Studies on Unlovable

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The Three Lies

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Numbers 13:25-33, Romans 8:38-39, Matthew 10:29-31, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Genesis 1:27, Luke 10:6-7, Ephesians 2:10

My friend Christina, a licensed therapist, tells me that Psychiatry 101 teaches therapists that when you and I choose to believe a lie about ourselves, it’s one of these three lies we believe: I’m he...

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Life’s Greatest Trap

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:9-10, Romans 8:31-32, Psalm 139:1-4, Ephesians 2:10, John 21:15-19, Ephesians 3:17-19

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation...

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Like Runaway Slaves

Author

Simon Tugwell

Keywords

Insecurity

And so, like runaway slaves, we either flee our own reality or manufacture a false self which is mostly admirable, mildly prepossessing, and superficially happy. We hide what we know or feel ourselves...

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A Rough Day

Author

Justin Sedgewick

Keywords

13-year-old Mary is having a tough day and has stretched herself out on the couch to do a bit of what she thought to be well-deserved complaining and self-pitying. She moans to her Mom and brother, “N...

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Does God Really Like Me?

Author

Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 10:9-13, John 17:18-23, Romans 15:7, 1 Timothy 1:15, Ephesians 1:3-6, Colossians 1:21-22, Micah 7:19

I don’t know what I did wrong. But he had that “calmer than calm” look that hid a rage inside. I picked up the phone and saw her name. Not now. I can’t handle her right now. I scanned the room, lookin...

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Not Being Chosen: I Have No Worth

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Being Chosen

Scripture

Ephesians 1:4

Verb two: God chose. “Just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph.1:4) Everybody I have ever become acquainted with has a story,...

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Our Loves Can’t Hold the Weight of our Expectations

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

John 4:4-26, Genesis 22:1-19, Luke 10:38-42, Mark 10:17-27, Matthew 6:33

The ultimate reason for our misery, however, is that we do not love God supremely. As Augustine so famously put it in prayer, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they fin...

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Free to Love and Be Loved

Author

Lisa Sharon Harper

Keywords

Scripture

Hosea 1:null, Hosea 2:null, Hosea 3:null, Matthew 16:18, Mark 10:13-16, John 3:16, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:9-10, Ephesians 2:4-5, Acts 4:9-10, Acts 13:9

Here’s a testimony from Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel: Harper grew up as a child of a single mother. After her parents divorced, she and her mother moved from Philadelphia where ...

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Not Being Chosen

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Belonging

Scripture

Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:28-30, 1 Peter 2:9

Verb two: God chose. “Just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph.1:4) Everybody I have ever become acquainted with has a story,...

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Beloved: The Truth About Yourself

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 31:3, Psalm 139:13-14, Romans 8:38-39, Isaiah 43:1-2, Deuteronomy 31:8, 1 John 3:1, Zephaniah 3:17

Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: “These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot...

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When the Honeymoon Ends

Author

Jen Wilkin

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:5-7, Isaiah 40:30-31, Numbers 23:19, Psalm 118:8-9, John 2:23-25, 2 Timothy 4:16-17

It happens sooner or later in every relationship: someone will let you down. We have a term for the earliest stages of a relationship: the “honeymoon phase”—that rosy time period when everything but d...

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A Lovely Disarray

Author

John O'Donohue

Keywords

Romantic Relationships

There is a lovely disarray that comes with attraction. When you find yourself deeply attracted to someone, you gradually begin to lose your grip on the frames that order your life. Indeed, much of you...

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Blind to Love

Author

Chuck DeGroat

Keywords

All addictions begin in shame. They don’t begin with troubling behavior—a binge on porn, a night of overdrinking–but with a sense of lack or limitation. An addict may be loved deeply, but sense of lac...

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Two Ways to Reject Jesus as Savior

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 4:16, Luke 18:9-14, James 4:6, 1 John 4:10, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 3:23-24

…there are two ways to fail to let Jesus be your Savior. One is by being too proud, having a superiority complex—not to accept his challenge [to accept what the gospel says about our unworthiness]. Bu...

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Wanted by God

Author

Lisa Sharon Harper

Keywords

Scripture

John 10:10, Jeremiah 31:3, Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 147:3, Isaiah 43:1

Lisa Sharon Harper shares a powerful testimony in her book, The Very Good Gospel. Her story is that she grew up the child of a single mother after her parents divorced. After the divorce she and her ...

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When God Looks at You

Author

Keri Wyatt Kent

Keywords

Patti and Bruce, feeling a tug from Jesus, welcomed a four-year-old foster child into their home. Originally the child welfare organization told them Jonathan would be staying with them and their four...

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Love Makes the Difference

Author

Tony Evans

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 4:8, Genesis 29:, 1 Samuel 25:, Galatians 5:13-14, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Colossians 3:12-14

I heard about a woman who married a very demanding, hard, and unloving man. Her husband made her existence miserable by presenting her with a list of his demands and expectations… The woman’s husband ...

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Who are You to Think You are Better than Our Lord?

