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Lori Fast's avatar

One of the ways I’ve moved out of this in my own life is by taking, or trying to take, the focus off me at all. Rather than worrying about my own sin or trying to convince myself God loves me, I find the most peace when I settle into thinking about, learning, meditating on who God is - what He has done, how He is presented in Scripture, the verses that tell us overtly and metaphorically how to think about God. Then it’s not about me anymore, it’s about loving who God is, who He is revealed to be in Jesus Christ. But it is a lot of retraining my brain, because I definitely have been on both sides of the condemnation/affirmation coin and that’s my default position unless I work against it!

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Dan Sides's avatar

We are not good. I think that’s easy to say for anyone who is self aware and/or other aware.

But we were CREATED to be good. God wants to transform us to reflect His glory. We ARE created in His image.

What salvation/forgiveness does is it frees us from ever striving on our own for a sense of “goodness” or value and meaning. This is critical because in our own striving we reach for value and meaning through things that we think will bring it but they do not. Sex, status, power, control, or even drugs and/or alcohol. And one must list “religion” here as well, which can also be an empty striving.

Only a transformational relationship with Jesus is the answer. But we have to be unchained from our guilt and shame to pursue this w/o the traps listed above. It is tricky and seldomly well explained.

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