Behaviors that Bind Us - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, June 3rd.

Have you ever stopped to think about why you think and behave the way you do? Today, you'll hear practical steps to break loose from the grip of these behaviors that bind us. I'm Charles Stanley, and welcome back to It's Supernatural!

I'm Charles Stanley, and welcome back to It's Supernatural! Why do I respond the way I respond? Well, that's what I want to talk about in this message entitled The Behaviors That Bind Us in Our Life. Those actions and attitudes that you and I can't understand, somewhere along the way we have to trace them back to some cause and some particular source. We're talking about behavior patterns that bind us in our life and keep us what?

Discontent, unsettled, oftentimes anxious, and for the most part, very unhappy. I want you to turn, if you will, to the 1 Corinthians 13 chapter, this first epistle to Corinthians, and you know this is the chapter about love. And Paul has been describing what love is all about, and then he comes down to this latter part, and he says, beginning in verse 11, he says, When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. Now, I want us to look at that very simple phrase, childish things.

You and I, when we think of childish things, we have something in our mind about the way people act. I want us to look at this word for just a moment, because there are two Greek words here that Paul uses, not particularly both of them in this chapter, but I want you to go back to Matthew chapter 18 for a moment. He says, beginning in verse 1, So what he's simply saying here is this, that as we grow in our Christian life, we should always be childlike in our faith, childlike in our humility, childlike in our openness, childlike in our honesty, and so we are to be like children. On the other hand, we're not to just settle down as children and in our own particular emotional life, never grow beyond being childlike. And so there are two words, and the first word he uses for that particular word is pydion in the Greek, which simply means childhood in its natural, normal, healthy fashion. That is, when a child is growing up, they act like children, they grow up like children, and that's a normal, natural way, and that's the way God intends for a person to grow up. The other word, the other Greek word that is used here is the word nipias, n-e-p-i-a-s, if you want to write it down, and here's what it means, it means going beyond childhood age and even into adulthood, acting childish, childlike like you used to act. So what he's simply saying to them, he says, listen, when I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child, but when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

Now, all of us, probably at some time in our life, have or act childish. And so what does that have to do with those things that bind us? Now, I want you to think about it for just a moment because let's trace all of this back. When you and I were born, God gave us, of course, a mind, a brain, heart, spirit, and all the rest. When you and I came into this world, we began to be programmed. Some people might say that you and I began to be programmed even before we were born, but let's say that at birth you and I began to be programmed. That is, our mind was programmed.

What was it programmed with? It was programmed with either the affection or lack of affection from our parents. That is, in this grid system of ours, it's like the strong impressions that came from our parents and those who were around us, they became a part of our feelings and became a part of our personality. So that all of us were programmed, pre-programmed, listen, not necessarily against our will, but involuntarily.

Now, if, for example, those things that were programmed into your thinking, let's say that you had godly parents who were very wise, and so what did they do? They said to you very early in life, you're very precious, you're sweet, and I love you, and Father loves you, your mother loves you. We think you're the greatest. We love you dearly, we're going to take care of you, not only in their words and in their affection, but in their actions. They said to that child, you're important, you're very important, you're number one with us, we love you dearly.

And so what happened? Programmed into that child's mind was a sense of belonging. My parents love me, a sense of worth. I must be very valuable because my father loves me, my mother loves me.

I must be able to do a lot of things because they're always bragging about me and telling me how well I'm doing. So what does that child grow up with? In that child's grid system, everything gets sifted through this, every challenge in life gets sifted through this.

You belong, you're somebody worth knowing, somebody worth loving, somebody worth relating to, and you can do it. That child grows up with a very strong sense of what? Of competence, a sense of belonging, a sense of worth. That child grows up with a very, very strong sense of self-esteem. Where did it come from? It came from those strong impressions built into their life.

But let's take the opposite. Let's say that, for example, here is a child that grows up with parents who are not very particularly concerned about their children. Child grows up in an atmosphere that's harsh.

Child grows up in an atmosphere where they don't know exactly where they are. There are no lines, no boundaries really there. Something is right today, but it's not right tomorrow. And it depends upon how my father feels today as to whether it's right or not.

