Happiness Comes Best Through Serving Others

Here is a quote from Ed Welch, and it is so true: "The best way to live--the way you will be most happy--is to make life more about God and other people than it is about you."

--Ed Welch

  Years ago, when I was much younger, I went through different phases of depression. My husband didn't know what to do with me. I even went to counselors to try to get help, but the best recommendation that we got from someone was that I needed to be serving other people. 

   After years of thinking about that, it made sense. There is just something that is therapeutic about serving others. It does bring joy to one's life when you are serving other people. The alternative is to serve yourself. 

  Serving oneself is kind of like the Dead Sea. In the Dead Sea, water just keeps on coming in, but nothing comes out of it. It just keeps on taking. That is why it is the 'Dead' Sea. There is no life in it because there is no give and take. It doesn't give out the water it receives. It just keeps taking it in. 

   That is like us in our selfish state. We just keep taking things in, but we never give away. God's blessings are abundant, but we keep them to ourselves. 

   We get the most joy and satisfaction when our lives are not about us. Maybe that's the way God intended it to be all along. Maybe because of the fall and our darkened understanding of things, we haven't discovered the joy and freedom that comes from serving others and living our lives out for something other than ourselves.

Taking On The Perpetrator's Guilt

   There are four main categories while dealing with those who are being counseled. They are, 1. suffering, 2. guilt, 3. anger, and 4. fear. Suffering is obviously the most prevalent of all, and Scripture talks to suffering people.
  The problem of guilt is very strong though. People feel guilty for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, the guilt is there as a response to an evil act that someone did. I even remember my dog having a 'guilty' look when he knew he was caught doing something wrong! Some guilt though, is not necessarily guilt from doing something wrong. The devil is clever at reminding us of our failures and he piles on the guilt, sometimes even when we didn't do anything wrong.
  I remember talking with a man one time, about the Gospel. He was convinced that his sins were too heavy or too great for God to forgive him of. He truly did feel guilty, because he was instructed to kill people in Afghanistan, which he did. He killed civilians as well, and now he was having a hard time dealing with his conscience. He had a hard time understanding, or believing that God would forgive him, even if he truly repented. That is what God is in the business of doing though, and He does it best.
  Today I am struck by another angle of this guilt. Many people don't know this, but in the case of a woman or even a little girl who has been raped, something usually always happens that is uniform in just about every case. The person, almost always a male, will tell the girl, after raping her, that if she tells anyone about it, he will do bad something to her. I have hears stories of men taking animals and killing them, then telling the raped woman that he will do that to her if she tells on him. So the little girl or whatever aged woman who just got raped, can't tell anyone about it, or the rapist will make sure she is punished. If that isn't bad enough, the rapist makes sure she knows something else; the rape was her fault. Not only does he threaten to punish her if she tells, but he even informs her that her being raped is her fault! What a trap of Satan that has boggled the minds of women through the centuries.
   I am thinking of those poor young women who were held hostage for a decade in a house in Cleveland, Ohio. These women were the unfortunate victims of a very sin sick man, who abused them in horrendous ways, ways, I'm sure we could never imagine. Ever since learning about how perpetrators treat their victims, you can be sure that this monster of a man has laid the guilt for his crime on these women. The three women who, by God's grace and mercy, were able to escape, are going to need a help that only God can give. They were treated like dirt for ten years. They were basically fed lies by this man, and thankfully they are now out of his dominion. We need to understand that when women come out of something like that, they are going to feel guilty, even though it wasn't their fault. This is where the church comes in. Whenever we counsel women who have experienced sexual abuse, we have to make sure that they do not take the guilt of the perpetrator. That is not their burden to bear. God never intended for women to be sexually abused, let alone taking on the guilt of the abuser.
   I remember trying to help a woman who was abused by men. The last one she was abused by was her ex-husband. He ended up hating her and putting the blame on her. That is what perpetrators do. We had to get her to say out loud, 'I am not responsible for Arthur's sin'. She wasn't responsible for his sin. He chose to be abusive. He will have to bear his own sin, and unless he repents and turns to God, he will pay for his sin in hell.
  I have been reading in the Bible about Jesus evaluating the Scribes and Pharisees. I was surprised to see how hard He came down on the Scribes. They were people who were taking advantage of the weak. Then they would make a pretense to be religious and gain the respect of the community, while ripping people off that couldn't defend themselves. Jesus indicated that their punishment was going to be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah!
  I do understand that at some point, the victim has to forgive the violator. But I think it is so important for the victim to first understand that she is not the cause of the perpetrator's actions against her. This is so important. She will struggle over and over again, and it will be hard for her to understand forgiving her perpetrator until she gets through this part of the difficulty.
  If you are a victim of sexual abuse, and have been violated, please take this to heart. It is not your fault that you got raped. If you have to tell yourself this 1,000+ times, please do it. Do not take the guilt of the perpetrator. If you do, you are not making him responsible for his sin. He will not learn the 'fear of God' if you carry his burden of guilt and believe his lies against you. Give this burden to God. Do not try to work this out in your own strength.
  If you are a perpetrator, and you want help to change, God is bigger than your wicked heart. You will need to repent and make restoration to those you have harmed. Sexual violation is a very serious crime. It is not the victim's fault that you raped her. You are totally responsible for your actions. Not only have you violated someone, but you are trying to make them bear your guilt. This is unacceptable. But know this; even though your sin is very, very serious, if you repent, and turn to Jesus Christ in faith, God can forgive your sin, as bad as it is. If you continue though in your activities of sexual abuse, then you are not really sorry for what you have done. Know that this sin is most serious. It is similar to that of the Scribes that Jesus encountered, of whom Jesus said that their punishment would be worse than those who lived in  Sodom and Gomorrah. The choice is yours.
  For more information on the Gospel, please go to: The Gospel Conversation or Take the Good Person Test. If you have any questions, please send an email to: RUgood@mail.com

