Helping same sex attracted people

By Andrew Bunt

The importance of love : 

The real issue is about love and not sex. The world would tell us that sex is paramount whereas actually, it's love that we crave not sex. For people to know that they are loved is what really matters. Andrew said 'the more I know that I have people who love me and care for me, is the time my same sex attraction doesn't matter very much to me, and counterintuitively the closer I am to a guy who I know loves me and cares for me, the less likely it is that I will be attracted to him.'

The importance of identity :

Everything in our life is shaped by our identity. Truly understanding our identity is vital.

The importance of a big picture :

Scripture as story really matters. Seeing your life as part of the great story of the Bible and not simply swallowing a shallow gospel. It's only when we understand our sexuality within the story and see where it's all heading does our life make sense. SSA Christians need to know that big story.

The importance of talking :

Simple but powerful. To be same sex attracted can make you feel very fearful and isolated. Talking about it has the power to loosen the grip these things have on us. He experiences crushes like everyone else except that they are painful rather than exciting as he knows he'll never be able to act on it. Talking about it helps break the power of this too.

The importance of community : 

Similar to community but different enough that it's worth pointing it out. We have idolised the nuclear family at the detriment of community. Adam needed community, we need human relationship and community and so it is vital that we get this right. It must not be true in our churches that to be single is to be isolated and lonely. 

The importance of the Holy Spirit :

He helps us to live God's way, he points us to eternity and the wonderful new creation that's coming. It is the Holy Spirit who saves us and that means that it is just as likely for a deeply entrenched in the gay scene person to become a believer as it is for a nice middle class person to get saved.

Singleness - Impact 2016

Singleness, a theology:

39% of Uk are single
29% of church are


OT - to be single and childless is seen to be under a curse from God
NT - Jesus is really positive about singleness and Paul says 'I wish you all were single'

Why is singleness a bad thing in the OT and then a good thing in the NT?

First of all we need to bear in mind that the Bible is one big story:

Eden - the story starts with a promise for restoration and therefore marriage and having children is really important.

Abram - God makes an unconditional promise. The promise of the serpent crusher is handed to Abraham. Therefore having children is really important. 

Moses - Pharaoh isn't pleased with the number of children they're having. God gives them a new covenant, a covenant of law and God promises that if they keep God's law then God he will give them the blessings of the law. In ancient Israel if you don't have kids it's seen as something that is happening to you because you are a law breaker.

Isaiah - In a time of judgement and during the exile the prophets come and call out the promise of an offspring, one single child who will make a huge difference. The servant songs in Isaiah are about this offspring. 'When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days.' Through this one individual will come many offspring. Then there is the song of the barren woman in which it says the barren woman is going to be more blessed and have more children than her neighbour who has natural offsprings. Eunuchs also are promised that rather then being called 'dry trees' they will be given a name better than sons.

Jesus - The 'one' single offspring comes. The promises aren't fulfilled through having lots of children but through the one offspring from God. Before Christ childlessness was a curse, after Christ, anyone can receive the blessings of the covenant. Jesus tells us that in the new creation there will be no marriage, he points further than our day. 

When the disciples hear Jesus' teaching on marriage they respond by saying 'if that's the case it'd be better not to marry,' to which Jesus says 'yes, you're right.' He says then 'not everyone can receive it' (Mt. 19:10), in other words 'not everyone can handle it.

Jesus says that there are Eunuchs from birth, or who are made Eunuchs by men and then says something really quite shocking when he says 'and there are those who will become Eunuchs for the kingdom' as a devoted single servant of the king. This is remarkable especially in light of the Bible's story as a whole and its emphasis on childbearing and blessing.

Paul on singleness:

• I wish you were all single like I am.
• Singleness also means celibacy.
• Being single doesn't make you superior.
• If you're single and want to get married, that's ok.

Why does he say singleness is good?

Ans. There was 'present distress' in Corinth at the time, because time is at a premium now, and singleness gives you freedom from anxiety (worldly concerns).

