Our three areas of Christian growth and love 
                                         Becoming a healthy child 
                                                     Part 1

As we talk about these three areas of growth, there may be some things said that; may be hard to acknowledge if, they are true in your life. However, Jesus tells us in John 8:31-32 "if we hold fast to His teachings and live as His disciples, we will know the truth and the truth will set us free." It is the Holy Spirit that shows us the truth about ourselves and as we accept it; we will mature and enter into God's rest. As I was writing this; it reminded me of how much God's love and patience in my life has made me have a deeper love and understanding for myself and how at times I wasn't even aware of how much He really loved me. He is sooooooo good.

Some of the terms that we will be using here are healthy dependency, independency and inter-dependency. When these stages of growth do not function in a healthy manner, the result is, we continue to live in co-dependency. As we define these three phases of growth; we will have a better appreciation for ourselves. We will also be able to grow up in the Lord with a lot less strife and with more freedom. All of us are in some area of growth and God in His patience and love as a Father is pointing out those areas where we have missed the mark and have continued in a co-dependency mind set. Now we are all functioning in a certain state of this condition.

Paul in 1Cor 13:11-12 states, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought as a child, and I reasoned like a child. Now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside." Paul makes a distinction between childhood and manhood. He says there is a process that children go through of talking, thought and reasoning. I thought as I read this, he must have misunderstood the process of events that take place when you speak because; this process is out of order. However, I began to understand how a child is supposed to function in his early growth. He talks first and thinks later. There is a saying that I learned at a young age that says, "It's better to be thought of as a fool then to speak and have no doubt." However, this only applies when we are physically grown adults talking and acting like children.

It is our commitment to Christ and obeying the Holy Spirit's promptings, which makes us, recognize where we are in our Christian growth years. It could be that even though we may be saved a number of years, we could be naive and assume that we are not still children in our thinking and behavior. I have run into far too many Christians over the years that love the Lord and have been saved for ten years and more, but are still spouting so called "Christian lingo" that is nothing more then childish babbling.

Paul the Apostle in Hebrews 5:11-14 admonishes people who are like this when he says. "Because of the condition in their understanding of the Lord, they had become dull of hearing, idle and had a lack of effort on achieving spiritual insights. Because of their physical years in the Lord, they should have been adults in their thinking and have the wisdom to be teaching others. However, because of their childishness and being without serious good sense, they needed to be taught again the fundamental principles of God.

They were just like babies needing a milk diet and not yet able to eat solid food. For everyone who continues to feed on milk is obviously unskilled in the code of conduct of God's ways. This meaning, they were! (Not capable) of conforming to God's divine plan in purpose, thought and actions. Because of this, they were mere infants, not able to talk yet. But solid food is for full grown men and women who have the ability to discern things that escape the notice of most people because, they have been trained by practice and experience to know the difference between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law."

Paul warns these people of their condition and this should also tell us that if we are not alert; this can also happen to us. Paul is trying to tell us that, we need to be going through a learning process of thought, reason and actions that changes through the years. If we have no passion to hungry and thirst after knowing God intimately, this process is delayed and may never take place.

We could find ourselves many years in the Lord and still children not understanding God's course of action and living in what I call a survivor mode mentality. You will also notice that he says that we have to go through training. This training gives the connotation of a mental and physical intensity with discipline of interacting with the Holy Spirit and people. This process is delayed, because our lives show a lack of grace which is God's unmerited favor which is His total acceptance by Him without us working to earn it. As we receive the grace of God, we become more like-minded with Him and this is what empowers us to live the Christian life as He ordained it to be. Paul was trying to give them a higher wisdom of God's ways because they were children, having a babies understanding and drinking the milk of the word of God. I did not say they didn't want to receive it, I said they could not receive it. There is a huge difference here because they had never grown up.

Living in this condition, we are never able to allow God to love us as He wants to and in turn, we cannot love ourselves as He intended.

