by Lucy | Mar 23, 2017 | biblical counseling, emotions, identity in Christ, thoughts |
The best lesson God taught me also turned my life around.
I confess I had trusted in by own abilities. And why not? I knew everything, right? As God rescued me from me and my pride, he taught me a lesson in three parts:
1. Believe God is who he says he is: good, in control, loving, just, merciful.
2. Believe what he says about you: valuable, significant, blessed.
3. Believe that you have an enemy who steals, kills and destroys, but God has defeated him.
Even as a Christian I leaned toward self-dependence, then the hard hit.
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One Saturday morning many years ago, awful memories of past abuse flooded my mind. So I sobbed from a sacred place in my soul at the time God chose.
This star-flinger, this day-numberer, this God drew me toward him, beginning with the lesson of who God is.
Lesson 1: God Is Who He Says He Is
Among the most beautiful bible verses is the one where God describes his character. I wrestled with whether to believe it is true or not true. Here’s the verse:
And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming,’The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.’ Exodus 34:6-7
Compassionate, gracious, slow ot anger, great love and faithfulness, and forgiving–did I believe this of God? Do you?
If you’ve been hurt by someone who should have protected you, you may struggle believing these truths. You are not alone. Others struggle as you do.
In fact, the counselors listed in Heart2Heart Counselor Directory on my website biblically and lovingly counsel all of God’s healing hope to their counselees. Why not check out the directory for someone near you or who meets by Skype?
In addition to daily Bible reading, I journaled, exchanging the lies I believed for the truth. It looked a lot like this. My journaling and listening to gospel-centered music also helped got me to the place where I believe God is who he says he is. What helps you?
Lesson 2: I Am Who God Says I Am
God says all of his daughters are chosen. Before you took your first baby step, before you were conceived, before God fashioned the heavens and the earth, he chose you.
The moment you believed on Jesus as your Savior, your old self died. You became a new creation. You are in Christ and Christ is in you.
This “in” means you have a place as a member of Christ‟s body, vitally united with him. The death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus — yes, the heart of the gospel — made possible your true identity. God now sees you as blameless because his Son is blameless, having paid the ultimate price to conquer sin and death. Being “in Christ” is the true you.
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Does knowing you are chosen change the way you think and feel about yourself? about God?
Lesson 3: God Defeated the Enemy
Can you guess the big lie Satan wants you to believe? It’s NOT that you’re not good enough, though he tempts you to believe that one too. It’s NOT you’re unsuccessful or unattractive or a total mess-up or a waste of space, though you and I have fallen for some of these lesser lies, haven’t?
Can your believe I bought the lie that I was a defect? Have you?
This isn’t the big lie either. It destroyed my peace, though. God — through life-giving Bible truths and uplifting Christian music as well as counseling — showed me the truth: that I and every believer in Christ is his precious child and God also revealed the big lie at the core of my shame lie.
So what’s the big lie?
The Big Lie Is. .
The big lie Satan tempts you to believe is the same one Adam and Eve ate up in the Garden: God is holding back, that he couldn’t care less, that he’s not. . .good.
And the Truth Is. . .
Satan is defeated!
From Life Lesson to Action
As I embraced this three-part lesson and intentially put God first, he revealed a purpose for my life: to help Christian women know that they are valued by Jesus, who wants to heal them. Yes, to counsel hearts to hope! Still, I felt afraid and told God so.
Our conversation went like this.
“Lord, I don’t know how to begin.”
“Do not worry, Lucy. I’ll show you.”
“How will I know it’s you?”
“You will. The Holy Spirit who’s in you will confirm my words. You’ll know.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for this, Lord,” I said. “What if I mess up?”
“Trust me.”
That’s where we left things. God said trust. I sat there, speechless.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7, ESV
How about you? Where has God changed your thinking? Are you ready for deeper healing?
An Offer!
Are you tired of living a less-than life? Why not contact me
to set up a no-cost introductory phone consultation? Remember, God loves you, whoever you are, wherever you’ve been.
Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
by Lucy | Nov 29, 2016 | biblical counseling, identity in Christ |
Your new identity in Christ matters; shake off your false identity. It’s gone. Accept the truth you are a wonderful and treausured new creation.
Did you know that when you embrace who God says you are — blessed, forgiven, precious and more — you discover true contentment? Who doesn’t want unwavering contentment, a very real and blessed happiness?
But you’ve struggled with self-acceptace, haven’t you? Dare I say we all have. Our false identities cling like cat hair. We don’t like them but they are hard to shake.
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. .even after we become Christians and get an inkling of the Truth.
Believing the World’s Lies
Many years ago, like many overly self-counscious teen girls, I stared in the bathroom mirror and my 14-year-old eyes spoke the question of my soul: Who am I?
A gangling eighth-grader; a highly sensitive, gangling eighth-grader, I tried to smile at the right times at my new school and not do something stupid. Basically I just wanted to fit in.
Did I mention I was shy?
Then the popular (aka mean) girls at my new school thought it hilarious to call me spacey. I wondered if this was who I was.
Was I “spacey” like the mean girls at my new school said?
Insecure, yes. Quiet, yes. Spacey, no.
Then, later that year — and I didn’t tell a soul at school — my dad spent more than a month in a psych ward, and his diagnosis of manic-depression scrambled my thoughts. Like father, like daughter? Did his problem determine my identity?
Even later that horrible year, a boy molested me several times. Was my identity now “victim”?
Where to Find Acceptance
For a long time, yes. I saw myself as an insecure, anxious victim who longed for acceptance. I tried and tried and tried to make people like me. My happiness depended on what others thought of me and how they treated me. I was a people-pleaser through and through, and that’s a horrible way to live, being jerked around by others’ opinions.
Then God showed me a better way: What matters most is who God says I am. The same is true for you
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.
Think about it. Who knows me best? Who knows you best? The real you. Your Maker, right?
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31
In Christ alone, you discover your new identity and know God accepts you because of the Cross.
What Would You Add to the List?
Here’s the short list of who he says you are. Would you like the long list? I’d be honored to send you a complimentary download. Just leave a comment below or contact me.
Please notice they are present tense. They are true of you now.
You are blessed. (Ephesians 1:3)
You are forgiven. (Ephesians 1:7)
You are a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
You are complete. (Colossians 2:9-10)
You are eternally secure. (Romans 8:31-39)
You are God’s workmanship. (Ephesians 2:10)
You are God’s treasure. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
These statements are true of folks who are believers in Jesus as their Savior. If you are not certain that you are a believer, may I encourage you to go here to find out? Easy to understand. Interactive. Answers your questions.
Sharing hope with your heart,
by Lucy | Nov 1, 2016 | biblical counseling, emotions, identity in Christ
God has no foster children! Rather, each Christian is fully adopted and irrevocably His. Counselor Marie Notcheva, whose profile you can read on Heart2Heart Directory, reassures us that God has no foster children — only forever children. Marie’s article appeared first here on her website and is used with permission.
Several years ago, I read a book called Three Little Words, a memoir of a girl’s horrific childhood in the foster care system. Eventually she was adopted, as a teen, by a loving family. It was a painfully raw and all-too-accurate glimpse of what some foster children experience.
Being shuffled through countless homes of indifferent or abusive foster parents obviously scars foster children. They come to see themselves as unloved, and presumably unlovable. Even the fortunate ones who are adopted face problems; they cannot trust adults, believe that they are loved, or understand what a permanent place in a family means.
Many adoptions are actually disrupted when youngsters lash out and display belligerent behavior. Growing up in foster care means existing in constant limbo. Biological parents who don’t come through and foster parents who aren’t “for keeps” breed a deep-seated insecurity.
Foster children often expect to be rejected – even after adoption.
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A Permanent Place in God’s Family
Ashley Rhodes-Courter, the author of this particular memoir, describes an incident of teenage rebellion some time after her adoption had been finalized. When confronted by her parents, her first thought was that the adoption was over. She had long since steeled her heart against loving or being loved by anyone, and spent the first several years of her family life waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.
