Jesus, who for the joy … endured the cross, despising the shame

Shame comes in all shapes and sizes. There is the shame associated with guilt. Adam and Eve felt shame for what they had done. There are the “shame trips” that that get laid on us “You should be ashamed of yourself!” Then there is the shame associated with abuse. Jesus knows all about that type of shame. He was brutally beaten, stripped naked in public (not with some delicate loincloth hiding his private parts as in most depictions of the crucifixion), and subjected to the most brutal death then known to man. Yes Jesus knows about the shame of abuse!

This distinction is a little simplistic, nevertheless it’s a useful distinction. Guilt asks “What did I do that was wrong?” On the other hand shame asks “What’s wrong with me?” It is important to know that Jesus despised the shame (Hebrews (12:2) as He bore both our guilt and shame on the cross. Shame seeks to rob us of our identity and our value. In despising the shame, Jesus is essentially saying “Shame I will have no part of you, I will not let you rob me of my value, I will not let you rob me of my identity, I am the beloved Son of the Father, and He is well pleased with me” (Mark 1:11).

If you belong to Christ, then you are His brother (or sister). And God knows no favourites. So then when you identify with Christ in His death and resurrection (Romans 6:5), then you too are a precious son (or daughter) of the living God (1 John 3:1). If you belong to Him, you have been purchased with His blood (acts 20:28). The value of something purchased is the price paid for it. And Jesus purchased you with His precious blood. And if you were the only one who had responded, He would still have come and suffered and bled and died for you. And this makes you and I of infinite value. He bore our shame on the cross, and He did it so that we need not be ashamed anymore (Isaiah 54:4).

Father, it took me quite a while to come to the place where what You think of me, is more important than what others think of me. It is a process, and it is my prayer this morning Lord, that those reading this blog will either enter into this process, or be taken deeper into it by Your extravagant healing love. I want to thank You in advance for Your positive answer to this prayer, and I give You all the honour and glory and praise in Jesus Name Amen

The prison of shame fear and control

If anyone ever found out … i would die! Shame, debilitating shame, it crushes and overpowers our spirit, it robs us of our Joy and controls us. It keeps us trapped and isolated. They must not find out, and so I need to be guarded lest I let it slip. Better to keep others at a distance. But shame grows in the dark, it increases in the dark, and so does the pain, so does the isolation, and so does the fear and the control. It is a prison. But thank God that Jesus came to set the prisoners free (Luke 4:18)!

There is a recovery saying that is so appropriate here “You are only as sick as your secrets.” The Christ centred twelve step ministry that I am part of uses James 5:16 here. It says “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Actually the very fact of keeping your shame hidden is a trespass and a sin. It is a sin against yourself because it keeps you trapped, and you were made to be free in the Lord! It is a sin against others, because you cannot hide in this way without negatively affecting your relationships! But I do realize that the thought of coming out of hiding can be scary, very scary. We do need to find somebody who is safe, someone who will not judge us and will keep our secret in the strictest confidence!

The way our recovery ministry handles this, because our goal is freedom, is to suggest that we find just one safe person to confess to. Some would ask “Why do I need to confess to another person, God has forgiven me?” Well yes we confess to God to be forgiven (1 John 1:9), but we confess to one another to be healed (James 5:16). So the question is “Do you want to be made whole” (John 5:6)? Part of what all this means, is that in the end, the prison of shame is one of our own making!

Father, every Christian aught to be safe, but this is not the case! I mean I am in no position to judge anyone, but not everyone seems to have this knowledge (Romans 2:1). I want to thank You again this morning for the freedom I found in confessing to the safe person You gave me. And I found out again the truth that there is no temptation that is not common to man (1 Corinthians 10:13). In particular, he told me had the same fault! And what freedom that brought. It is true that if the Son sets you free you are free indeed (John 8:32). And I thank and praise You again this morning in His precious Name Amen

We will not likely change, until the pain of being stuck is greater than the pain and fear of change

There is a certain comfort in being stuck, the kudos the spouse of the alcoholic gets for putting up with the dysfunction, the familiarity of giving into the addiction, the relative safety of the same old, same old! I mean what’s the alternative? Change can be scary, wasn’t it curiosity that killed the cat? Better to stay stuck, a life of quiet desperation though unenviable, is manageable, at least so far! Better the devil I know!

