BECOMING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 7

BECOMING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

Augustine wrote “How can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self?”  He prayed, “Grant, Lord that I may know myself that I may know you”.   

St. Teresa of Avila wrote “Almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self-knowledge”  I would have to agree. 
   

We talked briefly in our last lesson about the practices in a Christian’s life that may or may not be part of our current journey.  I added one that I know Pastor Peter would agree with but was not part of his list in his book “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” – the practice of daily self-reflection/ self-examination (Psalm 139).  I mentioned that this practice is one that is highly encouraged in the 12 Step Program.. it’s Step 10 – ‘daily take a personal inventory of ourselves, and when we are wrong, promptly admit it’.  People in recovery understand the need for keeping short accounts in order to stay healthy & sober.. people in recovery also understand the huge need for self-examination and reflection.  ALL PEOPLE  should realize it’s importance.  We all have blind spots.. if we are going to eliminate them, we have to take the time to allow God to search us and then be willing to face what He reveals.

When we consider this lesson about becoming our ‘authentic self’, we must realize that doing Step 10 – our self-examination has to be a priority.  Sadly, most people are clueless about who they are these days… and sadly, most people who do, don’t like who they are.  Most are living someone else's life or someone else’s expectations of them.  So how do we get there?  How do we find our authentic self?  We have to first start out with owning our emotions. Researchers have classified them into some main groupings:

§        Anger (fury, hostility, irritability, annoyance, frustration)

§        Sadness (grief, self-pity, despair, dejection, loneliness)

§        Fear (anxiety, edginess, nervousness, fright, terror, apprehension)

§        Enjoyment (joy, relief, contentment, delight, thrill, euphoria, ecstasy)

§        Love (acceptance, trust, devotion, adoration)

§        Surprise (shock, amazement, wonder)

§        Disgust (contempt, scorn, aversion, distaste, revulsion)

§        Shame (guilt, remorse, humiliation, embarrassment, chagrin)

Once we identify them/ name them, we need to express them – the goal is to express them in a healthy manner but.. oftentimes when we haven’t allowed ourselves to ‘feel’ for so long, we don’t know how and we may have never seen a healthy model of expression either.  

Pastor Peter learned some things about non-expression the hard way.  He says "to deny our pain, losses and feelings year after year, we become less and less human.  We transform slowly into empty shells with smiley faces painted on them.  Sad to say, that is the fruit of much of our discipleship in our churches.”  When he began to allow himself to feel, he also began to understand that the failure to appreciate the biblical place of feelings within our Christian lives has done extensive damage, keeping people in slavery – and he was one of them.

Give yourself permission to feel and know it is Biblically correct.  God feels.  You feel.  God thinks.  You think.  God wills.  You will.  We are human beings made in His likeness and part of His likeness is to feel.  

Biblical support that God feels:   
Genesis 6:6 – grieved, 
Exodus 20:5 – jealous, 
Hosea 11:8 – compassion, 
Matthew 26:37-38 – sorrowful, 
Mark 3:5 – anger, 
Luke 10:21 – full of joy

If you were like me and had frozen feelings or perhaps you are totally unaware of your emotions, you may struggle with some of the following beliefs/ excuses of which we need to attend to:

§        I’m just not good at feelings and I really don’t have time for this.  My family was more about ‘doing’.

§        I don’t know what I am feeling – it’s all a big blur.

§        At times, when I am going to interact with authority figures or somebody I don’t know, I get physical sensations but I don’t know why it is happening (that’s an indication you are feeling something – often our bodies react/ feel before it registers in our minds anyway)

§        Sometimes I’m flooded by emotions that disorganize and confuse me.

§        After a difficult meeting with someone (conflict), I get depressed and I don’t know why

§        When I feel bad, I can’t tell if I’m scared or angry

§        I carry an overwhelming feeling that I am shameful, guilty and/or defective

§        I was taught that nice girls don’t get angry and big boys don’t cry (I read a book by Bill Hybel’s wife – he is the pastor of Willowcreek Community Church in Chicago – Good girls don’t change the world – she talks about her own journey out of depression and how for years she was a ‘false self’.. after getting counseling and help, she wrote this book which again, establishes the truth and need for us to deal with the stuff underneath that iceberg and come into our authentic self)

Truth: one of our greatest obstacles to knowing and loving God is our own lack of self-knowledge and authenticity.  We end up wearing masks before God (as if we could really hide something) 

In ‘The Cry of the Soul’, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman summarize why awareness of our feelings is so important:

“Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality.  Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God...Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice…However, we often turn a deaf ear – through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement.  We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world.  We are frightened and ashamed of hat leaks into our consciousness. In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to our selves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know god. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.”