She anticipated another rejection and ultimate return to the group home. Against her expectations and previous life experience, her parents assured her that she was irrevocably their daughter, and that it was high time to drop the “poor orphan” act. (They then punished her for her infraction).
That was the turning point for Ashley. Finally, she was able to begin building trust in her mother and father, knowing that no matter how “bad” she was, there was nothing she could do to make them reject her.
An awful lot of Christians are walking around with a “foster child” mentality, it seems to me.
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This is a mindset I’ve encountered in counseling, and it’s something I have fallen prey to myself at times. What we need to internalize is this: we are adopted sons and daughters of God, co-heirs with Christ, and have a permanent place in the family (Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5; and John 8:35, respectively). Why is this so hard to believe? My answer, and it’s a fairly simplistic one, is because it takes humility to see this.
We did nothing to earn our status as His children. It was all of His grace…completely, freely, and lavishly bestowed on the unlovely delinquents we were when He found us. Pride wants us to earn our keep; to do something that will merit God’s approval. This is the carnal nature that prompted the Prodigal Son’s request to be made a hired servant.
You Are Completely Loved!
Humility, on the other hand, rejoices in the fact that we are fully known, completely loved, and sealed with the spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15). We can cry “Abba, Father” no matter how distant we may feel from God, because He has set His love on us for Christ’s sake (Romans 1:5) and called us His own (Isaiah 43:1; 1 John 3:2). In fact, He loves us even as He loves His only begotten Son, Jesus (John 16:27).
By human standards, this is a difficult concept to grasp. Repeated rejection by human authority figures (and especially by parents) can pervert one’s view of a benevolent God. Nevertheless, the One Who has redeemed our unworthy selves loves us unconditionally, and has made our identity secure. Legal adoption is a binding covenant. John 1:12-13 illustrates this clearly:
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
We have assurance that God really is as good as He says He is. He will never reject any who come to Him (John 6:37).
For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ (Romans 8:15).
Foster children are literally slaves to fear. They live in constant anticipation of the next infraction – or whim of the legal system – to be the end of whatever tenuous family situation they are in.
How does this sad mindset play itself out in a child of God?
No More Shame
Guilt over failure and indwelling sin drives the insecure Christian away from the Cross, rather than towards it. He or she cannot face a God who is still perceived as a righteous Judge rather than a loving Father. God is both, of course; but what the fearful believer fails to grasp practically is that His righteous judgment has already been poured out on Christ, and there is no longer condemnation (Romans 8:1). She fails to realize that her sin was already foreseen by God, has been forgiven, and is no longer held against her.
As Jerry Bridges writes,
…He is, as it were, coming alongside me saying, “We are going to work on that sin, but meanwhile I want you to know that I no longer count it against you.”
God is no longer my Judge; He is now my Heavenly Father, who loves me with a self-generated, infinite love, even in the face of my sin.
Killing Pride
While on the surface shame and pride may seem at odds with each other, actually they work in tandem. When a Christian sees herself as a foster child of God, she will seek to avoid Him when plagued with guilt – at least until she can “get her act together” enough to approach Him. However, it is actually the height of arrogance to believe that there is ever a time when we are more acceptable to God than another. Putting merit in our own works-righteousness or penance actually demeans the centrality of the Cross. C. J. Mahaney writes,
Paul called himself ‘the worst of sinners’ (1 Timothy 1:16). He wasn’t paralyzed by condemnation. He was exalting God’s grace by recognizing his own unworthiness and sin as he marveled at the mercy of God.
So Long People-Pleasing
A child of God who does not realize her true identity is constantly anxious about where she stands with God. Desperately trying to earn the favor of her Father, which she doesn’t recognize she already has, she tries to impress others or appear more spiritual. For example, I had one bulimic counselee tell me she wanted to “redeem [herself] in God’s eyes by becoming a nutritionist, and hopefully help others.”
