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Guilt Trips Don't Work
19 Plays2 years ago
Vernon and Kyle talk about guilt, shame, and manipulation. They encourage you to avoid relationships where guilt and shame are the primary drivers for behavior change and to be careful not to use those same tactics with others.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Collaboration
00:00:03
Speaker
This is your host Vernon Terrell with Grace Ministries International and it's time for Walking Free. Welcome back. This is Vernon and today we have Kyle Jenkins with me. Hello Kyle.
00:00:32
Speaker
Kyle and I have done a couple podcasts and we'll continue to do more. We still have part two of questions. We're not doing that today, but we still have another part two, part three. I don't know how long we're going to go on that on some frequently asked questions or questions you might be afraid to ask. So that'll be fun. Hope you're ready for that, Kyle.
00:00:58
Speaker
Oh yeah, oh yeah, preparing. Preparing, absolutely.
Harmful Tactics in Churches
00:01:03
Speaker
Today Kyle and I were talking and we thought we would talk about something might be sensitive for some folks in terms of those who might be engaged in this particular activity or behavior.
00:01:21
Speaker
And there are some churches that might be considered that have fallen prey to this type of tactics. Maybe you have encountered these tactics that we're about to talk about, and they're just unnecessary. And in fact, they're worse than that. They're hurtful. And
00:01:48
Speaker
Kyle, what am I talking about? What's the reveal here? What are the tactics that we're going to just start at least to begin this conversation on? Yeah, the tactics of guilting and shaming, you know, even I was guilty of it for a long time. Sometimes I still fall into these things at times when I'm not, you know, when my eyes have gotten off of Christ and then I've
00:02:15
Speaker
put them on myself thinking it's my role to play the Holy Spirit in somebody's life because I start believing the life from the devil that, hey, you know, I can transform you. We don't need God's kindness. I can do it through manipulation or shaming or guilting or any, you know, they've got a plethora of lists online of logical fallacies and shaming, guilting tactics.
00:02:44
Speaker
We're going to jump into some of those. I think this is not just constrained to individuals, but even church cultures can unfortunately fall into this idea of guilting and shaming. They might have, at least justifying in their mind, some well-intended goal for
00:03:14
Speaker
you or somebody to be behaving in a certain way to keep you out of, quote, sin and to help you, quote, walk right. That's maybe what they're thinking, but man, that doesn't work. And it's just misguided. And you can feel if you're in a church like that or in a relationship or a group, a small group like that, you can
00:03:44
Speaker
feel the pressure and the weight of those tactics. So let's just kick it off a little bit. And what are some of the things that you have experienced, some of the things that you have found around these tactics?
Personal Insights on Guilt and Shame
00:04:04
Speaker
I guess for me, as I was looking through the lists that I'd found online, I remember my first semester of college, the teacher, she's a really awesome Indian lady. She was a believer. She started off with context. She's like, context is so important. Let me show you. She writes really big on the board. There is no God.
00:04:29
Speaker
And she's like, well, really what the verse says, and she's quoting the, I think it's the Psalms, it says like, well, the fool has said in his heart, there's no God. And so right off the bat, showing us context and taking us through these just different argument fallacies and how I was thinking about it as you were talking. And it's like, well, Paul ran into this with the Galatians and pretty much all of those churches starting off, it's like, you know, you've gone back
00:04:59
Speaker
to law-based living, which what does the law do? We talked about it in an earlier podcast. Well, the law is a ministry of condemnation and death. And so if we're not seeing grace, God's grace properly, if we're not seeing God properly, seeing ourselves as who we really are in Christ, that's gonna cause, that will bring up all those problems of just simply not seeing God right. We're not seeing His grace correct.
00:05:27
Speaker
and it will harbor, it will encourage all of these logical fallacies, these shaming and guilting tactics. And some well, and I'm just gonna assume the best, well-intentioned or well-meaning believers might think that, hey, what I need to do, if someone's maybe just not living according to the quote unquote standards they think they should live to,
Identity in Christ vs. Guilt and Shame
00:05:58
Speaker
are not doing certain maybe spiritual activities that they think another should be doing, they might default to this shaming or guilting technique, trying to guilt someone into doing certain behaviors or shame someone into doing certain behaviors. But that never works.
