Video Transcript: Addictive Behavior

I'm doing a series called Beauty for Ashes. I wrote the book 19 years ago. But the thing that's interesting to me as the word of God never gets old. I've taught this series publicly, probably two or three times over those years, it's been about eight years since I've taught it and I wanted to do it again. It was evidenced last night just by the reaction that I got when in teaching this that many people did not have an understanding that God is interested in healing your wounded emotions; we have to get over thinking that the only thing that God wants to do is keep us out of hell. He wants us to have a great life. And if your emotions are all messed up, if you have a lot of addictive behaviors, because of wounds in your past, then you're not going to enjoy your life. And the other thing that is so important is very few other people are going to be impressed with your relationship with God enough to want one themselves. We need to be stable, mature, healed whole individuals. I say it again, stable, mature, healed, whole, vibrant individuals. And if we're living the life that Jesus died for us to have, truth is, we will not have to try to beat everybody over the head with our Bible. They are going to actually be wanting to know something's different about you. What? How can you be so happy? What you mean, you went through that as a child, and now you're....  How can that be? And that's what we need. That's our greatest witness is a healed and a complete life.

So, as you know, well, maybe you don't know; there might be a few that don't know, maybe some people that just turned on the television set for the first time today. I was sexually abused by my father for somewhere around 15 years, repeatedly, regularly. And it damaged my personality. Your personality is a is a combination of your God given temperament and the things that happened to you, usually in the early years of your life, but it doesn't always have to be those early years of your life. But much of our personality is formed in the first few years of our life. People need love. God has created us for acceptance, not rejection. He has created us for connection, not separation, and abandonment. There is a God need in us a need placed in us by God, to have love unconditional love, and unconditional acceptance when people don't get that. Or when they're used for a purpose other than what they should be used for, a lot of bad things begin to happen. Most of us go through hurts in our life. And then all of a sudden, we're adults, and we've got all these layers of mess in our soul. And we try to find some way to function in society, through pretending or wearing masks or just hiding from things. The truth be told, many, many people are miserable behind their frozen smile. And they're really failing at relationships. We have to know who we are in Christ. Otherwise, what we end up doing is we put a tremendous burden on everybody that we're in relationship with to make us feel good about ourselves.

Now, I want you to hear this. If you don't love yourself, and if you don't know that God loves you. And when I say love yourself, I'm not talking about being selfish and self-centered. I'm talking about you get along with yourself. You're not always in a constant war about you. I'm not this, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. Well, we're all not something, but we are something, too. We need to learn to look at the more positive side of it. But if you don't have that confirmation in you that you're loved and that you're okay, you may not be perfect, but you're okay, you're growing, you're on your way, then you're always going to look to other people to make you feel good about yourself. And nothing destroys a relationship faster than that, because the other person feels manipulated and controlled and pressured all the time. To keep that insecure person propped up I'm going to take you through a trickledown theory of what happens if you know that God loves you, but you think he loves you based on conditions that you must fulfill, and all the mess that causes in your life. And then I'm going to take you through what happens if you know that God loves you unconditionally. If that's the route and the foundation of who you are, I know that God loves me unconditionally, and how that changes every single thing. 

Today is going to be a little bit clinical; it's going to be like you have gone to a psychologist or a psychiatrist, and you walked in and said, I am a really messed up. And some of you might think, well, that's not for me, because I've got it all together. Okay, I'm happy for you. But let me tell you, even if you do, you probably are around some people that are messed up. And so, we'll just say, by some stretch of the imagination, that you've got it all together, you still need to understand those other messed up people. In the world, I could probably say, when Dave and I got married, that I was pretty messed up. And he was pretty together. Dave had a great foundation in the Word of God; his dad was an alcoholic and actually died from drinking. So, he really didn't have a present father in the home. But his mom was a godly woman who made sure they went to church and taught them the principles of God and lived those principles out in front of him. And so that's encouragement for those of you who maybe there's only one parent who seems to have any brains in the home, you can overcome the bad effect that somebody else is having, through prayer and through being a great witness and an example, and through teaching your children the word of God. The Word of God will always prevail over messes, if it's taught properly, and lived out in the home. Come on now. So, you don't have to live in fear and think: Well, you know, my kids are going to be a mess. Because he or because she or whatever, you just keep doing what's right. And trust God, there's power in his word, and in his principles, to overcome whatever the mess might be. 

