A Boy, A Cat and a Disconnected Heart

He rang the doorbell. It was winter, and with his thick gloves he could barely feel the button.

No answer.

He waited. A cat, caught like him on this cold night outside, walked along the porch rail. Toward him. He watched it.

In the street behind them a solitary car passed. Like urban sleigh bells, the chains on its tires chimed rhythmically into the pounded street snow.

No one was home. The cat. Was rubbing against his leg.

He set the candy down and picked it up. It purred. And purred more when he tucked it under his warm arm. Like a football. Against his thick coat.

He could see into its eyes. Up close. He liked it that way.

When he wrapped his thick fingers round its tiny neck...

Pinning its legs against his side, he slowly squeezed, watching the eyes widen in alarm. Feeling it push against him. Desperately struggle. For a long time struggle.

Watching.

The lids droop slowly down. The light passes from the eyes.

He let go. Another car rattled metal links by in the snow.

Watching the light return. The animal terror that followed. Flooding the look in those helpless eyes. It pierced his soul.

A shock wave of remorse flamed hot. In all his cells he could feel it.

Guilt.

Or was it love? Yes, warm love for this tiny being.

But...

I want to do it. Again. Now.

Yes, I want to know what it's like once more.

He squeezed the cat's thin neck. And when it has succumbed, he felt the same pity again warm flooding him.

And only horror at himself. As he did it once more.

And when it was over he...

But this time the cat mustered the last of its tiny animal ferocity and writhed free.

He felt...watching it streak away...he felt jarred awake somehow...as it ran from him...yes, he was awake now...

And terrified

Had anyone seen him? Would they know?

In a panic he ran

Home to his father's house...

Back at my father’s house when I was seven years old we had two beagle dogs. Male and female my father named them Ahab and Jezebel. I did not understand this as a young boy. In fact it took me years to begin to have any understanding. Already by age seven I had watched my father beat my mother many times. And I had received many beatings from my father. And I had been humiliated and shamed by my father. And I had witnessed my father beating my brothers and sisters. And he slapped them and hit them and knocked them around . . . at will. And I had been terrified by my father to the point where I did not ever want to say another word the rest of my life.

I could not understand the fascination I had watching the way Ahab treated Jezebel when I would do what I would do, but one thing was certain . . . I was fascinated.

We had a good sized yard which we called the back yard, side yard and front yard. In the back yard we had the dog house for Ahab and Jezebel. In our back yard we also had a couple of picnic tables and several large trees.

When I was about seven years old I would stand on the picnic table so I could feel safe. Then I would throw rocks at the top of the dog house where Ahab and Jezebel would retreat for peace and rest. I did this many times over a period of a couple of years around this time of my life. I felt safe standing on the picnic table thinking that Ahab would not attack me when he got mad.

What made Ahab mad was my throwing rocks against the top and side of the dog house. I don’t know why it made him mad, but it most certainly did. After a few minutes of hitting the dog house with rocks Ahab would begin to growl. If I continued to throw rocks before very long Ahab would begin attacking Jezebel. Apparently he blamed Jezebel for the noise and he would light into her and she would yelp with hurt and pain.

The only fear I felt doing this was thinking Ahab might attack me if he got too mad. It never crossed my mind that what I was doing was wrong. And it fascinated me to the point of distraction. I had no idea why at the time. I would continue to throw rocks for as long as I had nerve until I would get too scared that Ahab might run out of the dog house after me.

My throwing rocks at the dog house and making Ahab mad, and Ahab attacking Jezebel because of it, represented the same dynamics I was living with inside my own house. Except I was not the one getting mad and attacking others. It was my father doing the attacking and the growling and barking and the hurting of others.

It was very upsetting to me to realize what I had done, and why, as I got older and left my father’s house. For years I simply felt guilty and never mentioned what I had done to anyone. There must have been a part of me that knew it was wrong or I guess I would have said something. My younger brothers and sisters playing nearby didn’t seem to notice what I was doing and were not bothered by it. I never asked them, but as far as I know they did not notice what I was doing. Or if they did the last thing they were going to do was to stop abuse. In my household we had enough energy to take care of ourselves and ourselves only. To come up with the energy to intervene in someone else’s bad behavior is just more energy than any of us had.

And I never talked about what I had done to the cat when I was selling candy door to door for my father’s church. I was old enough by then to feel guilt, but I could not help myself at the time. I had a compulsion to explore and try to understand what I was feeling inside, but felt too guilty to talk with others about it, so I guess I must have experimented on my own from time to time to try to figure out what I was feeling.

What I was feeling was fear and rage and hurt from living with my father. I had to do a lot of work to undo the damage caused by my father’s raging and violence. I now understand a little bit about what was going on in my behavior as a young child.

I felt different as a child from other children because I was suffering chronic abuse. It was like I was on the outside looking in while others were living. Psychologists would call this “dissociation” and it has to do with not being able to integrate all of what is going on in your life into one person or one self. This is very common for children of abuse and especially those children who suffered abuse at a very early age. Dissociative identity disorder is a DSM V diagnosis that involves a serious post-traumatic stress response to the level of trauma the child experiences. The other children in my school seemed to be involved in their lives and had freedom and opportunity to do all types of activities and have an entire world of experiences. But I was living in quiet desperation knowing that my father was beating me and my brothers and sisters and beating my mother and raging around the house throwing anything he could get his hands on and putting holes in the walls.

My life felt strange and dark and so utterly different from the lives I observed others living. But nothing could change our circumstances. Nothing ever did. Things only got worse and worse. The beatings got more violent. My loneliness got more filled with despair. And there was no reason to hope for anything else. So I accepted the way things were. I just accepted it. But in my soul the darkness got darker and the fear got more fearful. And the hopelessness multiplied.

I honestly did not know any different or understand that life could be other than what it was. I thought the other children in my classes at school were just faking it and going along with the show like I was. Just playing their part and going through the motions and that when the school day ended and we all went home that it was the same for them. How could I know differently? How do you know what you have not experienced or seen or felt or heard? How could I know other kids were going home to a “Hey, how was your day?” and a hug and being looked in the eyes when they answered. Or that other kids got to throw a football with their dad or have their homework checked by their mom or could have normal sibling interactions that including laughter and fun and connection. How was I to know that for many of them what was on the outside of their lives indeed matched what was on the inside . . . or perhaps even surpassed it because they were truly loved and valued at home by their families.

But me? I felt sick inside. Hopeless! Yet somehow I kept going and going and going through the motions. Every day! Putting one foot after the other. Like a little soldier. When the storms of my father’s rage would hit I would hold on the best I could. When my mother asked me to run down to the store I felt a little bit of life getting to see the people and be around people. Normal. Just a few minutes of normal human interchange. It helped.

Finally when we had to start selling candy the times away from home increased and yet the terror and darkness remained in my soul because I knew when I was at home the fear would always be there. So, sadly, it stayed with me when I was away. I just didn’t have to face it head on for the few hours I was away.

I had no idea why I felt the way I felt about the cat. It was spontaneous and thrilling and enthralling and all consuming, this feeling I would get when I had control of the cat and could let it have hope again after I would make it go unconscious. Then I felt such sadness and pity and remorse and I would want to love the cat and comfort the cat. But like a burning surge in my heart I would want to choke the cat again. Then the sadness and pity and remorse and compassion would flood me again. I did not know enough at the time to be concerned. I was simply experiencing it. And felt so guilty.

I believe I was experiencing what I was seeing enacted at home. And for some reason it helped me process what I was experiencing to reenact it. But I also believe the level of cruelty I was using toward the cat and towards my own dogs was something that was corrosive to my soul. It may be explained by a diagnosis such as dissociative identity disorder but I would have many years before I would understand much less begin to heal from what I was doing to my own soul in recreating cruel experiences in smaller more helpless beings.

