On This Day: To Rest in What is Revealed

   In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 
   All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke 10:21-22)

   One of the biggest things I want people to know is that eternal life is to KNOW God. Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). 

   Yes, that is the essence of what it means to receive eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus has secured the salvation by which we can return to the God who created us and know him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

   This means that our daily interest should be in how well we know God. And, for some of us (at least people like me), how well I know God rests completely on how he feels about knowing me. 

   The stage on which Jesus has made his heart known to me over the years has been one littered by broken relationships. I grew up in a family that was broken. My attachment-light got stuck in the “always on” position because I was desperate to not miss the hope-springs-eternal time that someone might actually want to attach to me. When I learned that the term “hyper-vigilant” describes a mindstate that has been trained to be on guard against danger, I wanted to know how to bring that into my relationship with God.

   Or, how God was shining his spotlight onto my broken radar system so he could heal what was wounded and bring me to peace in my relationship with him.

   Since I had my first conscious awareness of God’s interest in me almost 6 decades ago, and then learned how to listen to him in his word in the most real and personal of ways almost 33 years ago, I can chart a relationship with God that has been growing because I am God’s child. My security with him doesn’t rest on how well I hang on to him, but on how settled his love is for me. My significance to him doesn’t depend on what I do for good, but what his goodness has delighted in for me before I was even created. My acceptance with God doesn’t rest on my good behavior that must always be that 1 ounce more than anything I do wrong. Rather, my acceptance with the Triune God rests on him accepting me in his beloved Son.

   No matter who I talk with, and no matter who I imagine might read this, my supreme interest is in how they know God. I regularly remind people to see the grace and peace of God in the Beatitudinal Valley because the way God blesses us is typically so different than religious (and irreligious) life has taught us. We need to attach to God in our poverty of spirit in order to know what it means to truly have peace with God. 

   Today it feels like God is comforting me in some of the most painful losses I have experienced as he shows me the reality of his desire to find me and have me as his own. Yes, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Yes, the judge of all creation. Yes, the eternal Father, the glorious Son, the comforting Holy Spirit. They have a personal desire for me to know them and have gone through hell (so to speak) to have me. 

   If no one has told you this, stop pretending, and meet with God as you are. Tell “our Father in heaven” how you are doing. Be the child. Lay your complaints before him. Tell him what you don’t understand. Be honest. Be real. 

   And then listen. 

   Yes, open God’s word and listen to him. He is speaking. His Holy Spirit is with us to teach us all things and bring to our remembrance things we have already known. Whatever stands out, talk to him like that is what he is saying to you. Converse. Dialogue. Meditate on what he says. Cling to it with all your heart. 

   And today, let my testimony that learning “the Son CHOOSES (desires) to reveal” the Father to his beloved brothers encourage you that he will do the same for you as much as for me. Why? Because the level ground at the throne of grace is faith. Not necessarily great faith. Not even mature faith. Just faith that comes like a child and wants to get to know God. Yes, get to KNOW him!

   Eternal life comes through believing in Jesus Christ. And Jesus gives eternal life to us because we must be alive to know the Triune God. As John wrote, “In him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).

   The darkness has not overcome Jesus’ work to pour the love of God into my heart by the Holy Spirit he has given us. Come to Jesus as you are and let him overcome the darkness in your life so he can lead you to know God better than you have ever known him before. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Desire to Follow Jesus is Broken

   And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:23-27)

   I not only believe that all scriptures must be understood in the context of all Scripture, but I also expect that whatever God speaks to me about through his word each day will relate to the context of my life’s journey and my present circumstances.

   So, when I came to another familiar section of Luke’s gospel, I had to consider it from this dual context of what Jesus meant then, and how he intends to apply it in my life now. 

   As I looked up words and meanings, I discovered that Jesus’ choice of words in “would” had the distinctive meaning of desire. This is talking about someone who hears about Jesus and feels a desire to “come after” him, or to follow him. What Jesus is then clarifying is what it looks like to do so.

   My personal context is a few decades of living by the focus of “leading people to freedom in Christ so they can experience God in a real and personal way.” And what I have discovered during those decades is that Larry Crabb was right, more people in churches are committed to self-protection than to knowing and doing the will of God.

   So, how do we deal with such a clear description of what it means to follow Jesus when most church folks have no desire to be free of their self-protection? Answer: we show people that even the most broken person can desire to follow Jesus as described and then be honest about who is following Christ and who is not.