This condition of Christians being saved for years and never growing up in their spiritual life is nothing new as far as scripture is concerned. Paul in his travels had to correct and encourage the people in different churches to continue their pursuit of God and grow to maturity. If there is one thing the Devil wants, it is to keep God's kids in their spiritual diapers. It's just another deception of the enemy to cloud the minds of God's kids and never allowing them to grow up to become a force in God's army, to destroy the works of the Devil in their particular arenas of influence.

Let's think about this for a moment. How are babies still on milk supposed to do the works of the Lord? Babies only function on their needs being met. They are takers not givers. Their priorities are having a need for love and they are not yet able to give love because, they can't look outside their own needs being met. You can't preach to a baby that, they have to concentrate on the needs of others; they don't have the ability yet. They're not old enough in the Lord. So if God has placed us in a place of authority to rear young ones lets get them to become grownups first and then send them out to love and minister. Another thing that concerns me is because of what I am hearing from too many teachers and preachers. Instead of a healthy milk diet, they're receiving junk food interpretations of God's word and are growing up undernourished and dysfunctional.

Our true maturity in Christ can only happen as we allow the Holy Ghost the freedom to mess with our hearts and be our only teacher. The word of God is not some cheap jewelry that God leaves laying around for us to pick up on occasions. His deep truths have to be sought after and we need to put the time into seeking and waiting in His presence as we allow Him to implant His thoughts into us with great purpose. We need to start hearing more before speaking and stay teachable. Everyone interprets what is being said according to the age that they have attained in the Lord. Therefore, if we do not mentally perceive and distinguish these phases of growth, what we discuss and try to communicate with other people at times, causes what we say to be twisted and interpreted all together different then intended. This causes the results to be nothing but competition, strife and envy, which in turn becomes nothing more than sibling rivalry.

These types of encounters are babies fighting with babies.

Paul continues to say, to these people. "I can't talk to you as grown up spiritual people but as non-spiritual because, you're still focusing on your material needs and are still babies in your new found faith in Christ. Therefore, since you are a new baby in Christ I had to feed you milk because you cannot handle solid meat yet. I am saying this because of the way you are acting. As long as there is envy, jealousy, anger and debates among you it shows me that, you're functioning in no thing more than human standards and are unchanged men and women."

Now there is a time of acting like babies when we first became born again from above. There is nothing wrong with this. It takes time to learn to stop messing our spiritual diaper and learn how to give and receive love. Some of us take a little longer to become potty trained. However, to be saved for ten years or more and still acting like unlearned babies in strife and envy; this is something that we have to come to recognize and a decision has to be made by us if, we want to change and grow up.

I know in my own learning steps some things that I hear has to be pondered over with a lot more effort so that I can comprehend what was just said before I speak. If we consider ourselves to be adult spiritual people, we need to be doing a lot more thinking and reasoning with the mind of Christ that we received when we became born again believers. In turn, this will stop us from showing poor examples of the Christian life, by spouting off fleshly concepts and foolishness. It's very important that we remember in communicating there are two things happening. One is the content of the subject matter and two; we need to have the right spirit on how we're sharing it. In the physical world, trying to talk and teach a baby to drive a car is utterly ridiculous. However, in the spiritual world trying to share the important deep truths and rhema of God's word to children still in their diapers ends up being strife and misunderstanding. Unless the God ordained leaders in the Body of Christ start and continue to minister to the child inside the people they're trying to mature, it will be a constant uphill battle with very little results if any. We need to heal and mature the child in us, not condemn and whip the child into submission with the word.

We will be basing our main thoughts on 1 John 2:13 where John the Apostle states. "I am writing to you, fathers because you have come to recognize and have come to understand Him who has existed from the beginning. I am writing to you young men, because you have been victorious over the wicked one. I am writing to you, boys or children because you have come to recognize and be aware of the Father. John describes three phases of growth from children, to young men and then fatherhood. We will start with children and then move on to young man or womanhood and then be going on to becoming fathers in the Lord.