Conclusion: Singleness is good. This side of Jesus things have changed, singleness is no longer a curse but a blessing.

Tim Keller - Encounters with Jesus

1) The Skeptical Student

Based on Jesus' calling of Nathanael

Many people today view Christianity much like Nathanael viewed Nazareth. Christianity was from Nazareth then, and it is still from Nazareth today.

On encouraging people to look into Christianity, even though they think they 'know' about it:

A more concrete example is one where you have misplaced your keys. Once you've looked for them in all the places where they 'can' be and haven't found them, you'll have to start looking in places where they 'can't be. And of course, that's where you'll find them.

Referencing the boy Samuel and others as evidence of God choosing the unlikely:

God always works through the men or the boys nobody wanted, through the women or girls nobody wanted. 

W. H. Auden. A famous poet who abandoned his childhood faith in the Church of England but after WWII he changed his mind. What happened to change his mind?

In his account of his spiritual renewal he observed that the novelty and shock of the Nazis in the 1940s was that they made no pretence of believing in justice and liberty for all - they attacked Christianity on the grounds that 'to love one's neighbour as oneself was a command fit only for the effeminate weaklings.' Moreover, 'the utter denial of everything liberalism had ever stood for was arousing wild enthusiasm not in some barbaric land, but in one of the most highly educated countries in Europe.'

Auden believed in human rights however, in liberty and freedom. But why did he?

The operational principle of the natural world is that the strong eat the weak. So if it's natural for the strong to eat the weak, and if we just go here only through the natural, unguided process of evolution, why do we suddenly turn around when the strong nations start to eat the weak nations and say, that is wrong?

 Going further:

The same principle should apply to humanity. How can you say that someone is a good person or a bad person unless you know what they are designed for, what their purpose is?

On why to believe in Christianity:

Christianity is not a consumer good. You should turn to it only if it is true.

 Chapter 2: The Insider and the Outcast

Based on John 4.

Meaning and drive:

As long as you think there is a pretty good chance that you will achieve some of your dreams, as long as you think you have a shot at success, you experience your inner emptiness as 'drive' and your anxiety as 'hope'.

The great tennis champion Boris Becker said:

I had won Wimbledon twice, once as the youngest player. I was rich. ... I had all the material possessions I needed. ... It is the old song of movie stars and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy. But I had no inner peace.

Keller then comments:

We might say 'I'd rather have his problem than mine.' But his point is that he has the same problem as ours, and like us, he though money, sex, accomplishment, and fame would solve it. The difference is, he got all those things, and in the end they didn't satisfy his thirst in the slightest.

Or another one:

Sophia Loren once said in an interview that she had everything - awards, marriage - but that 'in my life there is an emptiness that is impossible to fulfil.'

Isn't it enough to just live a good life? Some might say:

I'm a morally good person who is not religious. There may be a God, I don't know for sure. But either way I'm a good person and that's all that should matter.

Is that really all that should matter:

Imagine a widow has a son she raises and puts through good schools and a good university at great sacrifice to herself, for she is a woman of slender means. And as she's raising him she says, 'Son, I want you to live a good life. I want you to always tell the truth, always work hard, and care for the poor.' And after the young man graduates from college he goes off into his career and life - and never speaks to his mother or spends time with her. Oh, he may send her a card on her birthday, but he never phones or visits. What if you asked him about his relationship with his mother, and he responded: 'No, I don't have anything to do with her personally. But I always tell the truth, work hard, and care for the poor. I've lived a good life - that's all that matters, isn't it?'

Applied to us:

And if there is a God, you owe him literally everything. If there is a God, you owe him far more than a morally decent life. He deserves to be at the centre of your life. 

Chapter 3: The Grieving Sisters

About Jesus' love for Lazarus and us:

Jesus knew what it would cost him to save us from death. Maybe he was able to feel the jaws of death closing in on him. And yet knowing and experiencing all that, he cried, 'Lazarus, come out.' The witnesses said about Jesus, 'See how loved Lazarus'; but really we must behold how he loves us. 

 No God in space?

