WILL THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR PAST FREE US FROM THE PRESENT?

Does understanding our past relieve us of its influence? A male complained that he had consistently taken abuse from friends and acquaintances. He didn’t feel that he had the right to assert himself against their abuse. However, through psychotherapy, he saw that this had been the way he had been treated by his caregivers. He then “understood” that not speaking up for his welfare and setting boundaries were behaviors and a self-concept he had inherited and that they no longer had to dictate his life. He therefore began to set needful boundaries with his friends and acquaintances.

We don’t like seeing anyone abused, so we regard this as a “success story,” but is it? There are two problems here. For one thing, our memories can be either distorted or highly selective. Therefore, this male might not be connecting the right dots in his analysis of his past and how it impacts his present.

However, we might think, “Well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he is now finding relief from his feelings of unworthiness and is now setting necessary boundaries.”

This might be true, but he is left with a problem that will eventually resurface. Even if he has correctly assessed that his failure to set boundaries was a product of his past, it still fails to give him the rationale he needs to resist victimization.

Let me try to illustrate this point. If we realize that our past “nurturing” inculcated us with the idea that we should tolerate abuse, all this realization tells us is that we need not be led by our past. However, it fails to tell us what we should be led by or to give us an objective standard of behavioral and cognitive rightness. It doesn’t tell us why we shouldn’t tolerate abuse.

It is like the girl who was taught that it is wrong to abuse others. While this might help her to understand her disdain for abuse, it does not answer the question, “Is it wrong to abuse?” It would therefore be absurd for her to begin to abuse others, because she now understands that her disdain for abuse had come from her parents.

It is not enough for us to merely connect the dots and to understand our present inclinations from the perspective of the past. Instead, it is more important to have an objective standard for right behavior.

When I first began going to church, I felt strongly that everyone who came to shake my hand was a hypocrite. However, I found that it is more important to live by the guidance of the objective truths of Scripture and love others than it was to understand why I felt this way. When I began to treat others with love, miraculously my opinions of them changed.

It wasn’t enough for me to know that my feelings of self-loathing came from the way I had been treated as a child. Instead, I needed to know that I was lovable and had value. This was something that I was unable to obtain through psychotherapy. Nor did it seem to matter how many times the psychotherapist would assure me that I am a “good person.” My deeply ingrained feelings of self-loathing would just laugh at these reassurances.

What could assure me that I had value? The psychotherapist’s words were only his opinions and were unable to penetrate to the depths where my feelings were preaching their life-controlling messages.

It was only Jesus who was able to break through my deadly waves of self-loathing. I became assured that if He loved me so much that He had died for me, while I was His enemy, He would love me all the more once I became His friend (Romans 5:8-10).

This awareness didn’t come overnight. Since I had not known love as a child, it was hard for me to believe/feel that God now loved me. I had hated myself and therefore projected that everyone else, including God, hated me. And I felt sure of this. I was also sure that I had to produce a steady stream of successes in order to be worthy of anyone’s love. This, of course, caused me to envy and even hate those who had more success.

However, Scripture began to rewrite my own script. I began to experience the “love of God that passes all understanding” (Ephesians 3:19) and the assurance that He would never leave me (Romans 8:38-39). Even through suffering, the words of my Savior became more real to me:

·       “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Jesus does give us a “yoke” and a “burden,” but these can become the instruments of freedom from many of the things that oppress us.

SCRIPTURE HUMBLES AND THEN BUILDS US

Scripture afflicts us in many ways. It calls us to meet standards too high to attain.  Scripture makes us feel unworthy, guilty, and inadequate. God often informed His chosen that they are to be as holy as He:

• “For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy." (Leviticus 11:45) 

What a burden! We want to run away from a requirement that inevitably leads to frustration and failure. I certainly tried to run away but to where? To the NT? However, there too we are smacked in the face with the very same requirement:

• As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16) 

It soon became apparent that I could not fulfill such a calling, and years later, I realized that no one else could.

For years, I wanted to turn away from this demanding God, but I couldn't. I had no other place to go.

However, Scripture slowly revealed a blessed purpose for my failures and inadequacies. In fact, there is a purpose for all of our hardships.

Paul informed us that he had suffered so that he too wanted to give it all up:

• For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

Ordinarily, we like to delight in ourselves. We too must learn the lesson of self-despair so that we can learn to glory God alone (Psalm 62).

Some lessons can only be learned through despair and suffering. If we found that we were successful in keeping Jesus' commands, we would become arrogant and self-righteous, the very thing our Lord abhors (Ephesians 2:8-9). 

Failure and self-despair nurtures other essential fruits. As the Spirit illuminates Scripture for us, we begin to become grateful that He would love and persevere with us, in the face of the growing awareness of our unworthiness. 

I wouldn't have understood His love had I regarded myself as a successful Christian. Instead, I would have understood His grace as an entitlement, something I deserved, because I am deserving.

