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How much does guilt and self rejection hold you back from what is most important to you in life?

Do guilty feelings keep you from confidence, happiness, and success? Feelings of guilt or self rejection will usually hold you back from most of what you desire out of life unless you choose to change those mindsets and bring restoration to your confidence and self esteem.

I have been enjoying a book by Brennan Manning called, Abba’s Child; it was a recent gift from a friend. In the beginning of the book, he discusses his own path to overcoming shame and self rejection. He is aware that his own past experiences are so common in the human experience that many people will benefit from the results of his journey to self acceptance and value.

One of the main behaviors that cause a person to live with guilt and self rejection is the habit of projecting his or her feelings of self onto God.

The emotional weight is great when one feels shame or self disapproval of past choices, decisions, or just the person that you are. How much greater is that weight when one convinces himself that his Heavenly Father, his Creator, the most phenomenal being in the universe thinks all the same negative, condemning thoughts about him? Yet, this is a typical thought pattern in the human experience, though we are usually unaware that this is what we are doing.

Usually included in these projected thoughts is the idea that life’s good and bad times signal God’s approval or rejection.

As Manning says, it is easy to feel loved by God when life is going well, all your support systems are in place Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

I was reminded today of a quote that clearly describes the Fatherly comfort God desires to bring us.

Visualize the level of comfort that a fearful child receives from being held in the arms of a loving father. Visualize the comfort a grieving person receives in the arms of a loving friend or spouse. Now visualize the comfort that a newborn baby receives when placed in the arms of its mother so that he can hear her heartbeat and know that safety and loving nurturing is still there.

This is the same visual picture God gives of Himself in His relationship with us.

Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him. The one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders. (Deut.33:12)

Where is your source of comfort and what is its depth?

God desires that we receive whatever comfort possible from our human relationships, but whether that is available to you or not, nothing can compare to the comfort you can receive from resting in the arms of your loving Father God, resting between His shoulders — a level of closeness in which you can Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

In rejection recovery, realize that negative thoughts cannot be changed without replacing them with positive ones.

This is Part 2 of a 2 part post.  If you missed Part 1, please use the series link above to read it first as Part 1 covers the two initial steps for recovering from rejection.

To overcome the negativity that is overrunning your thought life as a result of the rejection, you must actively make yourself think on thoughts that will move you forward to the productive life you should be living. There are 3 main ways to replace thoughts of rejection.

1. Base your value on God’s value of you. With all the beauty that exists in creation, with all the billions of people, God still loves you and considers you precious and honored in His sight (Is. 43:4). Scripture describes that God saw your unformed body before you were born, already knew all the days of your life before it began, and that His thoughts of you outnumber the grains of sand–because He thinks so often about you. (Ps. 139:15-18) Throughout the up’s and down’s of life, it is essential that you base your value of yourself on the value God sees in you. This is the only way your value of yourself can remain constant. It cannot be based on people because people come and go in our lives, even if it is by death. Your value cannot be based on your career or other abilities because, one day, you will no longer be able to do those things.

2. Be your own cheerleader. This is a self-help tip that I’ve heard Joel Osteen say many times and it is worth repeating. Every day, get up in the morning and be your own cheerleader. Say good things about yourself to yourself! Speak to yourself about God’s value of you. Throughout the day, remind yourself of your value and your abilities. And, it doesn’t hurt to Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Rejection comes to each of us, but we can take steps to heal and move forward with the productive life we deserve and desire.

Many readers have asked for help in dealing with rejection from parents and other relationships. Whether rejection comes from a family member, friend, co-worker, or even a mere stranger, it leaves us with a wide variety of emotions, such as pain and guilt, and questions as to why someone would feel that way about us. Let’s cover several steps that help us to heal and move forward to a happier life.

First, don’t spend a great deal of time questioning why.

Unless the person broke off the relationship due to a major personality flaw on your part which they directly communicated to you as the cause of the rejection — and you already know you need to work on that aspect — quit questioning why. If there was no such communication on the offender’s part, speculation will not help you for the following reason. If the cause was a personality flaw on your part and they were not willing to communicate in such a way as to allow for healing and reconciliation Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

What can practically be done about the past failures and guilt?