But Dave had a great experience with God and an early age. He was born again when he was a young boy received the fullness of the Holy Spirit in his life when he was about 18. And really studied the word and so he came into our relationship all ready for me. You may have heard me tell this, but you know Dave and I only had five dates and got married. I don't probably recommend that. But the first night he saw me I was washing my mother's car and he tried to flirt with me, which I didn't like men didn't trust men and had a very snotty sarcastic attitude. And the reason why I didn't like him was because I'd been hurt by every man that I ever got around, used and abused and hurt taken advantage of. And so, when he said, hey, hey. If you remember back in the days, I had this big beehive, had on my little short shorts and I was out there washing the car. Hey, when you get finished washing that car, you want to wash mine? I turned around I said, if you want your car washed, wash it yourself. And he said, I'm telling you the absolute truth, he said the thing that went off in my heart was That's the girl for me.

So, he either really wanted a big challenge or wasn't too smart or was being led by the Holy Spirit. After we had five dates, and he asked me to marry him. And I always like to say it's probably a good thing he did. Because if he would have hung around me too long, he would have gotten afraid. Because I really just was messed up, my personality was all messed up.   But in Isaiah, chapter 61, as I began to study the Word of God diligently, and that didn't happen for many years, because I was in a large religious denomination that had a great foundation about salvation. But I never learned much about how to live my daily life or how to well I did learn something about how to live my daily life, but not much about how to overcome my past. And when I became a real student of the Word of God, and you know, there's a big difference in going to church on Sunday and studying the Word of God. How many of you know that there's a big difference in that there's a big difference and you turn on my TV program every day and hearing that and you studying the Word of God. So, I'll just tell you, as much as I want you to watch my program. If you don't have time for me and God, then put Him first. Amen. Because there's nothing that is more valuable to you than your personal time with God. I think it's good to watch somebody like me get that word. Take some notes, and then look those scriptures up, study it for yourself, take some time at lunch or whatever and meditate on what you've learned. Don't just wait for somebody else to download everything into you; be a serious student of the Word of God.

Well, when I began to really study the Word, I started finding out how really messed up I was. The Bible says that the word is like a mirror. And you look into it. And you know, you can have dirt on your face and not know it at all. But if you go look in a mirror, like oh, my gosh, you can't believe I've been, you know, walking around with that all day. Let's see, the word of God is so valuable because we look at it like a mirror. And through that, we begin to see the promises of God. But we also begin to see not only what's available to us, but what's wrong with us. And that's healthy. Because you can never get to where you need to be if you don't face where you're at. Somebody, please listen to me today. Stop blaming everything on somebody else. And ask God to show you, you. Amen. We get so fixated on what everybody else is doing wrong while you're doing as you're doing it. You can't change them. You cannot change other people, only God can change other people. But what you can do is let God do what he wants to do, and you pray for them. And you can see a lot of change in your life, a lot of good change.

Well, one of the things that I had was a lot of addictive behaviors. And you say, Well, what's an addictive behavior? Well, it's a habit that's gone wild. It's like it's something that you can't do without now. I wasn't addicted to drugs. I wasn't addicted to alcohol. But I had other personality addictions, I had to control everything. All right, I couldn't be happy. I'm sure none of you have that problem. I'm sure everybody here is just sweet and submissive, and you don't have a rebellious bone in your body. But I was rebellious. You did not want to tell me to do something I didn't want to do. And I was like that because my father had controlled me and manipulated me. And somewhere in that process, I made a pact with myself. When I get out of here, nobody is ever going to tell me what to do again. Anybody been there done that? Let's see a few hands. All right. That's a whole lot of folks. We got the right crowd today with the right message. Well, once you've made those promises to yourself and made those agreements with yourself, and then you begin to look into the mirror of God's word, and you say, oh, submission. Oh, let other people have their way. Yeah. But here's the thing, even if you're willing to do it, you may not be able to do it. If you're addicted to that kind of behavior, so there's a lot of addictions besides just substance abuse, addictions. And so, I'm going to go through a lot of different things with you today. Hopefully, there's going to be one or two that you're going to hit on and say, oh, man, I have a problem with that. But the Bible teaches us that God will give us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. That he will make us trees of righteousness. The planting of the Lord that he might be glorified.

