Titus 2 Men And Women

Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?  He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his hear.(Psalms 15:1-2)
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:
(Proverbs 23:7)

I will never forget the day when Matthew 19:19b gripped my heart, thou shalt love thy neighbor as  thyself.  I was sitting at my kitchen table seemingly frozen in time - my mind totally fixed on those seven words.  Finally the tears came with my words, Lord, I don’t even like myself - how can You use me?  God lovingly troubled me with the verse for weeks.

Self-esteem; I never liked the word when I was in college probably because I didn’t have much of it.  I linked it to selfishness and self-centeredness.  Years later, among Christians, it did not have a value to it.

I chose not to ask my pastor about this, I didn’t have enough confidence to do so.  So  I went to the library and read the title on all of the books in the psychology section.  A little book with the title Telling Yourself The Truth, published by a Christian organization in the 1970’s, stood out from the rest.  I took it to the reading area and asked God to teach me. Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee? (Proverbs 22:20-21)

Just the title brought an answer for me that God has used in so many ways in my life, and in lives He has entrusted me to help.  I dwell on this because emotional healing from painful yesterdays, trials, and illness is linked to telling ourselves the truth. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. ( 1John 2:20-21)

Until I was twenty years old, my mother constantly assured me that I was bad, ugly, stupid, worthless, inept - couldn’t do a thing right.  For a long time I accepted the blame for my family’s dysfunction and my mother’s mental illness.

When I started dating in college I submerged all of that accepted truth and developed a pretty good facade.  Submerged?  Yes, just below the surface with outward signs remaining.  For example, I could never look someone in the eye and talk to them, my I can not’s told their own story, and any praise or thanks would make me reply with words of I didn’t do it very well, or I could/should have done better.

Just days before God branded my heart with thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself my pastor obviously had observed for long enough - and felt he needed to do something about - my lack of self-worth.  He gave me a three point sermon from his desk through my office door while I was making a pot of coffee for him.  I did not accept his words as constructive - but they were very kind and prepared me to deal with the issue.

Telling ourselves the truth - I have come to understand that almost every person on earth needs to activate this process in some area of life.  For those of us with much hurt it needs to penetrate and permeate so much of our lives. I believed lies most of my life:

• God didn’t love me as much as He loved other people.
• Romans 8:28 was not true for me.
• God abused me.
• I was stupid, ugly and inept.
• I was not good enough to serve God or make any real difference.
• My family dysfunction  was my fault.
• God made a mistake when He created me.

... and on and on I could go.

Are there lies in your life that need to be erased by telling yourself the truth?

It was not self-esteem that I needed but rather Christ-Esteem.  I realized that all of the negative assurances that I had been given about me, all of the negative ways I thought about myself needed to be considered both in the light of God’s Words and with obvious facts and then erased by telling myself the truth, And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)  To be able to love myself so that I could love others I needed to truthfully see that God perfectly created me, see all the positive attributes that God created in me because of all the circumstances of my life, and see all of the scriptures as true for me.  This sat me free to believe that all of the steps in my life were filtered through God’s fingers of love to create in me strengths, abilities, character, talents, and other positive qualities that enable me to be a vessel fit for the  Master’s use.

From those life-changing sessions at the library came many notebooks filled with hand copied text from many books; truths that God used to change my thinking so that He could change my responses and actions.  I sought answers because I wanted to be different ... I was tired of hating myself and berating myself constantly. I am going to quote many of the passages that God used to renew my mind as I asked Him to teach me and change me.  If you have areas in your life that need an application of truth, I hope the following will speak to your heart.

Self-worth does not depend on other’s opinion but upon God’s declaration. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (I Corinthians 3:16) We are God’s temples on earth ... living epistles.  A most godly thing you can do is to have respect for yourself.

Many people have told me that they think having self-worth is cloaked vanity or pride and arrogance.  It is not vanity to stand before God with a humble heart knowing we are nothing in ourselves but everything IN HIM.  It is not vanity to read and believe multiplied scriptures that teach us our standing IN God as His children and heirs and joint-heirs with Christ.  God also commands us to love ourselves in a proper way seeing ourselves IN the Beloved so that we can love others.

