The basic needs for acceptance and approval
are near and dear to the heart of our being. Independent thought does not
occur until our ‘identity’ or awareness of self is well under way to being
formed. Since we are all taught to perform for acceptance and approval we
are set up for a trap. The primary care-givers are responsible for our
identity with God. We fill out time attempting to get acceptance and
approval. In order to get those needs met a person will do whatever they
need to. This is true for everyone who is not taught that their
acceptance and approval hinge on whom God is and their relationship with
Him. We have been wonderfully and reverently made.
Society in general does not hold
the mainstream Christian view on sin being worthy of damnation and God’s
righteous wrath. Society in general gives two basic options. The first
is humanism. People believe their behavior is accept acceptable. What
he/she feels about himself/herself is normal and continue to live in open
sin. They believe in relativism. These are the children of disobedience.
The second option leads to a case of mistaken identity and spiritual death
also. These people may believe in God but are taught to suppress the
desires of the flesh. The belief is that their works will justify them
and they suffer in silence expecting God’s approval.
God offers an alternative to the
identification disorder, a new identity in Christ. People suffering from
the disorder will find freedom from the mistaken identity, feelings, and
behavior associated with the disorder by replacing aberration with Truth.
A mistaken identity involves the whole person - body, soul, and spirit.
It is a disorder of the natural order created by God. There is only one
standard for Truth. God’s Word is the revealed truth for the Christian
and therein we find the answer to setting anyone free from a mistaken
identity.
The most obvious identification
disorder is the sin of idolatry. The scenario is the same as for any
individual in society; we are all pleasure seekers. No matter which way
we look at it, people just want approval and acceptance. It is in their
deviant relationships that they find their need for affection, approval,
and acceptance. When God is to be their source.
We all have valid needs and wants. When
we fail to find pleasure in an approved manner if we find acceptance from
another source we fill perform in an inappropriate manner to find our
approval. Even sinful behavior becomes acceptable if we are paid off in
affection, which is a form of addictive pleasurable sensations.
The idolatrous relationship is often a
mistake for love, which is a God given gift. Love is not earned, love is
given. When a person identifies with the emotions and feelings for love
they Buy into them and are led astray. The sinful relationship that meets
their wants and needs is no longer justified except in humanities
conception of right and wrong, humanism.
Why does this confusion happen? A major
predisposing factor is a child’s unsatisfactory relationship with the
parent. A child whose love need goes unmet over a long period of time
develops ambivalence toward the source and tries to survive without it.
Through a process these people defensively detach even while these is
still a deep need of much love. Involved in this ambivalence is an
ingredient of disidentification with the parent(s). The emotionally hurt
child says, ‘I don’t want to be like you.’ Since the parent or primary
care-giver is representative of God to the child. The mistaken
coincidental identification with God’s identity results in transferred
ambivalence toward God. The rejection of our attempt to receive
affirmation and approval is transferred unto our relationship with God.
Our deep desire for intimacy with God exists along side a desire to resist
such intimacy with family members fearing rejection again. These fears
(an extension of the parent-child conflict) now confuse our desire for
intimacy with God. Thus, an ambivalence toward God exists rather than
love. And idolatrous behavior is an attempted solution to meet a
legitimate need for love that has bin misinterpreted.
So in essence, the longing for affection,
approval, and acceptance from the parent may be a determining factor in a
persons identification disorder. The unacceptable relationship with the
parent couples detachment with the ambivalence and therein lies the
ingredient for disidentification. For our purpose, it means that they
reject their identification as a child of God and have no way to meet the
legitimate need of being loved. Therefore, idolatry in part may be an
effort to gain the affection, approval, and acceptance from the parent.
Some of the reasons for the alienation
between the child and the parent(s) include but not exclusively, the
following scenarios:
1. a poor identity model
2. parents who do not a model for
heterosexual behavior
3. parents who detaches from the child
emotionally and/or physically (rejection)
4. parents who are never satisfied with
the child’s performance which gives the child a feeling of insecurity and lack of
acceptance
5. an over-protective parent who smothers
the child
6. parent who makes demand on the child
to be to emotionally what the partner is not
7.
a parent who views the
other gender in a negative way
8.
child abuse which always
causes fear and degradation
9.
older siblings,
care-takers or peers may usurp the parents role and abuse the child
physically, verbally or sexually. Labeling, using words to degrade. A
person’s identification is influenced by the names they are labeled with.