In 1961 the Russians put a man in orbit, and afterward Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev said something bold. I remember it very well; I was eleven years old when it happened. He said something like 'We have sent a man into space and we didn't see God, so we have proved there is no God.'

Chapter 4: The Wedding Party

On doing what we were made for, and appreciating the meaning and purpose in life. Chariots of Fire runner Harold Abrahams. Just before the final race he says:

'I'll raise my eyes and look down that corridor... with ten lonely seconds to justify my whole existence.'

 Fig leaves to hide our shame. Perishable, flimsy things we build our lives around:

Consider the possibility that your success in life is just a big fig leaf.

Adolf Eichmann. An architect of the death camps in Nazi Germany. Amazing illustration of evil in the human heart:

Adolf Eichmann was one of the Nazi architects of the Holocaust who escaped after WWII to South America, where he was caught in 1960 and taken back to Israel for a trial. He was tried, found guilty, and executed. But there was a very interesting incident during the trial. They had to find witnesses who saw him commit terrible crimes against humanity he was charged with. They needed to find people who saw him participate in atrocities at the death camps. One of the material witnesses was a man name Yehiel De-Nu, and when he came in to testify, he saw Eichmann in the glass booth and immediately broke down, falling to the ground and sobbing. There was pandemonium. The judge was hammering to get order. It was very dramatic. 

Sometime later De-Nur was interviewed by Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. Wallace showed De-Nur the tape of him falling down and asked him why it happened. Was he overwhelmed by painful memories? Or with hatred? Is that why he collapsed? De-Nur said no - and then said something that probably shocked Wallace and should shock almost all secular Western people. He said that he was overcome by the realisations that Eichmann was not some demon but was an ordinary human being. 'I was afraid about myself... I saw that I am capable to do this... exactly like he.

You can choose to say the Nazis were subhuman, that they were nothing like us, and that we are not capable of doing what they did. But there are serious problems with that view. The scariest thing about that whole chapter of history is not the few individual evil architects of it but the complicity of vast numbers of people across a society that was producing so much of the world's best scholarship, science, and culture.

Jesus's response to Mary was blunt. Keller points out that Jesus wasn't just having a bad day:

Even when he is being tortured he never speaks a harsh or angry word, so this is not just a bad mood. Something is weighing heavily on him. And then he lets us know what it is. He says, 'My hour has not yet come.'

The wedding as a metaphor of where history is headed:

And this is how history ends; this is what Jesus came to accomplish. We, the bride, the people Jesus has loved, will finally be united with him. The most rapturous love of a wedded couple on earth is just the dimmest hint and echo of that cosmic future reality.

Jesus as example:

He did not come primarily to be a good example. And I'm glad he didn't. Do you know why? He's too good! He's so perfect that as an example he just crushes you into the ground.

Jesus' life and death:

He doesn't make us pay; he pays the debt. Some have called this 'the self-substitution of God.' 

Chapter 6: The Great Enemy

outside the crucifixion itself, the baptism is the only event of Jesus' life mentioned in all four gospels. It is crucial. (The temptation mentioned in detail in Matthew and Luke, referred to in Mark but not at all in John)

The baptism and temptation are connected tightly by the single word, then... Then is almost therefore. After great blessing and success came trial and temptation.

No one can ever seem to secure a life of sustained success, joy and blessing. As hard as we try, no matter what precautions we take, no matter how well things are going, something comes in to ruin it. Even the most talented, diligent, and savvy people can't escape the undulations of life.

'Ah but wait' What if I/we lived a perfectly good, wise and good life. Surely then God would protect us and our life would always go well. Wrong. Look at Jesus. God has just announced 'he is my perfectly loved son who thrills my heart,' and then... he is ushered into the clutches of the devil.

If we are not suffering at the moment, there is a tendency for us to take credit for it in our minds. It's not luck of grace - it's because we are living good and smart lives. Right?

We in the west have largely rejected the Bible's view of evil, that there is a singular supernatural intelligence behind it all. Deep down, we cling to the simplistic idea that if we are good, life will go well.