There are some simple steps you can daily implement to help you move past guilt.  (If you missed Part 1 of this 2-part post, please use the above series link. Part 1 explains what God Himself says about His compassionate, forgiving, uncomdemning nature to help you remove emotional hindrances in receiving the good He desires to bring into your life. This is heavier reading than most posts on this site but should help those of you struggling with guilt, condemnation, and other negative thought patterns that hinder healing. )

First, a reminder– as mentioned in Part 1, to receive healing it is only logical that all habits of a destructive lifestyle need to be left in the past.   Scripture refers to this as repentance, a 180 degree turn around. Otherwise, it is like the continually unsuccessful dieter who starves herself or himself for a couple of days, only to binge for several days thereafter. Next, as also mentioned in Part 1 of this post, just as God’s mercies toward us are new every morning we need to have mercy on ourselves and release the guilt of past failures. If God deems us worthy of such mercy, we can honestly show such mercy to ourselves.

But what about those who are plagued by guilt, not as much self-imposed, but from inaccurate childhood teachings about God that have left them with images of an angry, harmful, unforgiving God? If you suffer from harmful, inaccurate childhood teachings about God, it will take some discipline of focusing on truth to eradicate that input.

On the practical side, many people print out a list of verses such as covered in this article and spend sometimes even months of daily repeating out loud the truth God says about Himself, i.e., God’s continually renewing compassion, graciousness, desire for our wholeness and superabundant life in quality. Another beneficial verse along this line is Psalm 103:10, “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” If people have put into your mind as a child the image of God standing over you eagerly desiring to punish you for the slightest mistake, Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Whether or Not You Believe You Deserve to be Well Greatly Affects All Aspects of Your Health!

Though it sounds like an absurd question, but medical science has proven that your mental perspective, what you think about yourself and God, has a great effect on physical, emotional, and spiritual health. (This is Part 1 of a 2-part post. It is heavier reading than most posts on this site but should help those of you struggling with guilt, condemnation, and other negative thought patterns that hinder healing. )

For the purpose of example, there is a particular area in the medical field in which the procedure actually brings back to one’s mind past emotional hurts that are causing current physical health problems. Brief, physical treatments are then done which actually remove the pent up emotion from that bad emotional experience which has been stored in the body. During the physical treatment, you are asked to state out loud phrases along the lines of, “I deserve to be healthy. I deserve to be free from allergies” etc. People are then cured of various recurring physical ailments once that stored negative emotion from a past experience was removed from the body.

Believing that you deserve to be well is just as necessary a perspective in the area of faith and the spiritual realm.

In Matthew 9:29, while bringing healing to people, Jesus said, “According to your faith will it be done to you.” The Amplified Version (expanded from the Greek) says, “According to your faith and trust and reliance on the power invested in Me be it done to you.” Most anyone you talk to, regardless of their religious beliefs or the lack of them, believes that Jesus healed people. Yet even Jesus said that people’s healing was dependent on whether or not people believed that they would be healed or, one may say, whether or not they believed that God desired to heal them. (1. Click on the text link for “faith” to open a window with the Greek definition. 2.Click on “to be done” for the Greek definition. 3. Click the text link here to read why I use Greek definitions.)

Whether you are a believer in God, or if you are just interested in knowing what Scripture says about God’s desire to heal our lives, it will be beneficial to focus on a few brief examples which show God’s heart and character with regard to healing. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

It is an essential part of our healing, whether physical, emotional, and/or spiritual, to be able to believe that God wants our lives to be well.

