeling safe. It was a beautiful day so I went outside to be in some light and feel the fresh air (I often disliked being outdoors anymore because every speck of creation reminded me that it was God’s – the God who couldn’t love me – and it only added to my fears). While outside I happened to glance up on the roof and saw about fifteen black buzzards lined up next to each other. Their wings were all outstretched. It was as if they were hovering over my home like evil spirits to torment me. I went back inside, still so desperate, and I opened my Bible and read some verse in Isaiah that mentioned ravens and buzzards and dry land and terrifying judgment for God’s enemies (which, of course I thought I was). What are the chances of opening a Bible and your eyes landing on that?! I believe a demon must have had his finger in place, eager for me to open God’s Word at that precise spot. I called a friend and went right over. I said I was afraid to be alone (but gave her some silly made-up reason why) and laughed it off.   I wanted to be anyone but me. I was certain that no soul on earth had ever experienced anything quite like this, or was as sinful as me. I had read testimonies about doubt and fears, but they were all light and easy readings. I read about Bunyan and was thrilled he was a man who mentioned similar things, but he had deliverance in an instant. Where was mine? So no matter what, even testimonies condemned me.   Hope At Last   That was until I found the testimonies on this website! It was the first time I felt some relief. I felt comfort knowing that I was not alone and that some believers had related experiences. I could identify with others, FINALLY. I read testimony after testimony. I printed out pages and pages of Grantley’s writings, and read them over and over and over. Every spare minute I would read scriptures on forgiveness, grace, and love, and even though my brain would not “connect” to anything, I still read it. I never  felt  any different, but Grantley, author of these NetBurst.net webpages, reassured me that faith is not a feeling. I had to base everything on what God says. If as the Bible keeps saying, he forgives; if the God of love keeps no record of wrongs, then he could still forgive me. For so long, this website is what got me functioning again.   It has been a very slow recovery. I still battle doubts and fears, but looking back, I know these fears and doubts were from Satan because now my mind cannot even conceive of many of those thoughts. I cannot come up with them on my own! They must have been planted there by a force so strong and so evil.   Gently and gradually, the Lord has delivered me. Praise God. That dark time in my life is not something I’ve come to understand fully. Nevertheless, I am eternally grateful that through it the Lord revealed to me the self-righteousness I had (and still fight). He revealed to me the utter depravity of my soul and my desperate need for him as Savior. I know that I cannot earn anything from God. It’s all Jesus, or nothing. I cannot contribute to what he did, but my flesh still thinks in terms that I can. I still fight the worry that I have not found that narrow way that he says only a few find. In other words, I still have to resist slipping into to the mistaken belief that the way is created by me, not by him.   Nevertheless, I have found a new peace with God that is not based on my feelings, but solely on his Word. And when even Scripture seems to condemn me, I think of the cross. The OCD thoughts and obsessions have mostly disappeared. When Satan attacks, I am more armed with Scripture, and have gained a better understanding of the haunting verses that would have previously torn me to pieces.   What kind of a God would withhold salvation to a soul so desperate to receive it? Not our God! He is mighty to save, and I know he saved me (and is saving me). I must cling to his promises and rest solely in grace through faith in Christ alone. Yes, I did have a wayward walk, full of hypocrisy and deceit. It took a long time to start dying to self, putting off sin, and living for the one who gave himself for me. Instead of lamenting that I had remained in Christ from the start, I need to embrace what God can do with any one of his children, even with their disobedient journeys. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. Although I relate so well to  Jars of Clay  when they sing, “It takes all I am to believe in the mercy that covers me,” I hope to never go back to that place of unbelief again. May the Lord graciously assist me in my heart’s desires to press forward, glorifying his Almighty Name, Jesus Christ our Lord.   Grantley’s Comment   I was thrilled about how effective medication was for this dear woman. Usually, medication takes longer before it begins to help, and often it is necessary to try several classes of medication until the most effective one for the particular individual is found. It is sadly ironic, however, that her anxiety manifested itself in an irrational fear of the very thing that was helping to lower her anxiety.   If you worry about taking anti-depressants, despite them helping, I urge you to persist with taking them under medical supervision. To refuse medication is as irrational as someone with a vitamin deficiency refusing to take extra vitamins. The very fact that medication helps, is confirmation that the problem has a physical component to it.   Here’s a Scripture that has much to teach us:   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.   To worry about one’s salvation is to be tempted to doubt God’s love and the power of Christ’s sacrifice. The above Scripture makes no promise that God will remove the temptation; only that God will provide (it is up to us to avail ourselves of that provision) the way that will enable us to “stand up under it.” We will still be “under it” but we will survive. Likewise, medication will not eliminate the temptation; it will merely reduce the temptation to levels that are a little easier to resist. God provided the “way out” in the form of medication. If we are too proud or fearful to accept God’s “way out” there is no guarantee that he will provide an additional one, even though he eventually did for this woman. Remember the story of the man forced on to the roof because of rising flood waters. A boat and then a helicopter came to rescue him but he refused, certain that God would rescue him. Finally he drowned, went to heaven, and complained that God had not rescued him, only to discover that it was God who had sent the boat and the helicopter.   To be too proud to take God’s “way out” of medication would be like leprous Naaman being too proud to dip in the River Jordan in order to receive God’s healing (2 Kings 5:1-14). On the other hand, to take medication is to boldly step out in faith, affirming that God is not behind the doubts and that anything that helps fight doubt is pleasing to God.   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 Grace Not Works Important: Get your pastor and those who care about you to read Scrupulosity  and the pages it leads to. Few will be able to understand and support you without reading them. The Beginning The only way to not miss any of this feast of uplifting webpages about false guilt is to start at Feeling Condemned? There’s Hope!   and follow each link. You won't regret it! Feeling Rejected by God  An important part of this series of webpages Unforgivable?   The part of the series that deals with the unforgivable sin Testimonies   They thought they were unforgivable