But it’s not the promised abundant life, it’s not life in all its fullness (John 10:10b), it’s not joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8)! It’s hard when you have not even began to experience these things, or when the last time you did, was in the distant past. But we think “If I start over, there are so many things that can go wrong.” The fear can paralyze us, it can! But living in fear is not living the life of faith. Living in fear is having more faith that the devil can work, than that God can!

So then there is the fear of change, but also (and not unrelated), is the pain. I might have to deal with those issues I have been putting off year after year. And I have been putting them off, because dealing with them is painful, I might have to relive the trauma. But again, a life of true faith imitates our forerunner, the One who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross despising the shame (Hebrews 12:2). And we don’t have to do it alone, He has promised that He will never leave us, and He is the God of all comfort and grace and peace and hope and love and joy.

Father, we need Your help to push through the pain and fear, I do! Help me again this morning Lord to continue to contend for Your promises. Thank You that You will never leave me nor forsake me. Thank You for Your promise that You will always provide the means whereby I may be able to endure what needs to be endured (1 Corinthians 10:13). Thank You for the joy of ongoing fellowship with You and Your faithful saints as I choose to give You my all, in Jesus Name Amen

Sin? Don’t lay that guilt trip on me!

I need to start, by admitting that the church at times, rather than it being the intended hospital for the sin sick, has laid guilt trips on us. And the fact of the matter is, that many of us suffer from debilitating guilt, guilt that trips us up. And because of the abuse of the church (and it is abuse, it is spiritual abuse), society had tended to throw the baby out with the bath water. Part of what I am saying here, is that there is true and false guilt. King David, after he had committed adultery and murder and was confronted with it, was suffering from true guilt. He was feeling so bad it was as if his very bones were broken (Psalm 51:8). In this same Psalm he says to God “Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight (verse 4). So is there a cure for true guilt, and if there is, what is it?

When I googled ”Cure for guilt, psychology,” I came across an article in Psychology Today entitled “8 Empowering Ways to Stop Feeling Guilty.” The article talked a lot about making amends, which is a good thing, the rest seemed to be about minimizing guilt. That’s okay if it’s false guilt, but what if it is true guilt, the gult of realizing what we did was truly evil? The Bible tells us of course that the cure for real guilt is to be forgiven. And being forgiven starts with admitting that we have done something wrong. In fact “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Note that He is faithful and just (because of hat Christ did on the Cross) not only to forgive us, He is faithful and just to cleanse us from the pollution of our sin!

The Bible tells us “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And in fact the verse contains a definition of sin, it has to do with falling short of the glory of God, of falling short of His perfection. And we see His perfection most closely mirrored in the life of Jesus. I am not like Him! As they drove cruel spikes through His hands and His feet, He prayed “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). No, I am not like Him, but I want to be!

Father, thank You for Your promise that if I steadfastly keep my eyes on Jesus, then you will transform me into His image from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). Thank You that at the end when I see You, You will complete the transformation in the blinking of an eye, and I will be like You (1 John 3:2). Hallelujah Amen

It is not right to take the children’s meat and give it to the puppies

Jesus had gone to the region of Tyre and Sidon likely to rest, and a local women had come asking Him to cast a demon out of her daughter. The title of this post from Matthew 15:26 is Jesus answer to her. Her response was “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” The woman’s faith had touched Jesus’s heart come and He agreed to her request.

I am seeing this story as validating the teachings of Cloud and Townsend on boundaries (Google it!). The teaching has a lot to do with helping us to know when to say yes, and when to say no. In the exchange we are discussing, Jesus had clearly stated that His ministry was to the Jew. It’s tempting to think that we can minister to everybody. With this incident, Jesus is telling us no! And if we try, we will likely burn out and not have sufficient energy etc. to fulfil the calling to which we are called. It is of course important to know our calling, our destiny. It’s not a short conversation, but one clue is to be found in the joy we find in doing certain things. In particular it is my observation that people come alive when doing certain things.

