Shame

GOD? What Do You Want From Me? [Part 2]


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1 John 4:7-11 – “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  NKJV

 

             Imagine a God who is Omniscient (all knowing) who does not like us.  That is a horrific thought, right?  Most of us have or have had a secret(s) that we were ashamed to confess even to our closest friends but God KNOWS everything about us and knows our thoughts even before we think them.  The terror that would accompany the thought that God who knows all about us and does not even like us would drive us suicidal.  He would be an infinite monster!

The Bible never says:  God HAS Power or Love it says HE IS!  Love is not something apart from Him it is WHO HE IS.  But what is Love?  What is Love as it is spoken of here in this passage?  Love, in the English language has become almost a worthless word for we apply it to so many things and give it some many shades of meaning.  What do we think of when we say or hear Love?

Let me suggest a possibility:  It means that we reach out to someone we can reasonably count on that is in our class.  Before you get self-righteous and pious, that is exactly what most of us do much of the time if not all the time.  In European history when a member of a royal family fell in love with a commoner they were fired.  If the king fell for a commoner and married them he would be required to give up his throne.  Likewise when we humans fall in love we tend to keep within our self-imposed boundaries.  Naturally we do not talk about it and possibly refuse to admit it but we do it.

When we say LOVE what do we mean?  If I love a person I am acknowledging that person calls forth my highest admiration and when I look at them I admire them.  We are so captivated by them that when we talk about them they are elevated to a level of worship in our eyes and minds.  We adore them!  Likewise when we LOVE someone it means they answer to what I feel is beauty (eye of the beholder).  Beauty is something that happens in our heads and that is what we usually understand to be love.

But when it comes to God and the Bible declares:  “God is Love” many assume that God is Love in the same way we love.  Virtually every religion in existence has a concept of God based on human love.  However, if God loves like we love how would that work out?  Think with me through some problems with that concept:

  • He cannot find anyone in His Class so immediately we are eliminated. If he were to get friendly with us he would be fired as being God so we are out in the cold.
  • He cannot find anyone in harmony with Him (before salvation) so our disharmony disqualifies us. He is love and holiness and we are selfish and have no plans to change (before salvation).
  • He cannot find any human that would elicit in Him a sense that says about us, ‘That is the best person I know’ for our righteousness are as filthy rags and there is none good (before salvation).

         The dilemma for us is that if God loves like we love we are TOAST!  It is over! We are without hope and hopeless lost forever!   I heard a most appropriate illustration that explains this beautifully:

A missionary went to a witch-doctor and said:  “You preach to me. I come to you with a problem. How would you tell me to reach the Most High God?  I know you have many gods, but I want to reach the Big One, the Most High God.”  The witch-doctor said: “First, you have a big problem, because the Most High God is not interested in you for you are not good enough for him.”  That’s where their religion begins!  Sadly, we have heard the same thing in much more sophisticated terms in church.  We have been told, in so many ways, that we are not good enough for God and He is not interested.

When the Bible says:  God is Love it means that He does not reach out to someone in His class but reaches out to Whosoever Will or reaches down to mankind.  Human love reaches up but God’s love reaches down.  God loves the lost, hopeless, messed up, twisted, distorted, bent, wicked, evil and sinful man and offers LIFE, LOVE and LIBERTY through Jesus!  That is the Gospel message.  What does God want from us?  He wants to dwell in us and with us and manifest Himself through us!

God bless you as you go through this day!

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LET’S CONSIDER SHAME – – (Continued)…


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2 Corinthians 4:1-2 – “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”  NKJV

Back to our discussion or consideration of the third type of shame where we hear and believe we are ‘worthless’ and ‘flawed’ to the point of having no value.  Some believers have been abused in their past and carry the baggage of shame with them.  They are emotionally, mentally and spiritually imprisoned and cannot seem to break free and often do not realize the root cause of their problems.  They were told they were (stupid, idiots, brainless, an accident waiting to happen, clumsy, and dunce, nerdy, ugly and worthless or worse).  They have been SHAMED and now ARE SHAME!

It would do us all well to take to heart the words of James 3:6 where we are told that words or the tongue set on fire the whole course of nature.  It is amazing how many people are living out what someone said about them years before.  I want you to understand that one word, one phrase or one incidence does not do it.  What happens is when you are ‘shamed’ you hear it and then like a recording play it back over and over until it is internalized and you believe it.  Remember Proverbs tells us that ‘as a man thinks in his heart so is he.’  Once you have internalized it you are not long experiencing shame you have become shame.  You have believed the lie and it is tormenting you in ways you do not even realize.  Dear one I offer you the words of 1 John 4:17 – “…as He is, so are we IN THIS WORLD.”  That is how we are to live and our worth to God.

Shame will show up in ‘addictions’ and ‘fantasies’.  It is not WHO you are for if you are in Christ you are a NEW CREATION.  In Christ you are the righteousness of God.  Shame is a foreign element that has attached itself and it does not belong!  It is not what you did it is what was done to you.  Let me take this to an extreme and relate an incident that I know of where a couple went to a party and the husband made a joke about his wife’s big nose and as a result she was so shamed she became a recluse.

When we are shamed we attempt to hide it.  The fear of humiliation is so powerful that in most cases those shamed build impenetrable walls to protect themselves.  They live lives in darkness fearing failure, rejection and even success and that shame continues to reenact itself in their lives.  An abused person will frequently develop a relationship with an abuser.  A person raised in a home where there are addictions will often develop relationships with people who are in the clutches of addictions.  There is a spirit that develops in the heart of the shamed that draws them to like spirits. It becomes a prison that only God can set truly you free from.

Some become manipulative and compulsively obsessive and control freaks for they dare not let anyone else be, in control for fear of shame.  This shame will sometimes cover itself through addictions (eating disorders, drugs, gossip, rage, etc.)  The person living in this prison will often shame others.  Why?  The old saying, “misery loves company” could readily apply.  By tearing down others it falsely makes them feel better about themselves saying, ‘see I’m not the only one.’

HOW DO WE DEAL SHAME?

  • The shame we are responsible for we take to the Cross.
  • The shame given to others we go to the Cross but we also ask forgiveness and take the shame back.

             This shame is more difficult for we must accept our responsibility in receiving it.  In this condition we find it difficult to believe in the TOTAL redeeming power of God for we are flawed.  What we must come to understand is that JESUS bore that shame on the Cross taking our flaws and remaking us.  We need to ‘give it back’.  But to whom do we give it?  Not the one who shamed us for that would be shaming them.  We give it back to the originator of it, the devil.  We forgive those who shamed us and release them, then we give back the shame to the devil and confess the Lordship of Jesus and that we are NEW CREATIONS in Him and not the person of that shame!

You can be free!   May God be with you as you go through your day!

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