After I had left my family I was with my girlfriend one time after we had gotten to know one another quite well. Out of nowhere, as we were sitting quietly in the car, I slapped her face. I was not mad. I was not upset. We had not been fighting. I did not slap her hard. Only hard enough to be uncomfortable and shocking to her. Then this horrible sick feeling came over me as she started to cry. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and asked me why. Why had I slapped her? She got out of the car and went into her home. I was shocked. I was scared. I was sick to my stomach. Suddenly I began to cry.

I didn’t really understand why I was crying but the crying got harder and harder. I sat in the car outside her house at the curb and cried for an hour. At the time I had no idea why I was crying. I don’t believe I even yet connected the horrible sick feeling I felt when I saw her cry with my own wrongdoing in hitting her. I now think I didn’t even understand that there could be a normal cause and effect between an abusive wrong behavior and the victim’s response of crying or sadness or anger. Those normal responses were not allowed in my house and I think I didn’t understand I was in the presence of completely normal and healthy in this beautiful and strong young woman I was dating!

Her mother told her ‘the first time a boy hits you it is his fault; the second time a boy hits you it is your fault!’ My girlfriend told me it was never to happen again. And it never did. It never happened again, not to this very second. A few months later she asked me why I had hit her. I still had no answer but I told her it would never happen again. It was not even because of anger or some difficulty. It was very much like what I had done with the cat. I did it because of something that was happening inside me. Not for any other reason. The slap had nothing to do with my girlfriend and everything to do with the poison that was inside of my soul. This poison came from what I witnessed daily in my home in the form of cruel abuse perpetrated against me and my family members.

If you have read my blog you know the years I spent and the hard work I had to put into understanding and healing from all the years of abuse at my father’s hand. The best I have ever been able to understand about these aspects of my behavior is simply I was trying to figure out, at some level, why the world was the way it was and why my family was the way it was, and why there was such a difference. And I was trying to comprehend the conflict of rage and love I felt for my father and my mother, trying to reconcile these deep conflicting feelings.

At some level I had learned if you love another living being you hurt them. Of course this was not conscious but it was deep within me as a conflict and came out in bizarre ways that were hurtful. I wanted to see if another living being could hurt like I hurt and if hurting another being was the way it had to be to make sense of life. I also wonder if I did indeed have dissociative identity disorder. It is often a diagnosis that is not made for years, but it stems from early, ongoing and extreme physical or sexual abuse. It can manifest itself on a spectrum of passive disengagement and withdrawal from the active, present environment all the way to multiple personality disorder. I think it helps me to see why I always felt like others were living and I was watching. I was truly disengaging from my own life to protect myself emotionally from it…

Some of you may be confused by the emotional detachment that many of us from abuse have experienced. In my view, this is actually a gift God gave us in the way He made our minds. We have the ability if we are in the middle of war, car accidents, abuse or other horrific circumstances to shut down our normal emotions to deal with what we must deal with right in front of us. I see that as a tremendous gift. But what we have to do if our abuse was ongoing is often to get help to reconnect with those emotions we shut down. To not have a normal connect between present circumstances and emotions can do us and our families great harm. We must work to reconnect with that little boy or girl or woman or man who got hurt and give ourselves a chance to be whole again.

I have no idea if this resonates with any of you who came from chronic, early abuse. Boys are more likely to be involved in abuse of animals and certainly each child is different. If you know of a child who is abusing animals don’t take it as just “curiosity” of a child. See it for the huge cry for help it is. There is a very strong correlation between abusing animals and future domestic violence. For those of us who were around repeated and terrorizing violence it hurt us tremendously but it also set us up for behaviors down the road. If you have struggled with behaviors or actions that seem way out of proportion to what the circumstances seem to call for, know that the person exhibiting these behaviors may have unresolved trauma in their lives. And we trauma victims often wall off our emotions so that we can’t even feel what a victim is going through.

There is hope in the process of healing in this. Please take my experiences and use them as a jumping off point for yourselves. And even if what you have experienced is different from my life story, please contact me if you want to talk this through. I am available and I encourage you to take the step to talk to someone about what you think is unspeakable. Remember, shame has such power over us unless we bring it out of the dark and out of our isolation and get help in an affirming environment.

I know, I know. This seems so unfair. Your perpetrator hurt you so badly and “trained” you to think abuse is normal. And then made it far easier for you to do. And you may have been disconnected from the normal emotions you should have felt from doing wrong towards an animal or person. Well it is unfair! But let’s take that unfairness, examine it in the light of day and detoxify its power over us. And let’s begin healing so we make sure this doesn’t happen again. We can help each other in this!

Sincerely,

Mark Phelps

Repent Without Regret

Ever think about how often perfectionism gets people into trouble? It’s the impossible standard you put on yourself and others that makes you at best a schoolmarm or at worst a tyrant. Neither of which is easy to live with. And the perfectionist is never satisfied. And that lack of satisfaction haunts our lives.

Do you know what I think? Perfectionists deep down have a desire to please. Ourselves, others and even God. So we put an unhealthy standard on ourselves and then get busy flogging ourselves every time we don’t live up to those standards. Am I saying it is wrong to have standards of excellence and to work hard? I am not! The Bible speaks plainly about the importance of excellence in our work. Hard work brings some amazing results, and we are often proud of those results.

But how do we actually deal with God’s standards and ours? God’s standards are that we are to be holy. Just the way He is. The funny thing about God is at the same time He sets this very high bar knowing it will be so good for us if we live up to it. He knows if we try to be loving, just, kind, honest and act in integrity the way He is it will profoundly change our lives. But….do you know what the rub is? We can’t live up to His standards and He knows it. Oh great. Those of you who have lived under an impossibly high standard of parents or bosses are already cringing.

But… God builds in an amazing and creative solution to His high, really impossible standards. He asks us to be holy and not sin but lets us know He has a Son who can stand in for us when it’s our turn to be punished for our sin and wrongdoing. Jesus Christ steps in FOR us and pays for our mistakes and sins with His own life. We’re rescued from this mess because Jesus did everything perfectly that we couldn’t. And we’ve chosen to receive the gift He gives us by believing that it is true. It’s an act of faith. We were shown amazing mercy by God. And the best part is He offers this gift to everybody on the planet. We have the choice to turn away from the way we have been living our lives and turn to Him to receive this amazing gift.

God does two big things when we turn the rudder of our lives toward Him. He forgives us of our sin. That is showing us mercy. But then He does something more. He gives us the grace to live our lives as His sons and daughters. With our heads held high and in freedom. We are similar to death row prisoners deserving punishment but the great news is Jesus takes our place on death row. And then He helps us walk out of the prison we’ve made of our lives in a really different way. He lets us walk out as sons and daughters.

Do you know what sons and daughters of God get to do? We get to spend time with Him and talk to Him. This ability we have to connect with God is His gift of love to us. Part of His love allows us to talk with God; we can talk with Him out loud or in our hearts when we are alone. The exciting reality for us is He hears each word, even our unspoken thoughts. Once we belong to His family we are never alone again.

When I begin to worry or am distressed I start talking out loud (if I am alone!) to God as if He is right in the room with me. I try to divert my worry immediately into prayer. Even if I am not alone I try to do that same thing, taking my worry into prayer, within my own mind. I start by rehearsing the circumstances, describing them to the Lord and then continuing on with prayer about the circumstances I’m concerned about. Even with the feelings of fear or upset still in my chest or stomach I try to start right away into conversation with the Lord. This has taken me some time to make this a habit but it has been a wonderful one to develop.

For me, even harder than worries I find myself struggling with, are the feelings I get when I have made a mistake. Especially if it seems like a big mistake! When I make a mistake I feel an immense amount of guilt. I feel like a failure. When I feel like I have let my daughters down or my wife down I also am upset because I feel like I have let God down. My heart sinks within me. Sometimes I actually lose physical strength. As soon as I am able I rush to my wife or my daughter and apologize and they are always willing to forgive me.