All three of these steps of maturing need a constant dose of God's love and continual attention. A father and mother shows love to their youngest, which may be an infant different, then a twelve year old verses a twenty-one year old. Unless we come to have a real empathy for the growth areas of each other in the body of Christ, there will always be walls, discord and misunderstandings. Because I have a varied audience in reading our monthly newsletters on our web site there is a variance of feedback I get from people because, they are in different growth patterns from childhood too fatherhood. I said too fatherhood because, I haven't run into what I consider to be a grown father in the Lord yet and I am also including myself. Thank God for His patience and love. In these three phases or steps of physical and spiritual growth, we need to understand that, they are the normal evolution of physical and spiritual maturity.

They are not to be judged by us as to the quality of their maturity as being good or bad.

A child has to become aware of a father image and this is the first time they realize they have a need for what a father represents in their lives. This father roll model represents the oneness of father and mother in the family unit working together to nurture their children to full maturity. God has all the attributes of man and woman to meet the needs of His children. Marriage represents this total oneness of God. This is why it's so important to be raised in a healthy Christ centered family atmosphere.

If the parents are still children in their thinking or are living in a dysfunctional relationship then, these thought patterns and attitudes are passed on to the children from one generation to another. Some of the family settings and life styles now taking place in and out of the body of Christ are in are in a terrible need of repair and this statement is only touching the tip of the ice burg. Our family settings are the training ground and roll modeling that God ordained from the beginning.

Experiencing the love of a father and mother in a healthy order is the key, to wholeness of life.

When we became born again believers, Jesus, God the Fathers first and perfect Son ushered us into the family of God by his perfect obedience of dying on the cross. He is the only name given among men where we can become sons of God. We can now because we are in God's family, learn to interact with a perfect father who can teach us to love ourselves as He loves Himself. God is love and not a person who gives love. Scripture also tells us to bring up our children in the admonition of the Lord and when they're old, they will not depart. It's like the dominos effect. If you start with a healthy base of learning love from God the Father and it is passed from generation to generation through earthly fathers, you will have a bunch of healthy adults learning how to interact with God and loving each other.

Let's ask ourselves, what does a father represent to a child? He should represent an authority in their life and a person who has the given power to govern command and guard a person's life. He should represent a loving and comforting security because a child is dependent on him for their emotional and physical needs and he is the one that helps form his identity. Therefore, the child has to become aware of a living emotional attachment and interacting relationship with the thoughts and feelings of this living entity. Without a healthy dependency the child grows up to become dysfunctional, meaning, he grows up to be co-dependent.

This type of dysfunctional upbringing makes it much more difficult later in this child's life to be healed and grow up because; they have never experienced the love from a healthy father's image. What we have here are activities or duties of a father that are defective. This condition expresses itself in many forms. We have parents who are on drugs or alcohol or men who abuse their wives physically or mentally. However, when it's all said and done. What we have is absentee fatherhood in (all) its many forms.

We must also recognize that the ultimate dysfunctionalism is not bringing up their children in the admonition of the Lord.

Unless we raise our children in the admonition of the Lord with total watchfulness, they are prime victims to be as sheep led to the slaughter. It's like a young calf being picked off by a hungry lion. This statement applies first to the responsibility of the fathers to keep a watchful eye on the souls of their children in their immediate family settings and then goes directly to the shepherds or Pastors of a flock within a fellowship of believers that are under their care. I am not saying that it's the Pastor's responsibility to raise parent's children. This is the father and mothers responsibility. Some stories that I hear tells me that, some parents have shifted the responsibility and think it's the Pastor's job to discipline and raise their kids. The world is a far cry of what it was in the forties when I was a child. It's very apparent to me that we're living in the last days and some Christians have departed from the faith of Christ to interpretations of scripture that are invalid and have no power.

The Devil is doing all he can to destroy the family in any way that he can. Teaching them to read the bible and taking them to church is not what I am talking about here. This is a necessary part however, we have to spend quality time with them and have God define for us the different gifts that God put in them. In raising my own children, at times I didn't know who was being disciplined and taught the most; my children or myself. God help us to see the importance of this and get it right in both areas, as fathers in family settings and Pastors in feeding God's flock. We fathers need to love our kid's no matter what the cost. God gave them to us as a gift. A child must be taught how to interact their feelings with their parents so that they can go on to become independent thinking people. When we say independent we mean young people with a healthy awareness of themselves and their talents and learning to interact with the Holy Spirit and other people. This area of independence is where they begin to find their own identity and become a person learning how to form good thinking attitudes about themselves and are not afraid to share their feelings with other people.