   I recall two ladies in one of our churches who were facing broken soul-condition stuff at the same time. Both had buried trauma under their preferred system of self-protection. Both had a role in the church that was seen by everyone. To deny themselves would mean to deny the right to continue relying on self-protection to bury their wounds and to follow Jesus into their journey of healing and freedom in Christ. 

   One of these women decided she would not trust Jesus to heal her and set her free and so she refortified her self-protection and began destroying anyone who threatened to expose her. She idolized the role she had created for herself in the church and would not let anyone take that away from her. The other woman began addressing what was broken in her with a sense that she could submit to Jesus for her freedom and healing because she really wanted to be free to follow him in life. 

   What stood out so clearly was that the one devoted to self-protection maintained a role in the church that made her look like a strong and devoted Christian while the other appeared to be really struggling in her walk with God but was actually submitting to him in one painful step after another of facing trauma I had never even heard of. 

   It is no accident that I so recently saw the difference between a “sinful” woman who came into a house worshiping and loving Jesus with all her heart, and the religious hypocrite who hosted the meal harboring a narcissistic heart under a cloak of self-protective pride. It was the woman who loved Jesus for forgiving all her sins who was truly denying herself to follow him, while the religious elite had no love for Jesus because his role portrayed him as righteous, and he got applause for his acting. 

   We cannot obey this calling to deny ourselves and follow Jesus grudgingly just to ensure we have our fire insurance policy from hell and some hope of a RIP in heaven. It begins with a desire to follow Jesus that then applies itself in self-denying ways throughout the day, throughout conflicts, throughout facing trauma, throughout falling into sin, so that whatever messes and successes we face, our desire to follow our Savior is applied in real life for God’s glory and the good of his people. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: The Word Who Amazes with His Words

  And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region. (Luke 4:31-37)

   As I look back over my six decades since knowing God was watching over me, it is clear that God’s grace has enabled me to hear his “Word” and his “word” as his word. 

   In fact, whenever I hear the professional skeptics claiming they have proved the Bible is not God’s word, I see a group of blind people trying to convince me that what I see doesn’t exist. It makes me sad for them, but I have never once heard anything that disqualifies God’s word from being God’s word, or disqualifies Jesus Christ as “the Word” who “became flesh and dwelt among us”. 

   In my current journey through Luke’s detailed account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, I am on heightened alert for things he says that could have been tested for their truthfulness. With this radar-on mindset, the things that stand out are impacting me deeply. 

   What’s the point for you and me? That we are being given a witness to Jesus’ authority. He was “the Word” who “was with God, and the Word was God.” He was “the Word” through whom “all things were made”. In fact, “without him was not any thing made that was made.” In Jesus as the Word “was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:1-5). 

   Knowing that Jesus is “the Word” makes it stand out all the more meaningfully that “his word” impacted people with a sense of authority. He spoke like he had the authority to tell people what was true and how to live by that truth. And my sense is that, if the people knew that about him in person, it is no wonder that it feels that way to me when I read what God’s word says about his word! 

   I have shared this many times, that in 1992 I went from thinking of my morning time of reading the Bible as “my devotions” to considering it as “spending time with God”. My mind changed from me looking for what I could get out of Scripture to me listening for what God was saying to me. Once I knew that God was speaking through his word, whatever I read, whatever I learned, whatever stood out as God’s teaching to my heart, had authority over me. Even if I was the only one who knew it, I would be measured that day by whether I was receiving and obeying what God spoke to me about, or neglecting and rejecting God’s word.

   This morning was another reminder that, in the same way the people who heard Jesus in person recognized the authority of “his word”, we are to come to the Bible as “the word of Christ” and “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). 

   If I added up all my negative experiences in the church, they could all be categorized as scenarios where church folk acted as the authority over God’s word. The toddlers and teens of the church (in maturity, not age) acted like they knew everything so that even what was written in Scripture had no authority over what they did or said. 

   On the other hand, my very best memories of life with God’s people have been when people were sharing with joy what they were learning from God’s word, and everyone was testifying to the grace of God in how he was working those things into our lives.

   Today reminds me that God’s word through his Son has authority over us all. We can either use God’s word for our own selfish purposes as Satan did in tempting Jesus, or we can imitate Jesus and “live by every word that comes from the mouth of God”. There is a day of reckoning and rewarding on its way. Jesus himself said so in his own words. As it is written, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near” (Revelation 1:3).

