Category: Level: Intermediate

In the Old Testament God promised material prosperity to his faithful followers. He made Abraham wealthy with large flocks of livestock. Later, when God was bringing the Israelites to the promised land he promised prosperity if they followed the laws he had just given to them at Mt. Sinai. “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit” (Lev. 26:3-4, ESV). In the New Testament we find a new approach to material prosperity and possessions. In Matthew 6:19-34 Jesus teaches us how to relate to money and possessions: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . for where your treasure is, there your heart Continue Reading →

It has been observed that for most Christians they must reach a place in their life where their self-dependence is broken so that they abandon their attachment to pride and allow themselves to abide in humility before God. It might be through an external crisis or an internal crisis but we all must go through the process of experiencing the death of the illusion that we are living our Christian life well or that we are truly dependent on God. In other words, we must get to the end of ourselves. This lack of brokenness, or lack of pliability, manifests itself in many destructive ways in our relationships, some of the most obvious are drivenness, stubbornness, defensiveness, lack of empathy, lack of honest self-awareness, unwillingness to accept help, unwillingness to have vulnerabilities and lack of teachability. Even if we have been a believer for twenty years and are honored in Continue Reading →

Humans have a habit of creating a false self. We love to pretend that we don’t have the faults, weaknesses, and pain that we really have. In order to get others to value us we construct a false self that we think they will like. A false self can also stem from pride or the desire to control. Thus, even if you are overcoming shame and self-rejection you can still give in to the temptation of hosting a false self. A very common false self for those who have been believers for some time is a false self that appears more Christlike than they really are, usually created by them in order to gain honor from other Christians. This is a religious false self, and it can grow very secretly. We are naturally inclined to present ourselves as more whole than we really are, so we need to consciously resist Continue Reading →