One way we have discussed in prior classes that helps us in allowing ourselves to experience the full weight of emotion is to journal our feelings without censoring them.  This is a very helpful exercise.. difficult at times, but helpful… Interesting that Pastor Peter now considers experiencing the full weight of emotion, expressing them, going over them prayerfully and thoughtfully after that expression and allowing God to speak to you in the midst is the first step to real discipleship.  I agree!   

How to get started:

Journal, share, express your feelings about:

-        the church (your church/ the Body of Christ)

-        your life (this encompasses a lot – your work, ministry, character)

-        the different relationships you have (spouse, friends, family members, children)

KNOW YOURSELF THAT YOU MAY KNOW GOD

THE TEMPTATION TOWARD A FALSE SELF

Luke 4:1-13 – Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness outline three false identities or masks that Satan offers each of us.  These thoughts come from Pastor Peter Scazzero.  Before Jesus enters the wilderness we see Him in the river with John the Baptizer when the Spirit descends on Him as a dove and we hear the confirming words from the Father of who He is – Matthew 3:17, “This is my son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased” – oh.. words we all need to hear from the Father and He speaks them to us regularly – but do we hear?  Do we listen?  So what do we see in this? – We see/ hear God affirming Jesus – You are lovable.  You are good.  It is good that you exist.  Several statements that counter many of the lies we believe.  

At this point, Jesus hasn’t performed any miracles or died on the cross.  Nonetheless, he receives an experiential affirmation that he is deeply loved for who HE IS – not what he does.  There is a huge message here for us!!  Now.. we can chose to dismiss this and say.. yeah but.. He was the son of God… This same love and acceptance is available to all of us through Jesus Christ – it is real!  It is true!

Peter Scazzero is quoted in his book saying.. I love this: “Living and swimming in the river of God’s deep love for us in Christ is at the very heart of true spirituality.  Soaking in this love enables us to surrender to God’s will, especially when it seems so contrary to what we can see, feel, or figure out ourselves.  This experiential knowing of God’s love and acceptance provides the only sure foundation for loving and accepting our true selves.  Only the love of God in Christ is capable of bearing the weight of our true identity.”  Love it!

Before we go into some of the lies that threaten us and keep us from fully experiencing God’s love, let’s have a look at what it will take to experience the perfect love the Bible talks about. 
 

-        Love is the most positive of our emotions and the first of the fruit of the Spirit

-        Truth is: few people ever fully experience love.  Studies relate that 90% of married couples ever do.

-        There are 4 definitions for love:  1. love is the ability to put others before ourselves 2. love is to accept someone else exactly as they are.  3. Love is never having to say I’m sorry (from the movie Love Story), and 4. Love is emotional fulfillment.  Biblical definitions of: phileo - friendship, eros - romantic, agape - unconditional

-        The Bible challenges us to experience perfect love.  Why would we be satisfied with anything less? Don’t!   1John 4:7 says “ ⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  – so.. those who do not love, do not know God.  Why?  Because the basic attribute of God is LOVE!  He is LOVE!

So.. how do we get there?  How do we get to a place of being able to experience this kind of perfect love?

1.    We must realize that this perfect love must and does start with God!  This is not something we ‘muster up’ inside of ourselves.  However, we can believe that God has given us the ability and potential to fully love – read 1 John 4

2.    Perfect love demands a breaking process.  We all of the tendency to be self-centered.  Therefore, God uses crises and a variety of things to break us… bring us to a place of humility and willingness.

3.    Perfect love can be stymied by our personal hang-ups – therefore, we have to deal with our personal hang-ups.  1John 4:18 “there is no fear in love, perfect love casts out fear”.. Love truly has the potential to cast out all our fears – now that’s exciting!!!

4.    Perfect love often puts others before ourselves.  Eric Fromm is quoted in one of his books as saying “…in the very act of giving, we experience strength, wealth, and power…giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of our aliveness” – and I might add, our love.  Now.. I think it is important to mention at this point that if we do not practice self-care and deal with our issues and discover who we are, we will never ‘fully love’..  Loving and serving others has to come from within.. if we have nothing to give because we have never attended to the self, we are not going to be able to fulfill God’s call for us to love well.