Human Beings Are A Complicated Mixture

   How many times have we seen people who have good qualities end up in trouble with something? Take the man who pastors a church and believes in God's holiness. He holds to a high standard of human being living as acceptable to God. Yet, this man ends up in prison on child molestation charges. Or look at the man who sincerely loves God and teaches the Bible accurately. He seems to have a passion for making God's name known in truth. Yet he ends up leaving the ministry, a very bitter man because of disagreements with others leading the ministry. He ends up in a ball of bitterness which becomes the foundation of all that he does from now on. Then there's the mom out there that wanted children but couldn't have them. She finally gets pregnant, and gives birth to a beautiful child which she ends up killing a couple of years later because she couldn't control her anger. Things like this happen every day and we always ask, 'Why?'
   Why did the man who served under Hitler, have a family he loved and took care of? These questions can really throw us off. We are black and white people. Either something is completely one way or completely another way. But the composition of human beings is different. It is not that way with human beings and there is a good reason for that.
  We hear from family members concerning a child or brother who has been found guilty of a brutal murder, and what do they usually say? It is something like this, "My brother would never do something like that." We might hear, "He wouldn't hurt a fly." We seem to be taken by surprise. Yet, there is an answer to this mystery.
   When God first created human beings, He made them in His image. That means there will be certain characteristics that will mirror what God is like. One of them is creativity. Another would be having dominion. In the case of human beings, man was to have dominion over animals and other parts of God's creation. All human beings have a natural love. But even this love can be suppressed. We can make decisions. We can build things. We can do a lot of other things because of being created in God's image. But something really drastic happened to make all this unclear to us today. After God created man in His image, He gave man everything that grew from the Garden for food. But there was one tree in particular, out of all the trees that God created, that God did not give permission for man to eat from. If man were to eat from it, he would die. This was spiritual death, but it also brought about physical death. Man disobeyed, and God pronounced a curse on mankind, as well as on the earth and on the devil. Not too long after this, man found himself involved in wars, murders, and all kinds of difficulties were on the horizon for mankind. Now the dilemma begins. People who were created in God's image, now have sinful hearts. No wonder Paul expresses grief at this struggle in Romans 7. We are now born in sin, yet we still are in the image of God. How interesting. How mysterious. This is why we have a hard time understand people. This is why we have a hard time understanding the Gospel. It would seem to us that if we are created in God's image, then basically we are good people. But if we really took a good look at our hearts, and if we could remember every evil thought or intention we had during the week, we might have a different understanding of ourselves. Can people who are created in God's image really be sinful? Yes! That is what happened to us. God created us perfect and in His image. Adam sinned by disobeying God and plunged the whole human race into sin. The image of God in human beings, although blurred, is still there.
   But understand that by being created in God's image does not mean we automatically go to heaven when we die. God must punish sin, all sin, every sin we commit has to be punished, even though we are created in God's image. That doesn't cancel our sinful hearts. God punished our sins when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth 2,000 years ago. He died in our place. He carried our sins on Himself and took the punishment for us. But that doesn't automatically get us off the hook. We have to turn from our sins and repent, and trust in Jesus as our Savior. Then He becomes our Lord as we live out our lives for His glory. See also http://thegospelconversation.blogspot.com for more information on that.
  So we are a complicated mixture. But God has a plan. When we are born again, we receive a new heart. We still have the capacity to sin, but our new heart can't sin and hates sin. We experience the turmoil that Paul did as he expressed in Romans 7. He asks a question; "Who will deliver me from this body of death?". He answers the question right after that one; "But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!".
  So the next time you are dealing with a loved one or friend, and you can't figure them out, remember that they are complicated. He or she is created in God's image, yet he or she has a sinful nature, which blurs the image of God and affects his or her whole being. God wants us to love one another, and be patient with one another. He wants us to speak the truth in love. Don't think that you friend is hopeless. God is at work and promises that once He begins a work, He will complete it. That is what we aim for. We watch God begin good works in the lives of people. Then we patiently, lovingly walk with them as they grow in discipleship.