Our goal in life is not to get our own way. It's to glorify God. That's what we want to do. Let me tell you something. Eternity is a really long time. I cannot even get a conception of it forever. How long is forever? it is forever. And the amount of time that we live here, even if you would live to be 100 is like one grain of sand on all the beaches in the world. So, we need to really get busy. Serving God with our whole heart and wanting to live to glorify Him. Galatians 5:22 and 23 Teach us that we have the fruit of the Spirit on the inside of us. And one of those fruit is self-control. It's not other control. It's self-control. And if you don't understand what that means, it means that God has given us an ability to control ourselves. So, the first thing you have to do if you're going to break any addiction is stop saying, I can't control this. Come on now, don't look at me like that. See, that becomes an excuse when you know I can't help it. This is just my problem.

Here's my bondage. I don't have any discipline. Yes, you do. I just can't control myself. Yes, you can. Maybe you haven't practiced it very much. But you could. The fruit of the Spirit is put in us in seed form.

A seed of everything that God is, comes into us the moment that we receive Christ. Think about that. A seed of everything that God is, comes into us into our spirit, the moment that we receive Christ. What does a seed need? Water! What is the word called? The water of the word. So, the more we water that seed with the Word of God, the more our mind is renewed, the more we begin to believe. And the Bible says, be it unto you, even as you believe. Once you fully completely believe something, the devil might as well get out of the way. Because there's going to be some changes in your life.

Now. First thing we have to do is believe what we have before we're going to see it manifest in our life. You get it inside, then it comes to the outside. This is all inside out. That's why it's very important to stop saying, I don't have any self-control. I cannot control myself. How many of you say that? How many of you are going to stop it? All right. And when I asked you to admit to something, I don't want one of these things.

If I said how many want a free book you'd be, AAAAGH!. So if I say who has a problem with this?

Now, let's just look at the scriptures, Galatians 5:22 23. But the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the work with his presence within, accomplishes is love, joy, peace, patience, and even-temper, forbearance. That means that God's given us the ability to put up with stuff. kindness, goodness, faith, fullness, gentleness, meekness, and self-control. Everybody say: I have self-control. Discipline is another word that we can use for self-control. Discipline means to do what you know you should do when you don't feel like it and don't want to. Anytime that we're willing to do what's right, and we depend on God. His grace is activated in our life, and He enables us to do it. When I say that we have self-control, that still doesn't mean you can do it by yourself. But it means you have the ability to do your part. If you're willing, you don't ever want to try to do anything without saying God help me. I cannot do this without you. God help me, I cannot do this without you. You don't even want to know how many times a day I say that! How many times have I done what I'm doing this morning? 1000s and 1000s and 1000s. I started my day this morning with: God help me, I cannot go over there and do this without you. I need you. One of the reasons why we don't have victory in our life is because we hear somebody tell us that we should be this, that or something else. And so, we run home and try to do that and we leave God out of the loop. If there's anything that you hear me say today and you think yes, I really need that in my life, then the first thing I want you to do is not go home and try. I want you to go home, study a little bit more yourself in this area and start praying God, I know that this is a change that needs to take place in my life, but I cannot do it without you. God is honored when we lean on him. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it. Does the plan have what we have to have make us do the things we should do in order to have the things that we want. The distance between where we are and where we want to be is always filled with doing what we don't want to do. How many of you want to be out of debt? Well, then you got to stop spending money that you can't spend. You got to stop buying things you don't need.

