Christian Therapy: Acceptance versus Failure (Part 3 of 4).
Greetings. In this blog I want you to view your Christian life as one of moving towards accepting life’s problems versus feeling like a failure. In my last post, I wanted you to view life’s problems as reality and as one that needs to be accepted. The accepted Christian life is far greater than the failing Christian life.
The starting place for how you are doing in your Christian life is to place high value on Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” The answer to all of life’s problems is not to condemn yourself or judge yourself or others but to be reminded that the power of acceptance is found in not judging or viewing problems as a symptom or failure.
Within Christian circles, there is such a demand for the ideal that many believers don’t believe they can be human and still be a Christian. Instead of them viewing themselves as saints who sin and in need of forgiveness, they instead continue to feel they are sinners who need to be condemned as they pursue the path of trying to be saints.
If you are trying to be a saint or ideal, and you feel like you fail, than the ideal Christian who feels they are failing will continue to judge and condemn the real self as failure or condemnation by bring the emotional tone of guilt, shame, harshness and judging. Whatever problems you go through in life that is not allowed and accepted in grace and love, you then will view life’s problems under attack by bringing down condemnation and judgment.
Acceptance happens to all of us in our walk with God when we really do feel loved and accepted by a God who is for us and not against us. It is not trying harder and harder to get rid of our sin and life’s problems but it is realizing that we need to partner with God standing in from of our sin and working with God to repent of our sins asking for his forgiveness. Far too often, many Christians view life’s problems in which they feel they need to go off to some deserted island by themselves and try to fix their problems by themselves attempting to prove to God they are repenting and attempting to fix their failure by trying to be good, or perfect, or sinning less.
But when we can reach a point of ‘no condemnation’ for what really is within the true self and who you really are, than we can confess what is wrong and be in relationship with God and others accepting ourselves just as we are, with no pressure to be ideal or feel like a failure. If we are to live in acceptance, than we need to change our emotional tone of really feeling God’s grace of unconditional love and favor that God is for us. Change the emotional tone from judging and condemning to love and acceptance filled with God’s grace.
You see, God’s view of life and problems is to remind us that we are incredibly wonderful, but sinful people with all sorts of weakness and with incredible talents. We all have incredible value and worth in God’s eyes although we are sinful and broken people. So embrace your self-worth and life’s problems as one of acceptance and find ways to reduce the tendency to feel like a failure. Thanks for reading. If you need help with this, please give me a call and let me walk with you in your journey towards acceptance.