Healthy relationships need to be
modeled without enough positive input through our primary care-givers. If
there is too much negative input, a person may begin to feel alienated and
may withdraw using one or more forms of rejection. A self-defense
mechanism that is often used is isolation. People begin to pull away from
the parent who do not give them the affection, approval and acceptance we
all need.
The mechanism of isolation is often
intensified by hearing Christians speak of someone’s behavior in a
derogatory manner. Idolatrous behavior is a sin but Christians are to
reject the sin, not the sinner. Rejecting the sinner blocks the person
from seeking help from the body of Christ, the church who are called to be
ministers of reconciliation.
Isolation may lead to a retreat
into a fantasy world to avoid the pain. The flight may lead into an
imaginary world that leaves them void of a true moral compass. When a
person needs fulfillment they will find a way to satisfy it from people
they admire. The admiration gives birth to envy and our pleasure
addiction often becomes eroticism. Lonely and insecure, the person will
trade off sex for affection, acceptance, and approval.
Idolaters prey on people without a
secure identity and seduce them with the offer of understanding and
compassion. The victim is often seduced over time since they are confused
as to their identity and often in some way trying to escape the pain of a
hurtful relationship with a significant other. There is a solution to
their identification crisis through faith in God who places them ‘in
Christ’, thus they are now identified with Jesus. This is only the
beginning of God’s reconciliation. The desperate need to belong comes to
a resolution. They are offered affection, approval, and acceptance from
God and through their brothers and sisters ‘in Christ’.
The solution God offers is
salvation, acceptance, security, and approval with their total surrender
to Him. The possibility of getting these real needs met is an open
invitation. Temptation is a false offer to get our needs and wants met.
The idolatrous lifestyle offers guilt, deepens the feelings of
inferiority, and widens the gap of ambivalence experienced in relating to
Christians, all of which lessen the ability to be truly intimate.
C. S. Lewis summed up this process in
these words: “We are born helpless. As soon as we are conscious we
discover loneliness. Born lonely, we try hard to fit in, to be the kind
of person that will cause others to like us. Craving and needing very
much the affirmation of others, we compromise, put on any face, or many
faces; we do even those things we do not like to do in order to fit in.
We are bent toward the creature, attempting to find our identity in him.
Slowly and compulsively the false self closes its hard brittle shell
around us, and our loneliness remains.”
Spiritual needs are real.
Unfortunately, when we don’t have our validation from our primary
care-givers the disidentification is carried over into the spiritual
realm. Our parents reflect the image of God to us when we are children.
They are our sole source. Truth be known, God is our only source. We
become idolaters when seek another source for any of our needs. When the
truth is suppressed the non-believer has a distorted conception and this
is the basis for accepting his/her role as a human being. When the truth
about God is suppressed we may not gain a sense of who we are, a child of
God, His creation in His own image. “And God created them in His own
image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created
them.” - Genesis 1:27.
“The healing of man - his
loneliness - has to do with acknowledging himself to be a creature,
created, and in looking up from himself, from self-worship to the worship
of the Creator of all that is. But man would be God. Thus from
worshipping God as Creator, man worships himself, the creature.
Idolatrous behavior is merely one of the twisted paths this basic fallen
condition in man takes. Truly, to write of the healing of the idolater is
to write of the healing of all men everywhere. We are all fallen, and
until we find ourselves in Him, we thrust about for identity in the
creature, the created.”
Mankind is left to serve the lusts
of the flesh if we do not turn to God. In Romans I, it is very evident,
Paul says:
18For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,
who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because what may
be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20For since the creation of the world His invisible
attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without
excuse, 21because, although they knew God, they did not glorify
Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts,
and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Professing to be
wise, they became fools, 23and changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and
four-footed animals and creeping things.
24Therefore
God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to
dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25who exchanged the
truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather
than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
The evidence suggests that mankind,
being darkened by the fall, is given over to the ‘flesh’, the carnal
nature before a person comes to Christ and is regenerated. Until a person
is given a renewed heart and spirit through regeneration they cannot
overcome sin. It is part of their nature. People may feel abandoned by
God, for God has given man up to the consequences of his own choice(s).
The natural man is lost until God reaches out to them with the truth.
God’s love is revealed and overflows to the world. This is seen in
sending Jesus Christ to die for the sin of the world in John 3:16,17: “For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
17For God
did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved.”
Only through regeneration can a man be ‘born again”; for a new creation is
the only help cure for the offender.