Well, Sister, I'm praying for a miracle. God's given you one, it's called self-control. If I want the freedom that Jesus promised me, then I need to set aside some time for him, to study the Word and get with him. Self-control automatically means that we are not to be controlled by other people. Now, people that are brokenhearted and wounded usually do one of two things: they either let everybody else control them, because they have a lot of fear in their life, or they want to be the one in control and they become very obnoxious and nobody ends up liking them. We are to choose to be led by the Holy Spirit. I want you to listen to what I'm going to say. This automatically means if I'm going to be led by the Holy Spirit, that not all people will always approve of all of my choices. If you're going to be led by the Holy Spirit, and think that everybody is going to applaud for you, and clap for you, you are wrong, wrong, wrong, because the devil will use people to try to derail you. From following the leadership of God in your life, everybody wants us to do everything they're doing. But God is sometimes downright outrageous. And he will lead you to do the exact opposite thing from what everybody else is doing. He'll lead you to do things that have never been done before. And things that nobody is going to understand. Amen. It's part of our healing, making that decision: I'm going to be led by you, God.

You see, the Holy Spirit is the counselor. And he will counsel you right out of your problems all the way into freedom if you will follow him, but you have to remember that when you follow God, the devil is going to provide somebody that's not going to like it. And it's usually going to be somebody that you care about. And you really want them to think well of you. That: Come on, I want you to listen to me today trying to help you. When I was called to preach, which was a major part of my healing, because I am a very, very responsible person. So, when God gave me the responsibility of teaching the word, there is no way that I would do it and not give it my 100% best. So, I study my head off. Was the thing was, was that studying, being in the Word all the time was what brought healing to me. So, I would use the word to bring healing and freedom in my life. And then basically just put it out on a plate, let everybody else eat the same thing I was eating. I'm very convinced when I share with you that what I'm saying works. I'm not guessing, I'm not hoping so, I didn't get this out of a sermon book. I've tried it. And I'm here to tell you that I'm teaching you truth, and it's truth that will set you free. It's a word of God applied in your life. We all need good sound, solid doctrine, but we need more than that, we need life application. And so, I studied very hard. And that studying was part of my own healing. But when God called me to teach, and I stepped out and started teaching, just a little home Bible study.

It's amazing how many people got mad. Here, I was just as innocent as I could be. I was just trying to do what I felt like God wanted me to do, and everybody got mad. I lost my friends. I got kicked out of my church, ostracized by family. And I was shocked. So, I'm just letting you know, don't be shocked if you try to do what you think is right, and everybody doesn't clap and applaud for you. And at that juncture is where many people turn back and what they believe really in their heart to be the will of God, and they go with people. And they'll listen to me, they stay miserable. You have to understand that I would not be standing here today if I were to say, well, I don't want to get kicked out of my church. Okay, I'll do what you're saying. Or if I was, oh gosh, I don't want to lose my friends. I don't want to not be invited to parties and everybody talking about me. Okay, I'll just do what you want me to come on.

Now I'm not talking about having some kind of rebellious attitude where you never listen to anybody. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about not letting people control. First Corinthians 9:19. For all though I'm free in every way from anyone's control. Wow. The apostle Paul said, For all though I am free in every way from anyone's control, hallelujah. For although I am and free in every way from anyone's control, I have made myself a bondservant to everyone, so that I might gain the more for Christ. You know what he's saying, I am free. Jesus has set me free. And I do not have to be controlled by anybody. But because I understand that freedom, I am free now to make myself a servant, because I'm willing to do whatever is going to work out the best in order for these people to be led to Christ. That's a wonderful scripture. First Corinthians 6:12. Everything is permissible, allowable and lawful for me. See, Paul knew he was free from the law. But not all things are helpful and good for me to do. expedient and profitable when considered with other things. Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power. Wow. Paul was making an announcement. And if you have addictions in your life, even if you have some kind of substance addiction or an eating disorder, you should get up every day and declare loudly sin is not my master, and I will not be brought under the power of anything.

Now, here's the mistake that we make. We want to wait until we see that happening before we will declare that it's a truth. How can I say I'm free when I'm obviously not? Because God says you are. The devil says you're in bondage. God says you're free. If you agree with the devil, you'll keep getting more of what you got. I have no self-control. I have no discipline. I'm in bondage. I'm just in such bondage. I'll never get over my past. I'm in such bondage. I'm addicted. I'm addicted. I'm addicted. I'm addicted. You know what? When I used to smoke cigarettes, and I really wanted to quit, I would drive down the highway, smoking my cigarette saying I can't stand the smoke, don't like to smoke. Don't want to smoke. I quit smoking.

