Countering Satan’s Lies With the Truth of God

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Dr. Jantz

On May 15, EatingDisorderHope.com is giving away 10 copies of my book Happy for the Rest of Your Life. (To enter the drawing, click here.) For a preview of what to expect, here’s an excerpt from Chapter 6….

Do you remember when Jesus was tempted by Satan during His time of fasting in the wilderness before He began His public ministry? Satan would distort the truth in order to try to trap Jesus, but Jesus would counter the lie with the truth.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” ~Mathew 4:1-4

Next, Satan tries to use Scripture to get Jesus to act outside of God’s will and plan.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” ~Matthew 4:5-7

Finally, Satan tries to use bribery to tempt Jesus.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. ~Matthew 4:8-11

Distortion, half truth, and outright lies must be countered every time with the truth. Satan uses the same tactic today to weaken your resolve and hamper your ability to be about your work in this world for God.

Satan didn’t want Jesus to succeed; he doesn’t want you to either. Scripture calls Satan “the father of lies” (John 8:44), and the negative messages you hear in your head have his fingerprints all over them. You must reject them and turn instead to God’s truth to counter their destructive influences.

Through all of the chatter and static this life puts up, one truth should always ring aloud and clear: God created you; He loves and values you. Don’t let anyone else take that truth away from you!

Pursuing God Out of the Pit of Despair

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Dr. Jantz

Happy are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

This beatitude is self-explanatory, and you can readily see how the pure in heart would be happy because they are able to see God. I get in my mind the picture of small, trusting children, whose innocence and purity allow them to comprehend God at a fundamental level. It becomes a little harder to see yourself, however, as that pure and trusting child. You’d love to be that child, but you left purity behind in your search for happiness awhile back. In fact, you exchanged some of your purity for a map to happiness that left you stuck in a decidedly unhappy place.

Children don’t make it into adulthood and retain their spiritual purity because of our sinful nature. When you read Scritpure, it’s hard for you to miss the point that sin has dire consequences. Occasionally, in your own life, I imagine you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you can skate above these consequences. But this delusion that the consequences of sin won’t surface to interfere with your life eventually cracks. When you live a life of active sin, you are skating on thin ice, which will break, plunging you into frigid and sometimes life-threatening circumstances.

People don’t generally come to see a person in my line of work (therapy) when all is going well. Instead, something is wrong, and they want help to fix it. Now, please don’t misunderstand me here; there are plenty of people who come to me for help who are in a difficult situation through no fault of their own. However, sin may still be an issue if their difficulties arise not from their own sin but from the sin of others: the sin of abandonment, neglect, abuse, selfishness, pride, favoritism, stubbornness, apathy, oppression, or evil intent. The sins of others have poisoned their lives and hearts, and they need help to detoxify, to heal and recover.

Now, there are some people who just seem to be naturally pure in heart. They are generous, forgiving, long-suffering, and patient, and they run far, far away from even the appearance of evil. You may look at them and think, “How can I be like that?” The apostle Paul, in a letter to Timothy, provides an answer: “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22). You’re back at the word pursue again, aren’t you? It all depends on what you’re pursuing and how you conduct your pursuit.

In my line of work, I’ve also seen a great many people who wind up in the pit of despair by jumping in feet-first themselves. No one pushed them in; they climbed down willingly, often on a misguided quest for happiness. Covered with the muck and stink of their current situation, they find themselves well removed from any sort of purity. They need help to extricate themselves from their pit. They want to leave their pit, but a small part of them doesn’t. They got into their pit for a reason in the first place, and leaving it is hard, even though they are tired of being trapped inside. I’ve seen so many people struggle to get out of some pretty horrific pits, only to become fearful and dive right back in.

This pit leaving is a process. It requires a refocused life, a life dedicated to pursuing righteousness, faith, love, and peace. This is how you get your purity back. Deep down, don’t you long to be that little child again, the one who was trusting and innocent, the one who was able to see God? You cry out, as David did in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” David cried out this prayer after digging his own deep pit of adultery. God granted David’s prayer and renewed his heart David repented and acknowledged his sin.

Sin has consequences, and it stains you. If you give in to it, it blinds your ability to see God. If you give in to it, you will be unhappy, guaranteed. Sin needs to be called out for what it is, for the destructive force it is in your life, whether it is your own sin or the sin of others that has adversely affected you. When you reject and turn away from that sin and instead pursue God, you are cleansed and returned to your childlike state of being pure in heart. Your lives are redeemed from the pit (Psalm 103:4), and that’s a cause for happiness!

