"You Are Now Free to Go"

  “You are free to go now” After the Civil War, the slaves that were brought to America were pronounced ‘free’ but how many of them knew about that or acted upon their new status? In much the same way, I think Christians are set free, but, they are acting like they are still slaves of sin. Could it be because we are not informed of our freedom yet? Possibly. Or could it be because of habit? All our lives we were slaves of sin, now God’s word tells us we are free, but we are still in the mindset of the slave.

  There was a time when I really didn’t get the whole concept of being set free from anything. I thought Jesus died to take away my sin and now I could be forgiven for my sins. I didn’t realize that not only did Jesus die for my sins to pay for them, but the power of the Cross also sets us free from the bondage of sin. There is a difference between being aware of what sin is, and being in bondage to sin. It also protects us from the deception of sin. People today cannot only be forgiven of their sins, but they can also experience freedom from the bondage of sin. That is where many of us miss the boat, unfortunately. Part of that is because we don’t have a very full understanding of sin in our lives and the ramifications of our sins. We can have our eyes opened to see how great God is and how ugly our lies are. We can repent from lying because we know that it is wrong. But it is another thing to be set free from living a life where we feel like we have to lie and be deceptive. We have to identify the idols that are being supported by our lying. When our hearts are changed, we can be set free from the bondage of having to live with sin as our companion.

   Old habits are hard to break. Old mindsets are hard to change. You can condition a dog to behave a certain way. Let’s say that a person was cruel and had a dog. Let’s say that the cruel person kept the dog in a crate most of the time. Sometimes he would let the dog out. For a short time, the dog was delighted. It was out and it was free, so it thought, until the owner beat it. After a while, the dog would not want to come out anymore. He would know that he was going to be beaten again if he came back out. I think sin is like that. The Bible says that we are slaves to sin before our conversion. We enjoy sin for a season, but then the bad effects of sin come about. When we come to Christ in repentance and faith, the chains that held us down are broken, but do we realize it? Do we realize that now the tables are turned? Now we have the power to overcome sin.

   Through sanctification we learn to experience victory over sin and freedom from the bondages of sin. It doesn’t come overnight though. But it won’t come if we are not informed by the Word of God. If we are not studying the Bible and learning what God says to us, we will be uninformed of what is ours through the Cross. We will live in ignorance of the Power of God. Read the following words of the song called, ‘Praise the Lord’ by the Imperials:

Now Satan is a liar
And he wants to make us think
That we are paupers
When he knows himself
We're children of the King

If we don’t know what the Bibles says about our victory over sin and how we access it, we won’t live in victory. By default, we will listen to Satan and believe his lies about who he says we are (or aren’t).

Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Romans 12:1,2 : I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.

Titus 2:11,12 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

God gives us the power to say 'no' to sin, and 'yes' to righteousness. All this can happen because of what Jesus did on the Cross.

If you have any questions about this topic and want to write, please send an email to RUgood@mail.com

Remove the Baggage!

   Here is a simple reason for doing Biblical counseling: In order for some people to be helped, someone has to remove the baggage that was put on them throughout their lives. The average person just needs to hear the Gospel and have a Biblical understanding of who God is, what sin is, what sin has done to them and their relationship to God, what God must do about sin, and what God has done to take care of our sin problem. The average Joe can get this. It can make sense to him.
   But there are people out there that have loads of baggage on them, that will prevent them from seeing the Gospel, or being able to grasp the fact that we are sinners in need of a Savior. These people have to have the baggage taken off them before the Gospel will make sense to them. That is what Biblical counseling does. It makes it so a person who has a warped understanding of reality can come face to face with the fact that he or she is a sinful person in need of a Savior. Biblical counseling and Biblical evangelism work hand in hand to help promote the Gospel.
   I am thinking of an example in the Bible that describes this scenario. In Mark 5, there is a man who has been possessed by a demon (or many demons). His life, as far as he can tell, is completely gone. He will live the rest of his life in horror if nothing comes about to change his circumstance. He lived in the cemeteries and no one could do anything to help him. He was completely hopeless. And the worst part of his story is that after he died, he would face God in judgment and spend eternity in hell. But God...God came on the scene and delivered the man. The demons were made to leave. The man was now able to get a grasp on the Gospel. Jesus came to the rescue. Now, this man not only was demon free, but now he was a servant of the True and Living God! The baggage came off him and now he can clearly see God!
  We can be used of God to 'take the baggage off' people too. We can minister the Gospel to them, and they will have a clear view of God. They will see their need for salvation, and see how horrible their sin is before a holy God.
  If a person has been victimized by others, he will see the terrible sin of what someone else did to him or her. It will be hard for a person to see her own sin, because the other person's sin is so much greater in their eyes. Plus, people who are victimized by others, will take the blame for the other person's sin against them. It is the nature of being victimized. That's why those who do the victimizing think they are getting away with it. God sees the sin of the victimizer, and He will deal with it. But we have to help those who have been destroyed by others. We have to help them work through their victimization so they can properly see their own sin before God, and therefore will be able to deal with their sin properly through the Cross.
   Here are two web sites that offer information on Biblical counseling:
CCEF
www.ibcd.org

