Cultivating a good relationship with yourself
TEACHER
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Lesson 03
BASIC BIBLICAL TEXT
Psalms 42:5-11
BASIC BIBLE TEXT
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
6 My soul is downcast within me; therefore, I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon —from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
Psalms 42:5-7
BASIC BIBLE TEXT
Psalms 42:8-11
8 By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me — a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?“
10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?“
11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
GOLDEN TEXT
Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
AIMS
Understand that the life story reflects personal feelings;
Comprehend that the new self in Christ gains a new feeling;
Admit that a healthy relationship begins when you live well with yourself.
INTRODUCTION
If we don't have a good idea of who we are, we will never reach the ideal in other forms of relationship. Every social relationship is expressed in the way we deal with ourselves.
Self-knowledge helps us to better understand our place in the world: who we are, what we do and what we want.
Our relationship with others depends a lot on who we are, in essence. Bitter and frustrated people let on who they really are. For these things there are no masks that will last forever.
1. OUR LIFE STORY IS STORED WITHIN US
The new birth brings changes to all these evils, emptying us of these marks and replacing them with enriching virtues, capable of making us people like Christ: (Phil. 2.5).
1.1. Guarding your heart
The Bible says: The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it�(Jer 17:9)? Jeremiah declares that the heart always seeks momentary interests in happiness and carnality because it is
attached to the organs of feeling (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste). Therefore, the Bible also recommends: Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Prov. 4:23).
1.2. Keeping a pattern of emotional stability
Our reaction to tease may vary according to our mood at a specific moment. When everything goes well and we wake up in a good mood, we don't even bother with unpleasant things. We are even able to play with them. However, when things are not going well and our stress level is high, they’d better not get in our way!
Impulsive people usually regret their actions later, but it is not always possible to fix the damage caused by their outbursts of anger.
2. DEALING WITH INNER CONFLICTS
Inner conflicts may bring along several implications. They are beneficial when they move us toward an overcoming, which results in growth, achievement, and other positive aspects. However, inner conflicts can be harmful when they limit our performance in any area.
The heart, the organ that pumps the blood of our body, gained the status of the noblest structure of our physical constitution, starting to figure, rhetorically, in the language of poets and also in biblical language, as the center of emotional life, the center of will, the center of moral life and the center of judgment.
2.1 Incapacity
Some people live the conflict of incapacity. They never find self-fulfillment because they feel unfit for everything; they learn nothing, and subsequently accomplish nothing. They blame themselves for not being able to cope with the inconvenient impulses of the heart. Paul said in Rom 7:19, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do —this I keep on doing.” In Rom 7:23, Paul brought us the understanding that this is the law of sin: our inability, therefore, comes from the limits that the fall brought to us.
Anger is a defense mechanism against injustice, threat, insult, injury, and danger, but like any other emotion, it can cause serious damage if it’s not under control .
Anger becomes sinful when it is fueled by bitterness and resentment, prompting the individual to act furiously against someone else. A person born of the Spirit must cultivate a spiritual life, in which there is no room for sinful wrath (Eph 4:26,27; James 1:19,20; Prov 29:11; 15:18).
2.2. Wrath
Fear itself is an apprehension of reality that is associated with anxiety, fright and panic (depending on the intensity level). This emotion can alter the metabolism, producing chemical substances in the body that act on the pulse, breathing and motor responses. When out of control, fear can cause panic attacks and even heart failure. Some people live in fear due to post-traumatic stress. Panic syndrome is very common nowadays; these people deserve our solidarity and prayer (1 Pet 5.7; Phil 4.7 and Is 26.3).
2.3. Fears
We are overwhelmed by our relentless conscience when we miss the target. We often demand attitudes that go beyond our ability to get it right. This, on the one hand, is good, as it demonstrates the interest we have in improving our standard of spirituality in terms of moral integrity; however, it can also lead us to a condition of slavery, which, not infrequently, turns the light burden (Mt 11:30) into a heavy one.
2.4. Demands
Remorse is the lament capable of deteriorating the soul to the point of leading the individual to death (2 Cor. 7:10). While remorse is sadness (according to the world) that looks back and laments, repentance (according to God) is sadness that looks forward and turns into conversion. One generates death, and the other, salvation.
2.5. Remorse
Not only the story of life, but everyday events can lash the soul in such a way that many fall into depression and end up giving up on themselves.
When Jesus sent the seventy disciples on a mission, Jesus warned them that some people would not welcome them when they were greeted with the usual shalom (peace to this house).
2.6. Resentment
The master warned them that if they entered a city and were not welcomed, they should shake off the dust from their feet and get out (Luke 10:5,6,10,11) - to shake off the dust from their feet, in this context, means leave in the place of affront any resentment arising from the rejection. Jesus' recommendation applies perfectly to the days when resentment keeps knocking on our door.
2.6. Resentment
3. OVERCOMING THE PAINS OF THE SOUL
BY EXCHANGiNG FEELINGS
People who carry along a heavy weight of bad feelings always tend to make them bigger and heavier than they really are because they talk about them endlessly. The culprit speaks of his faults; the resentful, of their resentments; the fearful, of their fears and, thus, the cycle of the problem grows, because there is an intimate relationship between speech and feelings (Mt 12:34).
3.1. Open up a dialogue with your soul
The psalmist sings the song of the discouraged (Psalm 42:5). The praiser opened the dialogue between reason and emotion. After asking her soul why she was downcast, he advised her to wait on God.
3.2. Cultivate good thoughts
Paul advises the brothers in Philippi to form the habit of thinking about good things (Phil. 4.8). What a wonderful recipe for soul relief! Is it possible, for those who live in a busy world, full of tasks and worries, to practice Paul’s instruction? It's not only possible, it's also necessary. It would be impossible if we didn't have a God over us; however, this is the believing mental pattern in Jesus.
More than four hundred years after having changed Jacob’s name to Israel, the Lord presented himself to Moses, before the bush on Mount Horeb, as the God of Jacob (Ex 3:15). Shouldn't he introduce himself as the God of Israel? The fact is that Jacob became Israel, but God continued to be Jacob's God, because of the Jacob that was within each one of us, in order to transform us into new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17).
3.3. Let God be the God of your soul
CONCLUSION
There is a reality from which one cannot escape: in order to get along well with God and with one another, it is necessary, first, to get along well with oneself. And the divine pattern for good self-relationship begins with cultivating a sober mind (1 Thes 5:6,8). So, let’s keep in mind the word of Peter, who says: Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming (1 Peter 1:13).
God bless you!
EBD ADVEC
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