One thing I have been working on is to have compassion for myself when I do make a mistake. I have learned I have a lot of compassion for other people and often very little for myself. Sometimes I say things to myself I would never let someone say about my wife or daughters. I can be very harsh with myself. Maybe you find yourself doing the same thing. Somehow thinking it will help. What I find it does for me is tend to slow me down from the things God has given me to do in this life. Lacking compassion for myself and beating myself up has never produced much other than anxiety! So, going to ones I love and telling them what has happened, asking forgiveness and MOVING ON to what is next in my life has taken discipline. I have to remind myself to have compassion and kindness toward me like I would toward anyone else. And doing that has made my life more productive and I think has allowed me to have even more compassion for others who are struggling when I’m compassionate with myself.

So while going directly to the person I’ve hurt has worked with people in my life for years it was always harder for me to do this in my relationship with God when I thought I had failed Him. I always assumed He was disappointed in me. I always felt a distance in my relationship with Him. Instead of running to the Lord immediately I would wrestle with my feelings until I was able to finally tell Him I was sorry. Even then I still felt a distance from Him, for a while at least. Then I would resolve not to make any mistakes again especially if it is a mistake that I have made more than once. Do you hear the perfectionism in that? I believed I had to do most of the work to get things right between me and God. Forgetting that He had a God sized heart and was tremendously open to forgiving me! Always! But the bottom line is mistake making is a very painful business for many of us and we think if we could just avoid mistakes altogether we would be alright. (Oh the pain of perfectionism! Who could imagine not making any more mistakes? Um…maybe a perfectionist?!)

Over the years it has become less agonizing for me as I have learned in my heart (not just intellectually assenting to this truth) that God made me right with Him when I accepted the gift that Jesus gave me when He died. Made me right forever! Perhaps you have a person in your life that you love so much that there really is nothing they could do that you wouldn’t forgive them for. That you are entirely predisposed to believe the best about them! Well that is the way God sees us who are His children. There is an old–fashioned Bible word called “justified” that describes our relationship with God right after we have received the gift of eternal life. We are “justified” which means God’s demands for justice have been accomplished.

We who deserved to die to pay for our own sins now have Jesus taking that punishment for us. He takes our penalty and pays it. In full! Do you remember Christ’s last words on the cross right before He died? He said “it is finished.” In the original language that was actually financial terminology that meant “paid in full.” Christ paid all that needed to be paid for our wrongs. He completed the transaction! And that action on His part makes us right before God. Completely! It is God who has already done the justifying by having Christ die on the cross to pay for our sin and wrong. Years ago I taught myself a simple definition of ‘justified’. For me it simply means ‘just as if I’d never sinned.’ If we continue our analogy to death row it’s not just that we’re pardoned by God. No. It’s as if we had never been charged with the crime! Isn’t that amazing?

So, did this new concept immediately take effect? That I would understand it’s as if I never did anything wrong? Well, no! Another important step I needed to make in my relationship to God was to learn not to keep saying I am sorry to God all the time! Reading that may sound odd at first. What’s wrong with saying you are sorry for wrongdoing? We have to do this with our friends and family or we will not have very good relationships, right? But with God there was a subtle way my apologizing was not building relationship with Him.

I have come to the realization that if the main way I am relating to God when I make a mistake is always saying I’m sorry, and repeating that same cycle, then I am missing a big part of what God is wanting to do in my life! Of course we certainly do not want to do things wrong intentionally. I am not suggesting that we are free to do things we know are wrong on purpose as if God’s grace and mercy towards us were cheap. I would never want to do intentional wrongs repeatedly. But sometimes we get caught in an endless cycle of doing things we don’t want to do, apologizing, and then doing them again. It doesn’t seem very much like the kind of life we expect to live if we are daughters and sons of the King. King Jesus. We are human, of course. But at some point, God helped me to see how He wanted me off the sin/sorry/sin/sorry cycle. And honestly I was very glad to get off the treadmill!

God wants us to walk in the freedom of knowing Him and knowing we are completely free to be ourselves. Even with our flaws and tendencies to stay in the rut of doing things wrong. This sounds like a wonderful goal but how do we go about accomplishing this?! I am suggesting that we completely change the way we try to change. Whoa! What? I want to explore the things that have us on that treadmill we can’t seem to get off of. It will also help us find greater freedom to do the things we want to be doing. Here’s how.

Repentance is a Bible concept that is a little different than just feeling sorry for what we have done. Repentance is a very honest looking at our lives, our mistakes and our sin, agreeing with God that we are wrong in doing the sin, and then doing a complete turnabout from the direction we were heading. Repentance is doing a 180 degree turn from the direction we were going. It is a big concept.

C.S. Lewis once said that repentance is like the pilot of an airplane who happens to be flying directly into a thunderstorm deciding to do a 180 degree turn to avoid the storm. No sane pilot thinks it makes sense to fly into a thunderstorm. It doesn’t take much effort to get the pilot to agree with that. When you start hanging out with a new friend you learn pretty quickly what they are passionate about. You learn what they love and hate. What they see as valuable and what they see as destructive. Things with God are no different.

As we spend time with God we learn what He thinks are wrong thoughts and behaviors but we also learn about all the wonderful things God has given to us. And the God who made us has given us a whole lot to allow us to experience happiness and even joy that are perfectly right! This process requires a reorientation of our thinking and really our being. If we are not doing wrong then we don’t have to repent of course. But what do we do when we find ourselves doing the same things we know are wrong? Or sinful? Or unkind? Or just not the people we want to be? If repentance is a good biblical concept and something God asks of us, then why do we get caught in the cycle of feeling so crummy? I think a verse in the Bible speaks to a subtle but powerful truth that can help us.

The Bible says, "...the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death." (2 Corinthians 7:10). Okay, so this is suggesting we can actually repent but do it without regret? And that repentance isn’t what’s getting us in trouble at all but the regret? This verse brings up that we are going to have sorrow in this life. But the kind of sorrow we get from what the world has to offer gives us a lot of sorrow. And that the sorrow we get from knowing God makes us actually want to turn away from the wrong we’ve done and turn the rudder of our ship toward God. And that in that turning we won’t have regret. That sounds wonderful! But what if I am the king or queen of worldly regret? And can find 42 things to regret about what I have done since this morning?

One of the first steps is that we are going to have to re-train our hearts about how to do our repenting. This verse says “godly sorrow produces repentance WITHOUT REGRET.” We still get to agree with God that we’ve done wrong in our lives but coming to that place won’t have to be accompanied by regret. Can you spell relief?

This whole point/counterpoint between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow is worth really thinking about. We should feel sorrow because of sin, but God's will is that when we do the repenting/turning away that’s required that we’ll be able to do it "without regret." Biblical repentance doesn’t mean we just try to improve ourselves by making ourselves feel "bad" because of what we have done wrong. It means that agreeing with God that something we have done is wrong and turning with our whole hearts away from it without regret. If we have repented then we are forgiven and we don’t need to go over it again and again. We did it…then we repent…and we let it go. Why? Because if God has forgiven us He won’t bring it up again nor even remember it. So why do we want to go on day after day beating ourselves up. Why not put that to rest and believe God that we are forgiven?

Making ourselves feel bad about what we have done wrong may punish us into a temporary appearance of outward conformity, but it does nothing to help change our behavior long term. The Bible says, "...the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and harsh treatment of the body self-abasement...are of no value in restraining sensual fleshly indulgence." (Col. 2:23). Repentance by making ourselves feel a bunch of regret is harsh treatment of the body and has "no value in restraining sensual indulgence."