How Would You Counsel A Person Like This?

I am going to post part of a person's testimony of how she was redeemed in a glorious way, set free and delivered from being trapped in a Satanic cult. How would you counsel a person coming into your church with such baggage? What kind of patience would be necessary to work with such a person in order for them to have all ties cut off from the effects of being part of the cult? Remember, most of these people did not choose to be born into a family of Satanic worshipers. They are fed lies from the time they are born. The lies need to be exposed and removed and replaced with the Truth of God's Word.
   When I think of counseling a SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) survivor, it reminds me of how Anne Sullivan worked with Helen Keller many years until success was finally achieved. Working with an SRA survivor is not a piece of cake. It takes work and a lot of patience. We have the advantage of calling on God's name for help. We have to constantly point people to the True and Living God, and they will eventually experience the deliverance they are seeking.
Here is the url for the SRA survivor:
http://crosswalklife.com/ls.dissociative-identity-disorder.htm

I think we used to be taught that there is no such thing as the 'healing of memories'. I am not sure what that meant, or what that applied to, but it seemed to have some association with the Therapeutic Movement, which has a philosophy that is based on solving problems by using the person's ego as the foundation for their help, rather than the Scriptures. Perhaps this thinking of the 'healing of memories' has to do with the fact that SRA survivors were just starting to tell their stories, and those who heard their stories thought they were making them up. Well, since there are more and more of these bizarre stories surfacing, there must be something to it. The only other alternative would be that these SRA survivors are plotting something like a conspiracy, which really doesn't make any sense. So their stories of having terrible memories must be true, and we need to listen to them in order to help them get well.
   God is bigger than any of their difficulties, and there is nothing too hard for Him. 'With God, all things are possible..' even recovering from SRA, which includes dealing with the humility and shame from rapes, electroshocking, threatenings for telling on the cult and their shameful acts, having to take vows in order to survive the cult, and the list goes on and on. It is unbelievable stuff that takes place in a home where SRA is active. And the most difficult part is, these people keep it so well hidden (the word for occult) that no one on the outside even has a clue they are doing these things. Let's pray for God to expose the works of darkness and let's minister with love and patience to these people who are trying to come out of this.
Here is an excerpt of a person's testimony of coming out of darkness into God's marvelous light:

TESTIMONY:
I've known suffering for 47 years. After surviving 3 abortion attempts by my mother, I was born dead, strangled by the very cord of life. After resuscitation, I was left stone deaf. But my mother's mother hounded heaven for my hearing. When I was 9 months old, my praying grandmother called my mother to check my ears; God told her they were healed. I've had perfect hearing ever since. What a life God saved me from once again!  My young parents consequently believed in Jesus and redemption started in my generation.

