Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John8:34
-----------------------------
Quick revision:
We identified three key contributing factors to poor self-images:
1.Brokenness: we live in an imperfect world with imperfect bodies and imperfect relationships.
2.Distortion: our views of reality, others and ourselves are distorted and cause us heartache
3.Filters: when we experience the pain of brokenness and distortion we often create filters that cause us to interpret the signals we get wrongly.
We've worked through brokenness and distortion and now we look at how we deal with filters in our souls and memories.
------------------------------
Whether we have sinned or have been sinned against - there is a good chance that we experience guilt - a sense of being dirty. I remember counselling a woman who had been raped who felt guilty even though she had not "provoked" or "asked for" what had happened to her. Her healing came when we asked the Lord to forgive what had been done _to_ her.
When we don't experience forgiveness, we are slaves to this sense of guilt and dirtiness and it becomes a filter through which the rest of life's input comes.
If any or all of the following are true:
- we cannot bear criticism (even if it is constructive)
- we are cynical and suspicious of people who try to befriend us
- we doubt and are sceptical of compliments, often fending them off
- we fear any level of self-disclosure
Then...
...there is probably a filter in place - a bad experience that has left a bad taste in our mouths and we go into fight or flight mode whenever something happens that is similar to what we went through.
Jesus sets us free. When our sin or the sin of others puts us in a place of slavery to the past and past hurts, then the blood of Christ is expensive enough to set us free! We can experience forgiveness for what we've done AND for what has been done _to_ us!
---
--------------------------
Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