I confess that I have fallen prey to this mindset myself, when I make idols out of goals or “splendid vices” (George Whitefield’s term for spiritual activity done with wrong motives). Getting my book Redeemed from the Pit published was very important to me, and when it became a reality I was preoccupied with obtaining endorsements from well-known authors in the biblical counseling field.
When they like my work, I somehow feel God approves of my endeavor. When they decline or suggest revisions, I despair – their opinion of my writing overshadows pleasing God. It becomes too easy to forget that my work is ultimately all for His glory, anyway. Although I would never say so out loud, being thought well of by “celebrity Christians” can eclipse the truth – that God neither thinks more nor less of me based on man’s opinions; and I have nothing whatsoever to commend myself to Him in the first place. He loves me with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3) simply because I am His daughter.
This tendency to think God sees us as others do takes many different forms, but the root is the same – doubting the reality and immutability of God’s personal and tender love.
The Solution
Let’s think about this logically: An omniscient God knew from eternity past exactly what you would be like, He saw every sin and dark thought that would enter your mind, yet He set His love on you anyway by electing you as His child. He called you out of darkness, then transferred you to the Kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13).
Jesus Himself is not ashamed to call you His brother or sister (Hebrews 2:11), so on what grounds would He decide to kick you out of His family? What, exactly, would you have to do to “disrupt” your heavenly adoption and get sent back from whence you came?
It’s time, as the Courter parents so bluntly put it, to “drop the poor orphan act” and realize we’re God’s for good. And that’s Good News.
Intimacy cannot grow apart from relationship, and the entire New Covenant proclaims that our relationship as children is irrevocable. We didn’t do anything to earn it in the first place – we were all broken and flawed when God called us – so what makes us think we can lose His parental bond?
Craven fear and cringing supplication have no place in the life of a child of God. Repentance is a gift freely offered to all who will accept it and return to God on His terms…no running, hiding, and fear of the boom lowering anymore. The writer of Hebrews poetically banished any possibility of seeing ourselves as foster children when he wrote:
Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).
Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
by Lucy | Oct 21, 2016 | biblical counseling, book reviews, identity in Christ |
Marie Notcheva highly recommends Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life by Elyse Fitzpatrick. This gem articulates the gospel and encourages readers to live it every day. Marie is a featured Heart2Heart Counselor and writes a blog. Here article appeared first here on her website and is used with permission.
Elyse Fitzpatrick is who I want to be when I grow up.
Of course, I mean that completely in the Ephesians 4:15 sense of “grow up.” The ability to articulate the simple, profound truth of the Gospel and its implications for day-to-day life as beautifully as Elyse has in Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life speaks of a real spiritual maturity. Her passion, from the first page of this encouraging book, is for her reader to have the same joyful, settled assurance of Christ’s love that she herself has found in the pages of Scripture.
Whose Responsible for Your Spiritual Growth?
Why is it that so many of us recognize our need for the Gospel – the Person and work of Jesus Christ – for salvation; then slowly move past the Good News in our daily strivings to “please God”?
We come to the Cross for justification, but practically live as if sanctification depended solely on us.
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Elyse spots this tendency – which often leads to a moralistic, defeated attitude – and reminds the reader of the only antidote: applying the finished work of Christ to our continually sinning hearts.
Weaving the entire thread of Scripture around a central point – that God FIRST loved us – Elyse shows how getting this knowlege of His deep, abiding, personal, and unfathomable love for us down into the very marrow of our bones completely changes everything. In fact, it transforms our whole identity – who we reckon ourselves to be.
If we see ourselves as “foster children,” who can be evicted or abandoned at any moment, we will live like it. Realizing we are a permanent, cherished part of the family – His adopted children – transforms our hearts and enables us to live for Christ in His strength.
As she writes, “Any obedience that isn’t motivated by His great love is nothing more than penance” (page 148). Well said.
The Impact of the Gospel on You
How does the Gospel message impact our walk, 10, 20, even 30 years after our conversion, when we can rattle off the Doctrines of Grace like the days of the week?