Drowning ourselves in condemnation may feel religious, but it is not God's will for us to grow that way. Making ourselves feel bad for what we do wrong is "self-made religion" because the pain we feel seems to justify our wrong doing or “fix” it somehow. Do we really think that God wants us to beat ourselves up over and over again for what we did and for what we repented for already? Should we continue to think about it again and again? Does that make us into the pure, wholesome, mature people of God He wants us to be? I honestly believe wallowing in sorrow over our mistakes keeps us locked in the identity we have of “wrongdoer.” And if that’s what we think of ourselves, what are we likely to do? Live from our identity! By the same token, if I realize I’ve done something wrong and choose to agree with God and ask His help to change I can step into the identity of “son” or “daughter” and I know I am cared about. My identity as God’s loved son has me doing things that are worthy of that identity.

No amount of feeling bad will ever make the payment for or justify what we have done wrong. Wrong things done have consequences and hurt people or hurt us. Self-inflicted pain from guilt doesn’t actually make us right before God because, "God is the one who justifies (makes us right before Him)" (Rom. 8:33b). Condemning ourselves after we have done something wrong gives us a false sense of being "good" again. Self-condemnation keeps us bent on earning a sense of right standing before God and prevents us from putting our faith in the suffering Christ did for us and the pain He felt on our behalf. Self-condemnation gives us a false sense of goodness before God.

Remember I said it would take me a long time to draw back close to God after I made a mistake. Then finally I was able to but slowly. I learned that I needed to stop closing myself off from God! I needed to learn to accept God’s love in the most practical of ways. God knew my sin before I ever knew Him and He knows my sin after I come to know Him. Surely His love for me and His kindness toward me is not less now than before I was ever aware of how Christ died for me and gave Himself for me.

Trying to motivate improvement by condemning ourselves makes it so we want to hide from God—not draw near to Him. It closes us off inside. Jesus told the religious leaders of His day, "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people..." (Matthew 23:13; see also 2 Corinthians 3:17). When we try to motivate our own repentance or anybody else’s and hope for change by condemnation we are being pharisaical and are shutting ourselves—and others—from the freedom necessary for experiencing closeness to God.

If there is only one "guideline" I could give you about changing your heart after you have done something wrong it’s to have you let go of the need for self-condemnation. Directing your heart away from self-condemnation is not easy. We have this notion that to have any compassion for ourselves is wrong. The Bible tells us to love others and treat them with respect and compassion and love. But if we were to tape record the malicious, disrespecting and mean-spirited things we say ABOUT ourselves when we fail, we might all be shocked. We have to learn to speak truth about ourselves.

We can say things like “the way I just spoke to my teenager was rude and disrespectful. That is not the way you want me to act, God. Please help me exercise self-control around this young person to build her up and help her become the person you want her to be. Lord, don’t let me flog myself and go into a tailspin but just repent, get your help and move on to being a more loving parent.” This may take repeated efforts to change the way we talk to ourselves. We are not to slander others and we certainly shouldn’t slander ourselves. My encouragement to you in this is to not ever give up on this effort! It will take practice but it will bring life back to you and those you are around.

Please don’t miss these two things. Repentance requires that you retrain your heart to stop trusting self-inflicted guilt and that you start trusting Christ’s ability to help you live this new life with His help. Christ paid for the sins you committed and that is an amazing gift. But the gift keeps giving in that He also gave you the power to live a new kind of life. For repenting to function without crippling regret we have to retrain our hearts. We really have to think hard about what we believe in our heart is the best way to correct ourselves and do better the next time. If you can delight in ministering to yourself in this way think of the delight you will have in ministering to others in this way! Kindness towards yourself as you are learning to be a better, more loving person is as powerful as kindness towards others. There is actually nothing biblical about being mean to others or being mean to yourself! There is a wonderful verse in the Bible that says “it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.” That is true and I really believe God wants His kindness towards us to spill over into our own kindness toward ourselves.

Observe your reaction when you do something wrong. Do you stay away from God? What gives you freedom to draw near to God again? Kindness! God’s kindness! Do you trust the forgiveness of God because you made yourself feel badly for long enough? Try something new. See if you can trust the forgiveness of God because of the power of the cross and God’s cleansing of your whole self.

We won’t ever live right before God if we are motivated by self-condemnation! Consider it sin to feel any sense of justification or righteousness because of how much pain you inflict on yourself through self-condemnation. The security you need is not from how well you protect yourself from God. Hate any sense of "righteousness" you feel because of self-inflicted pain from condemnation.

Teach Your Heart to treat yourself like you want to treat others. Discipline motivated by fear, self-condemnation, and guilt won’t change you at the deep levels that are needed. There is too much in life coming at us too fast for us to treat ourselves this way. You have to help yourself to not fall into the pattern of trying to flog yourself for your mistakes and sin. It isn't enough for you to know in your head that self-condemnation is an ineffective and sinful way to repent. Your heart has to learn a more effective way to correct unwanted behaviors and turn to God. You may need to ask God, the Great Healer, to show you what is true about your heart so you can understand what is going on. And what keeps you from accepting God’s unfailing love and kindness toward you as you pick yourself up after a mistake or a sin . . . with His help.

Remember that shame lives best in darkness, isolation and our “not telling.” When you get brave enough to tell God exactly what happened and exactly how it is making you feel, you have brought your concern and your pain into the light by telling your story. And you are no longer alone. God has infinite patience for us and our lives. And our smallest attempts to live in His light. It is hard, but with practice it gets easier. And our burdens get lifted right off our shoulders!

Use thanks and praise to help your heart hear how good and safe it is to trust the cross of Christ. Listen to what you are thanking God about! React with thanks and praise at the slightest indication of self-condemnation or self-based righteousness.

“Father, I am a mess. I’ve done it again. And I am SO ashamed of myself I can barely stand it! I am trying not to hate myself and my actions. You are a holy God and look what I just said to my stepdaughter in such a mean tone of voice. What was I thinking?! But I understand you are my Papa. And that you love me in spite of the worst thing I think or do. And I am amazed. Thank you God! I believe I am your son. Well, I’m starting to. So I am telling you my sin but I know you say you’ll forgive me. I really struggle with believing that but right now I guess I just will believe you. Thank you. Now Papa, will you help me clean up this mess with this young stepdaughter of mine and reconnect with her? I believe you, God that you want to do this for me. This is so hard to be so honest with you, but here I am, God. Thank you….”

Get your heart to hear that it is far more effective to change by hearing thanks and praise to God for the truth about how God truly feels about you and your situation. The cross is more powerful than your sin. Thank the Lord with great joy that you don't have to put your faith in the severity of your self-condemnation. Delight your heart by praise toward God that you don’t have to wait to trust the forgiveness of God until you are "done feeling bad."

Biblical repentance is a more effective way to grow—a way of delight toward God—not of contempt toward yourself. You have to get to the heart of the matter—without self-condemnation. Delight can help you change. Joy is the strongest bond known to man and the joy of the Lord is our strength. It binds our heart with God’s. We need God’s strength in our lives. Don’t shut yourself off from God when you make a mistake. He is the only Person who is completely trustworthy with your heart!

Christians tend to feel: “I have something wrong inside and so why shouldn't I hide from God?’ But God is the one who gave us this spiritual awareness to begin with, right? So why do we feel we need to hide from Him when He knows all about us? Would you hide from your doctor after you found out you had an infection? Wouldn’t that be counterproductive, especially if this doctor was willing and able to help you? We have to learn to accept that something is wrong in our lives but that we can still move forward with repentance because God loves and understands us. If you have this awareness you can be sure that God is calling you closer to Himself. But He also wants you to take steps to turn the affections of your heart more fully toward Him. Remember that you can move forward without having to punish yourself into improvement over and over for the same sin!

The thing is when you sin…repent…do a 180 away from the sin and toward God… then you really are free to let it go because God has let it go. Once forgiven of a sin you are truly forgiven by God. It doesn’t mean that there are no consequences for our actions while on earth because with sin comes consequences, but once we are truly repentant and forgiven by God that sin is gone for all eternity. Let it go and just move on and do what is right. Sounds simple, right? But it takes practice like any wonderful habit of friendship or relationship.