5.      Perfect love is a willingness to hurt with others.   We need to embrace our urges of compassion…  ‘rejoice with others but also be willing to ‘weep with those who weep’ as God’s word instructs.  1 John 3:17 (New International Version)

¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be that person?

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 7 – GROUP WORK   “BECOMING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF & THE TEMPTATION TOWARD A FALSE SELF”

1.       As we consider becoming our authentic self, we see the importance of identifying and expressing our feelings.  Of the categories shared, which do you find easiest to express in a healthy manner for you personally and which are the more difficult for you?

2.       Of the list of struggles/ beliefs shared this evening, which are areas you are having to press through in order to feel?

3.       Share your thoughts and reactions to Peter Scazzero’s quote: “Living and swimming in the river of God’s deep love for us in Christ is at the very heart of true spirituality.  Soaking in this love enables us to surrender to God’s will, especially when it seems so contrary to what we can see, feel, or figure out ourselves.  This experiential knowing of God’s love and acceptance provides the only sure foundation for loving and accepting our true selves.  Only the love of God in Christ is capable of bearing the weight of our true identity.” 

4.       On a scale from 1-10, share your present condition as it relates to experiencing love:  for God, from God, from others, for others.  Of the list we went through, what are those that God is showing you that need to be focused on to bring the # up on the scale?

Homework:  this week, pick one of these categories and practice .. Journal, share, express your feelings about:

-        the church (your church/ the Body of Christ)

-        your life (this encompasses a lot – your work, ministry, character)

-        the different relationships you have (spouse, friends, family members, children)

HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 5: Beginning Transformation to the Deep Places

Last week we discussed the final symptoms of unhealthy spirituality and started the beginnings of bringing transformation to the deep places in our lives.  I recently finished reading through the Bible – The Message paraphrase and I marked a page that I wanted to go back to.  It is the introduction that Eugene Peterson wrote to the book of Jude in the Bible.  It says this: ‘Our spiritual communities are as susceptible to disease as our physical bodies.  But it is easier to detect whatever is wrong in our stomachs and lungs than to our worship and witness.  When our physical bodies are sick or damaged, the pain calls our attention to this, and we hopefully do something about it.  But a dangerous, even deadly, virus in our spiritual communities can go undetected for a long time.  As much as we need physicians for our bodies, we have even greater need for diagnosticians and healers of the [emotions] and the spirit.”

So true… my prayer is that as a result of the time we have and are spending in identifying unhealthy spirituality, it will enable us to diagnosis ourselves and our communities we are worshiping in so we can be a help to others.

So.. what makes it so difficult to follow Jesus today and become spiritually healthy?  Besides our unhealthiness in all the parts of who we are, what prevents us from becoming all God intends?

Os Guiness says it has a lot to do with our culture.  “The global culture is the beast that threatens to swallow us up in these days.  The core values in the twenty-first century scream at us from computers, billboards, televisions, DVDs, music, schools, newspapers, magazines and iPods.”  We have lost a Biblical worldview…   

Our worldview comes from what the world tells us:

·        Happiness is found in having things  

·        You should get all you can for yourself, as quickly as you can

·        Security is found in money, power, status, and good health

Matthew 6:32-34 (New International Version)

³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

·        Above all, you should seek all the pleasure, convenience and comfort you can

·        God is irrelevant to everyday life

·        Christianity if just one of many alternative spiritualities

·        There are no moral absolutes; whatever is true for you is what is true

John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

·        You’re not responsible for anyone but yourself

Galatians 6:1
[ Doing Good to All ] Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

and..

·        This life on earth is all there is

All of these feed our fears, mistrust, fierce self-will, stubbornness and rebellion.

The apostle Paul had the courage to look within as we read in Romans 7:21-24 (New International Version)

 ²¹So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God's law; ²³but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Do we have that same courage?  

--A person can grow emotionally healthy without Christ. 

--A person can grow physically healthy without Christ or mentally for that matter.  You can all probably think of people who are non-Christian that are more loving, balanced and civil than many in our churches. 

At the same time, we can find people who are deeply committed to contemplative prayer/ spirituality like a monk perhaps that is emotionally unaware, out of tune with themselves and socially maladjusted.   How can this be? 

Very few people integrate working towards emotional health and contemplative spirituality.   

Let’s break the 2 down (from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality):

Emotional Health is concerned with such things as:

·        Naming, recognizing, and managing our own feelings

·        Identifying with and having active compassion for others (discuss personality and gifting differences here - DISC, True Colors) Even though our personality has natural bents, this cannot be an excuse for not developing mercy, care, compassion - we are all called to become like Christ.