If we don’t consciously live in the light of His love, the gospel will be secondary, virtually meaningless, and Jesus Christ will fade into insignificance. Our faith will become all about us, our performance, and how we think we’re doing, and our transformation will be hindered.
This tendency to take our eyes off of Him and focus inwardly on our failure becomes a vicious cycle, especially when one is battling a life-dominating sin. Many of you bear witness to this fact. I once received the following e-mail from a reader:
…I have been REALLY struggling again lately. I have trouble turning to God, because I feel sometimes like I don’t deserve His forgiveness, or to ask Him for help.
Lately I have been obsessing about food and eating all day long, and binging and purging A LOT! I work as a nanny, so I am alone with kids and in a house full of junk food I wouldn’t buy, and have found myself unable to keep from destructive eating behaviors.
Please pray for me that I will go back to Christ for guidance, and be able to truly repent for my sin. Please also pray that I will stop worshiping false idols of food and thinness, and instead live to glorify Him… (emphasis mine).
This young lady sincerely loves God and wants to please Him, but her words reveal that she has fallen into the trap so common to all of us: living as if our position before God is based on our own merit.
When did any of us, in our “best” moments, EVER “deserve” His forgiveness? We didn’t. Christ secured it for us – while we were still His enemies. We forget this. When we succeed, we feel good and can worship. Failure brings shame and a fear of approaching God, which naturally leads to more failure and despair. We are, as Elyse points out in this book, essentially not trusting God that He is as good as He says He is.
This is unbelief, and it leads to idols. When we don’t feel fully secure in our position in Christ – solely based on His righteousness and grace – we seek the satisfaction that should be found in Him alone through counterfeits. Putting our trust in these “earthly treasures” leads to fear, worry, and anxiety – which leads us ever further away from the Cross.
Freedom from fear comes from contemplating and remembering the love of God, manifested in Christ. As I have written before (and Elyse so much more articulately), change in our behavior can only come from truly realizing and appreciating who God is and what He has done for us. Knowing that His kindness is what has led us to repentance (Romans 2:4) motivates us to love Him back, and approach Him with confidence. Our ‘identity in Christ’ (as Elyse refers to it; I might use ‘position’) is permanent and irrevocable. It is what frees us up to walk in love.
Remembering God’s Love for You
In the final section of Because He Loves Me, Elyse demonstrates how remembering and contemplating this unfathomable love God has for us is the true motivation for lasting change. She writes,
Our natural unbelief will always cast doubt on His love for us. It is the awareness of His love and only this that will equip us to wage war against sin. Until we really grasp how much He loves us, we’ll never be able to imitate Him.
We won’t come near to Him if we’re afraid of His judgment. We won’t repent and keep pursuing godliness if we don’t believe that our sin doesn’t faze His love for us one bit. We won’t want to be like Him if we believe that His love is small, stingy, censorious, severe. And we’ll never be filled with His fullness until we begin to grasp the extent of His love (Eph. 3:19).
As a member of His family, you’re the apple of His eye, the child He loves to bless.
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You’re His darling.
“Every failure in sanctification is a failure in worship.”
Far from minimizing the seriousness of sin, Elyse reminds the reader how costly it was to God – and invites her to rest in this reality. At the same time, we are thus enabled to “wage a vicious war against sin” – the imperative (command) that naturally follows the indicative (what God has already declared to be true). Every sin, from greed to sexual immorality, is a failure to love as we’ve been loved – at its root, unbelief.
The key to walking in freedom and joy, then, is remembering that we’re beloved children, redeemed by Jesus, set free from the power of sin. This settled confidence produces thanksgiving ane edifying speech, rather than complaining and bitterness. This is what applying the Gospel to every area of our lives looks like in practice.
I have been recommending Because He Loves Me to women who write me about their specific struggles, as well as counselors and anyone else who would benefit from the reminder of what Christ’s perfect life, love, cross, resurrection, and intercession really mean to us as we grow in Him.