Because the family is the main growing garden that God ordained for this healthy process to take place, we must start paying more attention and have more teaching in the body of Christ on marriage and helping young parents raise their children with more insight into their needs. This is the core and bases of real life as God ordained it. At times, I wish I had been a more matured parent when I was raising my own children. I had the right idea however, if I would have had more teaching and patience, I believe it would have been a lot easier for my kids today. If the parents were brought up as co-dependent, the child's role model is that of co-dependency. In essence, we can only give the example of wholeness to our children with the wholeness we have obtained in our own lives. I believe that this condition has not been properly addressed within the body of Christ. There are many born again Christians today that have a real desire to love the Lord however, they are not aware of this hidden condition of co-dependency that exists within their own lives. Being set free from co-dependency is nothing more then allowing the Holy Spirit to point out those areas of your life where, we haven't recognized the potential, giftings and true love that God has for His children.

In turn, it hinders us to love ourselves first, and then be able to know how to make freewill choices and become inter-dependent and love one another. Inter-dependent people love with no strings attached because, it brings them wholeness and a great appreciation within, to the giving of themselves to someone, no matter what the conditions or atmosphere that exists. Co-dependent people; because they have never experienced independents or have had the (freedom to make choices) with out being coerced, can not go on to the third stage of becoming inter-dependent with others and therefore, they have never learned what it's like to use the freewill God gave them.

They have been programmed to live intimidated and driven to fulfill other people's expectations of what they think they should be. People who stay co-dependent never know who they are because, they have become a chameleon and have a need to be liked and accepted by everyone. They're afraid of rocking the boat and when they encounter any type of confrontation, they hide their opinions and feelings inside and they become offended by every one. They have no personal identity. We excuse this condition by calling it diplomacy which ends up as denial in its many forms.

When we do not come to grips with our own identity, we never know how important we are to God.

This is why parents as they raise their children need to encourage them to say how they feel and not to be told always to be quiet. This concept that children should be seen and not heard is not only ridiculous but dangerous. This type of co-dependency can also exist between God as being our Spiritual Father Parent and ourselves. Where people believe that God as a parent is in the measuring up syndrome in raising His children meaning, they believe His attitude is, " do what I say and don't question me on any thing, just be obedient whether you want to or not or you'll pay the consequences. I'll make sure of it."

Being raised in an environment of regimented rules and demands without healthy dialogue causes us to put judgments on ourselves. We then become manipulated and cannot think with the free will God gave us and never feel the freedom to choose because of being controlled and we are never able to decide whether we want to have a relationship with God or parent because we love them or because of the consequences if we don't. This attitude also continues as a dominos affect with other people we associate with. Another side affect of this is, we live and function in guilt, which causes the choices that we do make to be unhealthy ones. This spirit of guilt makes you fold under pressure because; this causes a person to have no deep root in the Lord. Guilt makes you unsure of your thinking processes.

Unless we are people who are deeply grounded in the word of God and know the truth about ourselves as the Holy Spirit shows us, we live in a double-minded mentality and it causes us to not be stable in our decision-making. This causes us to think one way and act contrary to our real feelings. This can become a vicious cycle in ones life if it does not come to our attention. It can also have a very crippling effect on our emotions and our relationships in all areas, especially when we think this condition exist between the Lord and ourselves. The worst hurt that one Christian can do to another is to level guilt on each other as they interact together. Guilt defuses and attacks the very life meaning of a healthy esteemed feeling about oneself.

It undermines the work of the Holy Spirit who comes to us as a healer and comforter and it stops up our spiritual ears to hear the loving vision that God has ordained for our lives. (It makes us spiritually deaf.)