Next time you sin again run to the Lord! Don’t stay away because you sinned. Give it to God and get in right standing with Him right then. He wants this for you! He wants to help you walk closer to him every day and not get drug down by staying stuck in sorrow about your sin. He’d rather help you walk as a precious son or daughter who knows you are forgiven. And are being helped up to keep walking on a good path with him! Do it right on the spot even if you don’t feel like it. He has already made you in right standing with Him. His grace and forgiveness of you is big! Accept His free gift so you can keep moving. And move with new freedom! It is for freedom that Christ has set you free!

Mark Phelps

Interview with Christianity Today

http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/april/my-interview-with-mark-phelps-son-of-former-westboro-leader.html

The Hope of Heaven

Part of the well-known Lord’s Prayer says: “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”.

Jesus is asking us to request that the way God does things in heaven will be done right here on this earth. We know God’s kingdom is based on the characteristics of God. He is a good, merciful, and life giving God and those are things He wants to see on earth, and asks us to pray to that end. To me heaven is a far superior reality being invited into our current reality. And I find it interesting that it is Jesus himself who is teaching us that this is a prayer of paramount importance to the believer. In fact Jesus said “when you pray, pray this way…”

We are to ask God to send His kingdom and kingdom ways to this earth. And ask that God’s perfect will be done on earth. Clearly this is a bold prayer because when you look around you realize God’s will is NOT being done on earth. Journalists are still being beheaded and pre-teen girls are being kidnapped in Nigeria and nearly 9 million children under the age of 5 die every year. Jesus wanted God’s will done on earth and He knew it would take some mighty praying. This prayer is Jesus desire to see the perfection and goodness of God colliding with humanity.

So we are praying for “heaven on earth” in the sense that God’s will would start happening right here on earth. Right now! That crime and poverty and rape and kidnap and injustice would stop. Wonderful thought!

But do you know that the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer we are all commissioned to pray is just an interim prayer. It is the one we pray for right now when the world is still a very messed up place. And there is so much injustice to fight. And we need “Your will be done ON earth” very badly.

But one day we will not be on this sin sick planet anymore. Not as it now exists. We will be on the New Earth. And God has promised to live here with us. Wait. What did you say? God is going to live here on this earth? Well, yes!

Here’s what it says exactly:

Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away… I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’

So when I think about eternal hope, a hope that has no end…and a hope that does not disappoint that is exactly what Revelation 21 describes . . . A place with no more “death or mourning or crying or pain.”

I think often about the Love and Light of God the Father. Do you know what Revelation 21 says about when we are here together on the New Earth? The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. His love and light that are not confined by anything, that are not held back by our fear or the surrounding darkness. A place where Love is infinite, forgiveness abounds, and people see themselves through the sacrifice and justice of Jesus Christ, fully healed.

On the New Earth everything I have just been saying will be felt by all who are on the New Earth. You know there are days when you still cry and mourn and feel pain. There will no longer be a disconnection between our hope and our reality. Our hopes will have become reality. Our faith will be our eyes! The Hope of Heaven will literally be heaven ON earth. The Holy City of Jerusalem comes down out of heaven and takes up residence right here. Isn’t that an amazing thought?

When I reflect upon the hopeful reality of Heaven/the New Earth, my heart feels more connected to the mercy of God, to His Spirit moving in and around me. I think about Jesus’ magnificent and humble sacrifice. I anticipate a redemptive end to the story of my life. It gives me power to live in the moment, fueled by a certainty of a merciful future. It propels me towards kindness.

But back to today. 2015. When Jesus has me praying “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth”. God wants to bring as much good and safety and kindness and justice as He can while we are still living with sin and sorrow. He truly wants His kingdom to invade this world NOW. So, if I care about injustice and sorrow I should get busy praying the Lord’s Prayer. Even though I know one day all sorrow will be gone. But I can want as much sorrow to be gone now as possible.

What I believe and hope for when we invite Heaven to come into our world is a transformational encounter with the Love of God. The kind of encounter that shapes us, shifts our understanding of the everlasting, beautiful, loving nature of God, and turns every day into an explosive, powerful adventure.

As part of my understanding of the powerful adventure available to me right now, I know that God expects me to fight injustice. His Plan A for injustice is the followers of Christ and other goodhearted people everywhere. And there is no Plan B. So if I am committed to seeing God’s ways invade this unsafe and treacherous world, I have to find my place in the battle. Believers in God have been called into spiritual war for the whole time this planet exists. We are not in peace time and we should not act like it. Each of us can find our place in the spiritual war effort whether it’s on the front lines, helping with the supply chain, in communications, funding the war or in the reserves. We all have a place!

We know the Lord is going to return someday. Did you know that according to one estimate, there are over 2,000 references to the second coming of Jesus in the Bible? For every prophecy concerning the first coming of Christ, there are eight that look forward to His second. I recognize that you may be rolling your eyes right now, thinking that you’re going to hear about some wild-eyed predictions related to the end times. Don’t worry -- I’m not going to do any date-setting, for as Jesus said, no one knows about that day or hour.

Even though Bible teachers differ over the details of His return, there is widespread agreement that Jesus is coming back. Jesus said in John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” The Bible clearly pictures the coming of Christ at a time when the world does not expect it but it will be a wonderful surprise for those awaiting his return.

The coolest thing is that Revelation 21 lets us know that the “Place” Jesus is preparing will end up being right here. If you are one of those Christians who has worried you will be having to listen to boring harp playing for eternity, that is not true! The Bible says when Jesus comes back we are going to reign with Him! Reigning does not sound boring! (Apologies to all my harp playing friends. David who fought Goliath also played the harp and I personally love music and play the piano.)

I think one of the reasons the bright hope we have in the future matters to me is because I am a victim of abuse. That abuse lasted for about 20 years and then there was an almost 20 year healing process. I lost some ground in my life because of someone else’s wrong doing. And that is true for many of you who are reading this blog. It applies to those of you who are survivors of abuse but also to victims of things like human trafficking, poverty, war and famine. There are a lot of very difficult circumstances some of us deal with who live on this planet. Some of us have had so much taken from us that even though much will be restored in this life there is much that never will be. There are physical and emotional scars many of us are left with. We may be stronger people, but we have some scars.

What I love about what God plans to do when we get to be with Him on the New Earth is restore things to the way they should have been. The Bible talks about our bodies and minds being completely restored and that we will reign with Jesus. I know that is almost more than we can take in. But those of us who have had our bodies ravaged, by cancer or by a perpetrator of abuse, one day our bodies will be new and whole. And we will get a “second chance” at life. We will still be us, but we will have new bodies and there will be no “death or mourning or crying or pain.” Imagine! I almost struggle to understand how I would live without pain and sorrow. But God says it is so. And I am looking forward to that time!

So, am I one of those Christ followers who sit around doing nothing and eating bonbons because “one day it will all be better?” No! I am an active participant in life and think it is my responsibility to tell as many people as I can about this amazing God who loves them but also to alleviate suffering in this life. There is a lot of work to do here. But I do look forward to a whole, beautiful creation filled with people who are not broken any more by sin and the damage it does to us…

In my previous writing I have written a lot about the storms I have experienced in my life as I was growing up and as a young man. And I have had plenty of storms since, storms all throughout my life . . . storms of financial difficulties and health difficulties and more. I try to keep the perspective that when I find myself in the middle of the storms of life: "Even if I do not know when, I know someone is going to come." That someone is Jesus Christ, of course - and his coming is called "the blessed hope and glorious appearing." We persevere through the challenges of this life because our hope is built on the certainty of Christ’s return. When the waves get high, keep your eyes on the heavens for the one who has promised to come again. I’m thankful that Jesus meets us in the storms of life. Always remember that when the storms show up, so does the Savior.

