Sunday, September 5, 2010

Self-Hatred and Religious Idols

In depths of one’s lonely soul there is an abyss that seems endless and cold. The rope that leads to the bottom is an unforgiving drop to a cold slab where the only friend you have is self. Broken and torn in the soul is where God finds the rich soil to plant His strength in you. Francis MacNutt says, “If the Lord Jesus Christ has washed you in his own blood and forgiven you all your sins, how dare you refuse to forgive yourself?”


At the lonely bottom, self-hatred shows its ugly head out of the shadows and renders you guilty and shamed by the lack of forgiving yourself. Learning about self-hatred will cripple the soul and damage the heart unrecognizable until you forget about the reality of your identity. Identity is the major crisis of our nation’s Christian population and its cure is found at the end of the rope.

The end of the rope strategy takes its shape by you giving up on everything you know to be true and wiping the slate clean. If your concern is worship, then stop worshipping until the only thing in life you can do is worship. If your concern is prayer, then stop praying until the only thing you can do is pray. If your concern is Bible study, then stop Bible study until all you can do is study you’re Bible.

When the slab at the bottom is too hard to bear spiritually, take comfort in knowing that the idols in your heart are being destroyed. Worship, prayer, and bible study are all forms of idols. Idols such as worship, prayer, and bible study are never recognized as idols because those who have such idols have never tasted the goodness of God on the cold hard slab. 2 Timothy 3:5 describes these idol worshippers as having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power…then it says, avoid such people.

By our own fault, we lye at the bottom of the abyss trying to work out godliness in the attempt to show God the fruit of our labor and to no avail the arrow continues to miss the mark.

If you are mucking around in the pit of despair with no hope out of self-hatred, then take the pill and swallow the bitter truth that your only hope is in seeing the unseen. Paul Tillich defines the unseen as “the courage to accept acceptance.” What religious idols have a form of godliness in your life, but lack the power of God? Is your self-hatred to the point that you are ready to give the idol of “self” up? Join the journey with us in walking through the end of self and listen to our weekly podcast “Coffee and Conversations” found at www.teleoridge.com/podcast or on itunes under Teleo Ridge Ministries. Later, From Jason.

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