In short, everyone reading this would likely benefit from the encouraging and joyful explanation Elyse presents on the synergy of God’s grace and our response. Like C.J. Mahaney’s The Cross Centered Life, Because He Loves Me trains the reader to reflect more deeply on the finished work of Christ on her behalf as a catalyst to worship, rather than presenting sanctification as a spiritual self-help plan.
See more about this wonderful book here.
Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
by Lucy | Jul 14, 2016 | biblical counseling, identity in Christ
“Getting Up After a Fall” appeared first here on Biblical Counsel Coalition, which promotes the biblical counseling movement and builds relationships.
Remember the outdoor water game Slip ‘n Slide? To slide as fast as possible, you could place the thin, yellow plastic slide on a gentle hill. Then you run, jump on the slide, pick up speed, reach the end, and tumble into muddy grass. Then you ran back and did it again—and again.
Sinful choices can become a slippery slope too.
One sinful choice may slide into another, reminiscent of Psalm 1:1. Then the Christian may face a problem she helped create: a marital separation, an addiction, a lost job, anxiety, depression, bitterness. Her problem might cause enough angst to bring her to your counseling office, looking for relief.
But relief isn’t the real answer is it? Relief is among the world’s counterfeits for mankind’s greatest and truest need—the gospel.
In this short article, you’ll learn how to. . .
- give hope after a fall
- give help to get up and walk again.
Your counselee’s sin problem is an opportunity for you to give guidance for her Christian walk (Eph. 4:1-2, ESV).
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Everyone Falls
No one is immune to the self-deception of thinking he or she can sidestep the slippery slope of sin. James writes,
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers (1:14-16, ESV).
I’m reminded of a time many years ago when I caught my young son with holiday treats in his fists and smeared on his shirt.
“Did you have permission to eat candy?” I asked.
“I didn’t eat any chocolate,” he blurted.
“What’s that on your shirt and in your hand?”
His forehead wrinkled. “Well, I didn’t mean to eat them!”
Giving Hope after a Fall
Your counselees need not remain in a muddy puddle of poor choices. Knowing one’s identity in Christ is powerful and hopeful. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians can remember who they are in Christ, as described in Ephesians:
As you help your counselees remember who they are in Christ, you’ll give them hope to live out who they already are: God’s children. They also need the reminder that they are no longer identified by what they did and who they were–slaves to sin (Rom. 6:6-7).
In Christ they have been restored.
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, your where justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:11, NIV).
Remind your counselees of who they are in Christ and of what Christ did for them, and they will have hope after a fall.
Here is a suggested assignment to help counselees understand the blessings associated with being “in Christ”: Give your counselee the assignment of reading Ephesians 1 and listing, verse by verse, the words describing her new identity in Christ.
Giving Encouragement to Walk
To get up and walk in the ways of Christ, encourage your counselees with a masterful passage tucked in Titus:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11-13).
Paul wrote the epistle to Titus, encouraging him on several counts, including the truth that we are saved for good works (not by good works). Remind your counselees that they can get up and walk in God’s strength because the same gospel that saved them also sanctifies them. As Titus 2:12 underlines, grace trains them:
- To renounce ungodliness and worldly passions
- To live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives
Trained by grace, your counselees can say “No” to sin and live a godly life, for in his kindness and mercy, Jesus cleansed them by his blood and gave them new life so that they might display good works.
Consider these verses from Titus:
“Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works” (2:7a).
“A people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (2:14).
“Ready for every good work” (3:1).
“Careful to devote themselves to good works” (3:8).
Just as your counselees fall down the slippery slope of sin, they can make better choices by God’s grace. To do this, help them remember who they are in Christ and encourage them. . .
(1) to renounce ungodliness through confession and repentance;
(2) to live a godly life marked by good works.
They do not need to wonder if this is possible, because “Jesus Christ … gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:13-14).
Join the Conversation
How have you sought to teach counselees the critical doctrine of their identity in Christ?
Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
by Lucy | May 24, 2016 | biblical counseling, emotions, identity in Christ, relationships
Do you know that you have total acceptance in Christ?
It’s true, sister! God says so.
