According to the Bible, those who are in Christ now have His righteousness credited to them. According to the apostle Paul, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”27
When Jesus, as your substitute, took your sin, you received His perfect righteousness. This is the core of the Bible’s teaching—your acceptance by God is because of Christ, not because of your performance.
You Will Never Be Condemned by God
We don’t like to have stones thrown our way. The pain of making a mistake is bad enough without somebody rubbing our faces in it. Another incredible truth for us as Christians is that no matter how badly we act, there are no stones coming our way from God. God will discipline us when we do wrong, but He will not condemn us. Paul stated in clear terms to the Romans: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”28
Isn’t it good to know that condemnation is now a thing of the past and that we won’t experience it anymore unless we do it to ourselves or others choose to do it to us? God is not a stone thrower.
You Are a Foreigner in This World
Earlier in this book we talked about the need some of us have to be loved and accepted by everybody. Having the love and approval of everyone is quite an unrealistic expectation and a self-destructive thing to do to ourselves. Read this important truth: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.”29
Once, as part of the world, you were a stranger and foreigner to God. Now, as a Christian, you are a stranger and foreigner in this world. Because you are a Christian, you are now a displaced person or a migrant because your citizenship is in heaven! Because you are in God’s family, you now live under different values and priorities. As a result, you will be misunderstood, even persecuted and rejected, by those in the world who are not Christians.
You Have Special God-Given Abilities
You have a very special role in the family of God. God has equipped you with certain gifts that enable you to fulfill your special role. Although no individual has all of God’s spiritual endowments, your gifts have been especially designed by God to benefit the family of God in some way:
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.30
No member of God’s family is useless or unnecessary. You were created by God to make a valuable contribution to the body of Christ. You may have been gifted to teach, serve, administrate, give of your resources, or encourage, but you have something special to offer as a Christian to other Christians.
You Are an Ambassador
Have you ever visited Washington, D.C.? It’s quite an experience to be in our nation’s capital and see government in action. I think part of the excitement is getting to see the pomp and pageantry that so often occur in governmental events. Whether it’s a military parade, a long limousine with tiny American flags waving on the hood, or a stirring version of the National Anthem, it is a privilege to be an American.
If you’re reading this right now in your house or apartment, do you realize you are in an embassy? That’s right—for you, as a Christian, are an ambassador. Paul told the Corinthians, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”31
If you have ever wondered why you are here on this planet, it is to be an ambassador for Christ. That is your calling. It is your most important task. Sure, you may be a teacher, lawyer, nurse, or accountant in your job, but your main position in life is that of ambassador. Let the pomp and circumstance begin.
You Can Confidently Ask God for Help
Some of us live our lives as if we are burdens and we should never let our needs be known because we might inconvenience somebody. “I don’t want to trouble anyone” is a comment you may have said on occasion.
These feelings of being a burden can surface in the spiritual life as well. We may find ourselves saying, “I don’t want to bother God with my problems.” But the truth is, God desires to hear from us—about everything. We learn from the writer to the Hebrews: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”32
God’s throne is a throne of help. God wants you to approach and present your needs to Him. The last thing God wants us, as His children, to think is that we will be irritations or burdens to Him. God wants to help us in our time of need.
Let’s take a minute to review all that we have learned about who God is and who you are.
God is
self-existent
all-powerful
everywhere at once
all-knowing
holy
good
just
merciful
sovereign
unchanging
love
You
are a special creation of God
are Adam's offspring
are of infinite value
(Christians Only)
are a child of God
are a brother or sister to Jesus
are a joint heir with Christ
have the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that you belong to God
have Christ's life within you
have Christ's righteousness
will never be condemned by God
are a foreigner in this world
have special God-given abilities
are an ambassador
can confidently ask God for help
Quite an impressive list, wouldn’t you say? Now, ask yourself the following questions: Do I really believe any of this? Do I really believe God is all-powerful? Do I really believe God is good? Do I really believe God is in control? Do I really believe that I am a wonderfully made, unique creation of God? Do I really believe I am worth more than riches to Him? As I Christian, do I really believe I have the Holy Spirit in me as a guarantee that I am God’s child and am going to heaven someday? As a Christian, do I really believe there is no condemnation for me anymore?
If the answer to any of the questions is no, you may want to take some time and think about why. Why don’t you believe these truths? Is God a liar? Is the Bible untrue? Grapple with this at the deepest level of your soul. If anything taught about God or yourself in this chapter is something you don’t believe, you are living your life as if God is a liar. Do you really want to live that way?