As we grow out of our guilt mentality and become more independent, we have more control over our decision-making. It's then that we have the power and freedom to function with the assurance to make this statement. "I know that I have the freedom to make a choice to live without you God, wife, husband or friend but, I willing choose, to make you a part of my life." The main difference between being co-dependent verses independent is being free and mentally sound minded to say and understand this statement within oneself.

Healthy people, who are learning to love themselves, honor all their feelings without putting judgment on themselves in any way.

This statement reaches to the very core of a true love relationship between God and us and then others. Without us understanding this, there can be no freedom and total wholeness in our lives. Unless we are learning how to become independent, we can stay spiritual cripples in our walk with the Lord and people (all) of our lives.

In 1Corinthians 4:3 Paul was being judged by these people as to his credibility of being a true Apostle called by God. He states, "It mattes very little to me if you put me on trial by any other tribunal and you investigate and question me. I don't even put myself on trial or judge myself. He goes on to say, I am not aware of anything against myself." Paul felt blameless, and his relationship with the Lord was so transparent that, he had learned to become comfortable with his feelings, as he daily talked to the Holy Spirit. He had gotten to the point of knowing himself and he had an identity of the person inside of him who he liked and in whom God also liked and he was learning to love himself more each day.

What a wonderful hope to achieve this type of vision and perfection.

When we are co-dependent; we can not be honest with our feelings and we hide in the dark, in our inner most self. We haven't learned how to let the Holy Spirit shed some light on our inner self and expose those addictions or childish motives that are at work in our hearts and mind. We really live a lie or in denial. In turn, we cannot go on to be the young independent person or teenager in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Living in denial can become an addiction like being hooked on drugs or alcohol or so many other things that people get addicted to. Therefore, as long as we preach and teach on behavioral actions, we keep these people protecting and regressing deeper within them selves.

I believe the world psychiatrists have a better grip on co-dependency then the church. The world has come up with the twelve step program to handle drug and alcohol abuse and so on; however; we in the body of Christ have the Anointed One, who is Christ living with in us. And we have the power to change the hearts of men, where the issues of life are formed.

! We are supposed to be changing the world, not let the world change us!

A simple example of preaching on behavioral habits would be like the growth of an apple tree. If the roots of the tree were sick and the apples that it produced were wormy, bitter and dwarfed, there would be no way of restoring health to these already grown sick apples. The real problem we would have to address is to heal the root of the tree so the next crop of apples will be healthy and strong. By applying this example of us living in denial and our behavior manifesting rotten fruit in our lives, there will be no way to restore our sick behavioral fruit. It's already wormy and dwarfed. It's OK' to identify and point out the rotten fruit on our behavioral tree of life, but only to make us aware of our sickened condition within. Nothing will ever change unless we understand how to participate with the Holy Spirit and allow Him to heal the root of the problem in our hearts where the issues of life are formed. Lets remind ourselves, when it's all said and done.

The core of all sin or sickness in all of its cancerous forms continues to make our heartsick because, we have no hunger and thirst in our lives or passion in seeking God with all our heart, soul and strength.

We need to hang out with the Holy Spirit and allow Him to expose those things in us that keep us children in the Lord. You can't hang out with the Holy Spirit and not be changed and become healthy. We said that people, who are co-dependent, were living in denial or lying to themselves. Scripture tells us that liars have no part of the kingdom of God. This scripture has been so distorted over the years that it has become a stumbling block in nurturing God's kids to wholeness. It has been interpreted that, liars will not go to heaven. These are the type of false regulated law teachings that keep Christians regressing as co-dependent people and living in denial in their relationships with the Lord and others.

These teachings never minister to the crippled child or the healthy growing child within us. A person who lies is living in denial of his true feelings and doesn't know how to be honest on how they feel. Their physical appearance is that of an adult but on the inside, there is a hurting bruised child that never grew up. In their outside make up as a physical adult, they may look successful but they have learned to live by a defense mechanism of acting a part for acceptance. This acting a part puts a person under stress and they live in a survival mode mentality. Because of this condition, they are not able to function in the kingdom of God as He intended with the spirit of peace, joy and a healthy interpretation of God's ways.