Yet if there are demonic forces, it stands to reason that true goodness and godliness would actually attract and stir up those powers to attack.

When the Bible speaks about our encounters with supernatural evil in life, it uses battle language. And if you don't know where the attack is going to come from, or if you underestimate or mischaracterise the enemy, you're likely to lose the battle.

Modern secular attitudes toward evil are an unusual blend of dualistic paganism and eastern pantheism. Dualism sees the struggles between good and evil as being eternal, chaotic, destructive and inevitable. The world is violent and always will be as various power centres of good and evil battle it out. Pantheism says that God is in everything and everything is God. Therefore evil doesn't really exist since understood from the right perspective we can see God in it.

Secular though says on the one hand: violence and destruction is just the way things are. There isn't one single artist behind it all but the world is a product of, indeed we ourselves are products of, blind destructive forces, survival of the fittest.  Or it says, on the other hand 'it's all a matter of perspective. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.' Evil doesn't really exist then.

Silence of the lamb quote: 'I am evil, don't give up good and evil for behaviourism'

Delabanco says: 'these words are the epitome of modern horror, we cannot answer the monster's question.'

J.K. Rowling has a form of Voldermort say 'there is no good and evil, there is only power.' In other words; there may be few things more evil than denying that there is such a thing as evil.That's what Satan wants.

What is the battle front? Hear Satan's words 'if you are the Son of God...'

That's Satan's main military goal - he wants Jesus (and us?) to lose the certainty, the assurance of God's full acceptance, of his unconditional fatherly love.

The heart:

If you think of your heart's identity as an engine, you could say there is a kind of fuel that powers it cleanly and efficiently - and a kind of fuel that is not only polluting but also destroys the engine. The dirty fuel is the fuel of fear and the need to prove yourself. Or the need to be needed by someone else. Or the need to express yourself fully and without restraint. There are many 'fuels' that motivate us to live for a time - but only one fuel is clean and will not lead to weariness and disappointment. And that is God's love for you.

How to fight?

Jesus doesn't behave magically or superstitiously: In general, Satan doesn't control us with fang marks on the flesh, but with lies in the heart.

Satan wants to affect the beliefs of our heart. The heart is the seat of the emotions and source of our core commitments, hopes and trusts. From the heart flow our thinking, feelings and actions:

What the heart trusts, the mind justifies, the emotions desire, and the will carries out. If Satan can get you to consent with your mind to a God of loving grace but get your heart to believe that you must do X, Y, and Z in order to be a worthy, loveable and valuable person, he will be most satisfied.

Hide the scripture in your heart since when you are in moments of pain or shock, the things that come out of your mind and mouth are the most primal things in your being.

Jesus knew the Bible: Around 10% of all he said is quotations or allusions to scripture.
If Jesus didn't presume to be able to face the forces of evil without a thorough grasp of scripture, why would we? It is true that this can be and is a fight but it is precisely when we are tempted to sin, or to be discouraged  or to just give up, it is then that we must wrestle the words and promises of the Bible deep into the centre of our being: Col. 3:16 'let the message of Christ dwell among you richly.' It will feel very much like a fight. J.C. Ryle wrote:

True Christianity is a fight. ...There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster; it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money. ...There are thousands of men and women who go to churches every Sunday ... but your never see any 'fight' about their religion! Of spiritual strife, and exertion, and conflict, and self-denial, and watching, and warring they know literally nothing at all.

C.S. Lewis:

Confronted with a cancer or a slum the Pantheist can say, 'If you could only see it from the divine point of view, you would realise that this also is God.' The Christian replies, 'Don't talk damned nonsense.' For Christianity is a fighting religion. It thinks God made the world - that space and time, heat and cold, and all the colours and tastes, and all the animals and vegetables, are things that God 'made up our of his head' as a man makes up a story. But it also thinks that a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again. 

Jesus is our Great High Priest who can 'empathise with our weaknesses' and can give us 'mercy and grace to help us in our time of need.'