Author

Madeline L'Engle

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:18, John 15:9-17

While exploring an experience of deep guilt and shame with her spiritual director, the author of Madeleine L’Engle, wrote One time I was talking to Canon Tallis, who is my spiritual director as we...

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Anger Isn’t the Opposite of Love

Author

Rebecca Manley Pippert

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

2 Peter 3:9, Proverbs 3:11-12, Romans 2:4, Nahum 1:2-3, Hebrews 12:6, Ephesians 4:26, Romans 1:18

Think how we feel when we see someone we love is ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it…. Anger isn’t the opposite of...

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When Life Goes Wrong

Author

Matthew Kelly

Keywords

One of life’s enduring mysteries is that you don’t have to do anything wrong for your life to go horribly wrong. When we are abused, rejected, hurt, betrayed, or manipulated, we search our hearts and ...

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Learned Helplessness and Induced Inability

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 18:21, Numbers 13:31-33, Deuteronomy 1:28, James 3:5-6, Exodus 14:12

Learned Helplessness can be easily seen in a research study when participants are given a math test. In this study, some participants are told, “men don’t tend to do well on this test,” or “Millennia...

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A Different Perspective on the Narcissus Myth

Author

Chuck DeGroat

Keywords

In his important book When Narcissism Comes to Church, professor and therapist Chuck DeGroat makes an important connection between shame, narcissism and addiction by looking at the myth of Narcissus. ...

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Thirty-one New Testament Descriptions of Sinful Mankind

Author

L. Meredith

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

Ephesians 4:18, John 12:40, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 John 2:11, Romans 8:6, Matthew 7:17-18, 1 Timothy 6:5, Matthew 6:23, John 3:19, Romans 1:21, 1 John 1:6-7, John 5:24, Colossians 2:13, 1 Timothy 5:6, 1 John 3:14, Titus 3:3, Isaiah 64:6, Titus 1:15, 2 Peter 2:20, Revelation 22:11, Romans 1:18, Matthew 7:23, Ephesians 2:3, James 4:4, Matthew 6:22, John 3:20, Matthew 7:26, Ephesians 5:15, 1 Peter 2:25, Matthew 6:2, Romans 2:5, Hebrews 3:8, 2 Thessalonians 2:12, 2 Timothy 3:4, 1 John 2:15, Romans 1:30, 1 Timothy 6:4, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5, John 3:35, 2 Timothy 4:4, Acts 7:51, John 8:44, 2 Timothy 3:2, Revelation 3:17, John 3:34, Romans 6:16-17, Romans 1:25, John 8:33, Romans 7:7, 1 Corinthians 6:9

Alienated from God (Eph. 4:18). Blind (John 12:40; 2 Cor. 4:4; 1 John 2:11). Carnally or fleshly minded (Rom. 8:6, 13). Corrupt (Matt. 7:17-18; 1 Tim. 6:5). Darkened (Matt. 6:23; John 3:19; Rom. 1...

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Any Worse Company

Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

The story is often told of a man who made an appointment with the famous psychologist Carl Jung to get help for chronic depression. Jung told him to reduce his fourteen-hour workday to eight, go direc...

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The Whole Trouble with You

Author

Robert Short

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 7:3-5, Luke 10:38-42, Psalm 139:23-24, Proverbs 12:15, Genesis 4:6-7

Lucy says to Charlie Brown: ‘You know what the whole trouble with you is, Charlie Brown?’ ‘No; and I don’t want to know! Leave me alone!’ ‘The whole trouble with you is you won’t listen to w...

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Hunting Bigger Game

Author

David Brooks

Keywords

Sacrificial Love

Love is hunting for bigger game than happiness. Love is a union of souls. When one member of a couple suffers from Alzheimer’s, the other doesn’t just go away. Instead, as Lewis puts it, love says, “B...

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Discontent is Everywhere

Author

Andrew M. Davis

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:31-33, Proverbs 14:30, Psalm 131:1-2, Hebrews 13:5, Ecclesiastes 5:10, 1 Timothy 6:6-8

In this tragic world, we are surrounded by discontented people. Every minute of the day, it is possible to see evidence of this restless discontentment in the way people respond to circumstances. Peop...

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Following Your Desires

Author

David Brooks

Keywords

Desire

You follow your desires wherever they take you, and you approve of yourself so long as you are not obviously hurting anyone else. You figure that if the people around you seem to like you, you must be...

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Can we Accept Ourselves?

Author

C. G. Jung

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 32:22–31, Leviticus 19:18, 1 Kings 19:1–13, Romans 7:14–25, Psalm 139:23–24, Luke 15:11–32

Carl Jung, one of the early pioneers of modern psychology, wrote this from his years of experience as a therapist: The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of ...

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Rejection and Acceptance

Author

Scott Bowerman

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 3:13, 1 Peter 5:7, Romans 8:38-39, Matthew 11:28, Isaiah 66:13, Psalm 27:10, Isaiah 49:15-16

In his book The Logic of the Spirit, James Loder talks about a woman with whom he had been in a therapeutic relationship for years. This woman’s underlying issue seemed to be a complete sense of rejec...

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