00:06:25
Speaker
Have you experienced someone trying to guilt you or shame you into behaving a certain way? Oh, man, I wish I hadn't, but yes, for sure. What was it like? And no names, obviously, but what was put on you?
00:06:44
Speaker
You know, I thought of like, you know, when somebody projects projecting onto some other people, you know, some I was even just talking about it with a with a housemate of mine about, you know, say if somebody has their they have a gift of evangelism, and then they'll project on others, you know, why aren't you evangelizing more? It's like, well, it's just not my gift. And it's not a fruit of the spirit.
00:07:10
Speaker
you know, Galatians 5 22 through 23, nothing against the gift of evangelism, but not everybody has that. And so, you know, almost like a pyramid or kind of elevating oneself. It's like, well, look at all that I'm doing. You should dot, dot, dot, completely missing that the new heart that we have in Christ, it would be like,
00:07:33
Speaker
It'd be like with anything else in the Christian life at the core of like, well, you know, it's like, I want to help out poor people. I have a heart for the poor. I have a heart for the hurting. And yet I don't need somebody to tell me, you know, hey, you should care about the poor and the hurting.
00:07:49
Speaker
as if I don't already, as if we don't already, just missing out. It's like the church missing out on, well, who are we as new creations with new hearts of Jesus who do care about the hurting and the poor like Jesus did. But since we're one with Him in spirit, we do care. We do care for all those people. And that guilt and shame is making this assumption that, well, you don't. And I think the issue is maybe that person who is
00:08:18
Speaker
the purveyor of the guilt and the shame and who's casting that out, you or I aren't doing it up to their level. What they believe is the level because they may have, like you said, they may be very gifted or very passionate. I am pro-life. I don't go march generally at pro-life protest.
00:08:44
Speaker
Now, just the fact that I don't go march at a pro doesn't mean that, well, I'm not committed or I'm not pro-life. Yeah, I'm pro-life. I believe in the sanctity of life. I do. I think that life is important to me, but just because I don't go march doesn't mean I don't have that conviction. Don't assume that. Don't shame me into going to march
00:09:12
Speaker
at some rally, that's not, I don't believe that's how Jesus operated. And so I hear what you're saying in terms of folks who are very driven and very passionate. They just want you with them and out of their passion, sometimes they may use a little tactic that we call guilt, the old guilt trip.
00:09:41
Speaker
or the shaming. What does a guilt trip look like? You know, I'd started looking up just definitions on all this, on all this before we got in here. And it's like guilt is like, uh, you know, trying to basically, you know, invoke in somebody and it's like, well, you know, you should, uh, uh, feel like you've done something wrong. You know, you're supposed to feel wrong and I'm going to, I'm going to kind of, I'm going to create that in you, you know, um,
00:10:09
Speaker
based on, you know, whatever behavior parameters doing or not doing something. Right. That's the guilt trip. And this is where we're going to get that little distinction between guilt and shame. And there's, there is a distinction and guilt is more about that behavior. You are not doing what you're supposed to do. You need to feel guilty about that. And then,
00:10:36
Speaker
you need to do it. I mean, that's the obvious choice. You need to feel guilty, now go do it. That's part of the guilt trip to get you to do what that person or group or whatever wants you to do or believes is the right thing to do. Shaming someone is a little different. Shaming, you're still trying to get to an end where you want them to maybe act a certain way, behave a certain way, do something. Shaming,
00:11:05
Speaker
is really attacking at the level of the person and their identity. You are not good. You're not good. You're not a good person. You're simply, you are bad. You are the personification of bad because you're not doing this or thinking this way or whatever. And so they want to shame you and to do it so you'll be a better person.
00:11:28
Speaker
But it's all manipulation. Jesus was not a master manipulator. Jesus actually was the exact opposite. He was the one who set captives free. He was the one who presented himself and said, you believe your choice.
00:11:57
Speaker
You choose, you choose. And I love that in John, I believe it's John where he was saying that he wanted to gather Jerusalem. I mentioned this in, actually it was in Matthew, sorry, Matthew 23 on an earlier podcast. But he says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I would have gathered you, I wanted to gather you like hens would gather their chicks, but you would not.