How to Recover From a Break Up Help for the Broken Hearted By Annette Dodd with Grantley Morris Consider what brutal terms are used for the ending of a relationship: a bust up, split up, break up, given the boot, dumped, kicked out, ditched, jilted, rejected. No matter how much you tell yourself, “I should be over it by now,” these very terms reflect how deeply wounding it is to suffer the ending of a relationship, no matter how amicable it seemed. For some of us, the big illusion is that immediately plunging back into another relationship will stop the emotional haemorrhaging, but getting back into the firing line while still wounded (no matter how much you tell yourself you are ‘over it’) means you are bringing into the new relationship unresolved issues that will damage or perhaps even ruin the new relationship. Annette Dodd steps out the world of fanciful thinking and shows you how to heal. Her particular emphasis is on relationships that ended short of marriage but it is not without relevance to those whose marriages have ended. Grantley Morris Founder: Netburst.net So . . . what does become of the broken-hearted? Well, if you believe the soaps and Hollywood it will take you about five screen minutes (if that) to get over your ex before you’re plunging (miraculously unscathed) straight back into the dating game where the next person you meet will be ‘the One’ you’re destined to be with for the rest of your life. And just how realistic is that? Well . . . maybe the next person you date will be your future husband or wife but, if you’ve just had your heart broken, it will take more than five minutes to get over it. You’ve got to allow yourself time to grieve and to heal so you are relatively unscathed by the time you commence preparation for your next relationship. No doubt, your experiences will be different from mine but I pray that, in some small way, this webpage will bring you comfort and a ray of hope for your future. So, friend, pull up a chair. Kick off your shoes. Get yourself comfortable. Grab some tissues if you need them – maybe candy, a hot drink and some chocolate chip cookies, too (yum!) – and sit yourself back. I’m here to tell you it’s not the end of the world (even though it seems like it is) and I promise that you can get through this. Between you, me, and God we’ll work out where you’re going from here, okay? My friend, I’ve been in your situation and a break-up can suck. Believe me; I know how devastating it can be. You wonder why this happened. What did you do wrong? Are you really that unlovable? And – the big ones – why did God put you through this? Why didn’t he stop the pain?! But we’ll get to these soon enough. For now I want you to calm yourself and breathe. Just breathe. Would you mind if I say a prayer? Heavenly Father, I pray for my hurting friends right now. Thank You for them and for bringing them here. Let them know You care about every aspect of their lives; their past, their present and their hope-filled future. Comfort them and surround them with Your love. Be with them now and heal their pain. I pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. So. Where do you start? How can you get through this? You’ve shared so much with another person - your love, your time, your money, your hopes and dreams - but now those things are lying shattered on the floor. How could something so precious to you be treated so recklessly? You thought this love would last forever. That you could work through any difficulties. ‘Isn’t our love worth saving?’ you cried. But it’s over and your world’s been ripped apart. You feel as if you’ll never reach light at the end of the tunnel (as if you could even see any light at the end of the tunnel right now). You feel you’ll never be happy again. Right? Well . . . would it help if I told you my story first? My name is Annette. I come from a Christian family and became a Christian when I was about seven. I got baptized at fourteen and everything was going swimmingly with the Lord. Sure, there were guys I liked but they never seemed to like me in that way. ‘Ah, well, it doesn’t matter,’ I thought to myself. ‘It’s in God’s hands.’ At twenty-one, with a heart for God still, I was knocked to the ground by a rugby ball during a team game at a Christian camp. The effect was inexplicable. (It is one of the first things I’ll question God about when I get to heaven.) It seemed from that very moment as if God had literally been knocked right out of me. I still believed in God and what he had done for me, but it felt as if the fire had gone out. Thus began my Wilderness Years. I tried talking about it with Christian leaders but nothing ever got resolved so I simply shut up. Never mentioned it. To look at me you’d think I was a perfectly normal Christian girl but I felt dead inside. To make matters worse, my church closed down a few years later and I was devastated. The church and friends I’d loved and grown up with – gone. Things wouldn’t be the same again. In the end, after trying several different churches over the years, I settled at one that had had strong links with my previous church but I knew it wasn’t going to be my church home. I figured if I didn’t go there, I wouldn’t go anywhere and my faith refused to allow me to give up on God, even though it seemed he had given up on me. Fast forward several more years. I’m 35 and had been in the Wilderness for nearly fifteen years (peanuts compared to Moses but still . . . ! It takes a lot out of you). Still hadn’t had a boyfriend, and I’d resigned myself to being single for the rest of my life. What you hadn’t had, you don’t miss, I reasoned. It all changed when I met a guy at a friend’s Christmas party. There was a spark. We started dating. he went semi-regularly to a church but he wasn’t a Christian. (Dating a non-Christian? Where’s a ‘shocked’ smiley when you need one!) It was something I knew was wrong but, as it stood, I wasn’t as strong a Christian as I should have been, I so glossed over it. I wouldn’t do it now, especially after reading Netburst’s pages on this subject. (See Dating a non-Christian ) One Sunday, about a month after we started dating, I felt nudged to have ‘The Talk’ with my boyfriend; the talk about my faith and also to find out about his. I hadn’t spoken to anybody about my wilderness state for over ten years so it was quite a challenge, but I took the plunge (that ‘nudge’ was too strong for me to ignore) and miraculously felt quite liberated afterward. I then talked with my boyfriend about his faith and the upshot of this conversation was my boyfriend read through a Steps to Peace with God pamphlet by Billy Graham and prayed the prayer at the end. Friends at his church were delighted at the news as they’d been praying for him to become a Christian for some time. My boyfriend came to my church occasionally with me and I went to his church occasionally with him. We even started looking for a church we could go to as a couple – ‘our’ church home. Well, naturally, I was cartwheeling inside. My boyfriend was now a Christian and, to me, that was all that mattered. The official seal of approval, so to speak. ‘Yay, this is it!’ I thought with glee; mega-wattage grin plastered on my face. ‘Surely this relationship has come from God?? Surely he’s (finally!) dusted me down from the shelf and I should book an urgent fitting with ‘Bride-To-Be Gowns’??!’ Well . . . yes, and no. Though early on in the relationship my boyfriend and I had spoken about getting married (we’d even jokingly looked at engagement rings), he was now beginning to distance himself from me. That hurt. And, more often than not, I’d find myself driving away from his house with tears streaming down my face but vowing I was going to fight for the relationship. ‘Isn’t our love worth saving?’ I cried to myself. Alas, no. The relationship limped on for a while but was over a few months later. I was devastated. In my naivety, I imagined we’d get back together a few days or weeks later and things would coast on toward that fairy-tale wedding. After all, isn’t that what usually happens in the movies? We kept in contact initially but I was finding it too hard. My ex was moving on with his life but mine seemed to be over. I remember asking God to take me to be with him because I just couldn’t see the point of living anymore, but God gave me a verse in reply the very next day. It said, ‘I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.’ (Psalm 27:13-14.) Pretty amazing, huh? It was going to be a while before I’d start seeing some of that goodness, however, but it was a verse I held onto in my darkest moments. And believe me, those moments seemed pretty bleak to me! I was living on the opposite side of town to all my friends and family, so felt quite isolated. And my job then wasn’t busy, so I had plenty of time to dwell on the break-up. I lost a lot of weight (who knew it was even possible for wrists to get thinner?!) and my hair was shedding at a rate of knots ( . . . although that damage might have been caused by overuse of hair straighteners . . . !). Each day was a monotonous struggle and I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. I felt lethargic and longed for the oblivion of sleep all the time. Out of morbid curiosity I’d complete online questionnaires to find out if I had depression and would usually conclude smugly that – yes; I was depressed! Little by little I found help in unexpected places. A relationship message board got me through the initial days of questioning the break-up, and family and friends were brilliantly supportive. I’d always considered myself pretty self-sufficient and to find that people did actually care about me and wanted to help, made a big difference. I leaned in closer to the Lord, too, and started doing a daily Bible devotion each morning – a practice I’d neglected over the years. I hungrily read Christian books on break-ups and relationships, figuring if God was going to bring somebody into my life in the future (after all, he’d done it once when I was totally unprepared and had given up all hope so who’s to say he won’t again?) then I’d want to make sure I was prepared this time. I also decided it was time to start searching for my proper church home. I was now coming out of the Wilderness and I wanted to find a church where I could be all God wanted me to be in him. I narrowed the choice down to three and felt led to one particular church but didn’t feel able to start going there until I moved closer to it. So . . . my parents welcomed me back into the family home (thanks Mum and Dad!) and I handed my notice in at work, trusting that God would provide me with another job on the right side of town. I was hoping for a busy one that would keep me occupied, but God had other ideas! My next job was even worse than the job I’d left but I persevered with it, believing that God had brought me there for a reason. He had; with plenty of time on my hands at work, I surfed the web in search of answers and found some great Christian websites. The best – by far – was NetBurst. I could literally feel God’s love pouring off the pages as I devoured the site. It helped me so much in understanding my wilderness years (although I don’t feel the years will be fully explained until I get to Heaven, I’m at peace with the answers I’ve received so far), and Grantley Morris (the man behind the website) was a rock as I poured out my heart about my break-up. God also used Christians on other forums and message boards to help me through this difficult time. I learned to trust God in particularly trying circumstances. He could see the outcome when I couldn’t. Let’s face it – God knew what he was doing when he gave me that particular job! If I’d been in a busier one I would never have had the time and access to these forms of support. I was able to attend the new church now I was living closer to it, and I found a lot of love, support and understanding there – particularly helpful when the slightest thing would send tears streaming down my face mid-service! The church didn’t turn out to be my church home but it was definitely where God wanted me to be for that period. During this time, God also introduced me to some remarkable, strong, single Christian women – an area of friendship that was sorely lacking in my life. These friendships – one via an internet forum, and the others from the church – have blessed me abundantly. It’s been a rocky road to travel but, even though I might not always have felt his presence, God has been with me, guiding me, every step of the way. I’ve changed jobs again (you’ll be pleased to know I’m much happier – and busier - in my current workplace), and have also now found my church home, which I’m thrilled to bits about. No change in my living arrangements – I’m still with my parents some two years later (I like to tell them I’m funding their retirement) and I’m still single, but that’s fine too. God knows the plans he has for me; he can see the outcome even when I can’t! So there is light at the end of the tunnel. (And – for those jokers out there – no, it’s not the lights of the express train coming my way!) I might not have booked the fitting with ‘Bride-To-Be Gowns’ but I firmly believe the relationship did come from God. So much good has come about because of it – even in spite of the heartbreak – that I have to say God’s hand was at work in it. Granted the outcome wasn’t what I’d wanted (I always believed my first boyfriend would become my husband), but I have learned so much about myself, my faith and God that I wouldn’t change what happened. Besides which, if I hadn’t gone through it, then you wouldn’t be reading my testimony now, would you? Food for thought, hmm? Okay, my friend, we’re onto the practical stuff! And speaking of food . . . We live in such a ‘fast-food’ world, don’t we? Hungry? Pop something into the microwave and it’s ready to eat in minutes. Want to listen to a new CD but don’t want to walk or drive to the shops to buy it? Simple. Download it from the Internet. Want to speak to somebody in London? Washington? Sydney? Outer Mongolia? No problem! You’re connected in seconds. We don’t like waiting, do we? We want instant satisfaction. It frustrates us when God doesn’t immediately take away the pain from a break-up. But I think we have to view this more in terms of a physical wound. Your relationship was no mere cut or bruise that will heal within days, was it? It was something major and, like all major wounds, you’re going to need time to recuperate. Try not to get hung up on how long it is taking you to recover, or to fixate on how quickly your ex seems to have gotten over you. We’re all different. It doesn’t matter how long or how short you dated, or how long ago the break up actually was. If you gave your heart to this person it’s going to take time to recover and how long that takes is just however long you need. Don’t ever think you’ve got to get over this quickly. There isn’t a magic formula that says Multiply the number of romantic meals they cooked you by the number of gifts you bought them, plus how many times he/she said, ‘I love you,’ added to the number of friends who thought you were a ‘perfect couple,’ divided by the number of times anyone said you were not suited, to get to the magic number of weeks it will take you to get over your break-up. (Hmm . . . on second thoughts, maybe I should patent that?!) Some hearts need so much more time to heal than others, depending on how secure and confident their background has made them feel, how much had been invested in the relationship, and who knows how many other factors. You’ve got to allow yourself time to grieve, so you take as long as you need. God works with us at a pace he knows is best for us. And think about it this way - if you’re still grieving the loss of your love then you’re not going to rebound straight into an unsuitable relationship that will put you even further back in the recovery stakes, are you? You might think it strange to think of ‘grieving’ over a relationship but, in effect, that’s what you’re doing. You’re mourning over the good times and the bad; the past you had together and the future you now won’t. (And we always seem to view that ‘future’ through rose colored glasses, don’t we? That ‘perfect’ bliss-filled future that should definitely be filed in the ‘fiction – never gonna happen in a billion years’ part of our brains!) But grieving isn’t the only thing to experience. There’s a whole rollercoaster of emotions you may go through, which are perfectly illustrated by the Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle (also known as the Five Stages of Grief). This cycle describes the process by which people cope with grief and tragedy – whether it is the loss of a relationship, a bereavement, job loss, terminal illness, or whatever. You won’t necessarily experience all the stages, and they won’t necessarily come in the order listed, but you may well recognize yourself in some of them. Let’s explore them further. The first stage is ‘Denial’. Typical head-in-the-sand attitude – ‘It can’t be happening.’ ‘If I ignore it, it’ll go away.’ Maybe you haven’t broken up yet but it’s a possibility and you’re pretending to your friends and family that everything’s still fine. Unfortunately, this situation won’t go away. You’ll have to face up to it eventually. The sooner you do, the sooner God can get working with you on what to do next. In my own relationship, I knew things couldn’t go on as they had been, so I prepared myself for instigating the ‘break-up’ discussion. I prayed about it (but only briefly – I was still feeling in the Wilderness at that point) and booked the following day off work as I knew I wouldn’t be in any fit state to face anybody afterward. But even after the break-up had occurred I was still in denial – I still had illusions of us getting back together at some point in the future. After this is ‘Anger’. ‘Why is this happening to me?? It’s not fair!’ Perhaps you lie awake at night scheming ways to get revenge. Bring it to God. Rant against him, if need be – if you’re angry with him for allowing this to happen to you, then tell him. He knows what you’re thinking anyway (Psalm 139:4 ‘Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD’) and I’m sure he’d much rather you were honest with him than being bitter and bottling it all up. He’s got broad shoulders – he can handle whatever you throw at him. Tempting though it is to plot revenge, don’t go down that route. You have more dignity than that! If you’re a Christian, that makes you a precious son or daughter of our King, and would you really expect to see a Prince or Princess behaving like an obsessed stalker or worse? . . . I don’t think so, either. ( And Revenge! Turning Hate into Healing gives another perspective on this subject.) The next stage is ‘Bargaining’. Maybe we realize we weren’t all we could have been in the relationship. We see faults – whether real or imagined – and think that if we rectify them we can bargain with our ex to get the relationship back. ‘I promise you, I’ll stop chewing my toenails/always let you have control of the TV remote/learn to juggle fluffy clouds/grow longer legs, if you’ll just take me back.’ Maybe it’s God you’re bargaining with? ‘If you bring my ex back, I’ll learn the Bible in Swahili/be nice to old Mr Johnson in the flat below/clean the church toilets for six years.’ When we bargain, I think we’re trying to gain some measure of control over the situation. We’re trying to dictate what terms the relationship should proceed on. But if the relationship isn’t God’s plan for us, then we’ll only frustrate ourselves when it doesn’t work out. If you want to make changes to your life – healthy, positive changes – then do them for your own sake and to bring glory to God. Next we come to the classic ‘Depression’. ‘Nothing’s ever going to get better so what’s the point? Why bother with anything?’ You shut yourself away from everyone and become even more depressed. This is when things seem the bleakest. But this is also when we can bring pleasure to our Father the most. There are some verses in Habakkuk that I absolutely adore because of their lyrical quality, and they are very apt for what God wants us to do in these circumstances. ‘Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.’ (Habakkuk 3:17-18) Praise and worship our Lord and Savior. Take the focus off yourself and give it to him. This is what the writers of some of the Psalms did. I’ve just opened my Bible and Psalm 77 illustrates a person crying out in distress, feeling rejected and unloved. But the writer then resolves to remember the deeds of the Lord and meditate on all his works. See how many more Psalms you come across that demonstrate this too. Finally, there’s ‘Acceptance’. You’ve realized that things are as they are – there’s nothing you can do about them – so it’s time to get on with your own life. You might think it’s an uphill struggle to start piecing things back together but at least you’ve taken a step along that road of acceptance and that’s all you need do for now – just keep taking one small step at a time. As stated previously, the cycle of these stages isn’t set in stone. Our emotions can swing to and fro between different points; one minute you can be depressed, then you’ve accepted it, then you’re angry, then you’re back to depression again – there’s no set pattern. Some situations may trigger emotions you’d previously felt had been dealt with and you can find yourself revisiting stages of the cycle; I had brief flashes of anger even as I was writing this webpage. So. How many stages did you recognize? How many have you been through? Which one are you on now? Perhaps it would be helpful to take a breather for a moment – put the kettle on and grab some more cookies! – and mull over these stages. Bring it to God and let him work in your heart. Heavenly Father, I pray that You will show my friend where they are right now in these stages of grief. Give them Your discernment and wisdom. Lead them gently toward acceptance of their situation and bring them hope for their future. I pray these things in Jesus’ name, Amen One thing that panicked me when getting over my relationship was thinking about time. Somebody on a message board said I’d be feeling so much better about things in six months’ time and I remember thinking ‘Six MONTHS??!!! That’s like FOREVER!!!’ I felt like l was going to drown in how long it was all taking, and I realized I had to stop thinking that far ahead. I had to concentrate on Today – the here and now – and force myself to get through that particular day (and if your mind can’t even cope with thinking about 24 hours at a time, then break it down even further; 12 hours, 6 hours, 1 hour even). Don’t think about next week or next month or next year. Just think about Today and getting through that day. One very relevant verse is Matthew 6:34: ‘Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’ Speaking of time, I’ll mention the dreaded biological clock here. The older we get, unfortunately the louder it thumps. Granted this won’t be as relevant to the guys out there reading this, but I’m sure it will have crossed your mind that you don’t particularly want your knees creaking with old age when you’re trying to play football with your son or daughter in the park! And, for us women, it’s a fact of life that after a certain point in time we won’t physically be able to have a child. So what do we do? From my own point of view, I’ll confess I had a hyperventilation moment or two when my relationship broke up. Whilst I love children I’m not particularly keen to go through the physical pain of giving birth (life would be so much easier if we could pick a baby up with our groceries, wouldn’t it?!) but that doesn’t mean I’ve necessarily ruled it out entirely, and I’d rather I wasn’t drawing my pension before my child was at senior school! With the break-up, my mind was feverishly recalculating a new timetable – ‘I’ll have to meet my future husband by then, we can date for x months and get married by then and that will still give me the physical amount of time to have a baby before the clock stops.’ But then I had to pause and calm myself and consider God in this. What if he didn’t want me to have children? Would I be happy with that? Don’t get me wrong – I love children. I’ve always had a good rapport with them (probably because I’m such a big kid myself!). I like to think I’d be a good mum (well, once we get over the small issues of whether I’d be able to sacrifice my Saturday lie-in and any kind of sleep life for my offspring, and whether they’d be able to eat anything edible and nutritious from my oven!). That was a hard thing to consider. Even with IVF, not everybody is able to conceive. I had to realize a baby is a gift from God, and not everybody gets that gift. Could I accept that? I took a look around. I have a very special, close relationship with my young niece and nephew. Maybe in time there will be more nieces and nephews to love too. Or children of friends. Maybe adoption or fostering. There are many ways now in which you can give the love of a parent without actually being a parent. So I decided that, yes, I could accept it. And, on the other side of the coin, didn’t Sarah and Abraham have a baby when they were advanced in years? Elizabeth and Zechariah too. After all, ‘. . . nothing is impossible with God’ (Luke 1:37). So I shouldn’t rule it out entirely, and neither should you. (Just pray now for strong bones and a healthy constitution that’ll keep you running around after your toddler, even when you’re the wrong side of a mid-life crisis!) One hurdle crossed. After that, the next hurdle was easier to consider. Okay, if I’m not worrying myself over a timescale about when or if I’m going to have children, does it matter when I get married? I’m hoping that marriage is in God’s plans for me but would I be happy to wait for God’s timing in this? I had to consider the ‘best years’ of my life. Perhaps God wants me to share those with him instead of my future husband? I believe those years won’t be spent in vain. God knows me inside and out. He knows me best. He knows when would be the perfect time for me to get married, so I concluded I could trust him in this matter too. Another hurdle done and dusted. Last hurdle. Toughest one yet . . . What about if God doesn’t want me to EVER get married? Would I be happy with that? GULP!!!!!! That was more difficult. Maybe God had me single all these years in preparation for a life of singleness? What you haven’t had, you don’t miss . . . but . . . but . . . I did have a small taste of ‘coupledom’ – it was something I could get used to. I’ll be honest – I can’t give a categorical ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to that question. Going back to a previous paragraph, it would overwhelm me to think that far ahead. Instead I’ll say ‘Today I’m happy being single.’ For the next 12 hours/6 hours/1 hour (or however long you’ve broken it down into) can you cope with being single? That’s all God asks us to do – take those little steps into our todays and not worry over those tomorrows. So what steps can you take to get you through each day? The top priority is to draw near to God. Pray! Bring him all your concerns and worries and fears. Ask him if there is anything he wants you to learn in all of this. Listen to him. Read your Bible. Memorize uplifting verses for your bleakest moments. Maybe try to see the good he can bring out of the situation. Usually it’s only when we’re further down the path of recovery we see how the messy threads of this relationship were worked into a beautiful subsection in the tapestry of our life. Now, at the risk of sounding heretical, make sure you don’t go overboard in the intensity of drawing near. Yes, God does want you to spend time with him but there does have to be a balance. Jesus spent time with friends and going to parties, as well as spending time with his Father in prayer, so don’t neglect your ordinary life. And speaking of friends, surround yourself with supportive friends and family at this time. Lean on them. They love you and want to help you through this, so let them. Chances are they’ll be glad of the opportunity to do something for you. At the same time, don’t let them pressurize you into moving on more quickly than you’re ready for. If you really can’t face socializing, then tell them. I realize some people might find it hard to receive this kind of help. Perhaps you’ve never needed it before because you’ve been self-sufficient all your life or maybe you’re too shy/hesitant/proud to let your guard down around other people. Here’s one way to look at it – perhaps God needs you to be the recipient of help so he can work some change in the other person’s life as they give you that help? So be sensitive to them and to the Holy Spirit. Your focus will then be on someone other than yourself too (which won’t be a bad thing at all). Self-esteem is one thing you’re going to have to address as well. I know you’re feeling rejected and unloved following your break-up but don’t EVER forget you are loved. God gave his Son for you and wants to spend eternity with you – that’s how much you are loved. Don’t base your worth on your ex’s view of you but rather base it on God’s view of you: * You are a child of God ( 1 John 3:1 ) * You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) * You are a treasured possession ( Exodus 19:5 ) . We are made in God’s image and there is hope in reaching your fullest potential with or without a ‘mate’. Make sure you’re eating properly, and don’t forget to take some exercise either. If you’re feeling under the weather then don’t be afraid to get yourself checked out by your doctor (I did and found I was anaemic. A healthy course of iron tablets was soon the order of the day). If you think it is taking you an abnormally long time to recover, and you think it would be beneficial, then don’t be afraid to consider seeing a counsellor either. Ask around at your church for any known Christian counsellors in your area (you might even be fortunate enough to have one or two actually at your church). This webpage can only go so far – a Christian counsellor will be able to give you their professional opinion and advice. One way of lifting your spirits is to listen to some fun, danceable music. If you have understanding neighbors, crank the volume up and have a good boogie! Don’t forget to listen to praise and worship songs too, and sing along! Even if you’re not the world’s best singer, to God you will be. He loves to hear you sing his praises. Smile. Giggle. Chuckle. Guffaw. Snigger. Snort. Chortle. Yes – LAUGH!! Don’t they say laughter is the best medicine? Watch a funny film. Think of some daft things to do. Even if you don’t feel like it (and even if it feels really strange) laugh out loud right now. Go on – I dare you! (Okay, I’ll let you off if you’re in a crowded internet café or somewhere extremely public at the moment. Although, on second thoughts . . . that might make you laugh more to see people’s faces as they look worriedly at you and give you a wide berth!) Imagine you’re an actor on stage and you’ve been given your cue to laugh, so LAUGH or else the play won’t make sense! I guarantee that pretty soon the ‘fake’ laughter will turn into proper laughter. Release those happy endorphins! And, on the flip side of that coin, it’s okay to cry too. Don’t ever think you’ve got to present a stiff upper lip all the time. Didn’t God invent tears? And doesn’t he store them in a bottle? (‘Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?’ Psalm 56:8 – KJV). I’ve always loved that thought. Mine must be a huge bottleful by now! Did you neglect friends or hobbies when you were dating? Now’s the time to resume those interests. Even if you don’t feel like it, sometimes it’s a good idea to force yourself along to something you love doing as once you’re there the familiar surroundings and friends will perk you up. These next suggestions are tough ones to apply but in the long-term they will be worthwhile. Be strong, my friend!! First up, make a clean break. EEEK!! I know, I know; you’re reeling in shock at that. You’ve both promised to remain friends, haven’t you? Well, I hate to say it to you but you need time to heal and for that you need space too. If you’re still in love with them when you remain friends, your ex will be getting what they want (your friendship) but you won’t be getting what you want (which, presumably, is to get back with them), so you will need a period of separation so you can get over your ex. If it’s unavoidable that you’ll be seeing them (you work together or you go to the same church or you’ll see them at a mutual friend’s party or whatever), then bring it to your Father in Heaven. Ask him to help you be polite, dignified and Christ-like in your dealings with your ex. Ask friends to keep you in their prayers too. You have to be ruthless here and take down any reminders of your ex – any photos or cute, cuddly toys or gifts – and box them away. Any reminders will only upset you at this point, so you need them out of sight. In time you’ll find you’re strong enough mentally to get rid of them altogether but for now, the physical act of boxing them away will be enough (and if you find you can’t do them all in one go then put one item away each day or each couple of days. Keep taking these little steps at your own pace – only you know how much you can cope with at a time). Don’t bombard your ex with texts, emails or phone calls. They’ve called, ‘Time!’ on the relationship so you have to respect their decision. If they made a mistake in that, they’ll be the one to contact you. If they haven’t, bombarding them won’t change their mind and will just make you seem more needy (a quality that isn’t attractive at the best of times, let’s face it!). And, in connection with that, this next action actually made me physically sick as I did it, but it was an essential step to take. Take a deep breath, friend! . . . I deleted my ex’s number from my mobile/cell phone. I didn’t want to text him ‘accidentally’ in the hope he would reply and for my emotions to then plummet like a stone when he didn’t. I couldn’t keep putting myself through that. I still had his number in my address book at home but, if I was out and had a mad urge to text him, I’d have to wait until I was home then physically key in the number again by which time the impulse to text would be over. You might find it hard to cut off this major lifeline to your ex so, again, I would urge you to do it at your own pace. Perhaps you could delete the number, wait five minutes/an hour/a day and key it back in again. Keep doing this until you’re able to leave your ex’s number off your phone altogether. Similarly with emails, delete your ex’s email address from your contacts. Again, as a fall-safe, have it written down elsewhere until you’ve weaned yourself off from contacting them in this manner and can get rid of it once and for all. To pray or not to pray? That, my friend, is the question. Do you keep praying for your ex? I was praying I would get back together with mine, but that isn’t the type of praying I’m referring to here. My ex was a new Christian so I was also praying he would grow in his faith, find a good church to attend and surround himself with other Christians. These, of course, are extremely important matters to pray for but, by doing this, I was keeping my ex fresh in my thoughts and fuelling my desire for the relationship to be rekindled. And this was hindering me from getting over him and moving on. So what can we do? It’s a tough one, I know. You go on a guilt trip if you’re not praying for your ex when you believe it’s your Christian duty to do so, but, at the end of the day, if it’s doing YOU more harm than good then you have to leave it to the Lord. HE can cause somebody else to rise up and keep praying for your ex on your behalf. When I was going through this dilemma of believing I should pray for my ex but just finding it too difficult to do so myself, I asked a very close friend to pray for him on my behalf. This gave me time to heal emotionally whilst knowing my ex was being prayed for. Perhaps this is something you could consider too? For the final stages of your healing to be complete, there is one fundamental issue you’ll have to address. It’s that ‘F’ word – ‘forgiveness’. Yes, at some point in time, you’re going to have to forgive the wrongs done to you by this other person. Why should you? I’ll quote from a page of Grantley’s ( Forgive us our sins ) about forgiveness. Here’s his reason for forgiving: ‘Because it’s Godlike. God forgives those who have no right to be forgiven. He forgives his haters. Christ was abandoned. The Innocent was accused, condemned, and made to feel like low life. His holy body was violated by whips, nails, spear. He was mocked, maligned, tortured. And he forgave. He’s God. And he has the power to make you like God. The Lord of all wants to make you royalty – a child of the King of kings. Not an adopted child, but born into his family, bearing his nature – his genes as it were. And part of the beautiful, divine nature God wants released into your life is an attitude of forgiveness. It was something I baulked at, but forgiveness is an instruction in the Bible and I had to choose whether I would be obedient to God in this matter or not. It was a choice I faced on a daily basis and, at first, I couldn’t handle the thought of forgiving my ex so I asked God to help me choose to forgive even when I didn’t feel like it. Whether the other person receives that forgiveness isn’t your responsibility. All you have to do is offer it. Now, I realize it might be difficult to physically give that forgiveness to the other person if they’re out of your life altogether, but offer it up to God and then leave the burden with him. He’ll know what to do with it. Trust him. Similarly, you’ll need to apologize for any wrong actions you took in the relationship. Offer them, don’t excuse them, ask for forgiveness, and then leave them with God. So, why did this break-up happen? Was there anything you did wrong? Are you really that unlovable? Why did God put you through this? Why didn’t he stop the pain? I’m going to quote from Elisabeth Elliot’s Quest for Love: True Stories of Passion and Purity (Baker Publishing Group, 1996), which I hope will help you understand why we sometimes have to go through heartbreak. “He has a glorious purpose in permitting the heartbreak. We may find many clues for this in Scripture, for example: * that we may be shaped to the likeness of Christ ( Romans 8:29 ) * that we may learn to trust ( 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 ) * that we may learn to obey ( Psalm 119:64,71 ) * that we may bear fruit ( John 15:2 ) * that we may reach spiritual maturity ( James 1:4 ) Hard as it is to live with, there will be questions left unanswered. It was something I had to accept; I won’t know everything that was going on ‘behind the scenes’ until I get to Heaven. Never forget there’s a spiritual battle raging all around us, and the relationship or the subsequent heartbreak could be Satan’s attempt to knock one of God’s finest – you! – off course. Don’t give up, my friend. I’m cheering you on! ‘And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast’ ( I Peter 5:10 ). “If Only I Had a Second Chance . . .” By Annette & Grantley Someone