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When ‘God is love’ Gets Angry

   And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. (Mark 10:13-16)

   Today was the third time in the past couple of weeks that it has stood out what Jesus said about children. 

   First, Jesus said that whoever receives a child in his name is receiving both him and the Father at the same time (as unthinkably wonderful as that is!).

   Second, Jesus warned that anyone who would cause one of his little ones who believe in him to sin would be better off tossed into the sea with a millstone around his neck than face Jesus’ judgment on such evil. 

   Third, today’s reference shows Jesus responding with indignation to his disciples trying to prevent children from coming to him. And it is this expression of pure and genuine emotion from Jesus I found so captivating this morning. 

   The first thing that came to mind was some heartbreaking scenes of watching parents literally traumatizing their children to keep them from trusting Jesus in “the obedience of faith”. This morning, God made very clear how he feels about such abuse!

   The second focus was a journey down the heartbreaking memory lane of adults who were traumatized as children simply because they believed in God and wanted to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Today this was made clear as well, that God’s response to those childhood traumas was one of indignation against anyone who deliberately hindered us from coming to Jesus Christ.

   The reason anyone tries to stop children (or the child-hearted) from coming to Jesus is because that is Satan’s will and work. Paul said it like this, “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (II Corinthians 4:4). Satan will do anything, and he will use anyone, to keep people from seeing God’s glory in Jesus Christ.

   But when Paul continues, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6), we now need to include Jesus’ “indignation” as God’s glory shining out through the face of his Son. 

   In this past year, I have discovered a strong movement of false teachers telling people that God, the Bible, and the way of God’s kingdom need to be rewritten to be “more Christlike”. But today I see Jesus himself showing God’s love for children in his indignation against those who hinder them from coming to him. There is no such thing as a loving God who tolerates sin against his Little Ones. 

   I was amazed this morning at how God touched my own wounded heart in this area. He brought to the surface my heartache about seeing beloved children deliberately turned away from the Savior. And he took me back to my childhood trauma and showed me his indignation about what was done to me. 

   Since I know that what comes next is Jesus’ affirming that we must be like little children to enter his kingdom, it amazes me that he would address childhood trauma head-on with an expression of the most loving response a child could ever see, the indignation of God himself standing against anyone who would keep them from his Son. 

   I hope this encourages you to deal with any part of this that applies to you so that you are coming to Jesus yourself and helping others to do so as well. Whether he shows you something he is doing in his Little Ones that you can join, or brings to mind the children and child-hearted who need your prayers, come to Jesus with all your heart and ask him to help you help others to join you.

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

For Men Only: Men Unashamed of Their Shame

SHAME IS a healthy emotion. It is there to tell us when we have screwed up. It calls us to apologize and reconcile with people we have wronged. And it always calls us to make things right with God in both repentance and faith.

HOWEVER, shame is a horribly debilitating emotion because we hate feeling that way. We learn early on in life that shame can feel like the worst attachment-pain ever because it is often partnered with rejection and demoralizing criticism.[1]

THIS MORNING, God got me up early, so I asked him what he wanted me to pray about and who he wanted me to pray for. It wasn’t long before I found myself praying for all kinds of men in my life, some close and some distant, that God would deal with our shame so we would be healed and free to fully join his work as beloved sons of the Almighty.

IN A BOOK I recently started reading, I was confronted with this quote: “Boys and men need to know that the foundation of life is to be able to receive what we have not earned without shame."[2] I am one of the many men who have never been given such a foundation, so what do we do?

THAT’S WHERE prayer comes in. I was led to begin praying through this verse again, not only for me, but especially for all the men who were coming to mind: “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.”[3]

YES, I KNOW that the imagery is a simile of God as a husband relating to his sinful people as an abandoned wife, a widow who has shamed herself. But we can just as much make this a real-life picture of God as Father speaking to his boys who have screwed up in life and left a trail of shameful sins and relationships. The promises definitely apply in the New Covenant we have with Jesus Christ our Lord.

SO HOW do we pray this comforting expression from God our Father (and, yes, this easily applies to any women who carry a shame-based reaction to God as Father)?