And the thing that's very beautiful about this is I didn't know what I'm teaching you now. It was something I felt like God led me to do. And within two weeks, I had quit, and I had tried for years prior to that. I'm telling you, you’ve got to start agreeing with God. Stop saying I'm in bondage and start saying I am free. I am free. I am free. I am free. I am free. Come on, I will do you a lot of good. First Corinthians 9:27. But like a boxer I buffet my body, I discipline it, I subdue it. And I love this for fear that after proclaiming to others the gospel and things pertaining to it that I myself to become unfit, not stand the test be unapproved, rejected as a counterfeit. And we have such a problem with that in the church today. We preach to everybody. But where's our witness? Types of Addictive Behaviors, alcohol drugs, we get that; food becomes a big problem. For a lot of people, they don't feel good about themselves and so they eat for comfort. Eating Disorders, anorexia, bulimia: one people starve themselves, the other they binge and eat way more than any person could eat and then go make themselves throw up. These are dangerous disorders. And in all probability, we have some people right in this room today that are dealing with the same kinds of things. I had one girl telling me that she, after many years of treatment and no help, she bought My Battlefield, the book She said, when I had the urge to go throw up, I would kneel down in front of that toilet that was still on my life and read that Battlefield of the Mind book out loud. And she got completely set free. You see, if you think you have to stay in bondage all your life, if you think you can't control it. Where the mind goes, the man follows. Our emotions get all involved in this. And God doesn't want us to have broken hearts and wounded emotions and messed up personalities. He wants us to know who we are in Christ, to know that the fruit of the Spirit is in us, to know that God loves us unconditionally. And yes, we don't have it all together, and we are imperfect. But we are just the ones that Jesus died for.

They say that in some private affluent schools that this anorexia thing is an absolute epidemic. Because many of these children come from very affluent families, who, instead of taking time to love their children and invest in their lives, they buy them everything they want. We're in dangerous times because everybody is busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. I remember when life wasn't like it is now. I've been around a while. I remember when we had a phone in our home that other families used: it was a party line, a four way party line. And when you pick the phone up, if somebody was on it, you just had to wait till they got off. My gosh. Now, if we're in an area for two minutes, where we can't get a cell phone signal, you would think the world was coming to an end: this stupid highway, every time I go through this area, I cannot make my phone calls. I remember when, if you're out in the car and you wanted to make a phone call, you had to pull over to the side of the road and find a pay phone. People used to give their children time; now that give them money. Electronics. Just a word of caution. Your kids want you more than they want what you can buy for them.

There are even feeling addictions. People get addicted to certain kinds of feeling, like excitement. They can't deal with ordinary plain everyday life. Monday through Friday. Religious righteousness, there are people who are so wounded inside and they feel so worthless and man when they get a little bit of religion. Now, following all the rules and regulations is how they find their worth and value and they become the most obnoxious people on the planet.

If you are one get over it. I was one. I'm telling you what I would have made a chief Pharisee if the Holy Ghost wouldn't have got a hold of me, because I was so proud of all the things that I did right and so I looked down on people who didn't do what I do. I fasted. I prayed.

Come on. There are so many things that people can get addicted to. Some people punish themselves for the way they feel about themselves by feeling guilty all the time. That was me. I didn't feel right if I didn't feel wrong. My guilt was my self-punishment.

Some people are joy addicts. They have a continual frozen smile on their face. They never have a bad day. They never have a problem. They're just happy in Jesus, and you look at him and you think, man, My guts are falling out; you can't be real. And then there are thought addictions, worrying all the time. How many of you just worry, worry, worry, worry, worry? You are wasting your time. But people say, well you’ve got to worry about your kids. You're not a good parent if you don't worry about your kids. Now where can you find that in the Bible? Detailing, excessive planning. Yes, there's nothing wrong with having a plan. But God's got a better plan than we do. So, you're kind of wasting your time planning too far in the future. What we need is not a plan, we need to be led by the Holy Ghost. Have a plan, but get out of God's way, if he's got another plan. People get addicted to pornography. Another mind addiction: I was addicted to reasoning. I had to have everything figured out, or I couldn't be still. Now, people get kind of weird about the word ‘addiction.’ I wrote a book called Approval Addiction. And it did good. But it didn't do nearly as good as I would have liked it to have done. And I realized after it was because of the word addiction. People don't want to think they're addicted to anything, even if they are. What is approval addiction? It means you can't settle down and feel happy if you don't feel like that everybody approves of you. What is the reasoning addiction? It means that you cannot settle down, you cannot have peace unless you think you've got it all figured out. Come on. Anybody else got a reasoning addiction? All right. How about an approval addiction? We got a few honest people here. But there's some that haven't caught up yet. How about an activity addiction cannot be still.