responded to this webpage with an e-mail that went along these lines: I deeply identify with everything you have written. What is particularly plaguing me, however, are regrets and “what ifs.” I see where I went wrong and things that I wish so passionately to do differently. I desperately crave a second chance to put these lessons into practice but it is so devastating that I can’t change the past and am totally unable to have a second chance. Annette remembers thinking after her break-up, “What if I’d been more willing to try new things, be more spontaneous, and so on,” but then she realized that for her that would be out of character, and if she were having to completely change who she is, then perhaps he wasn’t the right person after all. If you have given your life to Christ, God has forgiven you. To not forgive yourself after the Holy Lord has forgiven you is to the insult the Judge of the entire human race by implying you have higher standards than the Perfect One. To be godly, you must have God’s attitude toward your past, which is to forgive it and not let it keep you from future blessings. For help with this, see Forgiving Yourself and the pages it leads to. People frequently wonder whether they should keep past sins secret from someone with whom they are romantically involved. Recently someone wrote to Grantley saying she had briefly slipped away from God and been unfaithful to her boyfriend. When she returned to God and to him, her boyfriend wanted to know details and she kept them hidden, fearing that he would not forgive her and not wanting to hurt him. Grantley replied: Even though he does not know it, you are hurting him everyday by lying to him – and you are lying by refusing to tell him the truth. And not only that, you are hurting yourself. If he cannot freely forgive you he doesn’t love you and doesn’t deserve someone as godly as you, and if he claims to be a Christian, he is a hypocrite. He doesn't deserve to be lied to and you don’t deserve having someone whom you fear doesn’t love you. You claim that telling him would mean the end of your relationship. You don’t know that, but if so, by not telling him you are just cruelly prolonging the agony and causing him to fall more and more in love with a lie – not real love but the type of infatuation that hurts. Remember that anyone claiming to be a Christian who refuses to forgive you is seriously out of line with what God expects of Christians. And it is a spiritual necessity to marry only someone who is in a right relationship with God. To do otherwise is to defile Christ. It is that serious. This is not because Christians are superior but because by his grace God has purified them and spiritually united them to the Holy One so that whatever they do affects God. The spiritual transformation Christians have undergone is, of course, freely available to anyone but until people enter into this, they belong not to the Holy Lord but to the devil. As hard as it is, try not to regret things. There is a positive side even to discovering “too late” things we could have done better. Any of us can learn from the past and become a better person as a result. At first, all you can probably think of is what you have lost, but recognizing past mistakes has the potential to give you a much richer relationship with someone in the future and, believe it or not, that person is likely to be even more suited to you than the person you have lost. God can use our every experience to refine us into pure gold. So think of the lessons you’ve learned as God refining you into a true treasure. Many will benefit, including the special person he has for you. Take the lessons on board and start applying them now to your everyday life. You do not need a romantic relationship to use the lesson of being more loving, for example. You can show appreciation and love to your parents, siblings and friends right now. Or maybe you needed to communicate more. Again, you can practice this right now. The more you apply the lessons in everyday life, the more you’ll be ready for the future relationship God has for you. There’s a saying that goes something like: “Don’t look for the right person, be the right person.” For encouragement about God’s ability to bring good from past mistakes, see Turning Wasted Years into Blessing. Final Thoughts By Grantley Morris Breakups hurt. They feel like an enormous loss. Ultimately, however, Christians cannot lose. In the short term, life can seem horrific but God’s commitment to our long term good is unshakable. The early stages of a work of art can seem hopeless, chaotic and ugly, even though the finished masterpiece will take our breath away. Romans Eight comforts us with the glorious truth that no tragedy can cause us to lose the love of the Lord who is so powerful that he brings good out of everything that hits us. All we need do is cooperate with God’s efforts to turn devastation into beauty. This simply involves drawing as close as we can to God and doing things his way. So, as distressing as a breakup is, there is something even more tragic: letting a breakup erode our relationship with God. Blaming God at the very time that we most need his comfort, support and healing is, at the very least, a double whammy. I won’t bother with easy answers. I’ll refuse to consider that you might be one of the multitudes who end up hurt by entering relationships God never wanted them to contemplate. For example, I’ll assume you did not break God’s principles by getting romantically involved with a non-Christian. And I’ll assume you did not get too involved physically before marriage and so suffered from the additional emotional entanglements that brings. Whether they had previously tapped into it or not, simmering just below the surface of most love-starved people is such desperation that they are like someone telling themselves, “God must have wanted me to steal or he wouldn’t have led that woman to leave her purse unattended in church when he knew I was praying for money!” A woman e-mailed me the following: Recently, all signs had been pointing to the Lord bringing a specific Christian man into my life. . . . I know without a shadow of a doubt the Lord was the one who initially brought him in the first place. . . . I had previously prayed to God for companionship. Then God brought this man along only to take him away so soon. I don’t understand why God would do this to me and I wish he never brought that man in the first place to get my hopes up. . . . As confirmed by all the similar e-mails I keep receiving, such powerful emotions are triggered when “boy meets girl” that this, plus a coincidence or two is all it takes for the result to look and feel like an act of God. Being “in love” releases such a chemical cocktail into one’s bloodstream that it is like being high on drugs. Objectivity and sober judgment are left so far behind that built into our very language are such expressions as “love is blind,” and seeing everything “through rose colored glasses.” Rather than offend the woman, however, by suggesting she was as vulnerable as the rest of us is at mistaking something as God’s leading, I replied: Consider Adam and Eve. If ever there were a marriage made in heaven it was that one. And yet Eve sinned and led Adam into sin and then Adam widened the rift by blaming her. Was this God's doing? No, they sinned against God and broke his heart and in doing so they hurt each other. Nevertheless, you will probably still feel like attacking the One person who fully understands you, and (as proved by the cross) so passionately cares about your distress that he would willingly swap places with you if that would help. Your pain is so deep that irrational outbursts are understandable. For a moment, let’s try to think this through, however. Why haven’t you grabbed a knife or gun, forced