Vanity is NOT accompanied by contentment and peace.  You can recognize your own godly motives by the contentment and peace that surround them.  You won’t be living in strife if your motives are godly. But godliness with contentment is great gain ... (1 Timothy 6:6)

Loving yourself is seen in your self-respect, your wisdom and your integrity.  You see the nobleness of humility.  You love and respect yourself because you belong to the Lord Jesus.  Your life is His and the Holy Spirit lives in the temple of your being.  The Lord has wonderfully created you and designed you, as He has those around you.  You love yourself therefore you can love others.

Next to this paragraph in the margin of my notebook is written A life long turning point.  Truly it was for me. I chose to put away thinking I was a mistake a freak of nature.  I chose to put away thinking that I was unable to do anything well.  I chose to put away my belief that everybody was better and smarter than me.  I chose to believe that God created me perfectly and ordered my steps in life according to His perfect will. It was with the realization that the Lord had wonderfully created me and designed me that I chose to see myself as a Princess ... a daughter of the King of King’s.  With this change in thinking, and my daily walking in the truth of that thinking, that God was able to do a lot of re-construction work on Sharon’s mind and heart.

It was at this point in my healing process that I began to reach out to others with true love and compassion, rather than trying to please people to be accepted ... loved.  When I was able to love myself; see those things God created in me that were good and useable, then I was able to truly love other people and reach out with true compassion.

If you believe something you will act as though you believe it ... .

If a person believes he is dumb he will act dumb.  If  a person believes they are inept they will act inept. etc. For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: ... . . (Proverbs  23:7)

This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. (James 3:15)  Negative and distorted statements which a person repeats to himself come from the devil.  Your flesh accepts them without question and then, like spoiled, rotting, food, these words of mental poison create painful emotional aches and pains.  This diet of deadly toxins will kill you. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Romans 8:6

From my experience and the experiences of many, many women I have counseled, and after reading  many testimonies, I believe the biggest negative distorted statement that the devil encourages us to believe is that we, the victim, are to blame for the evil behavior of the abuser. It is usually assumed that the cause of this distortion/lie only came from the abuser.  However, in my case, and in many others that I know about, it also came from family members and/or others involved. 

My father and my brother used to tell me constantly If you wouldn’t_____, she wouldn’t _____.  My mother used to tell me constantly that she was the way she was because I caused her to be.  One statement that she uttered all my life almost killed me emotionally when I was a teenager.  She had constantly told me that I was driving her crazy.  When she went in to a mental hospital the devil almost caused me to accept that indeed it was all my fault.

When women try to convince me that they are guilty they caused the abuser to do evil things-- I always ask them to pretend that they are talking to a little girl who had been abused in the same manner that they were.  I then ask them to tell that little girl that she was to blame.  I have never had one woman who was able to do so.  This is usually the turning point in releasing their false guilt and a lot of anger with themselves ... as it likewise was for me.

Three steps to becoming the happy person you were meant to be:

1. Locate your misbeliefs.  Realize where you are telling yourself lies.
2. Remove them ... argue against them.
3. Replace misbeliefs with truth.  It’s nonsense to say that your unloveable and useless when you are loved with an everlasting love by the God of the universe.  In Him you have countless talents and uses and you are infinitely valuable.

Once we yank the irrationalities and lies from our thoughts and replace them with the truth we can lead satisfying, rich and fulfilling emotional lives.  These irrationalities are not easy to label.  Most of what we tell ourselves is not in word form.  Our thoughts are often images and attitudes without words attached to them.  (i.e. I may be fearful of a thing without knowing why.) ...

Bible Humility when we have genuinely accepted ourselves and begun to properly love ourselves we can forget ourselves and be turned to others in real service for Christ.  Only a person with a proper sense of self-worth can be truly humble.

In the margin of this notebook I have written by the above statement: This brought release and freedom to my WHOLE life! Looking back  I can remember letting go, in what a friend of mine calls a freefall to God.  I remember accepting myself with all of my faults believing God would fix them ... in His time.

And to note here One of the most valuable things that I did was make a study of the general characteristics of what the world calls an Adult Child ... an adult that was raised in dysfunction.  With a lot of prayer this helped me to accept and understand myself better and to ‘see’ those areas that God and I needed to work on.  From much reading I learned that adults raised in dysfunctional situations tend to:

1. constantly seek approval and affirmation
2. judge themselves without mercy
3. over-react to changes over which they have no control
4. have difficulty having fun
5. tend be impulsive
6. feel that they are different from other people
7. tend to lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth
8. have difficulty with intimate relationships
9. often have difficulty in completing a project
10. are extremely loyal, even when that loyalty is underserved
11. are either super responsible or super irresponsible

If I committed sin in any of the above potentials I first asked God to forgive me. With understanding these potential problem areas I learned to catch myself, grab a verse and instantly ask God to order my thoughts and/or actions. It was a step by step process to that helped change 34 years of behavior.  I praise Him that it was not an impossible process--for with Him all things are possible.