We are not told specifically that Jesus had gone to Tyre and Sidon to rest. But it’s not too much of a leap to believe so. We do need rest, and the saying “Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man” (Mark 2:27) comes to mind. It’s an important point in our hectic world, and we do need to take time out to rest! But I think the incident also shows that Jesus was not legalistic about this, that his boundaries were not rigid, but that he left room for the Holy Spirit to move. Don’t you just love the balance in this man?

Lord Jesus, most of us need help in these two areas, knowing knowing our calling, and knowing our boundaries. Thank You for your amazing example Lord, You are so real, so authentic and so worthy of imitating. Thank You that You have promised to show us the way moment by moment, day by day as we choose to follow You. Thank You that You have promised to continue Your work in us. And l give You all the honour all the glory and all the praise again this morning, in Your precious Name Amen

Where shall we go, You have the words of eternal life?

Jesus had just told the crowds something they could not possibly have understood. We understand it now, this side of the cross, but they had no chance of understanding it then, and they found it offensive. “This is a hard saying” they said and left (John 6:60,66). It seems to me that at some level it was intended to be offensive, designed to expose the religious spirit. He does that you know, as it separates the sheep from the goats, Those who are truly seeking God, and those who were not!

The verse at the head of this post was Peter’s reply to what happened next, Jesus asking the disciples if they too would go away (John 6:67). Reading between the lines Peter was saying “Lord we don’t have a clue what You’re saying here, but what we do know is that when You speak, the words You speak bring life, and we have learned to trust You even when we don’t understand.

It’s much the same today, both inside and outside the church. We all have our gods, our idols be it science, or intellect, or our little group. We tend to think that have it right and everyone else has it wrong, and then Jesus comes along and messes the whole thing up. How dare He? I have come to realize, we don’t really understand the Scriptures until at some level we have sympathy with those who got offended with Jesus. I mean, in this case, what was this man talking about? It seems to me that if I am not careful, the religious spirit can live in me, and more than likely in you too. When we don’t understand, or we don’t like it, it’s far too easy to be offended.

Father, some of the things You do are decidedly odd, and what You require, if it were anyone else, would be unreasonable. Do we really need to take up our cross every day and follow You? But Your ways are the ways of life, and too often my way is the way of death (Proverbs 14:12). If You are not Lord of all, then You are not Lord at all. So I choose You again this morning Lord, and in doing so I choose life. In Jesus Name Amen

If we walk in the light, as he is in the light…

The context of this partial quote from 1 John 1:7 is of John giving us a message from the eternal (from the one who was from the beginning), historical (seen and heard) and tangible (our hands have handled) Christ (the Logos of life - all in v1). And the purpose of the message, is that we might have the fellowship of the saints (with us v3), and with the Father (verse 3). And the message is, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all (v5). Verse 7, started above, continues with “then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son keeps on cleansing us from all sin.”

It’s a bit of a puzzle in a way, I mean if we are walking in the light, then why would we need the continual cleansing from sin? We get a clue in the phrase “in him there is no darkness at all.” What is being implied here, is that there is darkness in us all of us. A lot more than we realize! And the fact of the matter is that there is "nothing hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light" (Luke 8:17). So from my point of view, it is better that we get it out in the open now, so that it can be confessed and forgiven(v9).

There is a similar thought about the hiddenness of or darkness in Paul’s phrase “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent” (1 Corinthians 4:4 NIV). My own experience has been that as I keep on seeking to walk in the light, the Lord in His gentle and loving way, exposes things I was in denial were there. It can be discouraging, because once I have a certain amount of victory over something He put his finger on, inevitably He shows me something else to deal with. And that is why we so desperately need verse 9 of this chapter. It tells us that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, not only this, but He is also faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Hallelujah!

Father, there is a sense in which the closer I get to You, the less holy I feel. In particular I seem to have such little love. I know that part of this, is that when I get closer to You I see my love in comparison with Your amazing, reckless and outstanding love. However, I felt You telling me this morning, that I cannot get closer to You, without being transformed by You in a positive way. And I choose to allow this to encourage me this morning, and to trust that I am indeed being transformed from one degree of glory to another. And I give You honour, glory and praise in Jesus Name Amen