How I Battle To Overcome OCD
Everyone has a giant to face, a mountain in their life to be moved. My greatest obstacle has always been fear: false evidence appearing real. I have OCD, and for too long, this “doubting disease” had made me afraid similar to how my former abuser did to me, controlling my mind and life. Thanks to God, things have improved immensely over the last few years. Now, I usually can manage the anxiety and discomfort effectively, even when facing a frightening obsession. In my life, OCD is no longer an unmovable mountain or a giant that cannot be defeated.
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How I Battle To Overcome My OCD
Banishing The Demons of Worry, Fear, Doubt, and Panic
God-given dreams can be achieved, and mountains can be moved, if we have mustard seed faith. God has a life purpose for every believer to “move mountains” for the glory of God. Enemies of faith like worry, fear, doubt, and panic get into our paths, trying to sabotage our success of having mustard seed faith and thus, having our dreams come true. Whatever takes residence in our minds, sufficient mustard seed faith or the enemies of faith, influence our progress in achieving our goals. For the sake of freedom, we must habitually exorcise the demons of worry, fear, doubt, and panic from our minds, before it is too late!
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To You, Is God A God of Wrath or Mercy?
Our Creator is both a god of wrath and mercy; however, His wrath is to be feared by only the guilty. Before creation, God’s mercy formulated a justification plan involving Christ dying on the cross for our sins, in order to satisfy the wrath of God toward sinners. Those who believe in and accept God’s grace will be declared not guilty of their sins on judgment day, will escape God’s wrath for forever, and will experience eternal life in heaven. Unfortunately, those who don’t become a Christian will be deemed guilty of sin, and will face God’s wrath in hell. Since God’s wrath is to be feared by the unjustified, there is no greater decision than to be justified
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Justification / Striving For A Perfect Heart, Not Perfect Performance
“Justification is the free and gracious gift of God bestowed on those who receive by faith the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” If you are a child of God, you know that, even though you are justified, considered innocent of sin, and headed to heaven someday, trying to live a victorious Christian life daily is a very difficult process, especially after sinning. For many of us, we struggle with fears of condemnation and not being forgiven, especially after committing sins we are ashamed of. Or, if we sin too much, God will stop accepting and loving us as His children. In essence, feelings of guilt and much anxiety interfere with our attempts to experience daily intimacy with God, as we fear God will get angry at us.
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There’s Freedom in Glorifying God
According to Westminster Shorter Catechism, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
The definition of “to glorify” is “to give the dignity, honor, respect, praise, and worship appropriate to the gift or standing of object or person.” “To glorify God” means to “give Him the dignity, honor, respect, praise, and worship due to God as the gracious gift Heis to us.” “Glorify” can also be associated with the following: “to reflect, toshow forth, to demonstrate and to express the image of an object or person sothat it can be seen by all.”
So, why should we glorify God? First of all, “to glorify God” is one of man’s purposes. John Piper says: “Birds were made to fly. Fish were made to swim. We were made to glorify God.” In Isaiah 43:7, God says: “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Humanity exists to glorify God.
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I Don’t Want To Fear The Storm: Facing The Waves Of Fear, Anxiety, And Worry article
Not trusting God is the root of anxiety, apprehension intensified by fear and worry. Assessing our anxiety problem involves evaluating what we value in life, our perceptions of God’s character, and our trust level of Him. When any of these areas aren’t right, we are susceptible to struggle with anxiety, worry, and fear. To overcome anxiety, worry, and fear: pray, surrender, and believe.
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American Racism: Let’s Reestablish Its Foundations article
Racism, a gigantic issue affecting our country, consists of prejudices, discrimination, and antagonism, and involves one group believing they are superior over another group. Prejudices come from stereotypes – generalizations which may presumably be true in some situations or with certain people, but not true in all situations or for everyone in that group. Since every born human is a descendant from Adam and Eve, there is only one biological race – this is one of at least two reasons to disbelieve “one race is superior over another”. A second reason is that God shows no partiality in the creation of all mankind. In conclusion, instead of practicing discrimination and antagonism, practice unconditional love. Unconditional love is the only foundation that can keep our racially-divided country, united.
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Jesus Christ And The Lost Sinner: Where God’s Justice, Wrath, And Mercy Meet
Justice is served when the penalty of a crime has been paid. All of humanity has sinned against God and has been sentenced to an afterlife death sentence in hell. Thus, the wrath of God remains on the lost sinner. However, the wisdom of God found a way where His mercy and His justice could meet. Innocent Christ paid the death sentence of all our crimes when He was crucified on the cross, giving those who accept His gift, eternal freedom in heaven, peace with God, etc. Unfortunately, those rejecting God’s offer of Christ paying the penalty for their sins are still headed to hell because their sins haven’t been paid. (Someone must pay the penalty, if you don’t want Christ to pay for it, then you will have to pay it.) Christ is the only way to heaven, and freedom requires accepting God’s offer of grace – nothing else would suffice.