That leads me to a question: Is there a storm in your heart right now? If so, I hope you run to the Redeemer for refuge. The best way to weather the major storms of life is to make sure you are anchored to the Rock of Ages.

If you have never turned your life over to Christ and received His salvation, please do it before it’s too late. 2 Peter 3:9-10 says “God isn’t late with His promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining Himself on account of you, holding back the end because He doesn’t want anyone lost.” He’s giving everyone space and time to change. You can experience the beginning of heaven on earth and continue by living in heaven forever. I hope you join me in this great joy of salvation and great hope of heaven and then watch with me for the return of Christ from heaven and join me in heaven forever!

Mark Phelps

Evil Has To Go

From the time you are a little kid you are aware, at least on some level, that evil exists. Either your parents let you watch Sleeping Beauty movies and you learned who Maleficent was, or you started reading the papers, or even you grew up with siblings and you felt at least a form of evil when your brother’s fist made contact with your nose.

But it usually takes people a long time to want to fight evil. Mostly we just want it to go away. And we want to be protected, safe and secure. And for children that is their primary need and completely understandable.

And then there comes the day when as an adult you realize you are called on to stand up against evil. You hear the Edmund Burke quote that says “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And it hits you that you want to be a good man or a good woman. I know I want to stand up against evil and not let it have its way in my life or in anyone else’s. I want to resist. I am outraged by evil and am unwilling to accept it or let it succeed. Exploitation of our children! Oppression of human beings! Atrocities against women! Injustice of every kind! Many feel as I. “Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light” … Dylan Thomas. Many of us read the news and think the light of justice is dying in this world.

Our very outrage at evil provides a clue for us. There is a reason for our visceral response to evil. It's because of who made us. We operate every day with a standard of goodness by which we judge this world with its defects. And when we use this almost universal measuring stick we recognize how profoundly lacking the reality we see every day is compared to this standard.

Pain is not just theoretical for us. It is real and it is physical! When our little child is hurt by our failure and they look at us through tears and say: “Why did you hurt me so bad?” or ‘How could you let this happen?” as parents we suddenly experience very real and personal pain. What we realize is that evil not only happens halfway around the world but sometimes happens to people we know and who are very close to us. And it is then that we can no longer leave it in the theoretical but must make it personal, and to decide if we will fight against it, and how.

The primary place where evil exists is within the tragedies and failures of human history. To clarify, some tragedies are outside of human control. When we see a tsunami or an Ebola epidemic we realize these constitute tragedies involving precious human life but they are not borne of evil. When I speak here of evil it is that which is concocted and planned in the human heart. Evil often feels like it will triumph over good. Good seems like delicate stemware and evil feels like an earthquake rattling and rumbling and destroying all of what is good.

The very best things in life come to us through our families, but so do the very worst. The greatest good of all is love and nothing seems more fragile and tender than love. Nothing is more easily broken than trust. Nothing is more easily disappointed than hope.

Perhaps if we look at how Jesus dealt with evil we can learn. He said ‘do not be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good’. How did He do this? Jesus’ simple answer was in one word . . . forgiveness. Forgiveness admits that evil is evil. But it effectively separates the sinner and the sin and sets the sinner free. And for the one who has committed evil, it helps that person to turn from the evil and say they are sorry to their victim also and this allows release from evil and its power to destroy your own soul.

The laws of logic would appear to prevent God from being both just and merciful at the same time. But God solved this difficult dilemma on Calvary. Full justice was done: sin was punished. The weight of the entire human race’s sin debt fell on Christ’s body. But mercy and forgiveness were also enacted. The answer was for God to give us the mercy and give Christ the justice. And Jesus was willing for this to happen. In fact He took much joy in it. Jesus’ perfect sacrifice on our behalf separated the sin from the sinner. This allowed sin to receive its punishment in the person of Jesus and at the same time allows sinners to receive mercy and forgiveness in our own selves. Are you blown away by this mercy extended to us?

The legal requirements of evil were dealt with when Christ died on the cross. He paid for all the evil that had ever been done or even thought about. And it was done fairly in that the gift of being exonerated from our crimes was extended to every human being. Everyone! No matter what we did. What’s required for us, the evil doers is to personally accept Christ’s gift of eternal life that separated our sin from us the sinners. We are given the amazing gift that allows us to turn from our sins and our failures and the very worst things we have ever done. And by believing in the power of this gift, in the truth of what Jesus accomplished on our behalf, we become new people. It is almost too big to wrap our minds around.

It just happens to be true. Evil got conquered on the cross by Christ. Now we get to live like totally new people. Because the truth is…we are.

Evil Has To Go!

There is a love that does not abuse and does not exploit. It does not abandon or reject. It does not lie or cheat. This Love is faithful, pure, and true . . . perfect to the end. His name is Jesus.

Mark Phelps

Where Was God?

Over the years I have been asked “where was God in all your abuse?” It is a legitimate question. And one I have thought about a lot. It’s been said that three of the most important questions in one’s life are who God is, who you are, and who you are in relationship to God. My answers to those three questions are critical to the way I understand where God was in my abuse.

For my growing up years I didn’t really think about God much at all as it related to my father abusing me. My father, as far as I can tell, spent a lot of time just scaring the heck out of us by talking about all the ways God was judging the world and judging us. My father made sure we were always off kilter and always feeling guilty, always looking over our shoulder for God’s wrath or our father’s. My father instilled constant fear in us and basically I was afraid of God. My sole purpose in life for years was to stay one step ahead of my father and not get caught! Because to get caught by my father meant I was to get beaten. I felt the same way about God. I think our home was truly a cult compound. Maybe more like a prison or work camp. Our entire goal was not to get screamed at or beaten and then to get up the next day and try not to get beaten again.

When I finally escaped the cult I was under the impression, thanks to my father’s weekly preaching on this subject that any who left were going to hell and probably were going to be zapped into a grease spot. So all I cared about for a number of years was to figure out how to live my life. I had gotten very little training in our family on the basics of being an adult. And I hoped God would not zap me into a grease spot as I tried to learn to be an adult.

When I finally began my journey of healing years later part of it happened under the care of some very special guys in a church I was attending. My father had spent years saying everyone else had “gotten it wrong” when it came to God and how to live life. What these men taught me was something very different from what I learned from my father. These men taught me that God loved me and others, with a profound love, and that I was a worthwhile human being who deserved to be shown love and respect and friendship. This was completely foreign to me.

These men were helping me with the answers to all three of these fundamental questions about life as they simply lived out being humble, loving Christians. It honestly about blew my mind as each time I interacted with them I had to “undo” the tapes in my brain where my father had said everybody else in the world was wrong and that God hated everybody. These men hated nobody and were taking the time to reach out to me as a young man, very much in need of a caring father figure.

Over time I began to believe the things these men were telling me. And I dug into the Bible and learned that they were right. That God does indeed have a profound love for people that is akin to the best earthly father you could even dream of and then magnified beyond imagining.

The time I had with these men was wonderful since I was essentially being “deprogrammed” from my father’s brainwashing and hatred. With the truth slowly sinking into my brain I began to think about how God’s love for me was still true during the abuse itself. That was something I hadn’t thought about growing up under my father’s teaching. There was no way I would have concluded there was a loving God who cared very much about me being abused as a little boy, but as an adult man who was in the process of healing the question could not be escaped.

If God loved me how was it possible that He stood on the sidelines and saw me being abused, my mom being abused, and some of my “target” siblings being abused far worse than I ever had. How could His love be reconciled, at all, with the abuse? And for that matter how could any wrong thing that was done on the planet toward people be reconciled with God’s love? How could rape and kidnapping and murder and abuse be reconciled with God’s love for people?

Well, before long I had to come to grips with several important truths. The evil that was being perpetrated in abuse and wrong doing was one human being against another. It was never perpetrated by God. It was just not stopped by Him. So, I had to grapple with the obvious reality of our ability to exercise free will. I believe free will is a gift God gave to people and it is a reflection of who He is.

