fear despite UR beliefs

[anti_nietzsche]

Hello,

I'm not sure, maybe you know this too. I read through many articles and blog posts and posts here on this forum on tentmaker, and still I am afraid of God punishing me or my family with hell. Me and my mother are the only christians in my family, the rest is all not believing. I listen to other christians words about exclusive salvation or hell punishments for some, and I quickly stumble. Sometimes I am strong but often I am feeling very weak because of these things. It's not easy to live like this.

Do you know this from yourself? In my case, I became schizophrenic because of the constant fears. I have no demon, of that I am sure now, but my distorted mind acts demonically. I try to talk with God and cannot believe in my own prayers. Sometimes I have joy when I go to church nearby, but when I walk out I am again getting afraid.

It's hard to live like this. Does anybody of you have a clue? I recently read Gary's big blog post on Christ setting right what Adam brought. And I felt joy and elation and belief. But now on the next morning things break again. I feel hopeless. My mind gets distorted again. I wish I did not have this dilemma. You see, in schizophrenia when you want to get healthy you have to kind of restart your brain and return to times when it still worked right. But when I do this with my mind I am drawn to atheism. My spirit and soul loathe atheism, but my mind brings me into these things as it tries to restart itself. And then I only want to believe what I can see and what is easy.

Then I pray to God for help and can only weep because I do not feel His presence anymore. I am very drawn to God always but my mind makes sin out of my thoughts. I am also afraid I committed the blasphemy of the spirit in my bad thoughts. What can I do against this?

[DanielB]

I don't know what to tell you about your fear but there is no need to be so concerned over what thoughts enter your head. How you respond is the important thing. Treat bad thoughts like someone else is saying/suggesting something to you. You don't have to agree with them or consider them true. They don't necessarily represent who you are(they probably often won't). The fact that such thoughts bother you is proof that they don't reflect who you are and that you did not truly choose to think such thoughts.

[DanielB]

Here is something more detailed that I posted before.

"You should be aware of the concept of invasive thoughts and the ironic process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironic_process_theory

Your thoughts do not necessarily represent who you are so you don't have to fear them or worry that you are evil or blaspheming or anything. Thoughts can just as easily be an expression of what you fear, what angers you, what disgusts you, etc rather than being consistent with the state of your heart. A person who despises violence can have very violent thoughts, a loving mother can have an intrusive thought of her harming her kid, etc. People also have intrusive sexual thoughts(thoughts that cause distress, that you were not trying to think about, etc) and "blasphemy" is a common invasive thought(like imagining yourself insulting God) but that is not blasphemy(if you regret it immediately or within hours then I seriously doubt you committed blasphemy). There are probably ways to cut down the amount of intrusive thoughts or at least learn to live with them without distress. One of the most important things is to simply realize that you can have thoughts uncharacteristic of you. Thoughts can just be kind of random sometimes. I don't think we can directly block out thoughts(because of the ironic process) but I think things like what TV shows we watch, what kind of entertainment we choose, what we read, etc. influences our thoughts. Sometime we directly choose our thoughts and sometimes we experience unchosen thoughts that we are not really responsible or accountable for you will likely have aggressive thoughts if you watch action movies/shows, you will likely have unchosen/unwanted gruesome thoughts if you see or watch gruesome stuff, you will likely have unwanted/unchosen sexual thoughts if you are watching movies/shows or even reading books with sexual stuff, you will likely have intrusive thoughts of insulting or rejecting God(or doing whatever you consider blasphemy) if you are afraid of accidentally committing blasphemy(but people shouldn't worry because blasphemy isn't something that is done by accident or on some tiny whim). I am not saying it is wrong to watch action movies(that is a whole different subject for discussion anyway) but that our experiences and memories(good, bad, real, or fictional) influence the thoughts that unwillfully pop into our heads."

[anti_nietzsche]

Strange, today I was not so sure anymore that I have no demon. The voices started to hiss and to scream and I felt getting manipulated from some entity close to me. I prayed a lot and Jesus said I should curse that demon. I did so and suddenly I got much better. I commanded the demon to leave but he did not. I wish I had someone do this for me, but there are such crooks in christianity who rather scare the afflicted when they believe in UR than to give their best to set people free from such evil. And other christians still who know so little don't know what to do.

[Seth]

Same thing happened to me. I didn't struggle with the same condition. But, generally, emotions are habitual just like chewing fingernails or smoking. You get used to feeling a certain way and it's not always easy to change that emotional pattern. Even if you intellectually know something, emotions don't always line up with your intellect or knowledge.