I mention in various articles on this site how our view of God can either aid or hinder our healing. If we doubt God’s love for us, feel unworthy of His goodness, or struggle with poor childhood teaching which portrayed God as evil and vindictive, such ideas actually affect our ability to receive good from God. It is much like the psychological concept of projection. I’ll just briefly touch on it here; a person is hindered from good, positive progress in life with regards to jobs, relationships, etc. because he/she projects negative feelings and perceptions from past experiences into present job situations and relationships. Without realizing he/she is doing this, the person actually recreates a constant cycle of problems in the present situations similar to ones in the past. To put it in simplest form, a negative view of how others want to act toward you can cause people to “treat you poorly” and create more negative experiences; however, it is your own response and actions based on your negative perceptions from the past that make people again react negatively toward you.

In a similar way, our projection of negative feelings or actions onto God which do not exist in His person affect our receptibility to healing and other good from Him.

As I cover our own perceptions more in other articles, my purpose here is to briefly provide some comforting, health-giving passages about God’s activity in our environment that relay how much God desires that our lives be safe, well, happy, Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Joy is usually defined as a lasting contentment or fulfillment in life. It is something we all want. The question is, where do we find it?

Most people would agree that joy must be a matter of the spirit.

Happiness is usually defined as short term enjoyment that comes from positive, present life events. This is in contrast to joy, which is considered lasting because it is not derived from circumstances but from your inner self, your spirit. The meaning of the common Greek word for joy — chara — entails calm delight and exceedingly joyful. The Greek word for complete — pleroo — is usually combined with the term for joy; it literally means to “cram full a net,” or figuratively to “satisfy, fill up, fulfill, supply.” This gives us the visual picture that joy is lasting like a calm delight, yet excessive, like an overflowing fishing net, bringing complete satisfaction and fulfillment to our lives. Joy supplies completely what we desire most in life, yet it comes from within.

You can find your spirit’s source of joy.

Your spirit, the eternal part of you, comes from the eternal Spirit of God. Since your spirit was created by God, did God intend for your spirit to exist in a state of joy? Absolutely. God describes His desire for your joy this way:

I say these things…so that My joy made be made full and complete and perfect in you and you may experience My delight fulfilled in you, that My enjoyment may be perfected in your own soul, and you may have My gladness within you filling your heart. Jn. 17:13

What is significant in this quote is that God states that He desires the source of our joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness to be derived from His joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness.

What aspects of your spiritual existence are the source of joy?

This is in no way a complete list, but it should give you several points to ponder.

Joy from Receiving

One usually thinks about the joy of giving to others, but God desires that His giving to each of us evokes joy.

Now ask and keep on asking and you will receive, so that your joy, gladness, delight may be full and complete…For the Father Himself tenderly loves you. Jn. 16:24,27

Joy from Interaction

Seeing God’s interaction in one’s life is a source of joy. Remember, in the quote prior Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Continuing with the second part of our post on Guilt-Free Confidence, let’s look at 2 benefits from a guilt-free, confident relationship with God.

(If you missed Part 1 of Guilt-Free Confidence, please use the series link above to go there now.)

When you exist in a guilt-free relationship with God, it changes how you communicate with God in prayer.

Look at this beautiful quote from Heb 4:15,16 about confidence in your relationship with God.

For we do not have a High Priest [reference to Jesus] who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy for our failures and find grace to help in good time for every need, appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it.

Remember what I said about Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Feelings of guilt hinder the quality of our relationships, both in the natural and spiritual realms. God desires that you live your life in confidence, free from guilt.

Guilt is a hindrance in any relationship. A person does not act according to the giftings of his personality, the best that he is capable of, when suffering from guilt, because it is a form of fear. It makes the person fear another conflict with that person or fear failure when facing a similar type situation as in the past. Guilt also often causes one to give in to manipulation from controlling people’s selfish desires, even when the decision is against his better judgment.

In one’s relationship with God, guilt also keeps a person from interacting in a healthy manner and, thus, relating to God with the confidence in which He desires us to interact with Him. If you feel that you have not already received forgiveness from God for past failures, or are struggling with the feeling that God is holding the past against you, please read the post, Hold on to Forgiveness Instead of Failure, before finishing this article. This post will deal with God’s descriptions of interacting with Him through a perspective of guilt-free confidence.

God clearly expresses His desire that each of us enjoy a favorable relationship with Him.