Growthwork
Look back over the list of God’s attributes that we covered and select the one you have the most trouble believing. In your journal, write down your thoughts about why you find it hard to believe that about God. How would your life be different if you really believed that about God?
Now, do the same thing with the list we covered concerning you. What on that list do you have the hardest time believing? Why is it hard to believe? How would your life be different if you really believed it?
A final assignment I would also like you to do is to memorize the Bible verse I gave for the attribute of God you have the most trouble with and the Bible verse that goes with the truth about you that you have the most difficult time accepting. After you memorize these verses, meditate on them. Chew on each verse for five minutes each (longer if you would like). Try to get everything you can out of each verse. Allow God to use these verses to turn on the light in your mind about who He is and who you are. Run these verses through your mind as often as you can each day, like playing a favorite tape in your car stereo every chance you get.
Knowing God for who He really is, is the one assignment in life we cannot afford to skip. In knowing God, we come to know who we are. You can’t really know yourself
apart from knowing God. Distorted thinking in one area means distorted thinking in another. If you misperceive who God is, you won’t see yourself for who you are. If you misperceive who you are, you won’t be able to see God for who He is.
Know God! Know Yourself!
PART 3
LIVING THE TRUTH
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DOING THE TRUTH
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says.
—James 1:22 (NIV)
We have come a long way on our journey together. You have done well to have traveled this far. Before we go any farther, I want to ask you to turn around and take a look at where you have been.
The road we have traveled has had numerous “landmarks” in the form of principles and teachings that must be understood if we hope to achieve psychological and spiritual health. During our journey, you have learned that
• what we tell ourselves (our self-talk) significantly impacts how emotionally healthy we are, how intimate our relationships with others are, and how mature our spiritual lives are.
• telling ourselves lies causes emotional, relational, and spiritual damage.
• certain lies we tell ourselves, such as those covered in this book, are among the most destructive of all.
• truth sets people free—free from unnecessary pain, free to experience life in full.
• there are “truths about the truth” that are essential to understand before trying to live a life based on truth.
• ten significantly important truths must be believed if we want to achieve mental and spiritual health.
• God is the owner of and ultimate authority on truth.
• knowing God is required for mental and spiritual health.
• certain truths about God provide encouragement, comfort, and stability as we go through life.
• knowing who we are is necessary in order to live healthy and meaningful lives.
• specific truths about who we are as Christians provide a clear sense of identity, worth, and purpose while we live our lives.
• following Christ and developing His “mind” is the ultimate requirement for having a healthy, intimate, and meaningful life.
I think you can see that you have learned a great deal to this point, and I hope you can allow yourself to feel a sense of accomplishment concerning how much you have learned. As Munger said, “All truth is an achievement.”
Looking forward now, let me set the stage for you concerning what lies ahead in your efforts to develop “the mind of Christ” and grow as a person.
The Battle for Our Minds
Whether you realize it or not, a “civil war” is being waged in your mind every day. God, who is Truth, wants you to believe the truth because He knows it is best for you. Satan, who is the “father of lies” (John 8:44 NIV), wants you to believe lies because he knows they destroy you. All of us, non-Christian and Christian alike, make moment-by-moment decisions to think God’s truth or Satan’s lies. All those decisions come together over time to determine who we are and how well we live our lives.
When the United States fought its own Civil War, the North’s victory was crucial to the country’s future. If the South had won, slavery would have continued, and slavery destroys human beings. We are created by God to be free, not slaves. The same is true about the war going on in our minds between truth and lies. When lies win, we become slaves—slaves to depraved thinking, slaves to emotional misery, slaves to troubled relationships, and slaves to spiritual turmoil. When truth wins, we are free—free to be emotionally healthy, free to be intimately involved with others, free to enjoy God and bring glory to Him.
The battle for control of your mind is the most important battle of all. All other battles pale in comparison. The stakes couldn’t be higher. And it is winner take all. You cannot afford for lies to control one single second of your life. Truth has to rule the day every day. Your freedom and maturity as a human being hang in the balance.
