Freedom :: Mikki's Blog – Living in the Grace and Love of God

Archive for Freedom

Nov

Do You Need to Forgive Yourself?

Posted by: Mikki | Comments (0)

forgiveness What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done? What is the worst mistake you’ve ever made? What is the greatest harm you’ve ever committed to another human?

Do you have your list? Did the pictures in your mind come up faster than high-speed internet?

Most of us don’t have any trouble recalling the worst moments of our lives. I imagine that when I asked those questions, you not only recalled the “bad” things you have done, but you also reconnected to some feelings of shame and guilt.

A foundational truth of Christianity is that we come into relationship with God through forgiveness based on the work of Christ. We maintain the flow of fellowship both with God and man by confessing our sins and appropriating the purifying work of Christ into our daily lives.

While we may understand the role of forgiveness in our Christian walk in relation to God and to others, we may find it harder still to be aware of the need to forgive ourselves.

Woven into the fabric of our core belief system may be the unspoken, and often unrecognized, belief that refusing to forgive ourselves shows God that we realize what dirty rotten sinners we really are and agrees with God that we don’t deserve to be forgiven.

And while we are sinners and don’t deserve forgiveness apart from Christ, through Christ we become righteous and through his grace, we are offered forgiveness. Living in that forgiveness means that we acknowledge that God offers us radical, undeserved forgiveness and we cannot make ourselves more deserving of that forgiveness by holding ourselves prisoner to past mistakes. Read more...

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Categories : Freedom, forgiveness, redemption, shame

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Jan

Honest Anger

Posted by: Mikki | Comments (3)

angry couple A few years ago, I invited a counselor friend of mine, Susi Harbour, to come to our ladies’ retreat and administer a personality test to our ladies. I had already taken it once and thought it would be fun and useful for the ladies of our church to know more about themselves and how they ticked. Susi suggested adding an anger inventory to the activity. “Okay, sure,” I said. I suppose I didn’t quite get the purpose of the whole thing, but I figured it’d be interesting.

As I sat at the table with other Christian women leaders, I was surprised that they were such fire balls! They apparently had lots of anger! I, on the other hand, scored “anger avoidance” as my style of dealing with anger. I didn’t really think that was such a bad thing. I mean, after all, I was a godly woman. I was extremely patient. I almost never spoke sharply to anyone and had lots of grace for others. Well, as it turns out, I had a lot to learn about how to deal with my anger and what healthy anger was.

Just a short time later, my world crashed. I was drawn into a whirlwind of pain, gossip, betrayal, fear, threats, and just plain lack of people skills and Christian love, and my anger style kicked into overdrive! Read more...

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Categories : Anger, Authenticity, Christian Living, Emotional Healing, Freedom, Relationships, intimacy

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Mar

Wake Up!

Posted by: Mikki | Comments (0)

clookle-pd A busy ministry schedule has limited my time to blog, but I want to give a quick update.

This is a land of great darkness, but more than that, it is a land of great need of the light of God’s love. Our ministry here has focused on sharing the love of God to the people of Thailand and also to Jason and Sarah Ricketts, who are missionaries here.

I have walked the streets of Pattaya where there are thousands of prostitutes and hundreds of bars. Men come here from around the world for sex. Young girls and boys sell their bodies in order to make money. They are often illiterate and have no marketable skills other than their very body. The damage to their souls is beyond measure. Yet there are some here who are endeavoring to share God’s love. They teach free English classes. They teach marketable skills. They provide counseling for the trauma; most of the young girls have been raped more than once. So many have come here in order to honor their families by providing financially for them. That is important in this culture. Most families know their girls come here to work in the bars. They know their girls will become prostitutes. It is an acceptable means of employment. However, most know nothing of the horrors these young girls will experience. And once the girls experience the horrors of prostitution, instead of honor, they find intense shame and feel unable to go back to their families. Isnt’ that the enemy’s classic strategy? Empty promises and bondage in the very place you thought would bring freedom. Read more...

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Categories : Freedom, God's Heart, Real life issues, truth

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Jan

Embracing Truth; Experiencing Freedom

Posted by: Mikki | Comments (1)

A few days ago, I wrote about truth.

Truth is still truth whether you acknowledge it or not.

Jesus is truth.

Jesus said that known truth would make us free.

David, in a conversation with God, said

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts ;

you teach me wisdom in the inmost place (Psalm 51:6).

Other translations render inner parts as "innermost being". God desires us to know truth from the inside out.

Our message at church on Sunday was about denial. We talked about how we all revert to using denial at times. For example, we refuse to step onto the scales so we don’t have to face the number which represents our weight. Or we don’t balance our checkbook because we are afraid of or dread to see the balance. And we could go on and on.

David, a man after God’s own heart, spent a year in sin and disobedience after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband murdered before he finally came to truth inside himself and cried out to God for forgiveness. It was on this occasion that he acknowledged, "Surely, God, you desire truth in my innermost being."

There were still difficult days ahead for David but that moment was his turning point. God met him at his point of inner truth and began to restore his soul. Read more...

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Categories : Freedom, truth

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Jan

Truth Brings Freedom

Posted by: Mikki | Comments (0)

Tomorrow I will continue on the temptations of Jesus. Today I want to talk about how the truth brings freedom.

Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free."

There is such warfare over knowing truth. We are often not willing to know truth. We sense that we are wrong about a matter or we have an inner knowing that we are denying truth by not acknowledging it, but we are not willing to experience the discomfort and/or pain that comes by stepping fully into the realm of truth.

Truth is costly. Knowing truth and then acting on truth will cost us. It will cost us convenience and our comfortable paradigms. It will cost us because it requires change.

We all have areas where we need more freedom. Truth is the catalyst which births the freedom. Freedom comes in many ways. Sometimes it is instantaneous. Sometimes it comes like peeling the layers of an onion. Usually both processes are working at the same time.

Even though truth is costly, it carries the fragrance of Christ because Christ is the truth.