A perfect example of this is found in Genesis chapter 2: it says that, Adam in the Garden of Eden before he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil had great fellowship with God in the cool of the day. Cool of the day in the Hebrew is the word ruwach: meaning, a Spirit or a Wind or Breath. God interacted with him as a roaring wind as He weaved Himself into Adams fleshly body with His Spirit as they had fellowship continually. Adam was unashamed of being naked, and he was totally transparent before God and because of this open relationship, he knew his identity and lived in God's total light and his ears and eyes were totally open to God's ways. After he disobeyed God and discovered the bondage of sin by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he hid in the trees and made fig leaf aprons to hide his shame and nakedness, which he became aware of after he ate.

The word for sin in the Greek is harmatano: meaning, erring, missing the mark, and losing our allotment and not sharing in a prize. This is what happened to Adam because when God showed up he wasn't there. God said, "Where are you Adam? Did you eat from the tree I told you not to eat from?" Here's where the problem lies. He did not confess what he did, he blamed his wife and in turn, she blamed the Serpent. Where there was once was a healthy inter-dependent relationship between God and Adam it became co-dependent because; he hid in the darkness and denied his true condition.

Had he trusted and interacted with God and shared himself humbly, asked for forgiveness and come clean, he would have received forgiveness and it would have been over. However, now a new concept had been added to the equation of his and our life in relationship between God. He missing his allotment or share from God was not about eating from the tree but what happened to him by him eating from the tree. His eyes were open and for the first time he became aware of a standard of knowing right and wrong and began to judge him self.

God never wanted man to function in this type of thinking.

This can also happen to us when we are brought up and are being whipped by the word of God or brought up in an atmosphere of regimented rules and rituals. It causes us to regress and go into hiding in our true selves. Remember the Devil was the creator and tempter of this system of thinking. He was the one that wanted man to focus on himself, live in denial, and go into hiding within himself. He is the accuser of the brethren. When we preach on behavior, we become the accusers of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. You might as well say we become the Devils disciple. Even though Adam and Eve made the decision to not come clean and confess his condition. God still loved them by making coats of animal skin to cover their nakedness as they left the Garden to go and work out the rest of their lives. This was their decision not God kicking them out of the garden.

In this chapter of Genesis verse 22 it says that, God had a meeting with Christ and the Holy Spirit and He said, "They have become like us knowing good and evil." God now had to do something to protect them. Because of the shame they were feeling, they wouldn't let God weave His Spirit in them like the relationship that they had before as they allowed Him to love them.

This coat of skin was a temporary replacement as a token of love from God because of Adam and Eve not allow God to weave His Spirit through them. Before Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God's Spirit Himself was a coat of health and contentment to them. Adam and Eve allowing God to weave His Spirit in them made them righteous in His sight and in their sight of understanding God. They were justified, innocent of evil and without blemish of any kind. Therefore, this condition of righteousness was God Himself being a coat covering for them. Any thing that God gives us is always an extension of His own nature. Scripture tells us that we are the righteousness of God in Christ if we are born again. This coat that God gave Adam and Eve was a promise of God of the coming day when Jesus by dying for us would restore the broken fellowship that we lost by Adams temporary loss of his allotment from God.

This coat represents the awareness of God that He puts in each one of us as a reminder that there is something missing until we commit our lives to Jesus Christ.

As born again believers, there still is the possibility that we can do like Adam and not allow God to weave His Spirit in us by us staying as slaves to religious spirits with a fig leaf mentality. This again is why we need to stay out of an atmosphere of legalistic does and don'ts teachings. We must protect ourselves from being contaminated with un-righteous thinking as Adam did after we become born again. Adam thought making fig leaves was the way to be in right standing with God and by taking this action of becoming righteous in him self, he thought it would restore his fellowship with God. The main thing that stops a Christian from growing into maturity is this self-righteous life style. When we function with this type of thinking; scripture tells us that; to God this is us living in dirty filthy rags.