your loved one into a room and locked the door so that he/she can never leave you? Or why haven’t you pumped him/her full of drugs so that he/she cannot resist you? Or have you sought to hypnotize him/her so that every time you ring a bell he/she involuntarily says, “I love you”? Or what about blackmailing him/her into submission? If your morality would not let you commit such an atrocity, dare you imagine that the Holy One, who alone is truly good, is so despicable as to have even lower moral standards than you? Whether brute force is used or something akin to drugs or hypnotism whereby one’s kidnap victim is too dazed to realize the magnitude of the crime, such a violation of a person’s will is appalling. Having infinite power to dupe people cannot make an atrocity right. Moreover, any sane person would find receiving forced “love” utterly unfulfilling. If it is in any sense forced, it is not love at all. And God operates not by force but love. He is driven by love and the highest morals, even to the point of sacrificing everything for the sake of people who continually break his heart and keep on spurning him. No one knows the pain of rejection like God does. His agony is multiplied beyond comprehension by all the pain and suffering his loved ones feel and all the heartache they cause him by the way they treat him and treat others whom he loves equally passionately. Why does God endure it? Why doesn’t he close his heart? Why doesn’t he enslave everyone? Your pain is your chance to enter into a deeper understanding of the most beautiful thing in the universe: God’s heart. The heart of God is so immense that even in the face of unfathomable pain he still has unbounded joy and peace because, despite his unfulfilled yearning for the love of individuals who break his heart, he is never self-obsessed. He keeps on loving and delights in the happiness of others. To love is to live and to love immensely is to revel in all life’s richness. True love knows no bounds. It embraces everyone, including the unlovable and those who despise us. It is not sexual. It does not seek its own comfort. Unbridled love brings pain, but it also brings joy of divine proportions. Breakups not only tear couples apart, they rip God’s heart. Don’t dare think God is made of stone. If you have ever truly loved, you know that seeing a loved one in agony sends you reeling in pain. God loves you even more intensely. So why did the God with the power to do anything allow the darling of your heart to hurt you? Because God is love. Untold thousands of people break up with God every single day. If the Almighty refuses to lessen his own pain by forcing them into submission, do not insult him by expecting him to corrupt himself by forcing your friend back. Assuming it is truly in our best interest, the God of love will do everything that your friend lets God do to help him/her return, but if he/she still refuses to forgive and/or see reason, the One who can do no wrong will not abuse his power. No matter how much truth is in the saying, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” it does not apply to the Perfect Lord. He refuses to abuse his power. The pain your breakup has caused is the deepest revelation you have so far had of the pain in God’s heart over all those who misunderstand him, turn their back on him and walk off into unspeakable danger. You and God have more in common than ever. Draw near to him, comfort him and let him comfort you. I was digging a hole; pounding into the hard clay with a heavy iron crowbar that was almost as tall as me. Deeper and deeper I dug until the top was over my head. Everything was going fine until just once the crowbar, instead of plunging into the dirt, smashed into my big toe. For a while, that toe seemed like the most important thing in my universe. Pain does that. Human relationships are important and when they send us careering in pain they assume horrendous importance. Nevertheless, our relationship with God is even more critical and will last not just a lifetime but for all eternity. Human relationships become a source of immense disappointment and heartache when we try to wring from them love, understanding and fulfilment of an intensity or perfection that only a perfect God of infinite love and wisdom can offer. Please don’t slide into the slimy quicksand of trying to claw from a human what only God can give. Instead, deepen your relationship with the One who alone has perfect love and will never leave. What Your Fantasies Reveal God: The Perfect Love You Have Always Craved Forgive? You’ve Got to be Joking! Turning Hate into Healing God Loves Me? God’s Love Revealed to You Discovering the Depths of God’s Intimate Love for You

For several days I have been tormented with blasphemous thoughts. I have not been able to sleep at night. I began to think that the thoughts were from me and was beginning to doubt even my own salvation. This has weighed heavily on my soul and finding your pages was truly a Godsend. I realize now that this torment coincides with my asking God for a renewal of the Holy Spirit in my life and a commitment to evaluate all of my actions to the standard of “does what I am doing help to build up or to break apart the kingdom of God?” as well as with a renewed effort to resist certain temptations. I began to weep as I realized that this is the devil preying upon my weakness as I attempt to come closer to God, and as I read more I again became confident in Christ’s saving power. I could feel the weight lifting off of me. Thank you for being a vehicle for God’s love at a crucial and difficult time. I would appreciate your prayers as well as your discretion (I haven’t told my wife about this at all, or anyone else. I was too ashamed of my thoughts). Above all praise the Lord Jesus Christ for his remarkable gift! Comment by Grantley Note that this attack was not because the person was slipping but because of a spiritual advance. The forces of darkness were apparently seeing his renewed determination as a threat. If we could fully discern the spirit realm we would probably see the attack as a mark of honor. This testimony is shared with permission, but on the condition that the person’s name not be revealed. Suffering such tormenting but needless shame reminds me of many survivors of child sex abuse who have confided in me. What makes child molesters particularly despicable is that innocents not only suffer horrifically but they are usually hoodwinked into believing that what they have suffered is their fault, not the molester’s. It is sad that so many dear folk who have been spiritually molested through no fault of their own – often specifically because they were making significant spiritual progress – battle similar crippling shame, when they are actually God’s darling, innocent children. Yet Another Testimony My Battle with Condemning Thoughts & Dreams More Help Needed People keep e-mailing me, desperate for a quick fix so that they can get the relief they crave without having to read all these webpages. They are wasting their time and mine, however, because in all my years of anguished prayer and fervent seeking, I have failed to find an alternative to having to keep reading all these webpages. Take a rest now, if required, but you will need to read more. Important: Get your pastor and those who care about you to read Scrupulosity  and the pages it leads to. Few will be able to understand and support you without reading them. The Beginning The only way to not miss any of this feast of uplifting webpages about false guilt is to start at Feeling Condemned? There’s Hope! and follow each link. You won't regret it! Feeling Rejected by God  An important part of this series of webpages Unforgivable?  The part of the series that deals with the unforgivable sin Testimonies  They thought they were unforgivable