FIRST, we ask that God would speak his “fear not” into the hearts of every shame-filled heart we are praying for. We pray that God would speak an end to fear into our storms of shame as obviously as he spoke his peace into the storm that had stirred his disciples to hopeless despair.

SECOND, we pray that God would fulfill in all these men we are praying for (and more) his promise that we “will not be ashamed” after all. We are not asking God to make it so we haven’t done shameful things. It is far too late for that! In Isaiah’s time, God was not saying that the people would not do anything shameful. Rather, he was promising that after their horribly shameful sin and rebellion, the end of the matter was that they would not be ashamed. They would be so restored to him that their shame would be gone.

AND THAT is what so many men need, not Good-Boy Christianity that says we can only be free of shame if we act like good Christians and don’t do anything wrong, but Good-God Christianity that says that every instance of shameful sin in our lives will be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ so that, when we repent and return to God, we will not be ashamed any longer because all our sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ.

THIRD, we ask God to proclaim over all these men his, “be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced.” Some men have abused their children and need to be called to Jesus with this promise of cleansing that, even if they must bear the disgrace of what they have done in one way, they will not be disgraced before the throne of grace where they will receive the help they need to walk through reconciliation and healing with those they have wronged.

BUT WE ALSO have men who are simply carrying so many shame-wounds, perhaps because of what was done to them instead of what they have done, and they need to know that if they open their hearts to Jesus about it, and surrender the cesspools of secret-hearted shame to him, they will not be left in a state of confoundedness, and nor will they live a life of disgrace with God and his Spirit-filled boys.

FOURTH, we pray that God would speak into the hearts of all these men his promise, “you will forget the shame of your youth”. In fact, David gives us help in how to pray about this with a ready-made prayer request when he says, “Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O LORD!”[4] We join him by praying that God would assure men that their repentance and faith and reconciliation will result in everyone forgetting the sins of our youth, or whatever sins are in focus, because they are forgiven and covered by the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.

FIFTH, while the last phrase speaks of “widowhood” as a simile of what things were like for the disciplined people of God, we can pray it specifically for men something like, “Father, assure all these men that the reproach of their disconnect from you will be remembered no more.” We are asking God to do such a work on attachment-pain, abandonment issues, hidden worlds of self-protection, even the painful self-justifying of narcissism, so that men will face their reproach, the sins they have committed against others, and bring them so honestly before God and whoever they have wronged that the reproach of anything shameful at all would be forgiven and cleansed and washed away into the sea of God’s forgetfulness, as they say.[5]

I KNOW it would be easy to expand this verse into even more in-depth prayer for specific situations, for both men and women, based on the real-life stories of what has happened in our lives. I share this as an example of how God ministered it to me this morning, even getting me up quite early to direct me into this kind of prayer. And when I go out on my prayer walk in a bit, I will pour my heart out all the more for all the men (and women) God brings to mind.

AND YES, for any women who have read this far, men need you praying for them like this as well. And pray for women who have been shamed by men to experience all these things so they can forgive the men who repent of their shameful acts and seek to reconcile with the people of God.

THE BOTTOM LINE is that God has revealed his heart in his word with scriptures like this one from Isaiah, and we can pray his word back to him in confidence that he will guide us into his will as we do so, and then will answer the prayers we pray.

FOR ME, this has been a morning of prayer that almost demanded that I share this to try and get others to join me, or to join with others where you are, so the horrible wounds of shame would be healed, and all the ground we have surrendered to the evil one by hiding our shame from God would be restored to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and life-after-life, and generation-after-generation, would experience the powerful and wonderful work of Jesus setting the prisoners free.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

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[1] No, I don’t believe little boys are as resilient as the experts claim.

[2] Jim Wilder, the Stages of a Man’s Life

[3] Isaiah 54:8

[4] Psalm 25:7

[5] https://www.gotquestions.org/sea-of-forgetfulness.html

From WoLVeS to WoRTH

  I was first called to consciously share the world of childhood trauma in 1992.[1] It continues to stand as the beginning of the most painful journey I have ever faced. 

  Along the way, I learned a lot of helpful things about what trauma does to us, the effects of our self-protective strategies, and how wonderfully the word of God addresses every imaginable wound a child (of any age) could ever experience.[2]

  One of the most helpful acronyms for understanding what childhood trauma does to us is in the letters WLVS,[3] which our home church has expanded as WoLVeS to help make the point all the clearer.

