RESTORING THE RESURRECTION LIFE - Part 1

B. How do we restore the resurrection life?
We restore the resurrection life by the following steps:

- forgiving all those who have sinned against us.
- forgiving ourselves where we may have done wrong against ourselves.

- thanking Him for His love
- thanking Him for sending Jesus to die for us
- thanking Him for giving us a new life in Christ Jesus.
- thanking Him for filling us with His Holy Spirit and His kingdom riches.

- daily repentance & daily obedience

1. Causes of self-hatred
Many of us have built up a low self-image of ourselves because of past experiences. We think so badly of ourselves that we hate ourselves. Sometimes we hate ourselves so much that we want to die and end it all.

These past experiences that causes our poor self-image and self-hatred could have taken place from the time of conception, to development in the mother's womb, to infancy, and to childhood. All these experiences have a negative impact on the personality of the growing child. Directly and indirectly, they cause the child to look down on himself, despise himself and hate himself.

These experiences could involve:

a. Rejection in the womb stage by the parents
When a child in the womb is unwanted and rejected by the mother, he can feel it in his spirit, and his personality is hurt and deformed as a result.

The child may have been conceived as a result of rape, causing deep hatred in the mother for the rapist father and for the child himself. Or the mother may have been a loose, promiscuous women with many sexual partners and the child was conceived unwanted and unloved.

The child may have been conceived as a result of a union between two lovers, after which the father ditched the mother. As a result, the child is unwanted, and is a cause of shame to the unmarried mother. Great hatred could also be directed and the child as a revenge against the father.

Even for married couples, a child's conception may have been unplanned and unwelcomed, and came at a time which the mother felt was inconvenient. The child may have been conceived too soon after another child. The family may have been facing a financial crisis. The father and mother may have strong disagreements and quarrelings at home over other issues. When a mother's feeling of anger are directed towards the child, the child knows it is rejected.

Worse still, a mother may attempt to murder the fetus through abortion. In other words, the mother is opening a door for the spirit of death, murder and suicide to enter the child. Such a child grow up with a strong sense of self-rejection, self-hatred, and self-destruction.

Mother must always welcome the child conceived in their womb and affirm their love for the child. No matter what problems they may have with their spouses, mothers must not direct their anger at the innocent child in their womb.

Children who are rejected in the womb suffer from deep self-rejection, are difficult to manage, and are fretful and restless, and demand continuous attention.

b. Sexual abuse by parents, older relatives, and guardians
Where a child has been sexually abused and molested by parents, by older relatives or by guardians, he or she will have a deep sense of false guilt and shame. He or she will grow to despise his/her own body and consider himself/herself as an object, no longer a human being, dirty, cheap and unclean.

He/She grows up with a sense of uncleanness and cannot relate normally to persons of the opposite sex. Some will be promiscuous and are reckless in their sexual behavior. Others become emotionally cold and cannot function normally in their sexual roles.

c. Physical abuse
Although discipline with the rod is the scriptural correction for persistent disobedience in a child, it can be abused (Proverbs 13:24; Ephesians 6:4). A child can be unfairly beaten and punished for things not done by him.

Yet others may be routinely brutalised by fathers or mothers who are drunk, who want to vent their anger after losses at gambling, or who themselves suffer from self-rejection. Others are treated like slaves by their parents and overworked to exhaustion.

A child so brutalised will hate his parents and hate himself too. His personality has never been affirmed as good by their parents. Even as his parent abused him and see little value in him, treating him as an animal, so he views himself as of little value and worth. When he grows up, he will hate his parents and beat them in return.

d. Verbal abuse and curses
The destruction of the growing child's personality is further quickened by the verbal abuse of the parents. Verbal abuses are nothing but curses which open a door for spirits of destruction to enter and destroy the child if not broken (Proverbs 18:21; Matthew 18:18).

Instead of proper teaching and discipline or realistic understanding, many parents heaped unwarranted curses on their children. Such words deform and destroy their child's personality and bind him to a poor self-images.
"Stupid idiot," "Lazy bum," "Careless idiot," "Sickly child," "Dirty mouth," "Ugly big," "Clumsy fool," "Bitch," "Failure," "Cursed son," "You are no better than an animal," "Useless bum."

All these words from a father figure will cause a child to have low self-esteem. He grows up without self-confidence and is insecure. He finds himself becoming the very person his father has cursed him to be and he hates his father and himself as well.

Every child needs affirmation and love from his parents as he grows up. Such words are blessings to his soul. All parents are expected to bless their children with their words. Children thus blessed grow up wholesome in body and soul, self-confident ad secure (Numbers 6:22-26;Proverbs 12:18;18:21).

e. Lack of gender affirmation
Every child that is growing up also needs his/her father to affirm his/her sexuality. Every child needs to hear his/her father say:

"You are a beautiful girl, etc." to his daughter, or
"You are a strong and handsome young man" to his son.

However, where true sexuality is not affirmed, and in fact may be condemned, the child grows up with deep insecurity about his/her sexual role or identity. There will be great sexual/gender confusion. Such a child will hate the gender that he/she is born with. Instead, the child grows up with homosexual tendencies, being unable to relate normally to the opposite sex.

Thus parents should not condemn their children with remarks like:

"Stop crying, you are acting like a sissy pondan."
"You do not have to keep long hair like other girls, you are a tomboy anyway."
"How I wish you were born a girl/boy."

f. Neglect and abandonment
when children are abandoned or neglected, they see themselves as being unwanted or unloved. A child that is growing up looks up to his parent for love and affection. When such love is lacking (absentee father, drunk father, gambling mother, sick father, father with many concubines and homes), the child condemns himself.

He sees himself as unloveable and of little value, otherwise his father or mother would not have neglected him. They grow up insecure and lacking in self-confidence.

g. Death of a parent
The death of a parent is very traumatic to the personality of a young child. He may interpret the death as abandonment. He may feel that his deceased parent does not love him enough to live.

He may even blame himself for causing the death of his parent. He may have heard others saying:

"Your mother died because she was weakened by your birth, your illness, etc."
"Your father died because he had to work long hours to feed you."