Or it depends upon how my mother's, how she's feeling today, whether I can or whether I cannot. And so a child grows up with frustrations and anxieties and fears because nobody ever drew the boundary lines. And so when they grow up and they begin to get into all kinds of trouble, what happens? They are simply doing what? They're just acting out what they were taught. They didn't know where they were as a child growing up, and so therefore they question where their boundary lines are now. That does not mean, for example, that you and I can go around and blame our parents and blame other people on things that we do or things that we don't do. Because all of us are responsible for our actions and our deeds.

If we don't understand where they came from, it's our responsibility to find out. But what I want you to see is that in every single man, the little boy is still there. Every single woman, the little girl is still there. And I was thinking about this today, oftentimes in a conversation, the little boy, the little girl pops up because something triggers that. And when a person grows up in a home that is not what it ought to be, or even if they grew up in a home and outside that home they have experiences in life that are very difficult and maybe traumatic. What happens is, as the years go by, those incidences that made such a strong impression upon them, when anything comes along in life that even looks like, smells like, acts like anything close to what caused them a trauma back there, what happens?

Oftentimes it is a natural response, the little boy or the little girl rises up to respond to this present situation when in essence what they're doing is responding and reacting to something that happened in their childhood. Therefore, when the apostle Paul said, putting away childish things. He was primarily speaking of spiritual things, but also of emotional things.

And I think there are many people who are Christians who really love God, who really want to be what God wants them to be. And yet they have those things that go on in their life they can't identify. They don't even understand why they act the way they act. How many of us have said, God, I don't know why I said what I said. I don't know why I acted in that fashion. God, I don't know why I act that way or respond that way. I don't know why this goes on in my life.

Well, it's one thing for something to happen. But if something goes on and on and on and on, we should take at least a moment to stop and ask ourselves the question. Lord, am I being controlled by something that I'm not aware of? Is there an emotion, a feeling? Is there something that happened back yonder in my life somewhere that I am responding to that in this present situation? Well, there are lots of those little childish things that develop in a person's life. And you probably have been able to maybe identify something in your life.

Let me put it this way. If something keeps cropping up that gives you a problem or you keep responding in a certain way, ask yourself this question, Lord, is there something back there that I need to deal with so that I can be free and not respond in an improper way when things don't particularly go my way? So you say, well, let's say, for example, that you recognize that these things are true in your life.

And so how do we deal with them? So what I'd like to do is just to give you a few steps. And this isn't something that you can say one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Yes, I've got it. But rather things that you need to consider, things that you need to think about. And let's put them in a fashion that I think something really simple that you can just begin to ponder and meditate on. And I think the first thing that you have to do is simply just to identify it. That is, is there something that controls me at times that I don't want it to control me? In other words, can I identify a response that I have?

Is there some response that I notice will keep cropping up in me when I don't really want to act that way, but I do? So first of all, you've got to identify it. Secondly, you've got to own it. You can't say, well, yes, I have identified that. That's my mother's fault. No, that's my father's fault. No, that's not the issue.

The issue is, listen, I may have been programmed that way, but if I identify the way I am responding, that's not proper. Then I must own that as an adult. I can no longer blame my childish actions and attitudes and spirit on someone who may be out of ignorance or maybe in their own ungodly fashion programmed me in a way that I'm suffering for it.

So therefore I have to own it. Third thing I have to do is trace it back to a source. Where did that come from? What was the incident in my life?

What did somebody say to me? Who programmed this into my life? What makes me think and act and respond the way I do in certain circumstances and situations? Trace it back to its source. And my friend, the Spirit of God will help you do that. If you begin to ponder and ask Him, He will help you trace it because He wants you to be a whole person.

The fourth thing is this. Once you've traced it back, listen, probably some person or some incident back there, forgive the person that you think that you feel is responsible for the way you think and feel in those circumstances that you know that bind you. That is, you must be willing to forgive that person. If you're not willing to forgive them, you're not going to get past that.

Must be willing to forgive. You say, well, yes, I can remember when I grew up, my father, this, my mother, that I can tell you in my own life that I grew up with a lot of rejection. And I had to deal with that in somebody's life. And I had to go to that person and say to them, you know, this is the way I acted. And I want to ask you to forgive me for my response. You see, you can't say to them, here's what you did to me. No, you and I have to forgive the person for whatever they did, no matter what, because oftentimes that person's dead and gone.