  WoLVeS stands for the Wounds, Lies, Vows and Strongholds that harass us at every turn when we have never experienced healing and freedom in Jesus Christ. In short, it simply refers to what happens when we are Wounded as children (or any age) and the devil comes in and Lies to us about who God is to us and who we are to him. If we take those Lies to heart, we then make self-protective Vows to never let ourselves get hurt again (even though that never works). This sarky/fleshly pattern becomes so ingrained into us that it creates a Stronghold of always shutting down when we are triggered (often preceded with an explosion of some sort).

  The last two days, my time with God in his word brought my mind to consider how I would express an acronym to stand against our WoLVeS. It is one thing to identify what is wrong with us, but we need some expression of the “good news of great joy” that comes to us in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.[4]

  I had just asked Father if there was anything from my past he wanted me to remember that would give me opportunity to renew my mind with his truth about those things. His answer was not to lead me to remember anything that happened to me, but to remember things about him and my relationship to him, things that are easily forgotten when the WoLVeS attack.

  This brought me to the WoLVeS acronym where I remembered that the one part of this imagery that does not change in our freedom work is the “W”, the “Wounds”. There is nothing wrong with wounds. They happen. Jesus was wounded and it didn’t cause WoLVeS (it actually gave us our salvation). Paul was wounded, and no WoLVeS (it actually gave us most of his letters to the churches!).

  Why did Jesus, Paul, and others, not have WoLVeS?

  Because they did not believe the devil’s Lies, they did not make self-protective Vows, and they did not give the devil Strongholds from which to work.

  The message is not that we ourselves, especially as children, knew how to do this. The good news I am sharing is not primarily focused at making churches where everybody gets this right all the way from childhood and never needs help.

  Jesus did not come to seek and to save the well, but to seek and to save the LOST![5] He came into the world to save SINNERS, of whom Paul saw himself as the best (or worst) example.[6]

  God gives his children something that no worldling will ever experience, something called being transformed through the renewal of our minds.[7] When someone receives new life in Jesus, and becomes a new creature in him, part of this newness includes a new mind and a new heart.[8] This means that we can think in new ways, believe new and wonderful things, and walk in “newness of life”![9]

  As I have only begun considering an acronym to contrast with our WoLVeS imagery, what came to mind is quite fitting, that our WoRTH defeats the WoLVeS.

WoLVeS	WoRTH
Wounds: they happen, not the problem.	Wounds: they happen, not the problem.
Lies: filling our minds with falsehoods about God that immediately steal our thoughts of running to Father for help.	Reality: filling our minds with what is real about God and ourselves so that we want to run to him for help.
Vows: setting up self-protective walls to make sure we never get wounded again.	Truth: letting ourselves bond with the Truth in mind, heart and soul so that our wounds always increase our attachment with the Triune God.
Strongholds: accepting bondage-strategies as both necessary and normal so that we are unable to walk in the light or in the truth no matter how brightly or truthfully it is presented.	Hope: attaching to every promise of who we are to God, what he is doing in us, where he is taking us, and what he will complete in us, knowing they all will be fulfilled no matter how wounded we have ever been.

  This is not, for me, about how well I have matched the WoLVeS acronym with something of my own. It is about the realization that, when we ask God what he wants us to “remember” about our pasts, don’t be surprised if he skips memories of things that were done to us and takes us to realities about our relationship with him that we have forgotten (or never knew) because we have believed the devil’s lies.

  Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”[10]

  Abiding doesn’t merely mean spending time; it means attaching. In other words, when the lies inside us are replaced by the realities of attachment to Jesus, that is when we truly become his disciples (followers), and in that attachment to him, that is when we really come to know the truth (since Jesus IS the truth), and in our attachment to Jesus as the Truth, Jesus sets us free in himself.

  While 1992 is the year I was thrown into thoughts and feelings of childhood trauma like I had never known before, that is not where my journey started. My testimony begins earlier that year when God opened my ears to how he speaks through his word, opened my eyes to how he shows us what he is doing, and opened my will to how we join him in his work.[11]

  The wonderfully gracious thing is that our Father in heaven was leading me into what was Real about walking with him every day of my life before showing me how much damage the Devil’s lies had done to me and people I love. He was already opening my heart, soul and mind to his Truth to give me the weapons that “destroy strongholds… arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” and lead us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ…”[12] And he was already flooding my inner being with Hope that all his children can experience everything he promises for our healing, freedom and maturing in Christ in this lifetime, and the perfection of our eternal life at the return of our Savior.