·        Initiating and maintaining close and meaningful friendships

·        Breaking free from self-destructive patterns and habits (we are all sin addicts - what has a hold of you? controlling you? - if anything other that Christ is, you have some work to do to remove idols in your life)

·        Being aware of how our past impacts our present

·        Developing the capacity to express our thoughts and feelings clearly, both verbally and non verbally

·        Respecting and loving others without having to change them (acceptance/ live &; let live – discuss honoring parents that we can’t respect)

·        Asking for what we need, want, or prefer clearly, directly and respectfully

·        Accurately self-assessing our strengths, limits and weaknesses and freely sharing them with others

·        Learning the capacity to resolve conflict maturely and negotiate solutions that consider the perspectives of others

·        Distinguishing and appropriately expressing our sexuality and sensuality, and,

·        Grieving well  (why do you think this is on the list? - most believers do not 'encourage' grieving.. they try to put a band-aid on it)

Let’s go back and discuss the area of ‘needs’ briefly.  ·  Philippians 4:19
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.  

I think that often we read this scripture and we don’t realize the conditions that go with it.  Let’s look at the requirements that the Lord has established as boundaries around His promise to supply our needs:

OBEDIENCE – We cannot live in sin and disobedience and expect God to give us everything we request – including our needs.  Psalm 84:11

 ¹¹ For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
       the LORD bestows favor and honor;
       no good thing does he withhold
       from those who walk uprightly
This does not mean those who are sinless.. the focus is the intent of the heart – those whose hearts are bent toward the Lord and they want to please Him.  God assumes full responsibility for meeting the needs of those who obey Him and remember His word says “those who love me, obey me” – obedience is a byproduct of fully loving and being devoted to God.
Sometimes God will cause us to do without in order to bring us back to Himself (Luke 15:11-24).

ASK -  Just like what we learned healthy spirituality consists of:  Asking for what we need, want, or prefer clearly, directly and respectfully.  We have to be willing to first of all ask God to supply what we lack.  What is your first response when an unexpected problem arises?  Immediately bring it to the Lord or do you resort to worry, maneuvering, manipulating, figuring out how to handle it yourself?  We are told repeatedly in God’s word to come to Him with our requests (Phil 4:6).  Asking God for help and asking Him to meet our needs shows that our attitude is one of humble dependence on Him and not prideful self-reliance. Even if we have the resources and smarts to take care of ourselves, we should still recognize that all of it comes from HIM!

BELIEVE – When we ask.. we must ask with faith/ belief.  Mark 11:24 (New International Version)

²⁴Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Jesus wants us to be confident in the Father’s promises.  Caution: don’t use verses such as this in an attempt to get what you want.  Prayer must always be initiated with pure motives, or it is worthless.   Like it says in

James 4:3 (New International Version)

³When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

PARTICIPATE – God is not going to do anything for you that He has already equipped YOU to do.  For example:  what if I was simply trusting God to provide the lesson for next week and I did nothing to prepare for it?  Do you think the Lord would just drop a message in my head next Thursday? (hmmm.. maybe I’ll try that – NOT!).  No, He expects me to prepare and pray.  My laziness would not merit the blessing of God.  

WAIT – God not only knows  WHAT we need but WHEN we need it.  Some of the things we have asked for have already been granted by God, He is just waiting the ordained time to deliver it.  He always knows the best time to grant our petitions.   If you get impatient and try to rush ahead by doing things on your own in your own way, you’ll miss all he originally planned to give you… so…. Try to be patient as you wait and trust..

ACCEPT – God’s way of meeting our needs may not be what you envisioned or hoped.  Have you ever prayed and asked God for something and then proceeded to tell him HOW to He should intervene?  We must be open to whatever way He chooses to provide.

PRIORITIZE – Keep your eyes on the Lord; not on your needs!   And remember.. our greatest needs are not the most obvious ones, but those that have to do with the development of godly character; renewed minds, surrendered wills.  That’s what we should be seeking and asking the Lord to produce in us.