As we fight Satan's lies in our hearts, and his works in our world, let's rely not only on the Word of the Lord but on the Lord of the Word. We don't simply have a book, as perfect as it is - we have Jesus himself, who has been through fiery trials so intense that we can't imagine them. 

Natalie Williams - God's Heart For the Poor

'Show me your glory' - Moses says to God. If someone asked us to show 'our glory' we would think about our achievements and share stories about our achievements. But God talks about his heart for and concern for the poor.

God has a bias towards the poor. The question is: who are you biased towards? If your biased towards the things and people God is biased towards you'll naturally care about the things God cares about.

The story of Joseph is about God rescuing his people from poverty/famine so that they didn't become destitute.

The reason God gives to his people on how and why they should make provision for the poor is because he is the gracious and compassionate one. It's for this reason that he reminds them regularly to not forgot where they've come from as slaves.

God has to tell his people to 'show mercy' often in the scriptures, it's as though it doesn't come naturally to us.

God is a merciful God. From the way he deals with undeserving people to the very principle of jubilee.

'There is a poverty of hope as well as a poverty of possessions.' 

Mephibosheth & the younger son. One 'deserving' of mercy one 'undeserving' and yet both welcomed by God and shown great kindness and mercy.

'God treats people not based on their behaviour but based on who he is.'

Jesus heals first and asks questions later. What should go on in our hearts first and foremost should be 'how can I show the kindness of God to this person?'

'If we take the time to hear people's stories we will feel more compassion toward them.'

Probably some of the people in contemporary Britain that we're most afraid of are exactly the people we should be getting to know.

If muslims are despised in our society it should be Christians who are up there defending them and speaking up on their behalf.

'There comes a point when we need to stop just pulling people out of the river and we need to start asking why they're falling in.' - Desmond Tutu

Elizabeth Fry - aged 18 started collecting food for the poor and then started Sunday schools to teach children from poor neighbourhoods, to read.

Gain all you can so you can give all you can. - John Wesley

We should be the most encouraging of the society's leaders. If the only time your politicians or police officers or teachers/headteachers hear from you is when you want to complain they're less likely to want to listen to you. Jer. 29 'seek the welfare of the city that I've sent you into exile, pray to the Lord on its behalf.'

Find out what the will of god is for your generation and your day and then as quickly as possible get into line. - Prince Albert 

To grow in generosity you need to be intentional about it.

A poor fund. Natalie has a separate bank account that she puts money aside to each month so that when she meets someone in need, she has the money available to buy them something/to offer them help.

Stephen & Emma Dawson - Life Lessons

Lessons:

1) Be all in.

• You're not hardcore unless you live hardcore : Jack Black

You've got to trust God with your lives. We're called to live among the poor, around people with difficulties and life challenges. 

Our culture doesn't value family life, kids are a commodity or they over value them and put them on a pedestal. You have to release them and have faith for them and not protect them too much from life.

Respond to God with issues of family, school, parenting, fear issues and church.

2) Find your own support and be responsible for your own growth.

God never intended us to life alone, but we all still think we can. 

Emma after having kids decided that she would seek out answers to the question of what she needed to do with raising her kids. She decided that she wasn't going to let the 'little years be the wilderness years.' She set up mum's prayer to meet with other mums and pray about parenting issues often.

Let God father you and introduce you to people to teach you. 

In every new season you have to learn how to relate to God again. 

3) Get involved with people.

Get into life's messes with people. Walk through life with them and don't just 'be Christian' at them. God has called all of us to be involved in the poor and with people. Don't stay at a distance but get into the lives of those around us.

4) Be intentionally missional.

Story of 'super dads' and Jason becoming a Christian along with his girlfriend.

Guy who's daughter attempted suicide. Stephen asked to pray for him, he said 'I'd love that thanks.' Went to church for a few weeks and then became a Christian. His wife who was a staunch atheist then followed suit sometime after that.

For Emma: Facebook is a way of following up with people and encouraging them when she hears of need or frustration.

5) Deal with your junk.