In 1 John 1:4-9 He states, "God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all. Therefore, if we say we are partakers together and enjoy fellowship with Him when we are walking in darkness, we are speaking falsely or lying and are not living in the truth of the gospel and are living in denial. However, if we really are living and walking in the light as God walks in the light then, we can have a true unbroken fellowship with Him and with one another.

This happens because, the blood that Jesus shed on the cross cleanses or removes from us all sin and guilt and continues to keep us clean from sin in all its many forms. If we say we have arrived and refuse to admit that we have no more need to interact with the Holy Spirit, we delude and lead ourselves astray and the truth, which the gospel represents, is not in us and is not functioning in our hearts. If we freely admit that, we have missed our allotment and confess our need for Holy Spirit to grow us up. Then God is faithful and true to His nature and promises and will forgive our erring ways and continue to cleanse us from all un-god like reasoning or un-righteousness thinking and in turn we will then be able to conform to His will in purpose, thought and action."

The word for light in the Greek is phos: meaning, to think, shine or to make known ones thoughts. The word for darkness is sklerotes: meaning, harsh, hard or callous or to put pressure on one self. Now let's use the Greek definitions in this verse and see how it reads. God's purpose is to make known to us His thoughts in all areas. He does this without being hard, harsh and does not put pressure on us. God is a visionary who gives us a hope for our future and doesn't judge or condemn us. If we think we are walking in this open and transparent relationship and we feel that God is pressuring us to measure up and we do not have the freedom to express our feelings then, we are lying to ourselves and this causes us to live in denial and run for cover.

Therefore, it is vital we understand God's total acceptance of us so we can go on and mature. He goes on to say, "If we were really functioning in a healthy relationship and walking in the light or constant counsel of the Lord. We would have the confidence and know that, our relationship would be free from judgments by Him and we would not put judgments on ourselves or others."

If we are going to live in spiritual health, we have to constantly be having the Holy Ghost washing out our thinking to God's thinking by our meditating on the word of God day and night. There has to be a continual process of cleaning in our hearts and mind so that we can go on to become mature adults. God's plan for regenerating man to wholeness and eventually adulthood was by Jesus being nailed to a tree and shedding His blood or to pour forth tears and drops of blood. It's our divine revelation of this that causes us to mature and walk in peace. We must have a greater revelation of the scripture that says "greater love has no man then this that, He laid down His life for His friends." Our total absorption of this concept into our souls keeps us in an attitude of wanting to stay in the light as He is in the light and be transparent by listening to His counsel. This is what empowers us to stop being co-dependent or living in darkness, shame and denial.

Hebrews 9:22 states, "without the shedding of blood there can not be a release from sin and its guilt or the remission of the due and merited punishment of sin." When we received Jesus into our hearts, we received His power to no longer give into our will of constantly planning to sin and being a slave to it. If you have been saved for a while, you should realize what I have just said. We said earlier that sin was erring or missing our total allotment from God as His children. If we have totally accepted this concept of salvation, why are their so many Christians living in bondage to an attitude of sin, and not using their allotment from God?

The reason is; they are co-dependent people living in denial and having a guilt ridden mentality today. This is an addiction not a planned attempt by them to lose God's perfect will in their lives. We need a deliverance from these flesh-controlling spiritual appetites through the word and at times a laying on of hands with the anointing to break the hold of this demonic bondage. Only the blood of Christ and a continual washing of our hearts by the word of God and meditating on it day and night will set us free and keep us free.

We said earlier that guilt was one of the side effects of immaturity. That is something we should have come to grips with and should have allowed the Holy Spirit to love and mature us out of long ago. Jesus sacrifice on the cross was the first encounter we had with His blood and Him giving us the power to not be a slave to this condition any more. The word for remission in the Greek is aphesis: meaning, freedom, have liberty and be pardoned. Living in God's light, which is His constant counsel, is a continuation of us participating in this blood-shedding act by Him and it is constantly cleansing us and separating us from this condition of denial and guilt.

