Khari > Recent Status Updates

"Almost without noticing, we begin to live the same way we did before we met Jesus, hoping that with all our effort we will someday, some way, measure up. But we never do measure up; we continue to carry the load and we call it 'the abundant life.'"

God is for people, not religious systems.

"(3) an abundant use of the second-person pronoun anata 'you' instead of ellipsis to directly address the reader, which -being a typical feature of advertisements-treats women as if they were more susceptible to insincere seduction."

I wonder if she considered genre or register at all, because I think mine is showing the opposite, more pronoun usage in male targeted speech. But, maybe not.

"(2) a smaller number of proper nouns, which implies that women are less interested than men in learning about the world,"

...how? That's a seriously big jump.

"The first component of onnarashii kotoba is language used with a female audience in mind. Jugaku's quantitative study of women's magazines had revealed some distinctive stylistic features, including (1) a greater percentage of exclamatory and uncompleted sentences, which reflects a belief in women's emotionality and lack of logical thinking..."

It could also reflect a belief in women's superior ability to decode

"In too many Christian families and churches, Christians are told to jump through spiritual-performance hoops to earn God's approval-something they already have for free because of Jesus' death on the cross."

"an eye for an eye" (Matthew 5:38) was the form of justice instituted in the Old Testament to protect victims from people who were more powerful or affluent. But the heart of the rule was not vengeance ("make sure you get an eye for an eye!"), it was, "Make sure you ONLY get an eye for an eye.""

"When faced with the prospect of having righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees, the wrong response is to try hard. The correct response is to look at your lack of righteousness and your own inability to generate it and say, "I can't do that." Now we have a broken person, poor in spirit. The kingdom belongs to broken people."

"[Abusive spiritual systems] will be closed...with rigid boundaries that prevent people from leaving. There will be the perception of a lot of evil on the outside, to keep people in, and there will be a lot of power postured on the inside to compel you to perform. There will...be tired, wounded people who feel that they are either unspiritual or crazy...they will have major problems relating to God from the heart."

"One reason spiritually abusive families and churches are secretive is because they are so image conscious. People in these systems can't even live up to their own performance standards, so they have to hide what is real."

"Beware of those who put a spiritual premium on not being educated, or of being educated only at certain schools. In the name of some 'higher enlightenment' by the Holy Spirit, you may be withering under a teacher with a limited reality who won't be taught by anyone else."

So true, sadly.

"The truth is, when people talk about problems out loud they don't cause them, they simply expose them."

...demanding of others, or you expect 'nothing' from them; living a double life."

....so, now that I have been described perfectly, the question is, how did I become this way, and how do I stop being this way?

The effects of shame-based relationships: "Perfectionism, or giving up without trying; doing only those things you are good at; cannot admit mistakes; procrastination; view of God as more concerned with how you act than who you are; cannot ask for help; cannot rest when tired; cannot have guilt-free fun; high need for the approval of others; sense of shame or self-righteousness; ...

Another indicator is perfectionism, or a need for situations and relationships to be 'just so'. It's often accompanied by a high level of anxiety based upon external circumstances and an urge to control what people do and how things turn out. Shame, the flip side...is also a result of a performance-based mentality. Shame is a sense of inferiority, a negative self-assessment, and indictment on your very personhood.

Preoccupation with spiritual performance often results in a tendency towards extremes of self-righteousness or shame. Self-righteousness (a sense of spiritual superiority based on your own behavior) and judgmentalism (a sense of spiritual superiority based upon someone else's behavior) indicate a performance based lifestyle.

If [a Sunday school[ song conveys the idea that when we are tempted or we sin we have 'disappointed' God, when in fact God is the very fountainhead of spiritual strength, restoration and love-the one to whom we should run when we're tempted or we've fallen...we have to question: Does it reflect a mentality about God that would draw people to Him, or rather cause him to feel shamed by Him because of their weakness?

Many times, "You just need to tell your problem to the Lord," actually means, "Just don't tell it to me," or "Quit saying it out loud."

The Christian life begins with freedom from dead works, from religious systems and from all human attempts to 'please God'.

One basic purpose ... is to help you examine your own practice of Christianity...Are you practicing grace, allowing the Spirit of Christ to live through you in a way so you help lift oppressive weights off others and spiritually empower them to live? Or do you try to force people to live under laws, rules or formulas for spirituality that cause them to feel weighed down, unable to measure up to your standards?

I wonder if it is possible to spiritually or psychologically abuse yourself?

The second point about spiritual abuse hit home "The focus of the issue was subtly changed." Someone goes to talk about their problem of depression, the person they talk to addresses it as the problem being the person themselves, shifting from the emotion as problem to the state of being as the problem.

I think I probably do that.

"[God] loves to give good gifts to those He loves. But He will not honor the chase of these things."

The spotlight never fixes our insecurities, it only magnifies what we thought popularity would cover up.