We've all got stuff to work through. You need to have people around you who will ask you difficult questions.

SIN. Jesus is forceful and aggressive with sin. Often we're sympathetic about sin and polite with one another. Instead we should go to war against it. In love, whilst checking your emotional motive, help people fight their sin rather than accommodate it. 

You can't take the speck out of other people's eyes unless you're willing to take the plank out of your own eye. 

6) Trust God with your finances.

Be radical with your finances. We want to be those who are generous. We have a lavish and open handed God. Story of getting the house and getting some new shoes.

You will set the course of your life at the early ages in life and early on in marriage. 

7) Manure & rain 

God uses everything in our lives to grow you and grow the people around you. God is not committed to my comfort, but he is committed to my good. 


8) Walking by the Holy Spirit

The worldview behind your work

From Center Church

The worldview behind your work:

Are you helping people think about the worldviews behind their work? Encourage them to ask questions like these:

1. What worldviews are predominant in my profession?
2. What are the underlying assumptions about meaning, morality, origin, and destiny?
3. What are the chief fears or threats? What groups or ideas are seen as the enemy?
4. What are the idols? What are the hopes?
5. What is the story line of the culture in which I live?
6. How do those worldviews affect both the form and content of my work? How can I work not just with excellence but with Christian distinctiveness?
7. Which parts of the culture's dominant views/theories are basically in line with the gospel and make it possible for me to agree with and use them?
8. Which parts of the dominant views/theories are basically irresolvable without Christ? How can Christ finish the story? In other words, where must I challenge my culture?
9. What opportunities are there in my profession for serving people, serving society as a whole and witnessing to Christ and the kingdom of God?

Colossians Research

Colossians

Chapter 2: 'hidden in Christ'

Phil Moore

Dummies: example of what allied forces did in the spring of 1944, loading Dover beach and town with a military presence to divert German troops in Dunkirk away from the beaches that were to be used for D-Day.

Blaise Pascal: The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Shadows are often bigger and more impressive than the real object but that doesn't make them real: 'however impressive our religious rituals may appear, they are toxic if they stop us from trusting in Jesus alone.'

Archaelogists found a Roman amulet not far from Colossae that invokes the help of four angels: Michael, Gabriel, Ouriel, Raphael - protect the wearer!

Catholics might invoke the help of Mary, Protestants may go to their pastor or to members of a midweek Bible study group instead of directly to the Lord.

It's easier to turn to mediators than to pursue a deeper relationship with the Lord.

'Self-imposed worship' doesn't help make us godlier:

We cannot become godlier by relying on rules to change us from the outside in, but only by relying on the power of Jesus' death and resurrection to change us from the inside out.

Commentary

Christ is not only the object of our faith (C1 & 2), but also the source of our life (C3 & 4).

The Colossians were beset by the danger of falling back into paganism with its gross sensuality.

There is no material cure for a spiritual ill. The neglect of the body will never heal the soul's sickness but will aggravate it, that heaven-born individuals cannot gain satisfaction from earth-born remedies.
Christ's resurrection followed by his ascension and coronation guarantees their pardon and provides for their purity.

Let their union with the exalted Christ transform their entire life: mind, heart and will. Let them seek the things that are above where Christ is. The verb seek implies persevering effort... seeking not to discover, but rather to obtain.

The only effective way to 'put to death' the things of flesh is to 'seek the things that are above'.

Hid with Christ:

Concealed to the world (1 Cor. 2:14; 1 John 3:2)
Indestructible
Everlasting (John 3:16, 10:28; Romans 8:31-39)

And since, as to essence, Christ is in the Father, and the Father is in Christ, it is evident that Paul is fully justified in saying 'your life is hid with Christ in God.'

Andrew

Actions and then identity. Most people then define their identity based on their actions. The trouble is that our behaviour is inconsistent at best.

Keller

Quoting William Willimon of Duke University:

On conversion, the real question is: The real question you must face is “which externally imposed formation will have its way with me?”

