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The fruit of the Spirit is joy and peace. So… what do we do with our unpleasant emotions (anxiety, loneliness, shame, invalidation, hopelessness and so on)?

Let’s start here. Are we honest enough to admit that we have them? I sure do. I have my moments of internal panic or dread. I have moments when I wish I could crawl into a paper bag and disappear forever. And many times in the past I have felt friendless and all alone.

If peace and joy are fruit of God’s Spirit, then you’d think that getting rid of these rotten feelings would be Christianity 101, right?

But I was a Christian for over three decades before anyone explained to me how to neutralize these unpleasant emotions. Before that I did what I suspect most people do—I went into denial.

Me? Afraid? No way! Lonely? I’m fine. Shame? What’s that? I put on my Sunday smile, and all was well. Shape up! Fake it ’til you make it. Faith before feeling. Yada yada.

But then I learned a surprisingly different way to deal with these nasty disruptions to my equanimity.

There’s a long story behind this, but let me cut to the chase: I’d like to share with you a simplified version of the process I learned. Maybe it will help you when you have those “human” moments that all of us have.

It’s all here, on this one-page guide:
http://ssdcourage.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Neutralize-an-unpleasant-emotion.pdf

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Kish and Jesse were both fathers of Israeli kings.
New question: Joseph and Mary were residents of Nazareth. So why was Jesus born in Bethlehem?

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Revelation 7:17

How does God take away our sorrows?

Here’s a partial list.

We all have spiritual and emotional needs someone else should have met but didn’t. Jesus meets those needs.

He walks with us through life’s painful events and enables us to see them from His perspective.

He satisfies our desires with good things.

Everything intended for evil in our lives gets placed in His hands. There even the most disgusting injustice becomes an opportunity for God to bring good to us. Romans 8:28

In the end, our short-term suffering is gone and eternal happiness remains. Romans 8:18, Psalm 16:11

What would you add? How has Jesus taken away your sorrows?

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: They disagreed on whether to take John Mark with them on their second missionary journey.
New question: What do Kish and Jesse have in common?

He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:30 NASB

I would like to take a few minutes to discuss this passage.

What does it mean to decrease? I think this is important because many people misunderstand what it means to decrease.

In the context, it meant John the Baptist was no longer the rock star of the nation. The spotlight moved to Jesus. Jesus was now center stage. And John was okay with that. In fact, John was delighted with that.

We are tempted to prop up our own sense of self worth by all kinds of foolish and false means—money, power, and, in this case, popularity. But John didn’t need any of that. He didn’t need the crowd’s approval to feel okay about himself.

John was a man sent by God (John 1:6). Like you and me, he was created, redeemed and commissioned by God. He had a role to play in God’s great plan. He played it, stepped offstage, and was okay.

Do not imagine that John’s worth—or our worth—in some way decreases. In fact, a few months later Jesus was heard saying this: “Among those born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist.” (Luke 7:28) Our worth comes from the price Jesus paid to buy us back. And that will never decrease.

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Barnabas and the apostle Paul parted company when they couldn’t resolve their disagreement.
New question: What were Barnabas and Paul in disagreement about?

How do we who have tasted the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil come to know the love of Jesus?

Pain.

Without pain we are clueless. We heard about Jesus. We studied Him in school. Somebody said something about love. It’s all very abstract and meaningless.

Then we walk into a fallen world where we are misunderstood, kicked around, devalued, marginalized and thrown under the bus—the husband who no longer loves, the disease that won’t go away, the nagging feeling that we just aren’t good enough and never will be.

Pain comes in a thousand flavors. But only one Person has the audacity and authority to say, “Don’t cry.” (Luke 7:13)

How will Jesus turn your pain into peace? How exactly? I don’t know. I do know this. His presence cannot be duplicated; imitations of His work are cheap forgeries. There’s no step-by-step way to bypass Jesus, though many people have tried. There’s only opening the door and inviting Him in.

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Barnabas was known as the “son of encouragement.”
New question: Barnabas had a disagreement with a famous leader. Their disagreement resulted in the two parting company. What was the name of this famous leader?

“Go, sell all you possess, and give the money to the poor.” Matthew 19:21

Does this command from Jesus make you nervous? I can tell you that I have been arrested by these words many times.

No, I don’t think Jesus is offering here a universal prescription for eternal life. Instead, He was putting His finger on something we all need to address: misplaced trust.

Most of us live in a culture where a person’s worth is measured by his balance sheet, by money in the bank, by the house she lives in, by the car he drives. In contrast to James 2, this mindset has sometimes even invaded the church.

From where do we derive our own sense of worth? Beauty? It will fade. Money? It could be gone tomorrow. Followers in your ministry? The crowd can desert you in a day—Jesus Himself experienced that. These false gods cannot deliver us in our day of trouble; God Himself will see to that.

There’s only one Place where you can find significance. There’s only one Place where you can find worth. There’s only one Place where you can reclaim your lost identity. That Place is a Person. His name is Jesus.

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: The Jordan River is the river most often referenced in the Bible.
New question: What was Barnabas known as?

You are an eternal soul temporarily occupying a mortal life

So what does that mean?