  What do we do with this?

  We ask our heavenly Father to show us any Wounds that haven’t been healed, any Lies we have believed, any Vows we have made and any Strongholds we have created so that we can come into his presence with our Wounds, attach to the Realities of who we are in Christ, bond with the Truth that sets us free, and “hold fast to the Hope set before us… a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul…”[13]

  And, if you are one of those rare people who has experienced no hindrances in your walk with God because of childhood or other trauma, ask Father who needs the kind of help we are exploring here and go join him in his work of healing the brokenhearted and binding up their wounds.[14]

 

© 2020 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

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[1] I was obviously living in the effects of childhood trauma for most of my life but had not had to face it head on as began that year.

[2] I share this with the belief that, contemporary problems and understandings of the human condition do not need to be mentioned in the Bible to be considered valid, but our understanding of what God will do to help us with anything at all in life does come from God’s word and is promised to us in the new covenant in Jesus’ blood. We seek to know what God has given to us in our justification by grace through faith that makes us right with him, what he is doing now in our sanctification by grace through faith in which we keep growing up to maturity in Christ, and what he will complete in our glorification by grace through faith when we finally become fully like Jesus when we see him as he is.

[3] This was introduced to us by Marcus Warner in his resource, Understanding the Wounded Heart. Marcus is the leader of Deeper Walk International (https://deeperwalkinternational.org/). Just a reminder to not assume that someone sharing something they have learned from a ministry means they endorse everything about that ministry! I’m just giving credit where credit is due.

[4] Luke 2:10-11 (context: Luke 2:1-20)

[5] Luke 19:10

[6] I Timothy 1:15 (Note: Paul was not saying that he was living a life so sinful that he was always the “foremost” of sinners. Rather, in a similar way to how Wayne Gretzky, at time of writing, holds the highest points record in the NHL even long after he retired from playing, Paul saw himself as the chief example of a sinner even long after he was no longer living a life of sin).

[7] Romans 12:2

[8] II Corinthians 5:17; I Corinthians 2:16; Ezekiel 36:26

[9] Romans 6:4

[10] John 8:31-32

[11] One of the most helpful Scriptures in this regard is Philippians 2:12-13 where I considered what it looks like for God to work in us to will and to work for his good pleasure resulting in us working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Such serious realities require sincere attachments.

[12] II Corinthians 10:4-5 (context: II Corinthians 10:1-18)

[13] Hebrews 6:19 (context: Hebrews 6:13-20)

[14] Psalm 147:3

The Trouble With Destroying the Most Vulnerable of our Citizens

This is not a political statement on the legitimacy of either of the candidates for the 2016 US presidential election. It is simply an observation that has left me grieving what people think and feel about the killing of unborn babies.

Both before and after the election, when I heard people list the character flaws and misbehaviors of Donald Trump, and why Hillary Clinton’s character flaws and misbehaviors were preferable to his, I never once heard any of these people talk about Hillary’s beliefs about the killing of children.[1] To have an opinion on a leader is one thing. However, to form an opinion without considering the care and protection of unborn babies is to leave us guilty of a serious devaluing of human life.

So, let’s take this one issue and set it before us, not to pick sides between two people, but to consider how much our beliefs about the condition of a society, or its potential leaders, factors in our beliefs about protecting the most vulnerable of our citizens.

Yes, unborn babies are citizens of the country in which the parents are citizens. If they don’t have the right to life, no one is safe.

No, unborn babies are not their mother’s bodies; they are their own bodies, which is why they are the ones that die during an abortion, not the mother.

All I want us to think about is this: when you hear anyone declare their acceptance, even their celebration, of mothers being able to order the killing of their babies all the way up to the time when eighty percent of their baby’s body is held in a doctor’s hand outside the mother’s body, where do you put this in any order of priority regarding character flaws and misbehaviors?

To help with this, what would we call it if a mother of already-born children found someone who was willing to kill them for her? For a moment, don’t put this alongside anyone else’s flaws or misbehaviors; just think about what we are doing in our society when so many would gladly support the killing of our youngest citizens.