The Old Testament had only one
option for the sin of idolatry. Death! This is seen in Leviticus. Today
the answer is the same since the Law is still in effect. So God in
fulfilling the righteous requirements of the Law sent Jesus to die for the
sins of the entire world. Accepting Jesus death as our substitutionary
death fulfills the requirement. By accepting Jesus death as our own we
are set free from the law of sin and death. This is exactly what living
by faith in God is. Nothing more, nothing less. For it is written, “The
just shall live by faith!”; and again in Romans 4:5; “But to him who does
not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is
accounted for righteousness,”; the word clearly states that Jesus died, He
died once, for all, Romans 5:10. And in Romans 3:25, the scripture says
that He became our propitiation or our sacrifice.
In “The Broken Image” the author states:
“The Old Covenant by its blood sacrifices foreshadowed the New. The God
of the Old Testament, the God who is faithful and true, who is all
loving-kindness, came into our world in the Son - gave Himself for our
salvation. This is why the cross is at the center of our faith. He who
is love, peace, truth, righteousness, faithfulness gives Himself for us
and to us. He lives in us. This is glory, fullness of being. This is
identity. It is this we choose or fail to choose. Fallen man endlessly
attempts to find other ways to be healed, paths or methods that bypass the
cross. But in the end we make one of two choices. We choose either the
heaven of the realized identity in God, or the hell of the self in
separation.”
The atoning work of Christ on the Cross is
for the healing of the idolater. God’s judgment and punishment of sin was
placed on Jesus all at once just as sin entered the world through Adam.
The sinful nature is dealt a death blow on the Cross with Jesus. The fear
of death, hell, and abandonment has lost its power to frighten and condemn
you, for Christ received the condemnation for it. And God, having
accepted Jesus sacrifice for sin, gave our Savior the power of our
resurrection. We know we are assured our victory in Christ as it is
revealed in Romans 6:5-7: “For if we have been united together in the
likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness
of His resurrection, 6knowing this, that our old man was
crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with,
that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7For he who has died
has been freed from sin.”
Yes, we are all free from the power of
sin. From this vantage point, we can view sin from a different
perspective. Healing our broken identity starts with being set free from
the power of sin that reigned in our life until we died to it through
Christ death for us. Now, we are in Christ and we are God’s children. In
II Corinthians 5:27 the Apostle Paul summed up our new identity and
freedom from our passed sins and past: “Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold,
all things have become new.” We are a new creation the moment we receive
Christ and complete in Him.
8Beware
lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to
the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and
not according to Christ. 9For in Him dwells all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily; 10and you are complete in Him, who is the
head of all principality and power.
11In
Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by
putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of
Christ, 12buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were
raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him
from the dead. - Colossians 2:8-12.
No longer do fear, condemnation and
punishment lock you into the inevitable. Christ’s death is treated as
yours and therefore your sinful nature with its sinful inclinations,
iniquity, is not charged against you. God does not approve of your
mistaken identity by ending judgment against it. God does not approve
what He has already declared to be sin. Furthermore, God has not
suspended judgment against sin, only against you. He has transferred that
judgment to Christ, whose death for sin you treat as yours. The end of
God’s judgment takes away your guilt and a lot of anxiety. And that can
be frightening if fear and guilt have been the only motivations that have
held you together. But God is bringing you to maturity, providing you
with a new motivation for change: obedience to the One whose love to you
creates love within you. So, “But God demonstrates His own love toward
us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” - Romans
5:8.
Yes, you have a new identity as a new
creation and are in Christ by God’s doing, I Corinthians 1:30,31; “30But
of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption—31that, as it
is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the
Lord.”
5For if we have been united
together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in
the likeness of His resurrection, 6knowing this,
that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might
be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7For
he who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing
that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no
longer has dominion over Him. 10For the death that He
died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He
lives to God. 11Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead
indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12Therefore
do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its
lusts. 13And do not present your members as instruments
of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive
from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to
God. 14For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are
not under law but under grace. - Romans 6:5-14.
We have died to the power of sin and
are no longer slaves. Now we belong to Christ and are present ourselves
as slaves to righteousness, Romans 6:18,19; “And having been set free from
sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19I speak in human
terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented
your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness
leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as
slaves of righteousness for holiness.” To understand and live this
truth is to be liberated.
In Christ, we have become the
righteousness of God. He has given us everything we need - a renewed
heart and spirit; and the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us. We are
now complete in Christ. God has changed your nature - you are free to
obey God and embrace your God-given identity within the confines of the
new covenant.
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