Ever met a mean girl or three?. I have. Eighth grade. Me, the new girl at school. Them, clique-y, bratty, “all that.” These mean girls were not God-like, though they acted like royalty, a royal pain in the . . .
God isn’t a mean girl. He welcomes you with open arms.
Many people want nothing to do with God and if that’s you, I get it. From age 8 to young adulthood, I didn’t want to talk with God either. Or attend church. Or wear a cross around my neck.
What I wanted most was the mean girls’ acceptance. Have you longed for acceptance too? What did you do to get acceptance? To belong?
In this article, you learn 1 reason why God accepts you and 3 responses you might choose.
God Accepts You Because He Accepts Jesus
Every Christian is totally accepted by God. Many Christians forget this truth.
Are you struggling with a bad case of spiritual amnesia?
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Isn’t it easy to forget all that God gave you when you believed in Jesus as your Savior?
Now we have received. . .the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God. (1 Corinthians 2:12, ESV)
When you became a believer, you received an an inheritance. You are “in Christ.” Jesus is your brother (John 20:17), God is your Father, and all believers everywhere are your siblings. Together you share in your Father’s riches.
So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. (Galatians 4:7, NIV)
Among these riches is peace with God. You have complete peace and acceptance with God. You were once hostile to God, just as I was the mean girls’ enemy, wanting their friendship, hating their rejection.
God knew that you and I were helpless and unable to ever be “enough” or “measure up” on our own. You could spend hours every day trying to please God — volunteering at a food pantry, memorizing scripture verses, writing fat donation checks — but apart from God you can do nothing (John 15:5).
What are two or three ways you’ve tried to earn God’s acceptance? Do you keep running on the spiritual treadmill? Are you ready to get off?
God himself took care of everything you need. Jesus paid for your sins on the cross. His sacrifice satisfied God’s wrath. Now you can approach God, confidently and boldly, knowing God accepts you because his accepts Jesus. He is the only One who could ever measure up.
You may have grown up in a home with the message, “I accept you if. . ..” You may be in a marriage with the underlying that condition, “I accept you if. . ..” This isn’t God’s stance toward you. He is not a mean girl, smirking, chuckling, turning his back. When have you felt rejected by family, friends. . .God?
God Wants You to Delight in Jesus
Knowing God’s wonderful acceptance deserves a response, doesn’t it?
Here are 3 responses you might have. The first one is obvious.
1. Thank God. When I opened an envelope from my Uncle Pat and saw the check inside, I shouted to my family, “Come and see this. Come and see this.” We delighted in the unexpected gift. The next day I wrote my uncle a letter and thanked him over and over.
Have you thanked God for the amazing inheritance he’s given you?
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2. Rest in God’s acceptance. You and I make mistakes every day. When you screw up, do you step toward God and talk with him, or do you try to hide? Since God complete accepts you, you don’t have to act like an outcast. You are his precious daughter and he smiles on you. Agree with him you messed up and thank him that you have been forgiven in Christ.
3. Get to know God better. The God who accepts you wants you to enjoy him. Look outside — do you see the sky? He made the sky for you to know his greatness. Look at your hands — you have beautiful hands and beautiful eyes to see them. Every part of you shows his attention to detail, his plan, his creativity, his care (Psalm 139).
God revealed himself in Jesus and in his written Word. To know God better, why not take time daily to read the Bible? If you’re new to the Bible, begin with the gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are at the beginning of the New Testament.
God Never Rejects You
When my husband and I welcomed home our eldest child, life turned upside down.
We now had a tiny baby completely dependent on us. She slept through the first three weeks of life, and on day 22, woke up a holy terror. Colic rocked her world and mine. I felt like such a failure.
Why couldn‟t I soothe her? Why won‟t she stop screaming? Am I an awful mom?
Our heavenly Father never ever sees you as a failure. When life gets crazy-bad and you wonder whether he really accepts you, God invites you to get a safe daddy hug. His arms aren’t too big to hold you. He won‟t abandon you. You are God‟s daughter. He accepts you.
Sharing hope with your heart,
Are you tired of living a less-than life? Why not contact me 