You may have to sit them down, sit them down in a chair and just voice to that person. I want to forgive you for the way you abused me. I want to forgive you for absolutely destroying my sense of self-esteem. And I can think of testimonies of people, things I've heard that people heard their parents say about them that was absolutely devastating to them. When a parent compares one child to the other, absolutely devastating.

When they're always bragging on one and downgrading the other, absolutely devastating. And so a child grows up, if that's deep down inside, it has to be dealt with so you forgive the person that you think is responsible. The next thing you do is forgive yourself, because you see, when we grow up with these things, we feel guilty. We feel guilty for responding the way we respond.

We feel guilty for acting the way we act. And so we have to forgive ourselves. God, I want you to forgive me for having these expectations of myself that absolutely are beyond any possibility of me living up to, trying to measure up in my perfectionism. God forgive me for my anxiety, my frustration, my fears when I try to live up to something that you certainly do not expect me to live up to. Then what you do is you ask God to set you free. Lord, you've helped me to see why I respond, why these childish things that crop up in me. Thank you for showing me that.

Lord, I'm asking you, I own it. I assume responsibility for it. I've forgiven the person who's done it.

I have forgiven myself. Father, I'm asking you to set me free and enable me to identify this response as childish when it pops up in my life. And at that moment, identify it, thank you for showing me that, and God set me free of it.

You know what will happen? God will set you free. Tracing it back to its source.

Discovering who was responsible back there. Forgiving that person and forgiving yourself. I'm here to tell you, God, listen, he will deliver you from those behavioral patterns that are childishness, that crop up in our lives as an adult. Listen, he will set you free of those if you ask him to do it and believe that he has, and then the most important thing is this, renew your mind about yourself. And that is renew your thinking about yourself.

You see, as far as God is concerned, you're okay and God loves you just the way you are. He's in the process of changing all of us. But what we do, we renew our minds.

So how do we do that? When this thing crops up in our life, we say thank you, Father, for showing me that. I thank you, dear God, that does not belong in my life any longer. And so I want to be sensitive.

And so what happens? As I begin to renew my mind the way I think, I think, you know, that may be a response because of my sense of inadequacy and I got rejected and didn't belong. Thank you, Father, that I do belong. Thank you that you've accepted me. Thank you that you love me. And thank you, God, I'm all right in your eyes. Doesn't mean that you're sinless and perfect.

I'm all right in God's eyes. What happens? When you identify it and it crops up shortly, it's not going to crop up.

You're going to start acting out of your adulthood. I mean, after all, listen, we're living in the present. We assume responsibility for the past. We forgive ourselves. We forgive the person.

And then what happens? We say, God, I want you to make me a whole person. I want to be an adult believer. I don't want the childish things binding me and enslaving me any longer. And I'm claiming by faith your release and your liberty and your freedom. And then listen, you aggressively go after those things when they crop up in your life and God will free you of them. Now, I could put everything I've said in this one sentence. Listen carefully. Every parent here has the most awesome, indescribable power to make your children a success or to destroy them before they ever leave your home.

The second thing I want to say is this. Every single one of us who is an adult has within us the power of the Holy Spirit to set us free of childish ways in order that you may become the whole person. God wants us to be and to begin to enjoy life and lay aside our discontent and our unhappiness, our discontent with circumstances and people and relationships and begin to enjoy what Almighty God has provided for us as His children. Where does it all begin? It all begins, my friend, with trusting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, acknowledging these things are true in your life. And then once you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit then will enable you to go through the process and set you free. Listen, the Bible says the truth will set us free. The truth about who God is in His relationship to you, the truth about who we are in our relationship to Him, the truth about who we are as persons and the truth about the work of the Holy Spirit in our life will set us free of these things that cause bondage and heartache and trials and difficulty that God never intends for us to live with. And it is my prayer you'll be wise enough to consider this message. You'll be wise enough to take those simple suggestions and ponder them. You're just reading them through and saying, God bless me. No pondering them, thinking back, searching back, thanking God that He's going to set you free.

God will make you a free person. Thank you for listening to Behaviors That Bind Us. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.