But -- the lingering curses of sexual abuse, satanic loyalties, rituals and incest came down through the generations on my father's side and assaulted my soul from birth to 18 years old.  My paternal grandparents secretly schooled me in satanism since I was one year old.  My tiny heart was unable to contain the pain; I began to dissociate over and over, in order to survive.  I ran away from home by the age of 4--and got a mile away when I was 6.  After an unsuccessful suicide attempt at 14, Jesus reached out to me, offering His gift of unconditional love and salvation. I understood my sin and my need for His forgiveness and salvation--but not His Lordship.

Shortly after, when I was confronted with my grandfather's sexual desire, I spoke from the heart of a child: "Jesus lives in my heart now. You can't do this anymore." He never touched me again. (I thought he was such a powerful man -- but it only took that one "no" from a child to keep his hands off of me.) But the sibling incest continued until each of us girls left home.

You can read the rest of this story at the above URL. Please realize that these people are all around us. Hidden but there. They need help. We are God's agents to help them. Let's be faithful to God and follow His calling to love and help these people. If the church doesn't help, they will either go back to the cult or they will commit suicide. That is the only alternatives they know. Let's pray that God help us to be the church. 

Dealing With Those Who Have Been Victimized

  As I research Biblical counseling, I realize that there are some people with situations that are not so easy to deal with. It is not as easy as telling them that they need to repent and put their trust in the Lord. There are some people who are so broken that you don't know if they will ever be repaired. Here is something that David Powlison said in one of his sessions on Psychiatric Disorders: "We are dealing with things that are so broken and there is no promise at all that we will make it all better."
   There are two different types of people we deal with in counseling. The first group are people who are people who are generally not ensnared in the complexity of sin that would keep them from understanding and responding to the Gospel. The second group is the group of those who have been victimized. Before I go too much further, I already know the stigma that goes with this. We think that people who are 'victims' are those who are presenting a 'victim' mentality. Yes, I think they generally do, but there is a bigger picture we have to look at. That is what I am going to cover on this blog.
     I would like to start by saying a few things. All of us are victims, in one sense. We are victims of our sin, and the sins of others. I used to think of myself as a victim. I came from a pretty average home. We went to church, so we really were fairly moral people. Although my parents didn't talk about sin or the Bible, they had many of the principles down, possibly because those principles were put into them. I had a dad who was very quiet and didn't talk much at all to his family members. Throughout my school years, I was quiet and the other kids bullied me around. The only way I responded was to them was by crying. So, as I grew up, I was affected by the way other people treated me. I came to Christ and responded to the Gospel at about the age of 16, and I thought, as a young adult, that there were too many things that were wrong in my childhood, that made it so I couldn't overcome certain things. Without realizing it, I had a 'victim' mentality. But like I said before, we are all victims of some things, but realistically speaking, I was not a victim of anything that was too difficult to work through.
   But there are people who have such complex difficulties that really are not their fault. There are people with medical conditions that affect their thinking. There are people who are schizophrenic and hear voices. There are women who were raped many times during their childhood. Do you think it is as easy to say to a rape victim, 'Just forget what was done to you when you were little. Concentrate on the Lord and it will be ok."? Her life and her whole way of thinking has been shaped by those traumatic events in her early life. Our job is to help her learn to renew her mind and learn the truths of who God is and what He is like. There is no five-step plan for doing this. It takes time and patience. It takes a lot of work. There are many things for the rape victim to overcome. If we expect her to just come out of her shell and stop distrusting God, we are losing the battle with her. Yes, the goal ultimately will be for her to be delivered and set free from everything that Satan put into her to hold her down and keep her from understanding and believing the Gospel, but it is how we go about doing that.
    Some people have such complex problems, and if you listen to their stories, you will find some very interesting things. For example, did you know that there are adults who were victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse? Do you realize what the ramifications are for a person who has come out of this horror? Some day I will have to post a message just on Satanic Ritual Abuse. It would be an understatement to say that SRA is bad. It is bad in such a way that the person who is coming out of it had strong Satanic holds on him or her that have to be broken, through deliverance, and much Biblical counseling. You will have to walk a such a person through many seasons of healing and deliverance. These people have been victimized and need help. Many, if not most, have no clue of what their families are involved in, or why they need to be set free. Let me be more specific on this issue. Children that are born into families who practice Satanic Ritual Abuse are trained or conditioned to do what the parents or perpetrators want them to do or be. If the parent wants the child to never show emotion, the parent will put electrodes on the child and shock him or her as soon as the child shows emotions. Imagine living a childhood where you were always being shocked when you did something that displeased an authority figure. This process is called 'Conditioning'. We do it with out pets all the time (not in a cruel way). For example, if the dog goes out at 9 pm every night, and gets a cookie every time he comes back in, he is conditioned to know that a cookie will be in his mouth when he comes in from his nightly outing! Some of the conditioning that Satanic Ritual Abusers do involves using rape. Not only are the SRA people into sexual perversion, but they also know that if they continually rape a little girl, they will fracture her mind and create a situation where the child will basically blank out, and during the trauma, she will create personalities with her subconscience mind that will be aware of what goes on during the trauma. The ritual abusers know that if they fracture her mind, they will basically have her as a slave the rest of her life. After they are gone, the little girl, who becomes a woman, will normally gravitate toward a perpetrator. She is told that she will need a perpetrator the rest of her life to survive. Her life now depends upon a perpetrator, of whom she will be his slave. She has been conditioned to believe this lie, and now she won't be able to get free from it unless there are compassionate people who can reach her. It will take much time, perhaps years, before she can 'get it'. Her whole thinking pattern has to be reshaped with the Truth. Unless that successfully happens, she will not ever be free. Her understanding of the Gospel will always be clouded and twisted.
   On the other hand, there are people like me, who really aren't victims of someone else's sins against them. It didn't take months and years for me to grasp the Gospel. But there were still things that held me back from growing that had to be dealt with. There are still things I need to be set free from. I understand that there are people who really don't want to be free from their sins too. They might come in for counseling. Maybe they have low self esteem. Perhaps they are out of work. Maybe they are lazy and don't want to work. Maybe they are sick and really don't want to get well, but they are tired of being sick. Some of these people will not be benefitted from Biblical counseling. Their heart doesn't want to leave their sinful pattern. They do not want to pay the price for being well. When counseling with these people, there will always be reasons why they can't repent. They want benefits from God, but they are not willing to be changed by Him. These are the people with the 'victim mentality' that are so hard to deal with. They are not trapped by what someone else did to them necessarily, but they seemed trapped by their sin. The problem is in their heart. They are not really looking for an answer for their problem, nor are they looking for an answer for their sin. They just want an open ear to listen to their complaints. When they finish telling you their sordid life tales, they will go onto another person to tell their stories to.
   So the key is to become very discerning. How do I know when I really have a victimized person or a person with a 'victim mentality'? Sometimes, it is hard to tell. You have to take time with the person and probably spend many hours listening to his story. After a while, you will be able to see some motives. You will see some inconsistencies if the person is really telling his story in order to complain. After some time, maybe a very long time, you will be able to know though. It will help you decide if you are really helping someone, or if you are just spinning your wheels. Of course, pray for wisdom and discernment with everyone you encounter in counseling. People can fool us for a while, but God is never fooled.