In the following quote from Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

A detailed list of God’s care for you is shown through His illustration of Himself as a Shepherd.

Many articles have been written about baby boomers and their pets. There is no argument about the deep extent of their love, affection, and attachment to their animals. They vacation with them, let them sleep on the bed,  involve them in most all aspects of their lives. Their pets are as much a focal point of their lives as other humans. Studies have been done which show that many people are closer to their pets than to humans due to the unconditional love they receive from their pets. Even Scripture says that a righteous person cares for the needs of his animal (Pr. 12:10). Most pet owners go far beyond the level of meeting their pets’ needs and, just as with a child, take great delight in giving them unnecessary things which they think will bring them greater joy. It reminds me of the passage in which God says, “If you, though you are evil in comparison to Me, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will I give good things to those who ask Me? (Mt.7:11)” This brings us to the obvious question, won’t God take better care of us than a responsible pet owner does for his pet, even giving us things we don’t need just because He knows it will bring joy to our hearts?

Though God’s most common illustration of His relationship to us is as a father, several good points are brought out in Scripture from His comparison of Himself to a good shepherd who loves and cares for his animals.

Here is a list of your benefits from God’s “Good Shepherd” heart:

God sees value in you as the individual that you are!

Jesus said, “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.” This is part of a story Jesus told of a shepherd who owned 100 sheep searching for 1 that was lost until it was found; He used it to illustrate God’s interest and value in an individual person.

God knows we cannot fully protect and care for ourselves, so He responds in compassion to our needs. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

We are covering today 6 more Fatherly Characteristics of God. 

Our knowledge of God’s Fatherly Characteristics removes harmful perceptions that we may have carried over from childhood experiences with our own parents and greatly enhances our ability to interact and receive good from Father God.

This is Part 2 of this post.  If you missed Part 1, please use the above link.

Perfect for Us and to Us

God says,

As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him. Ps. 18:30

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Mt 5:48

God is a perfect Father. He is not capable of the failings of earthly fathers. The Greek word for perfect, teleios, means, complete in mental and moral character (Strong’s Dictionary of NT Words). Not only are His thoughts and character perfect, but as Ps. 18 says, His ways are also perfect. In other words, God says that His interactions with us are unflawed. This is vital for us to keep in mind. People blame God for so many bad things that happen to them. Does a good parent purposely harm his child? Of course not. Any parent that does is considered to be mentally and morally corrupt. God informs us that He is perfect; there is no flaw in His character or dealings with us.

Giving

God says,

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father, Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

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The characteristics of Father God are deeply moving once one begins to explore them in their full scope.

This post today is in answer to readers’ questions regarding the characteristics or fatherly traits of God. Some of God’s fatherly traits are like those of a good earthly father; others, though similar, go far beyond an earthly father’s abilities. This lengthy list of God’s fatherly attributes as He describes Himself is in no way complete, for the list would probably be endless. Whether you have had mainly negative experiences with your earthly father, which in turn made it difficult for you to interact with God as your Father, or if you had positive paternal experiences as a child, these traits of Father God will be very healing and fulfilling to your mind and spirit.

We are going to explore 10 Fatherly Characteristics of God, 4 in this post (Part 1) and 6 in Part 2.  I trust they will be enlightening and bring healing to your interactions with your Father.

Loving Continually, Abundantly

God says,

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 Jn. 3:1

I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. Jer. 31:3.

Just as a good earthly father, God delights in lavishing His love on us, pouring His love into our lives in generous, plentiful, and even extravagant ways.

As your Heavenly Father, God’s love goes far beyond the capabilities of a human father in that His love is everlasting, never-ending.

Compassionate, Comforting, and Loyal

God says,

As a father Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Enjoy this video blog with some positive thoughts on Forgiving Yourself to Promote and Accelerate Your Healing.

If you would like to read in more detail on this topic, see the article in the Personal Refelctions Category entitled, “Believe You Deserve to be Well.”

Click Here to Open the Healing by Forgiving Yourself Flash Video