1844 and the Sanctuary Message!

[teresaq]

There is no need to fear the investigative judgment going on now.

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The Self: Worthless or Precious?

A third common theological issue that is part of the struggle for Christians in recovery is how we ought to think and feel about ourselves. This is not an easy one. Not for addicts. Not for survivors of abuse. Not for any of us. Our thoughts and feelings about ourselves can get twisted. What tends to come naturally and instinctively to us are extremes. Either we are completely worthless, or we are grandiose and narcissistic. Both extremes are born in shame. Sometimes we try to cover up this shame with grandiosity and narcissism. Sometimes we give up in despair, seeing ourselves as worthless. The root of the problem is the persistent sense that we are not good enough, not important enough, not valuable enough, just not enough—no matter what we do—which results in distortions in how we think and feel about ourselves.

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But is the God of the Bible really like that? Is that what the Bible teaches? Are we really so damaged or disgusting that we are worthless? Is that really part of the Good News? No. It is not even remotely close to being good news. Let's look at an extreme example of how that kind of theology would explain the Good News: "God is perfectly holy. As a result God cannot tolerate evil in his presence. We are evil. So there is no way that we can survive in the presence of God. God can't even look at us or we would die. What we need is someone to stand between us and God. And that's what Jesus does. When God looks in our direction, God does not see us, God sees Jesus."

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If we felt invisible in our family of origin, it will not sound like good news that God's family has the same dysfunction. And who is this God who can't stand to look at us? Who is this God who can't tolerate being in our presence? Is that the God revealed in Jesus? If this is the only way of understanding the Christian message you have heard, I encourage you to meditate on stories that Jesus told such as the Parable of the Waiting Father. The Father is daily scanning the horizon for the first signs of the return of his beloved child. When he first sees his child, he runs. Long before his child has a chance to make his speech about his worthlessness, the Father is running. The look on his face? Disgust? Avoidance? Absolutely not. It is pure joy. There is a gleam in God's eye. God's face becomes radiant with joy when he sees us. There is no need for us to be invisible. Invisibility is the bad news. It is the problem that God has solved. God sees us! That is the good news.

Does God avoid us because we are sinners? If you have any doubt, any hesitation, about the answer to this question, I urge you to go back to the Bible. Did God avoid us? Is it not just the opposite? Did not God come to us? When God saw our pain, our brokenness, our defects of character, our insanity, what did God do? God came. Here. To be with us. To save us. To make a new kind of life possible for us. God's holiness is not the fragile kind that would be tainted by contact with broken, bent, damaged people. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who did not hide himself from our hopeless situation. God saw. God came—not to punish, not to nag, not to shame. Thank God that we were not worthless "worms" to God! We were, and are, precious, valuable. Wanted, a source of delight to God. That's just basic Bible. It may take a long time for this truth to sink in, but it's not really fancy theology. It's Christianity 101.

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The bottom line is not really that complex. We have learned very broken ways to think and feel about ourselves. In recovery we struggle not to just think better about ourselves, but to do an honest self-assessment. Honesty is the key here. In the Twelve Step tradition, part of this self-assessment involves doing a "fearless moral inventory." The content of our inventory can be a pretty discouraging and disturbing list. But the process of doing our inventory is to be characterized by fearlessness. What does "fearless" mean? Certainly it means that we will be courageous while working on our inventory. But more specifically it means that we will seek to be so secure in God's love for us that no matter what we find in our inventory, we will know that we are still loved, still valuable, still of infinite importance to our Higher Power. It is only love that can sustain us when we experience the fear that comes from shame, from rejection, from resentments and from guilt. We seek to do a fearless inventory because we want God to so fill us with love that little room remains for fear. May God grant you the grace this day to think and feel about yourself in ways that are consistent with how your loving and grace-full Father thinks and feels about you.

http://www.nacr.org/wordpress/168/theol ... y#more-168

Theology and Recovery questions by Dale Ryan

[teresaq]

IDENTITY THEFT: SATAN’S GREATEST ATTACK

Because Satan has been studying humans for as long as they’ve been around, he knows that the deeper his lies penetrate, the more influence he gains. In other words, he knows whoever a person believes he or she is inside will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that’s why all his lies are designed to attack our truest, deepest identities as sons and daughters of God.

Because Satan has been so successful with this approach for so long, it might not surprise you to know that this is how Satan tried to get Jesus every time, as well. That’s because Satan knew it was Jesus’ true identity that qualified Him to heal us and set us free. If Satan could get Jesus to doubt His identity as God’s Son, he could ruin the whole plan of salvation. However, if Jesus could trust His Father during every attack and through every temptation, He could offer us His freedom, His victory, and His purity when we are attacked in the same ways (1 Cor. 2:16; Heb. 4:14–16). Let’s see what happened when Satan attacked Jesus at the roots of His identity.

1Corinthians 2:16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. KJV

Hebrews 4:14Having, then, a great chief priest passed through the heavens — Jesus the Son of God — may we hold fast the profession, 15for we have not a chief priest unable to sympathise with our infirmities, but [one] tempted in all things in like manner — apart from sin; 16we may come near, then, with freedom, to the throne of the grace, that we may receive kindness, and find grace — for seasonable help. YLT

The Hidden Half of the Gospel: How His Suffering Can Heal Yours

www.straight2theheart.com

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[Kevin H]

Interesting. It is not that God looking on us will kill us but us looking on God would kill us, because as Jesus said, they are afraid to come to the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But Jesus goes on to say that for those who do come to the light, instead of their deeds being exposed and God getting them for their sins, they find their lives changed into the works of God.

We see the tension between the two in the two denominations of Yahwehism, The Priesthood of Aaron had the sanctuary where God could live in the middle of his people and the Priesthood of Moses had the Tent of the Meeting outside of the camp so that God being in the camp would not end up destroying the people. (The Bible editors eventually came to downplay the importance of the Tent of the Meeting and elevate the Sanctuary, despite that they were actually equal in importance).

The trinity exists in a bond of righteousness by faith based on the law of self sacrificing love. We are invited to join in this relationship. The lost are people who do not yield to the drawing power to join in this relationship and they thus separate from the only source of life and the looking upon the face of the one all together lovely and this powerful drawing power of the glory of God becomes to those who reject a consuming fire.