If you have not yet seen videos or pictures showing what it looks like to kill a baby while it’s living body is still in its mother’s womb, or what a doctor is willing to do to a baby’s head while holding most of the baby’s body in his or her hands, you haven’t allowed yourself to truly judge how this compares or contrasts to the millions of videos showing other kinds of character flaws and misbehaviors. If we truly care about every citizen of our countries as people to protect, we should have watched just as many videos, and read just as many posts, about the killing of unborn children, as we did with regard to other character flaws and misbehaviors.

Please don’t put words in my mouth and say I am a Trump supporter, or that I’m okay with the character flaws and misbehaviors of men who mistreat and malign women. I’m only addressing whether we have all considered what many people believe is a woman’s right to do to her children.

Please don’t turn this into a statement of what men think they can tell women to do with their bodies, since this is only about what people think they can do to baby’s bodies, not the mothers. The inherently protective character of true manhood has every right to seek the protection of unborn children as much as every mother in the world should affirm.

However, do let me put before you in my own words the reminder of what women are willing to do to their unborn babies, and doctors who are willing to carry out criminal acts against fellow human beings, and politicians who have publicly declared their belief that certain citizens of a country can be killed just because their mother wants it that way. Something is wrong if we haven’t even factored into our worldview what it means that human beings are so willing to kill human beings, especially the most vulnerable and defenseless of them all.

In a baby’s world, their Mother ought to be the most protective and nurturing person they ever know. A Mother’s body is designed for nurturing; her heart is designed for nurturing; her mind is capable of thinking a magnificent array of nurturing thoughts for her child. When a Mother says she has a right to kill her baby, we should truly be horrified at what horrible things human beings are able to perpetrate against one another, even those who are more “their own” than anyone else in the world.

When God created human beings, he set them apart as the only creature he made in his own image and likeness.[2] He gave us the capacity to think, and to love, and to create, in ways totally like his own thoughts, his own love, his own creativity. He gave humanity the ability to sing and make music in our hearts even as he sings and makes music over his beloved children. The reason that we have some sense of what is good, is because God is good, and he made us to be like him.

However, the reason we have such a strong inclination towards evil is because we rejected God’s goodness and preferred the ways of sin and death. People argue over what is good because we are now sinners who want our own ways. However, we also think in terms of good, even as bad as some of our good might be, because we still have the remnant of the image of God imprinted upon our souls.

I’ve shared God’s view of our sin and his solution to our sinful condition in many of my posts, so I will keep the focus of this post on the main question. Have we factored into our worldview, and our understanding of what is wrong with our world, and why people vote as they do, what we believe about the care and protection of our most vulnerable people?

If we haven’t understood what a human being is, and how even our flawed condition still knows the sanctity of human life, we will likely think that other character flaws and misbehaviors are of greater importance. However, once we understand both the value of a human being, and the dignity of our unborn children, the recognition of mothers, voters, and leaders, both tolerating and promoting the killing of those in most need of protection, should leave us horrified at how far humanity has fallen from our design in the image and likeness of God.

So, yes, all evil is evil, including every degree, and nuance, and expression anyone has ever imagined. However, if we have not factored into our worldview what mothers and their doctors are willing to do to their unborn babies, we are missing something hugely significant to understanding what it means to be human. It may not make it a lot easier to decide on which political leader is less evil than another, but it should turn our hearts to the one person who would rather we brought the little children to him instead of to those who wish them harm.

© 2016 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] I’m not saying who said what; only that I never heard this included in any discussions.

[2] Genesis 1:26-27

The Victim’s Boast

When God tells his children that “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast,”[1] it includes the denial of every kind of boasting.

We might be most familiar with the confident and arrogant boasting of those who truly believe they are better than others because of their ability to perform at a higher standard of accomplishment.

However, there is another kind of boasting that is very common in the church, and all the more insipid in its poisonous influence for not looking like boasting at all.

I speak of the victim’s boast, or the boasting in victimization.

The victim’s boast is the cry that, “I can’t do it because of…” and out comes a story of trauma that is not the appeal of a wounded soul that wants healing in Jesus Christ, but that of a victim who wants their neglect of God’s will to have a stamp of justification. It is all the better if the world gives it some kind of label that encompasses whatever symptoms are evident, and lends a sense of justification for why people continue to remain as they are, unchanged, untransformed, untouched by the realities of the Spirit-filled life in Jesus Christ.

When the apostle Paul reminds the church that it is “by grace you have been saved through faith,” and then clarifies that there is no grounds for boasting in our salvation because it is a gift of grace, uninfluenced by works of any kind, it is to turn us to rest in this wonderful truth.

