the Lies We Believe

 I have read a book called "The Lives We Believe" by Dr. Chris Thurman.  Some of the lies listed are as follows:

Lie #1 - "God's Love must be earned."  Not true, God loves us unconditionally.  When we fail, He lifts us up, When we fail, we don't need to run and hide, we only need to ask God for forgiveness and He forgives.  "God's Love is unchanging" It's always there.

Lie #2 - "God hates the sin and the sinner"  When a person believes this, they have a tendency to hate their self.  They feel God is punishing them, therefore they punish themselves.  God doesn't work that way.  Like the woman at the well, He merely says, "go and sin no more."  He wants us to move on with our life, He forgot our past and so should we.

Lie #3 - "Because I am a Christian, God will protect me from pain and suffering."  Have you not heard that it rains on the just and the unjust?  To believe this lie only leads to confusion and mistrust in our God when things go bad in our life.  God gave us free will, He gave us choices and sometimes, we make the wrong ones and things turn sour.  Other times we are faced with difficulties merely to strengthen our character.  We are not exempt from pain and suffering just because we are Christians.  God knows too well that we are in need of continuous learning experiences.

Lie #4 - "All my problems are caused by my sins" Remember the story about the blind man.  When others questioned who sinned to make him blind.  Jesus answered "neither, but this happened so that the works should be revealed in him."  If we have indeed sinned which brought on a problem, then we need to deal with it, but if the problem is a result of someone's sin or no sin at all, then we need to let ourselves off the hook and solve the problems as best as we can.