I happen to understand that when I have to be very careful, too. I like to keep it moving.

I mean, we see it on television, they got a whole program now about people who hoard things. There's another program what about people who have excessive numbers of pets. There's gambling addictions and exercising addictions and just all kinds of things. Well, what are people trying to do? They're trying to feel good about themselves. They're trying to find something to latch on to, to say I have worth and value now because I own all this stuff. I'm okay, I've got it all together. Because I know what's going to happen. I've got a plan. I'm excited. I'm happy. Look how happy I am. Praise the Lord, I'm happy. I get suspicious of people like that: some people have an addiction to feeling important. And they will do everything that they can possibly do to feel important. I get concerned when we hire a new employee and the first thing they want to know is what's their title going to be. Sometimes I think oh, I'm going to have to work through this. So, you can keep dancing around this thing, whatever it is: bad temper, hard to get along with, self-pity, depression, excessive mental activity, not being able to rest, being a workaholic. Whatever it is. One woman went to our pastor, she said, Pastor, I'm getting married next week for the seventh time, I want you to pray that this man is going to treat me right.

That is deception to the max, because out of all seven marriages, she was the only common denominator in all of them.

Now God loves you and He loves you not because you're lovable. Because in fact, we are not. He loves us because he wants to.

The Bible says in Ephesians 2 to satisfy his own self. He pours His love out on us, I better show it to you Ephesians 2:4-6.

But God is so rich in His mercy, in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us. Even when we were dead, slain by our own shortcomings and trespasses, he made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ. He gave us the very life of Christ Himself the same new life with which he quickened him. For it is by grace, His favor and mercy which you did not deserve, that you are saved, delivered from judgment and made a partaker of Christ's salvation, and He raised us up together with him and made us sit down together, giving us joint seating in the heavenly sphere with Christ Jesus. So now, let's look at what happens in in this book. If you buy this book, you'll find these charts the trickledown theory of conditional love and the trickledown theory of unconditional love.

The trickledown theory of conditional love. Well, Jesus loves me. But he loves me conditionally. Therefore, his love is based on my performance. Therefore, I have to earn his love by pleasing Him. Therefore, when I please him, I feel loved. And when I don't please him, I feel rejected. Now, we’ve got to stop there for a minute, because here's what happens. When I fail, God still loves me just as much as he did before I failed. But if I think that God's love for me is based on my performance, then when I fail, I suddenly feel that he doesn't love me anymore. It has nothing to do with what God is. It has everything to do with my feelings, with my weird, warped, broken feelings. Do you have any idea what it will do for you to be rooted and grounded in the love of God? And to know that on your worst day, God loves you just as much as he does on your best day. And that He's not asking you to feel guilty. He's asking you to be thankful. You don't need to add your guilt to Jesus's death, he already paid the price once and for all for everybody. It's paid for. God doesn't need our guilt added to the sacrifice of Christ. It's not what not what we need. Today can't be right to just not feel guilty. God doesn't want us to feel guilty. He wants us to be repentant. And repentant means sorry, God, I did that; I'm willing to turn away from it. It doesn't mean just keep doing it over and over and over and live your life in guilt. Therefore, if God, who is all loving, does not always love, accept and value me, how can I be expected to believe that I'm valuable and lovable? You see what happens when you know that you know that you know that God loves you. Now all of a sudden you start to think well, hey, maybe I'm got a little value after all. Can you imagine how rotten I felt about myself after my dad abusing me all those years because the devil convinced me there was something wrong with me that made him do it? If your peers in school rejected you, you probably weren't able to look at them and say you’ve got a problem. I'm really a great person, you should want to know me. Now you probably thought well, what's wrong with me? So then maybe you tried to be more like them and tried to be whatever you thought you needed to be to be part of the group and we lose our whole identity. And we get to the point we don't even know who we are because we're trying to please all these people that don't give a rip about us anyway. Amen. We live our lives to make them happy, and we don't even know who they are. I hate that statement. Well, you know, they say! Well, who are they? If you can't tell me who they are, don't tell me what they say.

