Shame or Service (Winter Christian #1)
God has no need of your neurosis, but you might be addicted to satanic guilt
This is the first installment in the “Winter Christian” series. In these posts I will be explaining what that term means to me. In short, it is the kind of believer who will stay dedicated to the service of God no matter how far the world — and even the church, or our own self — turns to evil. But to understand further, I must explain.
THE high and lofty One who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says: “I dwell in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.
—Isaiah 57:15
As we can see, God refuses to dwell with the arrogant. Yes, in His presence, He demands a lowly opinion of one’s self, and an admission of our unworthiness. I suppose you could even argue that He must love the guilty spirit… But you’d be wrong.
Satan loves guilt, Jesus loves victory
I’m not good enough to serve; I have an addiction; I’m weak; I sin every day; I don’t understand my own motives sometimes; I’m constantly failing in the things I want to do; I indulge my flesh; if others knew what I was really like, they’d hate me.
For the average Christian, few things cripple their service to God more than guilt.
Look at how Christians talk to themselves. I’m not good enough to serve; I have an addiction; I’m weak; I sin every day; I don’t understand my own motives sometimes; I’m constantly failing in the things I want to do; I indulge my flesh; if others knew what I was really like, they’d hate me. These are the excuses of the defeated prisoners of Satan. They are defeated by Satan, NOT BECAUSE THEIR CONDITION is lowly, weak, and problematic, but BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT THEY SAY TO THEMSELVES. To be defeated by Satan as a Christian ALWAYS means that you have been DECEIVED into thinking you are not a child of God, not in His love, and not under His ultimate protection as His Shepherd watches over you. Did Jesus not teach you, that every day you should pray for forgiveness, as you forgive others? So Jesus knows that you are a sinner, and that you will certainly sin every day. He knows that you haven’t been cured from weakness. And yet he asks you to serve his Kingdom while there is still daylight, before his return. Is being a weak sinner any excuse, then?
Something is deeply wrong with the Christian mentality, and it has a clear root: the Roman Churches (Catholic and Orthodox), which were built on centuries of shaming, guilting, and defeating the soldiers of Christ through their satanic inversion of the Gospel, in which the list of sins we are guilty of in God’s eyes is infinitely multiplying, and even after death we go to purgatory for untold ages to be punished. The Roman inversion of Christ is a man still nailed to the cross, bleeding forever, trapped by Satan in a position of defeat.
When I showed you that passage from Isaiah, did you notice God calling for “crushed spirits”? If so, you didn’t read it correctly. “I RESTORE” the crushed spirit, He says, and “REVIVE THE COURAGE” of those with repentant hearts. So we are not meant to be crushed and guilty, but restored and courageous through God! The mark of the one God loves is that you were once defeated, but you have been REVIVED and RESTORED, not crushed forever! Jesus is the ultimate victor, not the ultimate victim, so that even the Lord Jesus was humiliated and defeated (in the human sense) in order to show that God is not ashamed of the defeated, but takes it as an opportunity to raise that person up to new heights. JESUS WON, SATAN LOST. There is now no accuser…
Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us, and he was raised to life for us, sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, interceding for us.
—Romans 8:34
THIS is the true image of Jesus today, not the cross. The crucifixion of Jesus remains the central image of Satan’s religion for obvious reasons, pretending to be a reminder of his sacrifice for us, but actually there to make you feel guilty forever.
What is the real purpose of repentance? Is it to sink lower and lower into the pits of hell, so that God can never pull you up? No, it’s to put yourself in a correct relationship with God, which always begins at a low point, as we recognize our faults and unworthiness before Him. You acknowledge, deep down, that He is perfect and eternal, and you are imperfect and fleeting, and you need Him. Once you do that, God will hear your prayers, I promise. But He will not leave you in pain and loathing for long, because He does not want His servants to be heavy, defeated, and wracked with burdensome guilt. Rather, He sent His Son to take the guilt away, and to share the freedom of the GIFT — not earned, not able to be stolen — of empowerment.
Ah, that word, “empowerment”. How Satan has taken hold of that, too!
Empowerment for what? Once the Christian has escaped from the prison of guilt created by Satan, he tells them that they are now empowered to do become rich and happy, or to serve in some meaningless way in a meaningless building. Neither could be further from the truth.
The pain of disservice, the addiction of neurosis
The truth is, Christian “guilt” is almost always a person misunderstanding a certain vague pressure they feel to serve the Kingdom of God. You discover a newfound liberty along with your gift of salvation, but then you’re not given any clear instructions on what to do next. Before long, you feel worried that you’re not “doing anything”. And next thing you know, you have “done something”, but it was something wrong, and start to feel guilt again. Then comes self-hatred, confusion, and a steady path toward neurosis, in which tell ourselves that we’re worthless.
The pressure you feel is urgent and signifcant. God has only given you a limited time on this earth, and then you will lose your opportunity to earn more rewards for the next life. However, even if you’re currently nailed to a cross next to Jesus, and only have a few minutes to live, Jesus is willing to bring you to paradise with him. He compares us to workers in a field, and warns that those who do nothing will be severely punished by the master (ie. Jesus) when he returns. This can be misunderstood if we overthink what God wants, and start to get crazy ideas about organized charities and ambitious projects. God saves every one of us in our current situation because He knows we can do something right where we are, and that we can keep doing things wherever we go.
Why is neurosis evil, and how is it addictive?
When you’re neurotic, you look in the mirror and count your sins instead of watching the real world around you for the next opportunity to serve the Kingdom. You shrivel up into a fetal position and ask God to take care of you, instead of celebrating the endless grace and love God has already poured out for you, and finding places to express your gratitude. You do nothing because you’re in a constant state of emotional crisis, rather than a dutiful soldier who accomplishes goals for Him despite any crisis. You want God’s attention, but you don’t want to do His commands. You want to take, but not give. That is the addiction of neurosis, and why it’s evil: you are lying to yourself and God in order to avoid the calling, which is really a glorious opportunity, and which comes with such rewards. You should be greedy for those rewards, my brother or sister.
Let me be as clear as possible. Even if I, or your own mother and father, or an angel from heaven, were to visit you and list every sin you have every committed, and laid out every flaw of your personality, and condemned you in a million ways so that you had no rational right to think that you deserve even one reward from God, your response should only be to work twice as hard for His Kingdom, which you are called to build TODAY, in your own tiny way, in your own tiny life, with your own tiny reach, without bragging or expecting anything. You answer to God, not to your parents, not to angels, and not to me, nor even to yourself! Thank God that He has made it impossible for anyone to stop you from doing what you are called to do!
For those who have turned to Christ, it is the Good News, not the Guilt News.
I have recently been trying to tell myself and other believers under the same mentality that, “It is not God that is judging you, but yourself.” Let go of the unrralistic expectation you have set for yourself and do what is feasible and appropriate. Not everyone can go on a missionary, or develop a platform to guide many people. Simply helping a homeless msn in the cold is a glorious thing!
"The mark of the one God loves is that you were once defeated, but you have been REVIVED and RESTORED, not crushed forever!" Great post!
But be wary of those who Satan has convinced that they have been defeated and were saved by something godly (but is very ungodly), they are usually very zealous.