My healing process started eighteen years ago and is continuing still.  I used to think it would one day be finished, but I have come to believe that finished will happen when I get to Heaven and have the complete mind of Christ.  However, knowing the characteristics of people raised in dysfunctional homes still helps me to keep my thoughts and my actions in check with scripture so that I don’t give Satan a playground in my life. Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, ... . II Corinthians 10:5-6.  If I do not love myself I am in disobedience to God and will not be able to truly love others.

A Poor sense of self-worth is generally characterized by feelings of inferiority, self-dissatisfaction and self-pity ... .

A poor self-worth often keeps a person from accepting God’s forgiveness; that person is so conscious of his sins he cannot believe God forgets what He forgives.  He dwells in sins already forgotten ... .

A poor sense of self-worth hinders your spiritual maturity and will eventually result in bitterness and rebellion toward God.

In the next section of this book I share my journey and struggle to forgive my mother.  The statement above was true in my life: until I got some semblance of self-worth/Christ-esteem I couldn’t grow in the Lord and I struggled in failure to let go of my anger and bitterness ... because I saw myself as a poor wretched worthless mistake of humanity that my mother created!

A fact: this undealt with anger and bitterness will eventually cause us to explode or implode ... if we do not download it to God. Oftentimes we need to do so to a counselor. God created us to need people and advises us to get godly counsel.

Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety 
Proverbs 11:14

Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counselors they are established.
Proverbs 15:22

Why is Self-worth important?

• It is the foundation on which your life is built ... . 
• A proper sense of self-worth includes feelings of self-acceptance and self-respect ... .
• A proper sense of self-worth:  Poise and self-control.  Conscious of our faults but not defeated or obsessed by them ... .

Without a proper sense of self-worth:

• A person is dissatisfied and critical of himself.
• He feels totally inferior to everyone and withdraws from social contacts.
• He cannot look at himself objectively.  All he can see are his faults.
• He is the sum total of all that is ugly, useless and unwanted in life.
• All is discouragement and defeat.  He will fail in the things most important      to him.
• He is self-centered, so wrapped up in himself that he sees nothing else.

Selfishness breeds discontent, self-pity, self-hatred, and eventually thoughts of self-destruction ... .

The person with the proper sense of self-worth is free to respond to God with all his heart.  He feels no bitterness toward God for the way he has been made, consciously or unconsciously.  He has accepted himself as the creation of a loving God physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually and as the object of His continual making (Psalm 139; Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.) he rests assured that God has accepted him in the beloved To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Ephesians 1:6

God loves us, He wants the best for us and He is making us on His timetable.  We cannot rush the process of healing which depends on our developing a proper sense of self-worth.  We can however do our part as we purpose to trust God that He will keep His promises. ... Yea, I  (the LORD-Jehovah) have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. ... Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built,Jeremiah 31:3-4

Self-Worth--

• It is more than positive thinking yourself into a new personality.
• It is NOT a method of self-improvement.

Steps To Be Taken:

• Accept the truth of what God has said about you in His Word.
• Start the process of getting rid of any bitterness you feel about the way God has made you.  Then start thanking Him for all He has done for you and is doing in you.
• As God works in you yield your heart to Him so that you can cooperate with God as He changes you.
• Learn the Word of God.Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. II Timothy 2:15
• Meditate and muse on God’s thoughts, judgements and values.
• Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; ...   Colossians 3:16
• Refuse to compare yourself with others; their backgrounds, progress, success or failures in life. For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. 
  II Corinthians 10:12

The Sword of the Spirit will cut the heart and change our thinking. --Leroy Brownlow

But God ... can take the most seemingly inconvenient things and times in our lives and use them for our good.  At this time in my life I had the multiplied hours to spend in a library and read and write because I was driving a van load of children to Christian schools thirty-seven miles one way on country roads.  The distance made it necessary for me to stay in the town where the schools were located until it was time to drive them home.  I did not know anyone in that town so the library became my tent of meeting with God.  God used this seemingly inconvenient time in my life to change me and heal me!  All glory to a Matchless Saviour

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