M.P.D. is Difficult To Work With

  I will just start out by saying that M.P.D. can be hard to work with. There are a few reasons for this. Mostly, it is because it is misunderstood. M.P.D. is sometimes thought of as demon possession. Others seem to think it is the product of an overactive imagination. What is it really, and why is it difficult to work with?
   One reason it is difficult, is because people who have had severe trauma seem to have a problem with memories coming up that are bad. Part of the problem with M.P.D., is that when the child is being traumatized, he or she basically blanks out. Because the child has to function, the awareness part of his being disappears. Another part of his or her mind goes into action then, to help him or her cope with the bad situation. Then memories are created, but they are hidden deep in the sub conscience mind. They usually stay hidden until this part of the memory wakes up again (which could happen in a dream). Because the traumas were so severe and bizarre, people tended to dismiss them. But now, people all over the country are finding these same memories appearing in people and are puzzled to know how to help them.
   For many years, a little girl who was raped was forced to keep it hidden (by the perpetrator) and made to feel guilty for what was done to her. She was not allowed to tell people and when she did try, people would not believe her story. Today, that happens and because we now know it actually does happen, and has been happening all along, we will believe her story. It is the same way now with ritual abuse survivors. They are trying to tell their story, but not many people believe them, yet. But, in time, they will, and these people will be able to get the help they need, if we are diligent to learn how to care for them.
   More on this later....