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American Freedom: The Moral Decline of the United States
A four part series:
The God Who Gave Us Life, Gave Us Liberty At The Same Time
Quotes By Our Founding Fathers
The Moral Decline of the United States
No Prayer and Bibles in Schools
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The Testing of Your Faith
Christians are like “diamonds in the rough” with blemishes of faith called weak faith or wrong beliefs. Throughout our lives, God uses countless tests of faith to slowly evolve us into a mature and complete faith – that is, to mold us into diamonds that reflect God’s light and greatness to this dying world. Our testimony is more than words, it’s also the showcase of us striving to pass our faith tests and well as the completion of our purpose that these trials equip us for. To overcome trials, we must correct and or strengthen what we believe about God’s character while waiting for God’s deliverance. We cannot let worry and fear lead us toward failure, nor ruin the testimony we reveal when we face God’s tests of faith.
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Believing In Jesus And His Resurrection – Proof that Christ Resurrected
The evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It’s outstandingly different in quality and quantity.” – Antony Flew, former atheist
Theologian Wolfhert Pannerberg – “As long as historiography does not begin dogmatically with a narrow concept of reality according to which ‘dead men do not rise’, it’s not clear why historiography should not in principle be able to speak about Jesus’ resurrection as the explanation that is best established of such event as the disciples’ experiences of the appearances and the discovery of the empty tomb.”
Today I intend to give you solid historical evidence in favor of Christ’s resurrection really happening. My sources include Evidence That Demands A Verdict, Jesus: Man, Myth, Messiah, the Bible (including the Gospels), Gary Habermas Minimal Facts, Non-historical sources (like Josephus and Tacitus), Dave Maynard, and the Internet in general.
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In Need Of The Truth
Lucifer is the “father of lies” (John 8:22). His nature won’t let him tell the truth. “He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). His deception constantly attacks our weaknesses and vulnerabilities in hopes of drawing us away from God. Satan also strives to put us into bondage by controlling the way we act, feel, and think. He often attempts this by using subtle manipulation to make us unrealistically afraid over circumstances that don’t warrant the amount of fear that we experience during those situations. How we deal with his tricks determine his success rate in trying to destroy our freedoms, hopes, and relationships.
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In Search Of A Better Tomorrow
Achieving God-sized purposes require abiding in Christ as we overcome adversity. To endure the suffering that this journey often brings, we must all have the powers of perseverance, courage, and faith in us. God realizes this; consequently, He uses trials to make us ready for anything by strengthening these three areas. So as we face trials, don’t lose hope; freedom will someday occur if we stay connected to the Vine a little longer.
(Note: This article is different than In Search Of A Better Tomorrow, my mental illness recovery story.)
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The Boxer Within Us
Rely upon the Vine, fix observations and value judgments – this is how we overcome our boxing opponent called hard times. In the boxing ring of life, this means embracing fears, seeking both God’s wisdom and His power to overcome, and in everything, complete surrender to Him. As we face boxer after boxer, we will experience much injury and many temptations not “to fight another round”. However, during these times, we should never give up. Through God we can win every match – if we only have the courage to listen and rely upon our Trainer (Jesus), the only undefeated boxer in the history of mankind.
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Houses of Retribution
Freedom from hatred, selfishness, and discord all happen when people obey God’s love commands. Stability, in spite of retribution-driven adversity, occurs when we allow the Holy Spirit produce the “fruits of the spirits” in us. Becoming a Christian, surrendering self to the Holy Spirit, and “making disciples of all men” is how mankind can finally break free from its chains. If we all only say “yes” to our unique purposes, free will will allow the love of Christ “fix” the houses we refer as people, giving us all the necessary foundation to withstand the floodwaters of adversity.
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Let’s Follow In The Footsteps Of Abraham Lincoln
Human freedom, achieving God-given purposes, and Love saving human hearts can all happen when perseverance triumphs over adversity. For example, because of Abraham Lincoln’s resilient, steadfastness to his purpose of becoming an U.S. president, he was able to help end the Civil War, free blacks from slavery, and presumably, create a more loving / less hateful society. Today, symbolic to this story of President Lincoln is the crisis of belief Christians have upon ending the “civil war” and “spiritual slavery” much of humanity has amongst itself. To enable the hopeless to experience true freedom found only in Love (Trinity), the saved must lovingly endure hardships as they surrender themselves to God’s perfect will.
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Love Stronger Than Any Rejection Or Mental Illness
Freedom from rejection and our mental illness demands the stability of an intimate love relationship with Christ in our lives. Regularly basing our self-worth on grace and the Christian’s position in Christ, rather than on performance, can free us from our fears of being unloved, unworthy, and insignificant. Also, children of God can remain confident that the Father’s Love will still hold their lives firmly, in spite of the stormy winds of life.
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We Are To Be Courageous
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them” (Walt Disney). God gives every human a purpose to achieve through Him. To reach it, it requires constant surrender to Him, in spite of our life struggles, doubts, fears, and temptations to terminate the journey.