Spiritual growth requires the understanding that it's not about what I have earned for God but what Jesus has earned for me. He has taught me that if I have Him, I have everything that I need (Col. 2:8-10). I am inadequate, but He is my total adequacy (2 Cor. 3:5). 

In this, I rejoice. However, I would not be able to rejoice in Him as long as I was convinced that it is about my performance. Yet He comforts me by assuring me that it’s about the One who took all of my sins upon Himself:

• I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

I am convinced that it is only through self-despair and suffering that we could come to this assurance and freedom – the freedom from trying to prove ourselves deserving. Once we despair in ourselves, we can only look to our Savior:

• Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12-13)

It is our failures and suffering that weans us away from the love of the ways of this world and focuses us upon our only hope - the return of our Savior. Our cry becomes, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

I now know that I need to be humbled and readied for Him by the impossible but necessary commands of our Lord. They continue to remind me that it’s all about His gift of righteousness, and this is freeing.

HATRED, SCRIPTURE, AND CHANGED LIVES

Some say that Christ doesn’t make a difference – that Christians act the same way as others and that Christ doesn’t change lives. However, I know otherwise!

Anger and hatred are hurricanes that have the power to sweep away every defense. They are tyrants that override reason and even self-interest. Yet, I know that hatred is wrong. I even know that it torments its prey, tearing it apart.

I saw the hatred that was consuming me, but I seemed to be powerless against it. Even its “arguments” were persuasive. They felt so right. Hatred placed its own lens over my eyes, and I saw only red.

However, I remembered the Word of God:

•  Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good… Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:9, 14, 16 -21; ESV)

His Word came upon me with such force and conviction that it drove the hatred entirely away, the bully yelping helplessly as it fled. Instead, I was left rejoicing at the great privilege to love others, to “overcome evil with good.”

No wonder Scripture informs us that loving God is about embracing and obeying His teachings:

•  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. (John 15:10-14)

Keeping His teachings is our cure, our protective shield and the source of blessings. It even rescues us from ourselves:

·       Only be strong and very courageous [Joshua], being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Joshua 1:7-8)

No wonder that we are instructed to “meditate on it day and night.”

I am a man of many flaws, and they can be deeply troubling. However, I have learned something of even greater significance – that our Lord brings strength out of our ongoing weaknesses, even Paul’s:

• Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this [affliction], that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:8-10)

I too have learned to boast in my weaknesses. They continue to humble me, tromping upon my pride, drawing me closer to my Savior through His Word, which ministers so powerfully to me, through His blessed Spirit.

Yes, I continue to battle against my inner demons, and yet I am changed – a new creation! It is also through my weaknesses that I praise Him, all the more gladly and confidently.

Jesus’ Impossible Commands

Jesus’ commands are impossible to follow. Here is just one example from the Sermon on the Mount:

• "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. (Matthew 6:1-4) 

Of course, some of Jesus’ instructions are hyperbolic. There is no way that we cannot prevent the “left hand [from knowing] what your right hand is doing.” Instead, Jesus highlights the fact that our spiritual deeds should not be performed in order “to be seen by” others.

But can we ever be entirely unconcerned about what others think of us? We are social creatures and care profoundly about how we are seen. Even in the midst of my most unselfish act, I found that I was still concerned that people would see how spiritual I was. I saw an elderly woman fall down in the middle of a busy intersection. Immediately, I ran out to help her, but even before I was able to rescue her from the oncoming cars, I looked around to see how many were observing my “un-self-concerned” sacrificial act.

And I am not alone in this. We are self-absorbed with what others think of our appearance and everything about us. How then can we fulfill Jesus’ command to not perform our “acts of righteousness” to be seen by others?

We can’t! Well, if we can’t, why does Jesus command this? It will merely depress and discourage us, won’t it?

Perhaps that’s the point. Certainly, we should be guided by the right motives, but we also need to be humbled. Jesus told a parable about two men praying at the Temple. One thanked God that he was better than others; the other knew he wasn’t and humbled himself accordingly:

• "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:14)

Those who humble themselves by admitting their spiritual unworthiness will be exalted. This means that the way up is the way down. When we humble ourselves by admitting that we are spiritual failures who cannot keep Jesus’ commands, He will lift us up. He already knows our frailties and failures.

Following Jesus is always a humbling experience, as it should be. Consequently, to follow is to be humbled and then to be exalted. However, this process requires obedience to His commands.

Instead, many of us believe that by following spiritual or physical disciplines, we directly exalt ourselves. However, Jesus warns us that this is impossible:

• Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:24-26)

While all things are possible with God, they are not with us, as Jesus taught:

• “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5) 

This should be comforting. It allows us to take the attention off of us and place it upon our Lord, where it belongs. Nevertheless, we must be obedient to His commands. We must follow.