On one side, it is a declaration of the absolute purity of our salvation, that it is not contaminated by any works of our own, therefore it is so purely the work of God that it cannot fail to do what God has graciously set out to do. You know, the way “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”[2]

However, on the other hand, because the fullness of our salvation is completely in the hands of God’s grace, and there are no works required from us to complete what God has begun in his children, there is no room for anyone in the church to deny the complete transformation of our souls “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”[3]

For us to experience the fullness of God’s gracious gift of salvation, we do not need to work at it ourselves, but experience it through faith. When we tell God we cannot experience something his word promises to his born again children, we are not speaking the truth about what his grace is able to accomplish in our lives, but simply exposing the same “O you of little faith” that Jesus kept confronting in his disciples.[4]

It is time for the church to address (in just as loving ways as Jesus) that we have many among us who have such little faith that they experience little of what God is doing among us. Our problem is not with the ability of God’s grace to operate, but the freedom of our faith to believe him.

To clarify, every time God reveals something in his word that is a promise of God for our salvation, something that, if we received it by faith it would give glory to our Father who is in heaven, and we deny God’s ability to do that in our life because we have some (fill-in-the-blanks) kind of problem that gives us an excuse for why we cannot be expected to experience such a work of grace, we are sneaking in a works-based counterfeit through the back door, and boasting that it is ours.

After all, we easily recognize when someone speaks of salvation as a work they did, or speaks of faith as a good work they are doing to add to God’s work of grace. We recognize why Paul had to confront the Galatians with the grievous way they had turned to a different gospel that included adherence to the law (good works). We feel Paul’s heartache as the Corinthians turned from their “sincere and pure devotion to Christ”[5] because the super-apostles were convincing them to add the law to the gospel.

However, while exposing the dangers of a works-based false gospel is as necessary today as it was in Paul’s day, we must also recognize the equally dangerous false teaching that God’s children can be so traumatized by painful experiences that they cannot experience the purity of God’s grace accomplishing the whole will of God in their lives simply through faith, not of any works required of ourselves.

Now, the grace of God clearly includes God’s children coming to him with the prayer of, “I believe; help my unbelief!”[6] However, it does not give room for us to come to God in explicit denial of his gifts of salvation because we are too wounded, or traumatized, or (fill in the blank), to experience something God promises to do in us by grace, through faith.

As I share this, I am mindful that there will be some people so genuinely wounded by life experiences that they truly believe they are worthless bits of garbage with no hope of that ever changing. I am in no way denying that children of God can believe and feel such things.

Rather, I am speaking to the whole body of Christ and calling us to accept that the gift of our salvation, purely by the grace of God, experienced always and only through faith, is for the whole body of Christ. There may be people in our churches that are so paralyzed with worthlessness, and fear, and unbelief, and trauma, about the deepest issues of their souls, that they need their four friends to have faith for them, and to tear open the rooftops to get them down in front of Jesus.[7] But, what we are looking for in the church is, “when Jesus saw their faith”.

I am so convinced that Jesus is building his church, and that even the gates of hell will not prevail against it,[8] that I know that every child of God who reads this far and still struggles with unbelief about the deepest wounds of the soul can ask God to give them two or three people who will pray for them in Jesus’ name, in faith, that God will make them well.

When we combine this prayer with hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through the words of Jesus Christ,[9] we will find faith growing as a result of what we hear, and we will band together to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”[10]

Whatever God is working in us to will and to work for his good pleasure is the expression of his grace that saves us, and us working out our salvation with fear and trembling is the way God’s grace works through faith.

Which brings me back to a theme verse as of late, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”[11]

© 2016 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] Ephesians 2:8-9

[2] Philippians 1:6

[3] II Corinthians 3:18

[4] Matthew 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8, 17:20; Luke 12:28

[5] II Corinthians 11:3

[6] Mark 9:24

[7] Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12

[8] Matthew 16:18

[9] Romans 10:17 (this includes our daily time in the word and prayer, listening/watching sermons in church, on the internet, reading books that call us into the promises of God for our healing, sharing in Bible study groups and prayer meetings, any means by which we interact with one another in God’s word and prayer so that our faith can come to life through hearing the words of our Savior).

[10] Philippians 2:12-13

[11] I John 5:4