and i realize that i have weaknesses but i also have strengths
i do make mistakes but i'm not all a mistake and i mean it took me a long time to really
get that i would go and stand in the mirror and point at myself and say god loves you
god loves you and because i couldn't figure out why i couldn't love people i kept hearing as a
christian i needed to love people and i just was not a very loving person all right how
about setting boundaries yes you know people that have been wounded we either do one of two things
we either let people take advantage of us because we're so afraid nobody's going to like us that we
are afraid to say no to anybody are we turn it the other way around and we try to take
advantage of everybody else because we feel like we'll never have anything if we don't stay
on top all the time you know i came out of my abuse very aggressive you know like nobody's
ever going to push me around again and no man's ever going to tell me what to do again and i'm not
going to put up with that and i'm not going to put up with this where i know another pastor's wife
who was also sexually abused and she came out of it like a little mouse
you know she just totally turned in and wasn't very courageous at all i was out
of balance one way she was out of balance the other way and so to be healthy for any person
no matter what your problem is it doesn't have to be that you were severely abused you know
different things hurt different people and the thing is is god wants us to be confident
he doesn't want us to be insecure so let's just say you're insecure
well if you're insecure you need to not just say well i'm just insecure and use that as an
excuse to not live the life that christ died for you to have you need to say i'm insecure
and that's not what jesus died for me to have and i want to get to the root of this
and i want to get over this and so you have to start by setting boundaries for your life
where you don't let people take advantage of you where you you know how to say no to things if you
believe it's something god would have you say no to don't you guys find that you have to have some
personal boundaries for your life yes and it's it's hard when people are wanting you to do things
and you want to be liked you know because i grew up not i didn't have friends i didn't and and i
was i had a real rough way of dealing with things because i was hurting so bad and so um i wanted
friends and so then i i fell into well if i can't control you then i'm gonna let you control me
and so i was always out of balance one way or the other and thank god i've learned now to
treat other people right and to not let them i i've learned to not enable people
to keep their problems i talked about that at joel's last weekend you know we have to know
when helping somebody's really helping them and when we're just enabling them and so boundaries
i think are important and knowing the love of god is absolutely mandatory mandatory that's that is
if if you are hurting inside in your soul and you don't feel good about yourself
and we need to love ourselves and i'm not saying be in love with yourself
but you need to love yourself because you cannot give away what you don't have and so god loves us
freely and unconditionally and receiving that is the equivalent of learning to love yourself
i mean if god can love me who's perfect then i can love me and that doesn't mean that
you know i doubt on myself and think i have to have everything that i i want it just means that
i respect who god made me to be and i realize that i have weaknesses but i also have strengths
i do make mistakes but i'm not all a mistake and i mean it took me a long time
to really get that i would go and stand in the mirror and point at myself and say god loves you
god loves you and because i couldn't figure out why i couldn't love people i kept hearing
as a christian i needed to love people and i just was not a very loving person
i mean i just wasn't i was okay if i was getting my way but if i wasn't boy look out
and there was a lot of things that god had to change in me but i really am like
a totally different person i still got some things that need to change in me and
i love working with god on changing what needs to be changed i don't that's not a problem for
me i know that his chastisement is love you're not fighting it anymore did you used to fight it
oh yeah because i didn't want something else to be wrong with me i you know i already felt so
bad about myself that's why actually there's some scriptures in hebrews toward the end of hebrews 5
and into hebrews 6 and he said that you by now you should be teaching others
but you still need to be taught over and over the same messages i can only feed you milk
and not meet listen to this because you are unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness
so he was saying i can't tell you what i'd really like to tell you
which was probably grow up he said i can't tell you what i'd really like to tell you
because you still yet don't know who you are in christ and when you don't know who
you are in christ then you have a very hard time taking correction from people
are taking correction from god because it just makes you feel worse about yourself
than what you already do but see now i know the difference in conviction and condemnation
and so when god convicts me i know that that's him loving me and i can say god thank
you for loving me enough to not leave me the way i am