I’ll Take It

I learned something interesting from a Derek Prince video today.

I do not trust preachers and teachers. To see crooks and fools, all you have to do is turn on Christian TV or visit local churches. The situation is so bad, it’s a wonder Christianity has survived. Nonetheless, a lot of people are maybe 90% right, and as long as you have the Bible and the Holy Spirit to use as references, you can learn a lot from other people. Derek Prince is very good.

I’ve been watching Derek Prince every morning for a while. Lately, I’ve heard him mention the problem of guilt several times. I heard it while watching different videos, so I started to think God was trying to tell me something.

Here is what Prince says: Satan accuses us all the time. We know this from reading the Bible. He makes us feel guilty and unworthy, and it interferes with our relationship with God. Prince says we should not go around feeling guilty.

I had to think about that. Correction is EXTREMELY important. Confession is INDISPENSABLE. Without repentance, even a Christian can go to hell. At the same time, is it really necessary for us to feel bad all the time? Sure, we deserve it, but then we also deserve hell, and God is eager to save us from that.

I’ve gotten tremendous mileage out of self-examination, correction, and so on. I beg God for these things every day. You can’t grow if you don’t love correction. Still, there is no reason why you can’t have your faults addressed without feeling like dirt all the time.

Prince says the Holy Spirit “convicts” us of sin. That’s from the Bible. He says there is a difference between Holy Spirit conviction and unhealthy guilt. When the Holy Spirit convicts you, he addresses something that needs to be looked at, and when you repent and move on, everything is fine. When Satan condemns you, or you condemn yourself, the feeling of guilt never goes away. It’s with you 24 hours a day, every day.

That’s gold. I had been wondering how to tell the difference.

In Luke 18, Jesus talked about a dirty tax collector who went to the temple and cried and hit himself and begged God for mercy. He said a pharisee also went to the temple, and the pharisee thanked God because he, the pharisee, was so righteous. Jesus said the tax collector, not the pharisee, was justified.

That story makes it seem like self-condemnation makes God happy, but I don’t think that’s the message. The believers in the New Testament weren’t miserable people. Paul had rounded Christians up to be murdered, for the priests who ran the temple, but he wasn’t downbeat. I don’t think the tax collector in the story was supposed to leave the temple and spend the rest of his life groveling and wearing a hair shirt.

God has told me there is nothing good about worry; not one thing. He has said it’s the voice of Satan. It looks like self-condemnation is in the same category.

Christians are supposed to be ruled by their minds, not their hearts. That probably sounds funny to many people, given that we’ve turned the faith into a sobfest dominated by women, but it’s true. Where do most emotions come from? The flesh. Hello? Is that who you want ruling you? Your flesh is an utter idiot. Using emotion to manipulate other people, or yourself, is wrong.

I grew up with a habit of condemning and pitying myself.

My parents were good at making me feel ashamed so I wanted to hide from the world, but they were no good at all at helping me change. They barely tried. If I procrastinated and ended up working on a school assignment all night (happened every time), they could make me feel bad about it, but they never showed me how to create a schedule or organize tasks.

The way they raised me was very strange. They were educated people, and my mother’s parents were educated. My dad’s father had a little education, which he got on his own, and my dad’s maternal grandfather was a very responsible man with excellent habits. Nonetheless, my parents didn’t do the normal things parents do. They didn’t teach me how to do much of anything.

A few years ago, I learned that my dad’s father had paid my dad for getting good grades. That astounded me, because my dad paid absolutely no attention to my schooling, and I had always assumed it was because he didn’t know any better.

My sister condemned and ridiculed me all the time because there was something wrong with her. She was, and is, very sick. She was sadistic and jealous, for no reason at all. She made up nasty names for me and got other people use them. She looked for ways to exclude me from activities.

It’s easy to see how I could grow up with a persistent feeling that I should feel guilty!

I truly do not want to blame my family for my problems. If I had done things right, I would be free of whatever damage they managed to inflict. I have to talk about the past in order to understand things, however.

My mother and father did well in school, but they taught me nothing at all about how to do the same. They didn’t teach my sister, either. How is that possible? Often, Christians suffer from curses that plagued their parents and grandparents, but my sister and I were the first generation of untaught slackers in our family.

An irrational habit of self-condemnation is a big problem. It ruins your social life. It makes you likely to marry badly or to fail to marry (as I did). It ruins your professional life. It will cause big problems for you in school. It may also lead to things like suicide.

I believe Derek Prince is right. A long time ago, God told me two things. He said, “I don’t have to punish myself,” and “I don’t have to condemn myself.” I knew these things were true, and I wrote them down and repeated them to myself, but it was still easy to slide into self-condemnation. It’s nice to see another person emphasize these points and expound on them.

Leftists are big on shaming people these days. Shame may be their biggest weapon; when you have no carrot, you need a big stick. They try to shame people for owning guns, eating meat, admitting that there is no such thing as changing your gender, standing up for God’s position on sexual sin, doubting that a tiny change in levels of a harmless gas which makes up 1/800 of our atmosphere will destroy all life, being male, being white, and wearing red hats.

Satan is their father, and he has taught them well. We ought to recognize the source and name it. We should also refuse to accept the false guilt.

Manipulation is witchcraft, and guilt trips are manipulation. The Democratic Party is the party of virtually all witches. You don’t see witches gathering to curse Nancy Pelosi. They always curse Donald Trump. We should be aware that their manipulation comes from Satan.

Want to be lonely? Become a Republican witch.

Derek Prince made a list of things that are hallmarks of witchcraft. It’s short: manipulation, intimidation, and domination. It’s a good list to know about. It’s hard to find fault with it.

Leftists are passionate about all three items on the list. So are Islamists. The church used to use witchcraft all the time. The Catholic church was the biggest terrorist organization on earth, before it lost its power and had to resort to other forms of manipulation. They tortured. They imprisoned. They murdered. They threatened. It should be easy to tell when Satan controls an organization or movement.

I don’t have to condemn myself. There isn’t a single righteous person on earth. No one anywhere is one bit better than I am. Some have thicker coats of whitewash, but there isn’t one person on earth who has a right to be proud or to look down on me. I work to acknowledge my faults and repent. That’s sufficient. It’s all God asks of me, and every single person who disagrees is just as evil as I am.