We live in a time when “truth is fallen in the street” (Isa. 59:14 NKJV). Everywhere we turn, we are bombarded by lies. Advertisers sometimes lie to us. Politicians sometimes lie to us. Corporations sometimes lie to us. Religious leaders sometimes lie to us. Even loved ones sometimes lie to us. My own field, psychology, has contributed greatly to this problem. Far too many times psychologists offer us their “expertise” when what they are saying is actually untrue and damages those of us who buy into it (for example, “You can trust your feelings—they are your best guide”; “You should think ‘positively’” [as opposed to truthfully]; “You can do anything you set your mind to”; and “People are basically good”). We frequently believe what we are told, only to realize, often too late, that we have been led down the garden path to our own destruction.
Hear this and hear it well: there are no true “experts” here on earth for what it takes to live life properly! There is only one Expert on the matter—God. God proved His expertise when He came to earth and lived a perfect life. Anyone who can pull that off is certainly worth listening to. Anything we come up with that happens to be true and useful for living life well is really God’s truth, not ours. The best we human “experts” can hope for when we write our books is that we serve as God’s “pens.” If we are anything else, we have become part of the problem, not part of the solution.
As we embark on the final part of our journey, I want to ask you to commit yourself not only to know the truth but to experience it and live it as well. Truth cannot set us free until we do so. It isn’t enough to know the truth. The Bible says that even demons (fallen angels) know there is one God (James 2:19). Knowing the truth obviously hasn’t done the demons much good. They’re still demons! We must live the truth for it to make a genuine difference in our lives.
This is the most important chapter of the book because if you quit here, you will simply know more than you did when you read the first chapter. Knowledge only puffs us up (1 Cor. 8:1) in that we arrogantly think knowing something makes us wise. It doesn’t. Truth is of zero value if it is not incorporated into our lives. Doing the truth makes us wise.
So, let’s get on with it. Let’s put the truth to use. Let’s allow the truth to set us free.
The Truth Workout
The Truth Workout is an intensive, twelve-week program designed to help you take what you have learned in this book and “exercise” it into your life. Just as it takes effort to get in physical shape, the Truth Workout will take hard work on your part for you to get in psychological and spiritual shape.
Keep in mind that the Truth Workout is not a “cure” but ongoing “treatment” that can help you become healthier over time. There are no cures on the road to emotional and spiritual health. Fighting the lies you tell yourself with the truth will be an ongoing battle that will require your dedication throughout the rest of your life. The Truth Workout is aimed at helping you turn more and more of your mind over to truth so that you can have a fuller, more meaningful life.
The best approach to the Truth Workout is to do each week consecutively. Don’t get discouraged and quit if you miss a week or two, though. Push yourself to start “working out” again where you left off. The key to successfully completing the Truth Workout is to not “grow weary” and stop altogether. Taking small steps over time is the way to success here.
The bottom line to the Truth Workout is this: you have to do the workouts if you want the results. Remember, “no pain, no gain!”
Week One:
Identifying the Lies You Tell Yourself
To identify the lies you need to focus on during future workouts, I want you to complete the Lie Questionnaire once again. Since you have taken it before, you are already “test wise” in that you know how you “should” answer. So, make sure your response to each statement reflects how you really think, not how you think you should think. Try to avoid using the neutral (4) response.
Self-Lies:
_____ 1. I must be perfect.
_____ 3. It is easier to avoid problems than to face them.
_____ 4. I can’t be happy unless things go my way.
_____ 5. My unhappiness is somebody else’s fault.
Worldly Lies:
_____ 6. You can have it all.
_____ 7. My worth is determined by my performance.
_____ 8. Life should be easy.
_____ 9. Life should be fair.
_____ 10. You shouldn’t have to wait for what you want.
_____ 11. People are basically good.
Marital Lies:
_____ 12. All my marital problems are my spouse’s fault.
_____ 13. If my marriage takes hard work, my spouse and I must not be right for each other.
_____ 14. My spouse can and should meet all of my emotional needs.
_____ 15. My spouse owes me for what I have done for him/her.
_____ 16. I shouldn’t have to change who I am in order to make my marriage better.
_____ 17. My spouse should be like me.
Distortion Lies:
_____ 18. I often make mountains out of molehills.
_____ 19. I often take things personally.
_____ 20. Things are black and white to me.
_____ 21. I often miss the forest for the trees.
_____ 22. The past predicts the future.
_____ 23. I often reason things out with my feelings rather than the facts.
Religious Lies:
_____ 24. God’s love must be earned.
_____ 25. God hates the sin and the sinner.
_____ 26. Because I’m a Christian, God will protect me from pain and suffering.
_____ 27. All of my problems are caused by my sins.
_____ 28. It is my Christian duty to meet all the needs of others.
The Lies We Believe Page 29