'Died with him' meaning that when you believed it was as though you died on the cross with him and the crime of your sin was pardoned and paid for.

'Raised with him' meaning, given the seat of highest honour. A son returning successful from a mission his Father had sent him on. He has been wise, courageous, loving, good and victorious. His father gives him a seat in public, where he is given the highest acclaim and honour. 

Similar to when victors in tournaments return and get given an open top bus tour of the city. They, at that point, have been 'raised up' or 'seated in the highest place.' Victors are put on display just as the principalities are, only one is for shame and mockery and the other for splendour and triumph.

Idols. Idols take your life but as Christians our life is in Christ.

Keller quotes a woman who came to see him once, She looked bad after years of abusive relationships. She was in counselling and shared with Keller some of who reflections/insights from counselling and from her life as a Christian:

I’m going to my counselor and much of what she has said is right. My counselor said I built my very significance and acceptability and identity on men. That’s why I’ve been defenseless with them…I’ve simply needed them too much. All of that is right and helpful. However, my counselor doesn’t have a very good solution for me. My counselor says what I should do instead is to get myself a great career. Get an education. Have a successful career. Well, my counselor means well and of course I absolutely do need to get some training and get myself a job…and career…but what she’s saying, is I should do that so I will also feel better about myself, by doing that. But, that would mean I would be switching from one kind of idol to another.

Keller: “what are you talking about?” to which she replied:

For many years, my heart has been looking at men and saying unless I’m successful at love I’m nothing. But the therapist wants me to look at my career and say unless I’m a successful independent business woman who’s in control of my own life, I am nothing. I don’t want to be enslaved to my work as I was to men. I don’t want to be as enslaved to my independence as I was to my dependence. I’m actually being asked to exchange a typical female idol for a typical male idol…and I don’t want either.

You see the therapist knew how to help her dig down into seeing what her idols were, but had no way of giving her anything but an alternate idol. And so I said “what are you doing? I mean, how are you doing?” And she actually quoted Colossians 3…when Christ who is your life appears, you will be glorified. She said (and it was actually very practical):

 ..when I go to church…when I’m in worship…when what Jesus did for me is so real, and so wonderful, in my heart I think of the men in my life, and I say…I speak to them, and I say this….’I’m glad to know you…and I certainly wouldn’t mind being married, but you are not my life. Christ is my life. I’m done making anything else my life. You’re a good thing but you’re not an ultimate thing. I would love to have a husband, but if I don’t, I’ve got Jesus. And I set my mind on things above. You can’t give me any of the things that Jesus has given me.’ See, I don’t want to look to men OR a career…a career can’t die for me. If I live for a career and fail it’ll beat me up all my life for having been a failure. But if I fail Jesus, He died for me…to forgive me.

What the solution is and why it works:

This is not just cognitive therapy…this is not just will therapy…religious people, when they get downcast…tend to put the emphasis on the will…and they say, “buck up…be strong.” Non-religious people, in the secular world, when they’re downcast, put all the emphasis on the emotions…and they say, “feel better about yourself…do something nice for yourself.” There’s another kind of therapy that essentially uses the head…uses the mind and says, “well, now…you realize you’re doing wrong thinking…that’s self-defeating thinking…and you need to do this kind of thinking…” But, the real solution is worship.

The artist and the sculpture:

If you saw an artist who’d done a beautiful sculpture…and he threw himself into the path of a bulldozer to die rather than to have the sculpture destroyed, you’d say, “oh my gosh, obviously, if he’s willing to die for a sculpture, then the sculpture must have been his life.” Jesus Christ died for us. We were His life. And when that moves you, when you see him doing that for you, when you see yourself as part of that story, as it is…it changes your heart. You can actually look at anything…things that cow you…things that make you afraid, and say: “You are not my life!”

Elsewhere Paul motivates by helping people see the story that they're life is a part of. In 2 Corinthians 8 he motivates them to be generous by helping them see Christ's generosity to them.

Sam Storms

by "hidden" Paul means that the source of our spiritual life is inexplicable to those who don't know Jesus.