My father mocked the idea of free will but he was mistaken. (I have no idea how he didn’t see his daily tirades of anger and abuse against the human race as his own exercise of free will!) The Bible clearly states that we are made in God’s image. So anything God gave to us as humans somehow reflects Him. Free will is a powerful gift. It is essentially the ability to call the shots for your own life, to be the author and creator of your own destiny. It is an enormous gift if you think about it. It can be used for tremendous evil, for tremendous good and everything in between. We are given amazing freedom over our own destiny.

The problem with free will is that God just gave it carte blanche to the whole human race. To people raised with loving parents, and to people who grew up on the streets with no moral compass in their lives. It seems God did not attach an owner’s manual with our free will that would have us only making good choices and never bad ones. Well, okay, I might argue the owner’s manual is the Bible, but even then as we all know, people are free to still make choices that hurt people. We see evidence of this in the news every day. As completely free moral agents we can make choices all day long every day that either harm or help, either bring good or bring evil, either value people or devalue people, either honor or dishonor others. The choices are endless and God allows that.

So, are you okay with that? Well a lot of us aren’t when we first start into this subject. We want God never to allow rape or kidnap or murder. And we don’t want anyone to suffer pain or torture. We would simply have God wipe out evil.

Here’s the problem. There is an evil tendency in each of us. We spend our lives trying to convince ourselves this is not so, but if we have lived on this planet we are well aware of the wretched things we think and the wretched things we do . . . on a very regular basis. We may be able to hide our sin and our junk from others for a while. But we can’t hide it from ourselves.

So it occurred to me one day that if God were going to wipe out evil He had to wipe out our free will. ALL of our free wills. And the second He did that humankind would cease to exist. So for Him to get rid of evil He would have to get rid of us! While this is hard to imagine logically there really isn’t a way around that conclusion.

So now back to my abuse. I came to realize the free will of my father was allowed to exist no matter how loud and long he foolishly protested this reality. His free will was allowed to exist to abuse and torture and malign and demean and scream at the 14 of us who my father lived with. And that coupled with a criminal justice and social services system that was not quite ready to deal with my father yet in the 60s and the 70s meant that we in our family had no exit path from the abuse other than to grow up and to leave.

So, did God really love me during my abuse? Yes. I believe with all my heart that He did. And that He was as heartbroken as I was over my father’s exercise of his free will in such a mean, criminal, abusive way.

If any of you who are parents think about your role with your own children, in some ways it is similar to this predicament God has placed Himself in by allowing free will. I think pondering my role as a daddy has given me some new perspective on God Himself as our Father. We parents cannot protect our children from all harm and pain and cruelty as much as we would like to. So when something bad happens to our child and they look up at us with an angry or scared face that says “Dad, why didn’t you protect me from that?” our hearts break. We cannot protect our children from all harm. We do our best, but that is all we can do. What we can offer our children is to be with them THROUGH their lives and their pain. Not to protect but to come alongside. And hang on for as long as it takes. That is a hard realization for any parent, and when God made the world it was probably a hard realization for Him too. And I believe He has intense empathy and compassion for the injustice and pain and abuse that is perpetrated on every single precious child He made.

So how did this help me as I looked back over my abuse? Well it helped me as I thought through the gift of free will. We tend to look only on the downside of free will. We think of war and torture and cruelty and we just want it ended. We don’t tend to think about free will on the upside. The upside could include the beauty of music, the writing of a wonderful book, the creation of the Internet, the making of a vaccine that saved millions or the drawing of a sweet picture by your 3 year old. Free will includes the sum of all the human race has ever done or ever will do. Some people will live selfishly and go for fame and fortune with no concern for their fellow man. Some will behead people and put those deeds on the Internet. Others will climb to amazing heights to help other people to recover from Ebola. All of the deeds of mankind come from our amazing ability to use and direct the free will God gave us.

So, I see free will as a gift. I saw my father exercise his immense gifts and talents in people-crushing ways. What a sad realization that was for me! And I had to live through it and attempt to climb out of the deep hole it made for my life. But, I was also able to exercise my free will to heal, to overcome the desperately sick and wrong things my father taught me and choose to live a different kind of life. I have also chosen to live my life now with God at my side every step of the way. I have raised two amazing daughters with my wife and had a business and been part of wonderful, beautiful opportunities to help people. Just because my father exercised his free will in such reprehensible and ultimately terribly sad ways, does not take away my joy in getting to exercise my free will gift. And I hope the sin and destructiveness of others doesn’t keep you from using your free will in courageous and life giving ways.

I hope as you who have been abused look at your lives you will wrestle with all that has hurt you and especially the way you see God, yourself and your relationship with God. Dig in and stay with it until you find yourself and I hope, find your God. But in the processing I hope you also see your life as a totality. You are far more than the worst abuse that ever happened to you. You are a precious, amazing, beautiful creation of God and He loves you so, so much! And He delights to see the way you exercise your free will. It is yours to use as you see fit. And you can do amazing things with it, amazing things for yourself and for others. Blessings to you in the exercise of it!

Mark Phelps

The Good News Of Jesus Christ

Go into the whole world and proclaim this message: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

What truth is that? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s this: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. If we are going to look at what God meant by this, we have to look to why He bothered to give His Son Jesus to the world. But we also have to look to the cross Jesus died on. We have to look at what was essentially the electric chair of the Roman world, the cross. It was a method of torture for the worst criminals. Roman citizens could not be crucified because of the privilege of their citizenship. I want you to look at the cross. Come to the cross. This message of the cross is for everyone. Christ is alive! Of all the things you will ever see or hear, there is only one message that will change people’s lives and hearts. There is a way, if you come by the way of the cross. We receive our freedom purchased by the ransom at the cross.

Wait, ransom? Ransom is an interesting word. Today it mostly means the redemption of a prisoner or slave or goods for the price demanded. An older meaning of the word is a means of deliverance or rescue from punishment for sin, especiallythe payment of a redemptive fine. Actually what Christ did on the cross was a combination of both of those. Each of us was found guilty for sins we have committed and we are required to pay the price for what we have done. When you think about today’s modern climate and the whole thought process behind whether to pay terrorists off to buy back an abducted person you realize the government has to think clearly about whether to ever pay the ransom. In Christ’s case He willingly paid the ransom price without being asked, and the payment? His own death! The ransom price to pay for the whole world.

I want us all to understand the meaning of this cross. Not the cross that hangs on a wall or around someone’s neck but the real cross of Christ. The cross expresses the great love of God for man. It is scarred and blood-stained. His was a rugged cross. His real purpose for coming was to die! I know that many will react with confusion or horror at this message but it is the truth. And with all my heart I want to leave you with the truth that happened on this cross. With the life of Jesus hanging on that cross God said “I love you! I love you! I have loved you with an everlasting love!” He loves you and he is willing to forgive you of all sins.

On our churches we have a cross. It’s embossed on our Bibles. It’s an ornament that we wear around our necks, Christians and non-Christians. Research shows that objects that are a regular part of our lives begin to lose their impact on us as symbols when we look at them all the time. And apparently it happens with crosses, too, if we are not careful to keep their symbolism and meaning very alive. I have wondered, since the cross is a symbol of torture and execution if what we should do is rotate our necklaces and symbols with other methods of execution once in a while. So sometimes we should wear electric chairs and sometimes we should have tools of beheading. Other times we should wear a noose. Okay, I’ve said this to make a point and I’m not sure I’m really suggesting this, but I want us to talk about the meaning of the cross till we understand it.

