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Watch the webinar on Chapter 11: Building Healthy Boundaries

http://www.instantpresenter.com/nlsr/EB52DE81884D

Next live webinar:

Tuesday, June 6th at 9:30

Access:

www.instantpresenter.com/nlsr4

I apologize for the delayed blogging this week. I have had quite a week! But I’m SO excited to finish our workshop and hear testimonies from the brave men and women who have chosen to work through this process. We will have a teaching and wrap up session, along with prayer (of course). I want to offer some direction as to the “next steps” and have everyone come up with at least one thing to do following the completion of Tuesday’s class.

I decided to use the blog on this subject from last year, as it perfectly describes what we discussed in this class. If you didn’t get a chance to watch the webinar, I encourage you to catch up. It’s a packed one!

Understanding Boundaries

For most of, we are looking for tangible methods and tools to resolve the problem areas in our lives. When we begin to discover the ways we have allowed negative people and things into our lives, a “boundary” seems like it will hold all the answers! If we could just “figure out” the right boundary formula, then certainly we could master how to fix the things that aren’t working. But in truth, unhealthy boundaries are an effect, not a cause of the troubled areas in our lives. In fact, however we function outwardly in our boundary style is simply a reflection of something that is occurring at an inner level. Most often, we had a distorted understanding of our own identity and sense of worth, thus we didn’t know how to protect the “lines” in our life in a positive way. What we didn’t see as precious, we couldn’t defend. What we didn’t know as definitive of who we were, we couldn’t prevent from losing. In fact, our lives got so muddled down because we weren’t able to differentiate God’s purposes from what the people and circumstances spoke over us. We furthermore often mistook “love” for “compliance, and took on the wrongful attributes of relationships as a guiding point.

Defining and understanding the purpose of boundaries is critical, because from here on out, everything that we will be doing will be in this area. God is preparing to make us functional, whole, complete people in Him – with the capacity to see life, to feel feelings and engage with others in a healthy way. We are going to begin to learn how to transfer our external reference point of people, to the internal reference point of the Holy Spirit. In other words, we will learn to make decisions of what is allowed in our lives based on God’s point of view. When this happens, boundaries begin to automatically emerge. These boundaries will in many ways operate as a gated system. It won’t lock us in, or force people out. Rather, God’s wisdom will enable us to pick and choose what’s right or wrong, allowable or “not okay” in a given situation. Picture Jesus being the guardsman at the gate!

By understanding ourselves, our design, our preciousness, our worth and God’s plan for us, we will recognize the important of the protective nature of a boundary. But take heed! Boundaries will not simply cause us to self-protect, instead they will begin to sort, sift and align us to God’s purposes. And ultimately, that purpose is TO LOVE OTHERS AS HE LOVES US! God won’t mandate that we simply “throw people out” in the name of a boundary, rather, He will teach us how to love them the way He loves them – with a pure and holy redemptive agenda for their lives.
This will not happen immediately, so if you are just beginning, don’t grow weary! We are only beginning!

Next live webinar: Tuesday, May 27th at 9:30 am

Access: www.instantpresenter.com/nlsr4

 Recording from Chapter 10 on Identity

I missed everyone on Tuesday, but I heard you had a great class! Thanks to our team Cecilia and Lynne for helping out! We only have two classes left! Next week we’ll be discussing boundaries, and the significance of implementing them now and as a long-term prescription to codependent prevention. Sound good? Don’t miss it!

As I mentioned already, Chapter 10 is my favorite chapter. That’s because it encompasses the authentic nature of God’s purposes in our lives. God isn’t seeking to dismantle and destroy our lives, He seeks to purify and restore us into the person He intended we’d become. From there, He needs to begin to teach us how to learn life through His filter, under the guidance of His leadership.

Transitioning from self-effort, self-protection and control to God dependence, God protection and God control is quite a huge change! But it is where that “abundant” life begins that we hear so much about in the Word. Walking in abundance isn’t about what we “get” from God in a material sense. It may not even initially cause a major effect on our relationships. What it secures is a deep, deep sense of love, comfort, acceptance, belonging and purpose. We learn to be in His arms, secured by Him, kept by Him. And since He IS the God of the Universe and owns all power of heaven AND earth, that is a pretty amazing reality.

