Why Your recovery Is so Important

Once you are no longer angry with God nor blame Him for your abuse, you will begin to see life more clearly—from a healthier, more accurate perspective. Then, when you least expect it, it will happen. It will probably just pass through your mind and soul like a gentle breeze passes over your face.

Intuitively, you’ll know what it is; it’s the Holy Spirit enlightening your mind and your heart. When it occurs, you’ll be undone. Instantly, you’ll know exactly how much God loves you, and this realization will be overwhelming. From that precise moment, everything inside you will change, and you’ll never be the same again—not if you live to be a hundred.

You will become aware of your value to God and what it cost Him to make you His own. You’ll know—perhaps for the first time—that God loves you, and your life is safe in the Hands of the Master. At that moment, nothing else will matter to you. That’s when wisdom—God’s wisdom—enters your heart, and you will be changed from the inside out. It’s your Mount of Transfiguration—the place where you cannot sing Amazing Grace without weeping from heartfelt gratitude, knowing that the wretch from the song is you.

Suddenly, everything becomes clear, and you know that your life still has purpose—still has value. This moment may not last long, but it doesn’t matter. You’ve seen reality—if only for an instant—the way God sees it; and nothing will ever be the same again. The purpose for your recovery will start to come together.

You’ll look at your past differently—with more clarity. Your abusers had a purpose—to use you, to exploit every fiber of your being and, when they were through, to discard you as someone no longer worth their time or trouble. For a while, maybe even for years, your lifestyle validated their assessment, as you pursued self-defeating behavior. But now that the zephyr has occurred, those days are over and need never return.

What your abuser used to destroy you, God has used to rebuild you—from the inside out. When this reality dawns on you, when you understand it at the core of your being, you will begin to fathom God’s love for you—a love that cannot be shaken nor diminished. Once you understand this, like the phoenix, you will rise out of the ashes—out of your doldrums—to newness of life. And you will be more like Christ than ever before.

Your life will begin again—this time with more depth, with more maturity. You’ll want back in the game. Nothing, not your abuser nor Hell itself, will be able to keep you from being exactly who the Lord intends you to be. That’s why your recovery is so important.

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Man’s Nature: Good or Bad?

One of the foundational beliefs of Christianity is that Man’s nature is sinful and separated from God. Without Christ dying for Man’s sins, we couldn’t be reconciled to God. Without Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, we would be lost forever—hopelessly lost. This is a fundamental belief of Christianity. At the same time, Christians seem to have a profound naïveté about life. They’re routinely surprised when sinful people act sinfully.

The politically-correct culture in America, by way of contrast, believes Man’s nature is noble and good. When people behave poorly, however, they never seem surprised by it. To them, it’s because they lack education or adequate socio-economic opportunities. They accept people, other than Christians, the way they are—warts and all.
As a believer, I know there is nothing good in me—in my fallen nature. But I also know that when the Lord came into my life, He imparted His nature to me—full of love, mercy, kindness, and compassion. That means I can rise above my base state and be more than I could ever have been without Him. This is true for every Christian. If I don’t make a conscious effort to be mindful of this, however, I may become harsh and judgmental rather than merciful and kind.

This is the area where Christians seem to stumble all the time. They drive away desperate people, consumed by sinful lifestyles, refusing to give them the same mercy they required a few years earlier. They embrace pride rather than humility, judgment rather than mercy, and rejection rather than love, compassion, and acceptance. They cease to be like the Lord, who loved sinful people—not the self-righteous.

If we are ever to be all that we are capable of being, we must focus our minds on Christ and ask Him to enable us to be like Him where sinful people are concerned. Witnessing to people you don’t love doesn’t work. In fact, it’s counter- productive and comes off with a holier-than-thou attitude. Sinners reject this contemptuously. It’s why they say the church is full of hypocrites, which is true. If we’re ever to be who Christ intended us to be, this has to change, starting with those of us in recovery.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7 (New American Standard Bible)

To learn more about about the subject, go to: Recovering from Religious Abuse: 11 Steps to Spiritual Freedom.

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Self-Righteousness, Pride, and Abusiveness

Nobody starts out wanting to be spiritually abusive to others. Like everyone else, abusers begin their journey by being humble and contrite. They recognize their sinfulness and accept God’s grace and mercy.

Something happens to them along the way, however. After “walking the walk” for a while—perhaps a long while—they become good at superficial conformity to a wholesome lifestyle. They develop a measure of self-control, forgetting that it was the mercy of God that brought them to repentance in the first place. Because they don’t have any glaring, outward manifestations of sin in their lives—like so many others, they start to believe they are better than those who do. In their eyes, this makes them better than those around them.

When this occurs, pride rears its ugly head, and all the components for spiritual abuse are in place. All that is needed is for someone or something to happen that falls out of the guidelines of their carefully constructed, self-righteous religious belief system. When it does, all hell breaks loose—literally. And they have no idea what they are doing is wrong. In fact, they are certain they are right. They genuinely believe their abusiveness is doing God’s will. That’s how deceptive self-righteousness can be.

When you look at it from this perspective, abusive people are quite pitiful, aren’t they? Take a minute and think about your own situation. Anybody can become self-righteous; it’s easy. What’s difficult is knowing all of your righteousness is based on what Christ did for you-moment by moment.

Now, take a giant step in your own recovery and pray for the person who abused you. Regardless of how difficult it is, make the effort. I know it hurts, but it will begin the process of breaking the chains of your emotional imprisonment. Remember, your resentment doesn’t hurt your abuser; it hurts you

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