But when we talk about the depth and the real meaning of the cross it becomes an offense! Why is that? The cross is offensive because it confronts people. What it confronts us with is our sin problem and, it is a confrontation that all of us must face. Our sin problem is that our sin has to be paid for in this moral world we live in. Christ died on the cross to pay for our sin but He doesn’t force that gift on us. We have to individually choose to respond to and accept that gift. It is a beautiful gift that will impact our entire eternity but we have to accept it. God is a gentleman always and He will not force that gift on anyone.

We are people with different backgrounds and we have various needs. And we are all objects of God’s mighty love, to the point that he gave his son, his only son to die upon a cross. The cross was the most terrible form of execution by the Romans for criminals. And Jesus endured all that in our place because of our sins. We deserved the cross. We deserve hell. We deserve judgment and all that that means.

I know there are many people who dispute this. People do not want to hear that they are sinners. To many people it is offensive. The cross is offensive because it directly confronts the evils that dominate so much of this world. You see the Bible teaches that all of us have done wrong. We have all gone astray. We’ve everyone turned to our own way of doing things, even if it is at someone else’s expense. And when we turn to our own way we go astray from God’s way. And that includes the whole human race. Every one of us, the 7.2 billion souls that are now alive, have turned away from God.

And that is why the world is in such terrible danger right now. It’s not dangerous so much because we have atomic bombs. It’s dangerous because of the human heart behind the bombs. Hearts filled with hatred, envy, strife, greed, lust and all the other things that could pull the trigger.

One reason the cross is offensive to people is because it demands. It doesn’t suggest. It demands a new life style in all of us. Sin is a disease in the human heart. It affects the mind and the will and the emotions. Every part of our being is affected by this disease. How can we break this bondage? How can we be set free? God helps us break those chains. The Bible says: “If any man is in Christ he is a new creature. Old things pass away. Everything becomes new.” Christ can make you a totally new person. It sounds inviting and it sounds impossible. But it is the most real invitation you will ever get. From a God who can back up His promise.

On that cross God was laying our sins on Jesus. Christ’s crucifiers not only put nails in his hands but before that they had scourged him. A Roman scourge was a terrible thing. They took whips embedded with little pieces of glass and stone pellets on those whips and beat a person almost to death. And then they took an extremely heave cross and made him carry it which in his weakened condition was almost impossible. Jesus was finally assisted by someone who a guard ordered to do the carrying or he might not have made it to a place outside of Jerusalem. And then they put nails in his hands.

If you decide to Google the mechanics of crucifixion you will find it to be true torture. The victim finally is asphyxiated because he can’t get enough air in his lungs. But even that was not the real suffering. The real suffering is when God’s anger toward sin was poured down on Christ’s head. In the Bible it says (Matthew 27) that the earth turned dark for three solid hours while God was pouring down the punishment for sin on Jesus’ body. You can feel some of Jesus’ anguish in this ordeal when he said: “My God my God why have you forsaken me!?” In that terrible moment he and God the Father were separated.

Not long after Jesus made that statement his life on this earth was going to end. But, I want to take a station break and talk about what happened RIGHT at the moment He died. It amazes me every time I read it. Here’s how it happened.

“At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, ‘Surely he was the Son of God!’”

I don’t know about you but I think I would have liked to have been one of those guards. And be there to watch people pop out of tombs and walk around. Every time I read this passage I think of God the Father watching the whole thing and being incredibly proud of His Son having giving such an amazing gift to mankind. Call me a goof, but I can’t help but wonder if the Father couldn’t help Himself in His joy over what had just happened that he had to raise a few people from the dead to show people how real His Son was! And that believing in His Son was going to have earth shattering consequences in their lives not unlike tombs opening up! I really think He did it to give us hope for our futures. And hope for right now. Wander through Matthew 27 in the Bible sometime if you want some encouragement.

What still amazes me in all this is that Christ was a willing victim. Christ willingly shed his blood. A decision made before time began that Jesus would live as a human being and die for all mankind was accomplished in that willing act. And the shedding of that blood carries with it God’s very life. The shedding of Christ’s blood is the meeting place between God and man. The Bible says without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. And that is what Christ was doing on the cross. He was essentially paying reparations to God for our sins.

Jesus did a lot on that cross the day he gave his life for mankind. He was paying for rape, and murder, and torture and kidnapping and human trafficking and heinous crimes but he was also paying for mean spiritedness and selfishness and petty things that we think, say and do every day. He paid for it all. What Christ accomplished on the death row of all humankind was to offer us forgiveness for all we had done and even would do in the future. It was the greatest single action with the greatest consequence of all time. The cross and the resurrection of Christ offer forgiveness of sins. It offers a whole new life and actually offers you eternal life if you come to the cross by turning from your former direction away from God and by an act of faith turning toward Him and accepting His amazing gift.

There is no other way to be saved from the consequences of our own sin except through the cross of Christ. We actually have no ability to make this payment on our own, much as we might like to. The plan that the Father and His Son, Jesus, came up with before time ever began was that Jesus would pay for our sin through human sacrifice. Him! The God/man. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me”. The only way to the Father; Father God; is through His son Jesus Christ.

Now why Jesus? He’s the only one who was born into this world without sin, but more than that He was the only righteous one. The Father wanted someone without sin to pay for the sins of the whole world and the only human who has ever existed who filled that bill was Jesus. And when you come to him and accept His gift of eternal life (yours to accept or reject!) you become clothed in his righteousness. Another way to explain that is that God now looks at you the way He sees Christ. And since Christ is sinless and without even a blemish on His soul, guess what? That is how God sees you! Squeaky clean and beautifully new! God no longer sees your sin, he no longer sees your own heart, he sees Jesus’ heart. But with your beautiful new heart all wrapped up in Jesus.

Now I don’t understand everything about how this all works. There are many things about the cross and about salvation/us being rescued that I do not understand. And I am not told by God that I have to understand it all. I’m told by Him that I need just a mustard seed’s worth of faith (a really small seed!) to believe. And the best thing is anybody can believe! This gift is open to all! A blind man can believe. A deaf man can believe. An old person can believe. A young person can believe and that word ‘believe’ means commit. I commit my life totally to him.

Jesus Christ from the cross says: “I will save you! I will forgive you! I will change you! I will make you a new person if you come to the cross by repentance/turning away and faith.” Come to Christ!

When you come to Christ you come by the way of repentance. To repent means to change, to turn from your sins and turn to Jesus Christ and say: “I’m a sinner, I need forgiveness and I know that you are the only one that can change me”. You will eventually see your life change, but this is a process that the Lord assists you with every step of the way. He does NOT leave you in your own mess without a way of escape from a lifestyle that for many of us was in real opposition to His ways.

The Bible says that in spite of our rebellion and rejection God loves us. And actually He always has. From before the world and time even began. He loves us so much that He gave his son to die for our sins. And when Christ died on that cross he became guilty of lying, he became guilty of slander, he became guilty of jealousy, and he became guilty of the filthiest dirty sins. Jesus lived the life I could not live and he died the death I should have died. Christ took the hell that you and I deserve in to his own body.

Now God said: ‘Receive Him! Believe in Him! Put your trust and your confidence in Him and I will forgive your sins and I will guarantee you eternity in heaven. It’s all yours and it’s all free. All you have to do is receive it.”

Today I’m asking you to put your trust in Christ. I’m going to ask you to pray this prayer, sentence by sentence as you read along on the page here. “Dear Heavenly Father I know that I’m a sinner and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe your Son died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins. I repent of my sins. I invite you to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior. In Jesus name, Amen.”

He’s alive! I’ve given my life, not to a dead Christ, but to a living Christ. And he’s given me a song to sing. I have reason for existence. When I prayed this prayer it was as though the God of the whole universe had shown up. And the first thing I noticed was that he is so good and so holy and so wonderful, too wonderful for words.

I know where I’ve come from. I know why I’m here. I know where I’m going. Do you?

God loves you!

For God so loved the World

That he gave his one and only son

That whoever believes in him

Shall not perish

But have eternal life

John 3:16

Mark Phelps