If you feel you are still sifting and sorting through the issues of the past, God will meet where you are right now. Ultimately, forgiveness needs to be applied before the authentic purposes of your life can be attained. Yes, forgiveness is THAT important. If you are struggling with Chapter 8 and 9, continue to stay where God leads. He needs to release the shame, grant you forgiveness, help you forgive those have violated you and then take your hand and walk you into the life He designed for you. Can He do it? YES! Right now, it may still be a theology. But the God of the Bible wants to be a living, active reality in your life. He wants to swoop you into His purposes. Wait on Him. Trust Him. Believe He can. And not only can He, He wants to. Because He loves you.

View Recording Chapter 9: Offering Forgiveness

http://www.instantpresenter.com/nlsr/EB51D7898347

Next live webinar: Tuesday, May 20^th at 9:30 am
Chapter 10: Embracing Identity

www.instantpresenter.com/nlsr4

I have been blessed beyond measure with this workshop, and the willingness of the hearts of those who are participating. May I just say that your willingness determines the outcome, not the program itself? When you become ready to allow God to work according to His ways, He will have to honor His Word and His promises. He will have to be faithful to who He is. He will be obligated to work out what you ask Him to on your behalf. And He will be required to complete what He has begun!  What a wonderful truth!

Letting go of our own self efforts is perhaps the most difficult aspect of any. In other words, we give up our right to continue to manage our life on our own. This week we talked about forgiving others, and this is where we quickly discover that apart from grace, we are incapable.  Unless we agree with God and allow His ways to govern our response to the pain that was done against us, we won’t be able to move forward. This is why we need revelation of the heart of God. When we discover the radical nature of His love for us, we also can become willing to trust and agree with His ways. I loved this picture of people abandoning themselves from a cliff, fully dependent on the parachute to catch them. Imagine if we could abandon ourselves to God in the same manner. To “jump off the cliff” into new areas of healing feeling assured that He will have to catch us.

Forgiveness is at the heart of all forms of redemption, and in fact is the reason why Jesus came.  In our own healing, it’s important to understand that forgiveness extends further than simply letting someone off the hook. Forgiveness furthermore will not require we be “okay” with the violation itself. Never! God hates the violation and so can we! Rather, forgiveness is the ointment that brings healing to our wounds. It places a means to have the wound cleansed, and thus it can now begin to heal. It can allow us to become who God created us to be. Without a spiritual remedy, the sin done against us will be empowered, and it will cause unthinkable levels of damage. We will stay connected to the very violations we had been trying to escape. We will lose our identity and become victims of the past, rather than victorious through the blood of Jesus.

Forgiveness gets delayed for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, it’s hard! Second, we have to understand that in some ways bitterness and resentments act as coping mechanisms or drugs. They may not resolve the problems, but they have their own form of “empowerment”. However, the power of resentments will lead us away from God’s purposes, creating a hardened heart. On the other hand, forgiving makes us vulnerable to have to feel and face the violations. It then aligns with God’s healing. It softens our hearts and allows us the opportunity to experience intimacy with God, and eventually with others. It also allows us to begin the process of grieving, where God will further teach us how He desires to literally detox our soul by “feeling to heal.”

Next week is my favorite chapter in the book! We will be looking at Chapter 10: Embracing Identity. I will not be here to share with you, but I know you will be blessed by sister in Christ Cecilia, who has a beautiful way of articulating these truths.

Next live webinar Tuesday, May 13^th at 9:30 am (Pacific time) on Chapter 9: Offering Forgiveness

www.instantpresenter.com/nlsr4

Chapter 8 Recording on Forgiveness

http://www.instantpresenter.com/nlsr/EB51D887864A

We spent yesterday on the best subject in all the world – we sought to understand grace in the perspective of a relational Jesus. In other words, we didn’t dissect a theology of grace, we tried to gain access to Him in a personal way. It’s amazing to me how difficult this is, and that’s usually because we bring our own faulty confinements and misunderstandings about who He is. My greatest prayer and desire is that you come in contact with Him in a real way, and that you will taste and experience the goodness and ease of living life in Him.

Many times, we have been the treadmill of effort-based Christianity, believing that like human relationships, we must perform, please and be perfect to be accepted. True change, the kind of change that will bring lasting transformation, will only happen when we learn to engage life through grace. Where do we even begin?