At least when I tell you what they say I know who ‘they’ is: it's God.

Therefore, I don't believe that I'm basically a lovable, valuable person. Therefore, I'm not able to trust other people who say they love me. I'm very suspicious that anybody who's even nice to me has an ulterior motive because you see way down deep inside, I don't believe that I'm lovable. I've already believed that you're not going to like me before we ever start trying to have relationship and so I act weird. And then I prove that I'm right after all, that you don't like me because now you disappear out of my life, therefore, I cannot accept love from other people. I deflect and I try to prove to them that I'm right, that I am not lovable. Look and see how weird I am.

I believe that they will eventually reject me, and therefore they do. So therefore, I use the world standards, money, position, power status clothes, to prove to myself and others that I am valuable.

I'm valuable. I'm a doctor who ever says I'm valuable, I'm a janitor. But say you are you're just as valuable as the doctor.

The people who came and volunteered to let us have this meeting, and keep order here, are just as important as I am. And you think I don't know that? Yes, they are. They're just as important to God. They might not be as important to you right now as I am in this moment, but they are just as important to God, you are just as important to God as I am today, you are just as important as the people leading worship, you are just as important to God as anybody else on this planet, he loves you just as much, because he loves you unconditionally.

I need strokes and feedback from other people. I love this part to prove to myself and to others that I am lovable; you need to tell me that I'm okay. Therefore, I need a fresh fix of strokes every day just to get through the day feeling good about myself. Well, Dave, you didn't tell me I look nice this morning. Well, I like it that Dave tells me that I look nice. But I'm going to look in the mirror and see if I'm okay or not. I like it. I turned sideways this morning and thought, Oh, not bad for almost 70.

And it's not that I don't need compliments from other people, I love them. But I don't have to have them to make it through the day. And you know what happens when you don't have to have them? You get more of them. Are you here, if you don't have to have them, you get more of them.

Therefore, I look to other people to give me something that only God can give me, which is a sense of my own self-worth. Therefore, I place impossible demands on people who do love me. I frustrate them. I'm never satisfied with what they're giving me. I will not allow them to be honest with me or to confront me and I am focused on me and I expect them to be focused on me, too. Therefore, since I don't love who I am, I don't expect that others will love me either. Why would anyone want something to do with something that has no real value? Therefore, I try to earn their love by what I do. I don't give to people out of a desire to love them, but to be loved. Most of what I do is tied up in self. So, the people that I profess to love, don't feel loved, they feel manipulated. I'm really trying to avoid rejection, rather than trying to build a loving, lasting relationship. Now, if I had time, which I don't, I could go through the other one, the trickledown theory of unconditional love. And it's just the absolute opposite. You can get it in the Beauty for Ashes book. I'll do a few sentences.

If you promised to give me five more minutes, I'll give it to you. Alright, here you go, we'll go fast. Jesus loves me, this I know and he loves me unconditionally. Therefore, I have not earned his love, nor can I earn his love. Therefore, I cannot be separated from his love. When I obey Him, He will bless me; when I disobey Him there will be consequences. He may not like my behavior, but he always loves me. Therefore, since I have experienced God's love, I know that I am lovable. Therefore, since I know that God loves me, I'm able to believe that there are people who could love me too. Therefore, I'm able to trust people who love me. Therefore, I'm able to accept the love that people give me. And this makes you so confident. You can go out in the world and not be afraid of rejection because you feel good about yourself. And actually, if somebody does reject you, you know, right away they’ve got a problem. Well, there's only one way to truly recover from addictive behavior. And that is to know who we are in Christ, and to believe that we have worth and value because Jesus died for us. Today we're offering you teaching that's going to help you get this truth rooted in your life, Beauty for Ashes action plan. It includes CDs, DVDs, and a personal application workbook. It's going to be good for you to listen to look. And to go through this workbook. And do a little bit of writing things out yourself to make sure that you're getting it on the inside of you.