People Really Are Broken and Need Help

    When I started presenting the Gospel to people a couple of years ago, I began to realize that communicating the Gospel to some people was not as easy as just telling them the Truth. Some people have an incredible amount of baggage that they need to get rid of, before they can even begin to comprehend the Gospel. I am amazed at how many people really do want to talk and get help. We have the answer for them, and we have the ultimate answer for them to get help. But why is there a disconnect in the church in reaching these people? There could be several reasons. One of them I think, is that when we present the Gospel to a person, we don't want to get side tracked. That's understandable. If a person is hearing the Gospel, it would be easy for him or her to want to be distracted because he or she is feeling uncomfortable being under conviction. Many people would like to put the responsibility of their sin back on to God (remember Adam, "The woman you gave  me....."?). But there is a group of people out there in the world that seem to be really disconnected from the Gospel. And they are not your typical people who are opposed to the Gospel. They are people who have been so damaged by their environment that life doesn't make sense to them, and as a result, they have believed a lie.
   Take for example, a woman who has been a victim of rape or incest. Will it be easy for her to come to Christ and let go of her sins? Her dignity has been taken away. How will she get it back? What kind of difficulties will this present to her when she tries to comprehend the Gospel? Her understanding of who God is has already been shaped by her life circumstances. And they have lied to her. How can we reach her?
   What about children who live in a home where crime is always taking place? When I worked for a drug store many years ago, a woman came up to buy several packages of nail products. It seemed kind of strange, but I didn't think too much of it until she went to pay with a check and didn't have the proper ID that she needed to have. I called the manager to find out what to do, and he came to the front and explained to me, right in front of her, that she was stealing. He already knew who she was. What was interesting, was that she had children with her. I wonder what those children thought was true about life, after they grew up. They would grow up thinking that stealing is ok. They would think it is ok to break the boundaries.
   And then there are the sue-happy families. They wait for something to happen so that they can turn around and sue people so they can make money. Or, there are people who use the government in every way they can imagine to get money or things from them. I actually know someone who lived like this for a while as a child, and now that person, as a grown up, believes that she does not have to go to work, but live on food stamps and other government offerings, while she goes down the street and gambles with whatever little bit of money she can get.
   The point is this; We are all victims of something, and we all do victimizing of some sort to others. But some people are damaged in a serious, life-hampering way, that causes them to not be able to see what is what and true. So, instead of just preaching the Gospel to them, and becoming frustrated because there is no response to it, why can't we go deeper with these people and draw them out? We might hear stories of things we never even had any idea that they existed. We might learn something new that will help us in dealing with others. Many people need someone to show them love. Some people have never learn to trust anyone, because those they lived with were untrustworthy. All these misfortunes have shaped peoples ideas about God and what He is like. Sometimes, we have to go beyond square one with these people and teach them the basics about God (much like Paul had to do with the Ephesians in Acts 17). And, we might have an opportunity to undo the works of the devil. As we take time with people, we can take steps to help them to see what is true, and eventually, what God requires of them. If we don't do this, there will be a lot of casualties in the church. We need to be loving and forbearing, and not always trying to give them a quick answer to fix their problems.
   Here is the link to a video of a dog who had been obviously hurt. Someone rescued her, and she eventually responded to love. It took a little while, but it worked! Some people are like that dog. We need to treat people's lives as we would treat fine China. We also need to prepare the way, so the Gospel can be communicated to them. That is there greatest need and we have to help remove the baggage so the meaning of the Gospel will be clear to them.
   www.godvine.com/Meet-the-Scared-Dog-That-Only-Wanted-a-Hug-1087.html

Their Blood is Crying Out

"And God said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries unto me from the ground." 