1. Make a relational Jesus the priority
2. Evaluate your relationship style in accessing your needs. Are you on a treadmill of performance, if so, get off it! Reject, refuse to think you have to “earn” merit and good standing for God to provide and meet your needs.
3. Enter into a heartfelt dialogue with God – be honest with Him and begin to speak your needs to Him
4. Give Him the burdens, the pain, the sin, the heartbreak, the invalidation
5. Receive a full dose of grace and forgiveness for everything you have harbored or ever carried guilt for
6. Refuse to allow guilt to reign and rule – speak back to it and declare to it “It is finished”.

Well, there you have it. I gave you a list when I just finished teaching that we can’t live by a list. So let me bring some clarity. This list has no ability to do anything unless it comes by intimately connecting to Him. So really, you can scrap the list at any point and just spend some time in His presence hanging out with Him.

Which reminds me, what does intimacy even feel like? I mean, should you feel Him? Well, lest we make it about emotions alone, I hesitate to say “yes.” But can you feel Him? OH YES! A relationship with Jesus will bring an authentic sense of intimacy – that means you will experience the intensity of His love, grace, protection, power, peace and every other spiritual resource and fruit He offers. If you can experience some of this in a human relationship, why on earth couldn’t you experience that with Jesus directly? It would be cruel if God required that we only have access to a head knowledge understanding of Him and could only interpret Him through our mind. Many Christians have spent their entire lives believing this lie. God wants to jump out of the Bible and be a Person you can experience. If you haven’t yet accessed this, you have an amazing opportunity.  So I challenge and ask that you inquire of Him what has been blocking or hindering this from occurring.

Please remember, the enemy doesn’t want you free. He doesn’t want you to come into a deeper understanding of Jesus. If you feel affliction, oppression or other heavy emotions, I also encourage you to use the authority in Jesus name to reject the enemy’s attempt to keep you from God. If you need prayers and encouragement, please reach out to me, someone else in the workshop, a counselor, a pastor or a person you trust.

You CAN be victorious – this is not pretend, and God IS real!

Watch Chapter 7 Recording from Tuesday, April 29th, click here

(Remember to try a different browser if you can’t access it, or copy and paste it directly into the browser)

Next Live webinar: Tuesday, May 6th at 9:30 am

Access: www.instantpresenter.com/nlsr4

Yesterday we had an amazing class, and I’m hopeful that if you missed it you will take some time to watch it. This is where the journey gets at the heart of both the problem and solution. For me, and so many others, we have dealt with inadequacies our whole lives. We have fought against shame and the sense of not being “good enough” with the faulty tools of perfection, performance, people pleasing and other self-efforts. But despite our best attempts, we have often continually ended up with the overwhelming sense of guilt, condemnation and fear. How can this be? As a child of God, we are measured by nothing but grace – the blood of

Jesus made us complete and perfectly right based on what Jesus did on our behalf. Therefore, wherever shame continues to thrive, it means we have allowed shame’s power to overrule Gods’ remedy. This may seem like negative news, but actually it’s quite wonderful. By exposing the faulty and illegitimate source of shame in our lives, we can actually find a solution. But there is no gimmick or quick fix here. We will need to deal with our own situations by learning how to identify the source of shame, and then choose to apply forgiveness to whatever the source or origin of shame occurred. If we have been living with life with a measurement stick, comparing ourselves to people’s standards, we will need to learn how to cast that stick aside, and rest in ultimate assurance that God’s standards already declare us “enough” through Jesus.

As we begin to undo the damage of shame by tapping into forgiveness, I want to remind you that Jesus needs to be a real person in our lives, not merely a principle, ideal or doctrine. I urge you to spend time alone talking to Him, communicating with Him and practicing relationship principles. You might want to picture yourself with Him walking, talking or holding His hand. If that seems unusual or strange, it might be an indication that you aren’t comfortable with intimacy yet. Ask Him to help you let Him jump out of the pages of the Bible and into a real life experience.

Next week we’ll cover Chapter 8 on Receiving Forgiveness – and learn some practical ways to begin to apply it in our lives. The great news is that while there are processes involved, the next two chapters contain things we apply right now. Shame carries a heavy burden, and when it’s given a remedy, we will feel that burden lifted.

Next live webinar: Tuesday, May 6th at 9:30 am