Contemplative spirituality focuses on practices such as:

·        Awakening and surrendering to God’s love in any and every situation

·        Positioning ourselves to hear God and remember His presence in all we do

·        Communing with God, allowing Him to fully indwell the depth of our being

·        Practicing silence, solitude, and a life of unceasing prayer (Apostle Paul – explain praying without ceasing)

·        Resting attentively in the presence of God

·        Understanding our earthly life as a journey of transformation toward ever-increasing union with God

·        Finding the true essence of who we are in God

·        Loving others out of a life of love for God  Romans 5:5
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

·        Developing a balanced, harmonious rhythm of life that enables us to be aware of the sacred in all of life

·        Adapting historic practices of spirituality that are applicable today

·        Allowing our Christian lives to be shaped by the rhythms of the Christian calendar rather than culture (Sabbath/ discuss Lord’s day, etc) and,

·        Living in committed community that passionately loves Jesus above all else!

Together – emotional health and contemplative spirituality unleash the Holy Spirit in us in order that we might know experientially the power of an authentic life in Christ!

GROUP WORK - HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 5

BEGINNING TO BRING TRANSFORMATION TO THE DEEP PLACES

1.      Discuss your discipleship experience.  Did it include Contemplative spirituality as discussed this evening?

2.      Discuss your worldview.  How has it been shaped or is currently being shaped in your life?

3.      Discuss the conditions of God ‘meeting needs’.  Of the conditions, which do you find the most difficult for you:

Ask, BELIEVE, PARTICIPATE, WAIT, ACCEPT, PRIORITIZE 

4.       Of the list of contemplative spirituality focuses and practices, which are you currently doing and which were new thoughts/ practices you never considered?  Any that were a surprise?

Healthy Spirituality - LESSON 1

INTRO -- The Emotionally Healthy Church book - I read over 10 years ago by a Pastor -- Peter Scazzero - church in Queens New York - New Life Fellowship.... certainly a book I coulda shoulda wrote....a message I believe in and have been teaching for years! - he even uses some of the illustrations I have been using to teach this concept for 20 years.

I was recently asked as part of our LifeCare newsletter (Ask the Pastor/Director Section):

"What's a definition of emotional health that everyone can use to understand where they are?"

Dear 'What's a Definition': It's a shameless plug but I invite you to attend my next class called Healthy Spirituality to find the answers. Unfortunately, I cannot give you a full definition here that would be complete. However, I would like to say that self-awareness is one of the keys to emotional health - what am I feeling and why? what am I thinking and where are those thoughts coming from? Your belief system is very important to your emotional health - we all have lies we believe and those lies lead to emotion that inevitably lead to action. If we believe things that are not true, we will respond negatively to a situation based on the emotion that it evokes oftentimes. God's word tells us 'we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free'.. that also means facing the truth about our feelings, thoughts and beliefs so they can be changed by God's truth. Living an emotionally healthy life has much to do with believing and responding to truth and managing our emotions God's way.

I want to take this and explain something before we go any further... I chose to call this class Healthy Spirituality rather than Emotionally healthy spirituality as the book is titled because I believe the 2 are inseparable... having emotional health is part of spiritual health.. having mental/intellectual health is part of spiritual health.. having relational/social health is part of spiritual health.. and I will even take it a step further and say that.. having physical health affects and is a part of spiritual health...

We are 3 parts - body, soul (mind & emotions), spirit - God desires as much health as possible in all the parts...Therefore, to call this emotionally healthy spirituality would eliminate some of the parts.

Many Christians have a tough time feeling or even considering emotions let alone believe they have a need for becoming healthy in that area…

Examples – know anyone who can quote Scripture backwards and forwards, say they are spiritually mature and yet have a marriage that is falling apart, jobs they continue to be let go from, have out of control anger, depression, etc?

The author of this book explains that he fell into this trap of not dealing/ feeling/ processing / paying attention to feelings – he quotes… "I was taught that the way to approach life was through fact, faith and feelings in that order. As a result, anger, for ex, was and needed to be suppressed. Most people are either ‘stuffers’ or ‘inflictors’ of their anger. Some are both – maybe they stuff until they finally explode onto others." – your feelings/ emotions will come out – perhaps not the way you’d like .. but they will come out – they will be misdirected and oftentimes destructive!! Anyway.. this author/ pastor was a classic ‘stuffer’.. always asking God to take away his ‘bad’ feelings and to make him more like Christ. Hmmm.. sound familiar to anyone????

By the way… there are no ‘bad’ or ‘good’ feelings… feelings are just feelings…

We are taught in 2 cor 5:17 that when we become a follower of Christ, old things are passed away and all things have become new. My experience has taught me that I have to go back in order to go forward. I have to go back and understand what the ‘old’ things have to teach and tell me. The only way they can pass way.. be put to death.. be healed/ made new is for me to face them, deal with them.. we must feel, deal and heal…. The tragic reality is that most of us will not go back in order to go forward until the pain of staying where we are is unbearable.

