Shame

Far too many believers are feeling dirty, worthless and ashamed of themselves; shame is a silent, but deadly disease that pollutes the lifeblood of many believers faith. As a result, we feel unclean and therefore unworthy to approach God and have the living and intimate relationship that he wants to have with us. Shame prevents us from intimacy with God because it makes us feel unworthy and distant from him. God’s standard is nothing less than perfection and none of us measure up, if we did or we ever could measure up sufficiently righteous for heaven through our performance, we would not have needed a savior at all. For it is God’s grace, not our striving, that makes us accepted and acceptable. It is God’s performance through Jesus Christ, not our trying hard to perform, that eradicates our shame. Some of us spend most of our life giving up. We are tired, burned out, disillusioned, depressed, addicted to something. People around us feel frustrated by the huge disparity between our capabilities and our performance. They either pep talk us concerning our value, or shame us for not performing. No one can have a close relationship with us; we push people away physically and emotionally, and push God away. We are the ones in families, churches, and society that people take care of-for a while, until we are given up on because of our lack of response. For all the performance-based people around us, we are simply bad for public relations. Once in a while we find ourselves in an environment that shames us for being so defective, then we start trying harder, but it does not last for long, we are simply out of gas to start with, we merely survive.

God’s Reconciliation of Man, read more about it at http://godsreconciliation.blogspot.com/

newnature wrote:Far too many believers are feeling dirty, worthless and ashamed of themselves; shame is a silent, but deadly disease that pollutes the lifeblood of many believers faith. As a result, we feel unclean and therefore unworthy to approach God and have the living and intimate relationship that he wants to have with us. Shame prevents us from intimacy with God because it makes us feel unworthy and distant from him. God’s standard is nothing less than perfection and none of us measure up, if we did or we ever could measure up sufficiently righteous for heaven through our performance, we would not have needed a savior at all. For it is God’s grace, not our striving, that makes us accepted and acceptable. It is God’s performance through Jesus Christ, not our trying hard to perform, that eradicates our shame. Some of us spend most of our life giving up. We are tired, burned out, disillusioned, depressed, addicted to something. People around us feel frustrated by the huge disparity between our capabilities and our performance. They either pep talk us concerning our value, or shame us for not performing. No one can have a close relationship with us; we push people away physically and emotionally, and push God away. We are the ones in families, churches, and society that people take care of-for a while, until we are given up on because of our lack of response. For all the performance-based people around us, we are simply bad for public relations. Once in a while we find ourselves in an environment that shames us for being so defective, then we start trying harder, but it does not last for long, we are simply out of gas to start with, we merely survive.

God’s Reconciliation of Man, read more about it at http://godsreconciliation.blogspot.com/

I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that shame is a poison, and that feelings of being unworthy make people craven, cowardly, dishonourable louts. I was rather surprised that you also believe that shame is problematic.

Then, of course, you go and write what I have bolded in your post, and utterly contradict yourself, as well as ignore what "worth" means.

If human endeavour, human agency, can not provide value and meaning to someone's life, to provide them with worth. Then they really are worthless. You state that people should not feel ashamed, yet also state that nothing they do will ever be worthwhile. Your solution is then to claim that while humans are worthless, they can become worthwhile by accepting your gods self-son sacrifice, and be made worthy.

What utter tosh. Worth is a measure of an individual's ( or group's) value, and has to be earned or esteemed to have any meaning. Simply saying that one suddenly has value, but having done nothing whatsoever to deserve it, belies what worth is.

Anyone who would happily accept something that they haven't merited, that they do not deserve, has little worth to begin with. Even a gift has value, when given within a reciprocal system, and certainly obligations and expectations are inherent.

Well said, Gorm.
I will say... God does not expect perfection from us. He made us IMperfect. He wants us to STRIVE... those who believe in the Christian version believe this. God, all of them, expect us to aim for perfection, but they all know we're not perfect animals and we're gonna screw up.
I am not ashamed of my life...or anything I have done. I would not want to align with any group/religion that says I should be. I am not ashamed, NOT because of Jesus, but because I made amends for anything that was wrong.
If you're "merely surviving"...then why hold onto life at all? Me, I LIVE... without shame. Everything I do is good enough, everything... If I thought NOTHING I did was good enough, I'd stop doing everything and just end my life. No need sticking around and wasting time and energy.

I picked up on a few of the bolded comments as well. I have to wonder just how "intimate" of a relationship you can have with a deity that you can only know [and that knowledge is questionable at that] this deity via an ancient book and maybe some humanly contrived "feelings".

Also, on the idea of "people not being perfect", . . . . . . . . neither is the biblical god. So if any of it is even true, . . . why would "he" hold us to something that he isn't?