"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6)


   In dealing with evangelism and Biblical counseling, we have always just gotten to the point with issues. In evangelism, you just get right to the Gospel, right? You want to be careful to not get off onto bunny trails. Satan certainly uses those to distract from the message of the Gospel. But in counseling, we do the same thing. We want to fix people's problems. We give them scriptures that they can apply to their situation. We want people's problems to go away, isn't that true? Well, yes, we do want them to go away, but God wants to take that situation and work His truth in that person's heart. Counseling is not as easy as giving a five step course to help someone out of their problems, nor is it that easy sometimes when we do evangelism. Yes, the Gospel is ultimately what everyone needs to have in both counseling and evangelism.
   There are groups of people though, that are much harder to reach. It's not as easy as just preaching the Gospel to them, (although that is what the ultimate goal will be). I am talking about people, here in America today, that are in slavery. You are probably thinking, 'Wait a minute. There's no slavery in America today. That ended after the Civil War era." Well, there may be more to this that you don't know. 
   First of all, there are the cults. Take for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses. Did you know that when  a Jehovah's Witness comes to Christ and leaves the group, that they have a very harsh excommunication for that person? Not only that, but all family members are not to have contact with that person ever again.
   Coming out of Islam is even worse. It could mean your life if you were born into a Muslim family and converted to Christianity. I have known people who were in this situation and it is very hard.
  But it gets even worse. If a person is born into a Satanic cult family, that child will probably go through a life of torture. If there is any concern of that child betraying the family secret, even when the child grows up, they will deal with that child, possibly by death.
   I said all this to say that there really is slavery here today. I know it is not limited to America. People's wills are taken away from birth. Not only that, but some families will deliberately destroy their children's minds so that they end up warped when they are adults. There are more and more reports of people that have developed what is called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which is the same thing by another name. The way a person ends up with DID is this; The child is treated with trauma at a very young age. It is done deliberately in order to fracture their minds. When a child is developing this condition, they are also developing amnesia to the traumatic situations. In other words, they won't remember the trauma that happened to them, but they will end up with a fractured mind. Some types of trauma are rape, electrocution, food/sleep deprivation, and physical beatings. One reason that people would be doing these things to children could be political. I have read where there are people who are trying to 'Break the mind'. Another time I read where there were people who are trying to employ these methods to create a society of robotic people. Many of these people who have experienced this kind of trauma and have DID also have had microchips implanted in their bodies. I could go on with a whole list more of things that happen to these people, but the point is this; We have a whole group of people that are trying to get help, but don't know where to turn or how they can even be helped. We, as Christian people and Biblical counselors have to know how to help these people. Some of them are so afraid of people that they seem hard to reach. Most of them are more afraid of being caught by other family members or members of that group. We need wisdom from above and help from God.
   The verses above apply to this situation, and here's how; there are a lot of people who have died at the hands of these cruel taskmasters. People have become human sacrifices for Satan. Children that have survived this mess can't seem to get out. The blood of the people who have died is crying out to God for justice! Those who have survived are also asking the same thing. How long O Lord? How long will this go on? How long will Dads get away with incest? How long will people be taken and microchipped and get away with it? How long will this torture go on? Why do we as a people not believe that it is really happening? Why do we think humans wouldn't really be doing such things? Because we think it happens in other countries, but not here in safe America. And we fail to understand the depravity of man.
   There are other types of slavery too. There is also sex trafficking which young girls are brought into prostitution. They didn't ask to be there. Someone exploited them and brought them in, in order to make money off them. We have to deal properly with all the after effects of this crime. 
  Yes, their blood is crying out. The blood of millions of aborted babies is crying out. The blood of those damaged from being in the cult is crying out. They are not only crying out to God for justice, but they are crying out for help. Their only hope is in the Cross, and they need to have that message available to them. They will need for people (believers) to accept them. They will need to learn to trust us (which will be very hard) and we need to become trustworthy. Let's be asking for God's help and wisdom, in counseling and evangelism, and let's be careful to listen next time and not turn someone away because their story seems too bizarre. If we don't help them, no one else can. Let's be the church and let's be the advocate for those who are enslaved!