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How God Promises Hope

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Dr. Jantz

On April 15, EatingDisorderHope.com is giving away 10 copies of my book Gotta Have It! Freedom from Wanting Everything Right Here, Right Now. (To enter the drawing, click here.) For a preview of what to expect, here’s an excerpt from Chapter 12….

In this life, there is nothing outside of God that is reliable, permanent, and unchanging. When you anchor your hope to things tied up with this life, you will be disappointed. If you want to find hope fulfilled, you must place your hope in God. When you do this, your hope is safe; your hope is true. Hebrews 6:19 says that this hope is an anchor for your soul.

Here are just a few promises about putting your hope in God. I venture to say that all of the other things you’ve been pinning your hopes on are unable to claim the same:

God promises in Psalm 25:3 that if you hope in Him, you will never be put to shame for that hope. How many times have you been ashamed of where else you’ve placed your hope?

God promises in Psalm 31:24 strength and courage for all those who hope in Him. How many times have your strength and courage failed you because of where you’ve placed your hope?

God promises in Psalm 33:18 to watch over you and love you when you place your hope in Him. In all of the things you’ve put your hope in, which one of them has ever had the capacity to protect and love you?

God promises in Psalm 62:5 to give rest to those who hope in Him. Further, He promises to be enough, to be sufficient, for the hope that is in you. Of all of the things you’ve put your hope in, which one ever gave you a true sense of rest and peace? Which one proved to be enough, to be sufficient? Instead, didn’t each one keep demanding more and more and more?

God promises in Isaiah 40:31 to renew your strength. Which of your excessities ever provided long-term renewal?

Excessities, though they can take control, are still ultimately under your control. You set the time, the place, the amount. You even set what the reward is. You establish the parameters for your own excessities. Truly, you give the excessity power. God, however, is sovereign unto Himself.

Bottom line: God delivers hope; excessities provide only a shadow.

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Unraveling Needs and Wants, Desert Island Style

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Dr. Jantz

Picture yourself stranded on a desert island, in the middle of nowhere, with very few resources. What three things do you need in order to survive? If I were to answer this question myself, I’d say water, food, and shelter are my primary needs. Actually, these are pretty much what Jesus mentioned in the Matthew 6 passage. He put it as what to eat, what to drink, and what to wear? (Clothing is a form of shelter, so I’m going to accept the similarity.)

Those are pretty basic. In fact, outside of this prosperous nation of ours, a good deal of the human population spends a large portion of its time and energy searching after these basic needs. Go too long without water and you die of thirst. Go too long without food and you die of hunger. Go too long without shelter and you die of exposure. Needs can be determined by how essential they are to sustaining life.

Ah, there’s the dilemma, isn’t it? When we consider what is essential to life, we aren’t always talking about physical life, are we? We have an emotional, relational, and spiritual life to go with this physical one. So go back and relabel your needs list as “My Physical Needs.”

Now, I want you to come up with at least three different needs under each of the other categories:

Emotional needs
Relational needs
Spiritual needs

Under emotional needs you might have such things as optimism, hope, joy. Relational needs might include things like acceptance, affirmation, forgiveness. And for spiritual needs, perhaps you listed things like faith, trust, praise.

I share these with you not to say that these are definitive answers, but to give you an idea of the types of things you could choose. Again, I find that many people have never done this type of inventory, let alone put intentional thought into dealing with these types of questions.

Going back to our desert island exercise, we’ve already established what our physical needs are, but as Jesus said in Luke 4:4, referencing Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man does not live on bread alone.” So, let’s say you’ve got your physical needs taken care of. You’ve got food to eat, water to drink, and shelter from the elements.

What other three things would you personally want (or desire) to survive on that island?

After thinking about it myself, here’s what I’d want: a Bible, a purpose, and a chance to escape. Even though we’ve categorized these as wants (or desires), they’re still pretty important. I doubt any of you would seriously put lattes and ice cream on this list. When reduced to choice of these kinds, those behaviors are pretty easy to label.

Short of being stranded on a desert island or experiencing a Job-type catastrophe, it can be difficult to stop long enough to make sense of our busy lives. That’s what this book is designed to help you do.

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Monthly Archives: April 2011

Countering Satan’s Lies With the Truth of God

Pursuing God Out of the Pit of Despair

How God Promises Hope

Unraveling Needs and Wants, Desert Island Style

Testimonials

Financing

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