To me it means this life is way too small
to contain God’s plans for you.
You’re just getting started.
The best is yet to come.

It means you are both fragile and indestructible.
Like I used to say to my grandma:
The first 100 years are the hardest.

It means we live each day
with eternity in view
because we are holy—
that is, set apart for something better.

What about you?
What does this mean for you?

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Deuteronomy literally means “second law.”
New question: A number of rivers are mentioned in the Bible including the Nile and the Euphrates. But one river is spoken of more often than any other. Which river is that?

The best version of you—
the you designed and imagined by God
is deployed
in your connection with Jesus.
Jesus restores and rebuilds.
His mission is to
heal all your hurts
renew your mind
transform you life
and unveil
the beautiful you
the capable you
the indestructible you
the eternal you.

Don’t go this one alone.
Jesus has resources
you will never have
on your own.
He can marshal all the power in the universe
to break through every obstacle
that stands in the way
of you being you.

Yes
there is a cost.
Jesus moves to center stage.
He takes the lead role—
not to push you away
but to release the real you.
It’s a paradox
His closest friends understand well.
The more Jesus
the more you.

Does this mean
you become a religious fanatic?

No.
Jesus isn’t religious.
In fact
the only people who ever picked a fight with Jesus
were religious people.

Instead,
Jesus is real
in every sense of the word.
The more real
you can let yourself become
the more Jesus and His message
will resonate with you.

How do you do this?
How do you connect with Jesus?
Simple.
Just open the door
and invite Him in.
Say yes.
Let Him be
who He wants to be in your life.

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Gideon defeated a huge enemy army with only 300 soldiers.
New question: Which book of the Bible has a name that literally means “second law”?

I want to thank Mo from the Alternative Church (Google+) for helping bring this into focus for me:

Have you ever been troubled by these verses…?

“To him who overcomes,
…I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God!
…will not be hurt at all by the second death!
…will be dressed in white.
…I will never blot out his name from the book of life,
…I will acknowledge his name before My Father and His angels!
…I will be his God and he will be my son!”
~Revelation 2 & 3

I have been troubled by them! Wait a second! What happened to being saved by grace through faith? What happened to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved”?

Once upon a time these passages confused and frightened me because I did not see myself as having the strength to overcome. Here’s what I failed to comprehend:

We are designed to overcome. It is God’s purpose that we overcome. It is our destiny as sons and daughters of God. It is who we are. It is what we do.

How? God grants His children vigorous faith. Mustard seed faith grows inside us. God prepares us for what we face. David vanquished the lion and the bear before he took on Goliath.

The just shall live by faith. Our job is to say yes to Him now, while He may be found. When the mighty waters rise, they will not reach us. That is God’s gift to His children. He will make us strong when we need His strength to go on.

Your identity: You are an overcomer. That’s who you are.

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Just as the Bible has 66 books, Isaiah has 66 chapters.
New question: God told this leader to remove all but 300 of his 32,000 soldiers. With those 300, he defeated a huge army. Who is this leader?

People lose their God-given identity in many, many different ways. Here’s my story:

I’m sure my parents thought of me as a model child. I was super compliant, eager to please, on my best behavior at (almost) all times.

What they didn’t know, and couldn’t know, was this: I was slowly losing my own identity. Dwight Clough was being slowly erased and all that was left was compliance.

As I grew up, I tried to transfer this compliance to my relationship with God. “Whatever You want me to do, God, I’ll do it. Just name it. Just tell me what to do.”

Sounds good, huh? Well, it wasn’t really.

As I learned to listen to God’s Spirit, He asked me the same question over and over again. “What do you want, Dwight?”

At first, I tried to say, “It doesn’t matter. Whatever You want, that’s what I want.”

But God wasn’t buying it. He said to me, “I can do anything. But I’m not going to do anything until you tell Me what you want.”

To me, this is a precious gift. In this way (and in many other ways), God has been restoring my identity as His son. As a royal son of God, I have a right to ask my Father for things. He has a right to say no, but I have a right to ask.

People tell me I could be the model employee—eager to please, compliant, bright, super loyal. But instead, God has taken me into the world of self employment where compliance doesn’t count for much. So self-employment doesn’t come naturally to me; sometimes I struggle with it. But when I get discouraged, He helps get me back on my feet and says, “Stay in the game until you win.”

That’s what we do—you and I. We win. That’s who we are.

God restores our broken identities in many, many different ways. Your story may look very different than mine, but I can guarantee you that your identity is under assault and God is in the process of repairing it.

More next time…

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Jesus’ first recorded miracle was turning water into wine.
New question: How is the book of Isaiah like the whole Bible?

Hi

For the next few posts, I want to focus on the topic: Reclaiming your lost identity.

But I need your help. When you hear the topic, “reclaiming your lost identity,” what comes to your mind? People talk about our identity in Christ. What is that? Is it important? Does it make any difference in the world where you really live? Do you think people believe lies about who they are? What kind of lies?

Let me know what you think.

Dwight

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Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: The serpent and the donkey were each used one time to speak a message to a human.
New question: What was Jesus’ first recorded miracle?