Statistics show that only 1% of the population ever self-actualize - a study quoted in Neil Anderson's research says that only 8% of the Christians surveyed experience maturity/ wholeness.

In order for us to get health in all the parts, it will take some work.. We are going to have to go beneath the surface of our lives -- ICEBERG Illustration

Tonight we are going to hit on an overview of why we need to do this and what the goal is. Then we will spend the following weeks unpacking these in greater detail and 'how' to become healthy.

WHY CHRISTIANS ARE NOT HEALTHY / WHOLE

LACK OF BROKENNESS –

DENIAL & DISHONESTY –

REFUSE TO SEEK HELP/SUPPORT –

UNFORGIVENESS –

DO NOT ACCEPT THEMSELVES JUST THE WAY THEY ARE –

TRYING TO GET FEELINGS TO LINE UP WITH THE TRUTH –

FAIL TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE FLESH (OUR SINFUL NATURE) AND THE REAL YOU –

AN INADEQUATE UNDERSTANDING OF GRACE –

WRONG CONCEPT OF GOD –

NEVER APPROPRIATE THEIR TRUE IDENTITY IN CHRIST –

HAVE NOT LEARNED TO RESIST SATAN/THE ENEMY –

HAVE NOT LEARNED TO DISCIPLINE THEIR MINDS –

ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS TO LIVING HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY

1) Belonging to a family – SPIRITUAL MOMS AND DADS - God re-parents

2) Receiving and giving life & love

3) Recovering from the effects of traumas – TYPE A, TYPE B - Things that happen 'to' us.. or.. the absence of good things

4) Contributing to a community

Failure in any of these factors, people remain stuck and do not learn to live out their true God-given identities.

The question I want to present to everyone here is the same question I was presented with over 24 years ago.. and the same question Jesus asked in John 5:5-6 of the paralyzed man..

"One who was there had been an invalid for thirty eight years. When Jesus

saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition a long

time he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

John 5:5-6

Do you want to get well?! What a shocking question. Isn't the answer obvious? Why even ask?

One of the most confusing parts of the healing process is the fact that we have many layers of resistance to it. As we begin to see the changes this journey will demand, we begin to see how attached we have become to our existing way of life. Sometimes we play games to hold on to the past.

I know people, including myself that wanted to be healed of alcoholism so that they could continue to drink – socially of course! We are all like this - we want healing but we fear the changes healing will bring.

Sometimes the fear comes from the fact that we can't imagine any way of being in the world other than what we have known. A life consumed with

despair, rage and self-loathing may seem pretty awful, but its the only life we may have known. Any change may seem risky and uncertain.

God is not ignorant of our resistance to healing. God asks the difficult question: "Do you want to get well?" It's not always as obvious as it seems. The 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous/Celebrate Recovery addresses this issue when it talks about being "entirely ready" for God to change us. The process of becoming "entirely ready" is at the heart of the struggle of healing and coming into spiritual maturity. Our hearts and minds are being prepared to answer 'yes' to God's offer of wholeness.

So.. what do we hope to accomplish as we go through this together? One of God’s promises is found in Gal 5:22-23… Let’s look at the NIV and The Message – the fruit of the Spirit.. (the dysfunctional broken me – gets out of the way or becomes what God originally intended.. then I can bear fruit).

NIV - The Message

Love – affection for others

Joy – exuberance about life

Peace – serenity

Patience – a willingness to stick with things

Kindness – a sense of compassion in the heart

Goodness – a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people

Faithfulness – involved in loyal commitments

Gentleness – not needing to force our way in life

Self-control – able to marshal & direct our energies wisely.

GROUP WORK FOR DISCUSSION– LESSON 1

HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY

1. As we consider healthy spirituality and that we are 3 part beings… what part(s) do you seem to struggle with the most to come in alignment with God’s truth? Body, Soul (Mind and/or emotions), spirit

2. What have you been taught historically about emotions – in your home? By the church/ other believers?

3. In the section on why Christians are not healthy/ whole and the components of becoming healthy, which do you see as the most predominate in people’s lives or in your own for that matter?

4. Take the time right now to verbally commit to one another and pray for the courage to become a spiritually healthy Christ follower. Share any areas you specifically want accountability, support or prayer in.