[jabcat]

 One thing that has been helpful to me is to think about Paul. He apparently struggled with thoughts and feelings and even doing things that he didn't want to do. The thing he said about that was he would despair about it but then he realized that despite all that through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ he was still a child of God. Also he said that those things he didn't want to do were no longer him doing it but was sin, the sin nature that still dwelt in him. The two things inside of him  fought against each other. The new man in him desiring to please God but the old sinful nature that we are all born with still fighting to please the flesh and fighting against the Spirit. But again he said he didn't want to do those things so then it was no longer him doing it. And then finally he said  that he would eventually be delivered from this through Jesus Christ who would in that Day give him a new spiritual body and he would no longer have that battle going on  inside of him. So I think to some extent if things are happening in us that we despise and don't want we can ignore them because it's not really us it is the old part that is no longer in control. We can look to Jesus as Paul said the author and finisher of our faith and have confidence that he is still with us and will deliver us.  Blessings

[Abigail]

I think 'resist the devil and he will flee from you', doesn't necessarely mean that he will immediately flee. There is something persistent in resistance. I heard a man of God testify about how after his conversion he constantly had thoughts in his head to curse God and blaspheme. He asked God what to do about it and God told him to do the opposite (praising God). It took 2 months before the thoughts left.

I have had some similar experiences, with other kind of demonic thoughts coming to my mind. I found one thing NOT to do, is to think about it or 'discuss' it. I mean I tried to prove for myself why the thoughts were not right. It is OK to counter a thought (once!) with the Truth, yet it is another thing to actually start 'discussing' the thoughts or compulsively keep repeating the truth. I found the most useful thing to do is ignoring the thoughts and feelings. I think the devil mainly wants to distract us, and wants to keep us busy focussing on the negative instead of on God. The devil eventually backs off when you're not impressed. I think it is not very helpful to wonder wether the devil is in you, on you or just talking to you. I believe this promise of God about resisting the devil is for all his children. We received this authority from Jesus.

What helps me a lot, is to recognize certain thoughts and feelings are from the devil and not from myself or God. The thoughts of God bring peace, joy, love, hope. The thoughts of the devil bring fear, unrest, and often make yourself focus on yourself, the negatives and not on God. Also they often make you feel like a slave, by example by becoming legalistic or compulsive about saying certain prayers or perform certain rituals to get out of it. Once I recognize a thought pattern, desire or a feeling as not coming from God, I simply ignore it. I have nothing to do with it. I don't have to prove the opposite, refute it, fight it, change myself. I simply decide this is not who I am (anymore).

[Ross]

Sometimes I am strong but often I am feeling very weak because of these things. It's not easy to live like this.

It's hard to live like this.

Personally impossible. But "literally in Christ ALL things are possible."
This is why Paul states;
                                " It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me."

Christ said to take up the cross daily-  which is effectively saying put personal efforts to death.

The new man in him desiring to please God but the old sinful nature that we are all born with still fighting to please the flesh and fighting against the Spirit.

I.M.O the new man is going through the birth and correction of his outlook and values; the old man relies on his habits. Habits take a lot of correction, as do values. This is an on-going process. The main key is the helmet of salvation- knowing we are saved and protected by Christ Who is greater than satan. Christ covered 100% of our weaknesses and failures. There is no margin of error.
Satan can only convict footholds through the fear  of unforgiven/unconfessed  sins. That is a lie. Christ covers all and did not fail.
Before the world began Christ knew you.
That was before sin came into the picture.
Just like we do not lose our position in a family, we do not lose our position in the divine family, we just get born at different times and with different abilities- yet we are children of God through Christ and will be like Him in every regard when resurrected to the next completely planned age.

Col 2;13-17 " And although you WERE dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
                    GOD MADE YOU ALIVE WITH CHRIST.
                    HE FORGAVE US ALL OUR TRANSGRESSIONS, HAVING CANCELLED THE CERTIFIACTE OF DEBT WITH IT'S LEGAL
                    DEMANDS AGAINST US, WHICH WAS HOSTILE TO US.
                    He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.
                    He stripped the principalities and powers of their authority
                    AND DISGRACED THEM IN PUBLIC BY TRIUMPHING OVER THEM IN CHRIST.
                    Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food and drink, or in regard to a religious festival, a new moon,
                    or a Sabbath day. These are but a shadow of what was to come, but the reality is in Christ."

Col 2;22,23 " These are all destined to perish with use, based on human commands and teachings.
                     Such regulations indeed have the appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed piety, false humility, and harsh control
                    over the body,
                    BUT THEY ARE OF NO VALUE AGAINST THE GRATIFIACTION OF THE FLESH."
Col 3;2 " Set your minds on things above, NOT ON THINGS ON EARTH."

All seems to be pointing out the strength of our position in Christ and what He achieved/did for us.

[anti_nietzsche]

The odd thing about the apostles was that apparently they only saw light in Christ and not darkness. They were not afraid of him at all. I don't know if that came from most of them knowing Christ in person. They almost never spoke about Jesus being a judge. I think usually they mean most of mankind when they speak about a "we", "you" or "us". The divide between church and humanity at large was not emphasized so much. Another proof for Jesus being the Savior of the World, and not the Savior of only a few.