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Building Brick House Families
Freedom from disobedience and its consequences demands “families” of all sorts, choosing goodness and forgiveness. Stability from floodwaters of life necessitates surrendering to the Holy Spirit, so bricks (people) can harmoniously coexist with bricks (people). To escape spiritual slavery, to build stable homes, to receive and give goodness and forgiveness, this unstable world desperately needs to see the “city on the hill”, to find the Light of the Trinity.
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God And I Always Greater Than OCD
Freedom over OCD requires proper identification and reaction to perceived danger. OCD’s false alarms and Satan’s trickery together attempt to destroy us, like Goliath almost did to Israel, until David and God intervened. Thank God, in our personal bouts against giants, we also have a sling (God’s Word) and stones (cognitive-behavior therapy, Mindfulness) and most importantly, an unconditional, loving Father who “will never fail nor forsake us”, victoriously fighting our battles.
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God, Please Help Me Overcome My OCD
Finding freedom from our OCD involves facing fears, accepting obsessions, surrendering our anxieties to God, believing in the truth, and finally, postponing ritualizing thoughts. If we courageously do all this, we can experience more and more victories from this illness – if we only habitually choose to stay connected to the Vine.
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Chasing Your Dreams Amidst Your Personal Nightmares
Dreams can be achieved when people overcome their strongholds. In life, we all experience a constant battle between our faith in God and the fears that constantly attempt to tyrannize our thoughts and actions. Disappointments can undermine hope and create despair as we feverishly search for light in this dark and dreary world. Similar to soldiers in warfare, courage is needed to both boldly and calmly wait to experience God’s power in response to these potentially heartbreaking obstacles. We can all experience this courage since “God is the brave man’s hope.”
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God’s Ways Of Success
True success happens to the extent we glorify God and enjoy Him forever as we are faithful to God’s purposes for our life. Because of disobedience and distrusting God’s sufficiency, man got separated from God, was doomed to hell, lost complete intimacy and joy with God, and became failure-prone. However, the purpose of Christ gave mankind another chance at experiencing freedom, and we can have it daily and be used by God to help others do the same if our brokenness chooses God’s will over the world’s success system.
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Let’s Change The World Through Brokenness
Producing fruit of the spirit, changing the world, experiencing the abundant life, and exhibiting non-lukewarm character, all require brokenness and the power of the Holy Spirit.
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Song I Wrote: A Little Mustard Seed Faith
Do You Experience Love From Your Father?
Mark DeJesus once said: “Your two greatest needs are to know you are loved and to know who you are.” “Am I loved?” deals with “how well you can give and receive love in experiencing loving, fruitful relationships with God and others.” “Who am I?” is all about “your ability to live securely from your identity in Christ as Father God’s child”, and “seeing your unique design and living powerfully from the identity God has given you.” “Everything in life – all our battles and struggles – come down to how we answer those two very important questions.” (DeJesus).
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(Do You Experience Love From Your Father?, God Desired Us To Be Holy And Without Fault In HIs Eyes, and God Wanted To Adopt You Into His Family, Giving Him Great Pleasure – all three of these articles are a series of articles on the same subject, which would be ideal to read all three articles to get full effect of overall message)
God Desired Us To Be Holy And Without Fault In His Eyes
Before the world was created, God chose us to be holy and without fault in His eyes, enabling Him to enjoy an intimate love relationship with us. Unfortunately, starting with Adam, sin entered the human race, and thus, we have sinned, separating us from a holy God. “Since the wages of sin is death”, every human has a death sentence in hell awaiting them, unless they accept Christ as their Savior. God, in His great love and mercy, despite the fact we daily sin, desired to justify us, so we can not only avoid hell but also become children of God. Justification happens only when we become a Christian, giving us a perfect standing with God, and giving us an inseparable identity in Christ. Every person has an eternal decision to make in regard to salvation.
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(Do You Experience Love From Your Father?, God Desired Us To Be Holy And Without Fault In HIs Eyes, and God Wanted To Adopt You Into His Family, Giving Him Great Pleasure – all three of these articles are a series of articles on the same subject, which would be ideal to read all three articles to get full effect of overall message)
God Wanted To Adopt You Into His Family, Giving Him Great Pleasure
Because of justification, God views us “holy and without fault in His sight”, although we daily sin. From justification attained through salvation, Christians have been adopted into God’s family, always being eternally loved, totally forgiven, completely accepted, and considered valuable by a perfect God in heaven, the most respected of all beings. We must daily believe all this as we connect daily to Abba Father, in spite of our Father’s wound.
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(Do You Experience Love From Your Father?, God Desired Us To Be Holy And Without Fault In HIs Eyes, and God Wanted To Adopt You Into His Family, Giving Him Great Pleasure – all three of these articles are a series of articles on the same subject, which would be ideal to read all three articles to get full effect of overall message)