It also says that there is an outcome or something that we pay for or comes due living with a guilt conscience mentality. It says we earn the reward and the right of feeling constantly in a punishment mode and having low self-esteem. Realizing this in your life doesn't that sound sick. Who would deliberately want to stay in this condition?

Now if you were to come to the conclusion that, you had any of these symptoms, why would you constantly stay beaten like this? I believe we have to get angry and love ourselves enough to make a healthy decision to not receive this abuse and beatings any more. That includes from the Devil, ourselves and from others. There is nothing wrong with anger. Scripture tells us to be angry and sin not. It's how we use this anger that counts.

1 John 1:4-9 gives us a principle that we have to participate in which is called confession. Confession is just being honest with your feelings when you talk to God and allowing Him to walk carefully through your heart. When we are co-dependent in any form and live in denial how can we be honest and open with the Lord? The fear of being rejected is so great in us that; I believe as much as people want to come clean with their true self; they haven't been trained or cared for enough to know how. This was the example that I used earlier about letting a baby drive an automobile.

In James 5:16 we have an example that says "confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed." This scripture was not meant to be interpreted and used only in a so-called church setting on Sunday and Wednesday night. The body of Christ is a family. This is why fellowship groups in homes are so vitally needed to nurture the body of Christ, because it gives us the opportunity to communicate and have the body ministry that is so badly needed. God wants us to grow so that we can learn to be comfortable with sharing and trusting our feelings with people in all settings. This should be a normal way of life as we grow, whether we are rejected or accepted by the people around us. This has to become a natural way of communicating.

As we learn to interact this way; our independence, self-worth and esteem grows and we learn that we are people to be valued. It's important that we hear ourselves talk and listen to what we're saying. Some where in this process of church, we lost sight of ourselves and that Jesus died for individual people with feelings. Well we are the people He died for. There is a process that we must go through of learning to like ourselves because, that's who we're with all of the time. This may seem over simplified but I believe it's to the heart of the matter.

Let's start appreciating ourselves and see ourselves as God our Father sees us (blameless, innocent and set apart to Him as His children.)

This scripture goes on to say that, we are healed through this process of confessing to God and to each other. I personally believe there would be more physical healing in the body of Christ if the people who were praying were not children in their understanding. The physical body lines up when the spirit and soul of the person is in a healthy state of growth and being loved and accepted without judgment. Thank God for His mercy when He heals us at times indiscriminately. There is much more stability in our life when we are growing in our spirit, soul and body naturally as God intended.

In prayer there has to be an honest confession with people talking about their pent up feelings that have kept them in an additive life style and children in their inner self. This should be a natural on going process in our Christian maturing. Many of the prayers that we should be praying for each other are being asked for with the wrong motives and not for what our real needs are.

An example of this is there are many in the body of Christ emotionally hurting right now. God is exposing those areas in our lives that we are living in as children trying to cope with adult problems. When we teach that the people are hurting because of the sin in their lives, we hinder and actually go against God's loving plan of bringing wholeness to His people. We accuse these people of living in rebellion and if there is any rebellion in or out of the camp, it is in the pulpits with people who are in authority teaching this kind of stuff and because of the co-dependency in their own lives; they are using it as a role model to the younger ones.
It's just like the Scribes and the Pharisees attitude, the blind leading the blind. The young ones, who are becoming healthy and becoming aware of all their years of dysfunctionalism, go through a stage of anger until they have learned to forgive which is an independendent stage of growth. Being co-dependent for so many years and them learning to forgive and asking for forgiveness is the prime ingredient for wholeness. I said earlier that, it's much more difficult to grow up and become healthy, when we have lived in all this denial and immaturity for so many years. There is an emotional depression that takes place when a co-dependent comes to realize all the wasted years and what the Devil has stolen from them in their physical and emotional needs and relationships. Thank God for the hope that we have in Him.

Only He can restore and turn these losses around and make our life Significant.

There are many loving Pastors and Leaders in the body of Christ that are trying to mature the people under their care and are having a difficult time because, many of their people have come from dysfunctional families in one form or another and a large majority of them are co-dependent.
Continued in part 2