00:12:28
Speaker
You would not you would not and I think God is a God of choice he's a God who's made us whole made us brand new and He's not into guilt tactics and manipulation what else you got Kyle on that list No, I mean everything you were saying there just it's like we don't have to we don't have to play the games of the devil and
00:12:56
Speaker
to try to get each other to act better or live a righteous life, live upright lives. As we're talking about these different
00:13:10
Speaker
the different tactics and guilting and shaming, noticing that those who are doing that to others, and I've been guilty of it before, and so those that are doing it, it's really just their own sense of worth and value is lacking.
Grace-Based Living and True Freedom
00:13:26
Speaker
They're not really seeing how important, how valued, how secure, how loved and delighted they are by God.
00:13:36
Speaker
They're just not seeing it. And so trying to, you know, either position themselves over somebody or, you know, you know, look at all that I'm doing. Why don't you dot, dot, dot? It really comes down to the identity and the identity issue of not seeing how loved and valued we really are.
00:13:58
Speaker
That's really the bedrock foundation. And that's what we teach and preach and share at Grace Ministries International. That is the foundation.
00:14:13
Speaker
And I don't need, you know, and I've said this before, sometimes it gets me in trouble, but I'll say it again, that, you know, God is not so much concerned about your behavior. Yes, behavior is important in that there are consequences to behavior, absolutely, no question. God's, I think, not as concerned about your behavior. He's concerned about you trusting him.
00:14:40
Speaker
That's what he's concerned about. He wants you to trust him always. Righteousness is always important to the Father. But guess what? When you believed, you were made righteous. So check that box off. He's made you righteous in Christ. Check your behavior.
00:15:08
Speaker
as you understand that, will conform to the belief and the understanding that you have around your identity. And if you're in this death cycle of shame and guilt, you're never gonna walk free. You're gonna walk trying to be less guilty and less shameful. And that's just falling right into the enemy trap.
00:15:39
Speaker
And as Kyle said, you need to understand, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you have been made brand new. And you don't have to fall prey. And you don't have to emulate, I love the way he said that, using the tactics of the enemy. You don't have to do that in your life.
00:16:05
Speaker
feeling, you know, having the Dobby, bad Dobby, bad Dobby, bad Dobby from Harry Potter. Harry Potter. That's good. Or Harry Potter. That's better. Some of you don't like Harry Potter. Okay, I get that. But those who, you know, remember the movie, it's like the bad Dobby. No, you don't need to be flailing yourself. You need to stand firm in the freedom where Christ sets you free. That's the point.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, I was just thinking as you were sharing, oh, something, yeah, I share a lot of Mike Wells material, but Mike Wells, the missionary, once shared, it's like, well, Satan loves the preaching of sin. Every Sunday, you know, Satan loves it when just, oh, let's just, we're gonna preach about sin today, because then where's your focus? It's on sin.
00:17:04
Speaker
That's not on the sun. And so then whatever gets your focus gets you. And if your focus is on whether it's not sinning or where then even, you know, I'm going to really, you know, if you want, if you, if you'd like to set up for failure today, here's a couple of rules, you know, try really hard to do good. That will set you up for failure because it's still based on law.
00:17:29
Speaker
And as you were sharing here, I think of all those New Testament passages of the instructional parts of the New Testament epistles. And yet the first half of all the epistles is all belief.
00:17:44
Speaker
knowing who you are in Christ, knowing who we are, knowing that we are dead to sin, knowing that we have new hearts, knowing that we are safe in the beloved, that we are secure. Grace and peace. That was how Paul started most of his letters. Grace and peace to you from God the Father.
00:18:03
Speaker
not shame and guilt, not shame and fear, but grace and peace. And then if you do, you know, believing the first half, I like how Neil Anderson used to say, well, if you believe the first half, you'll do the second half naturally, supernaturally, because it will be all based on what you're believing first. And everything we do does stem from what we're choosing to think and believe. And so it's that the truth sets us free. It's the lies that keep us bound. And so, you know,
00:18:33
Speaker
And I used to do the same thing. You know, I'd run to the instructional parts. Oh, see, we're not supposed to do this. We're supposed to do this completely missing the first half of, but what am I to believe about myself? What am I to believe about the, you know, that I am a new creation and that I do desire to treat my wife like Christ treated the church, that I do want to help the poor already, that I don't want to sin.
00:18:58
Speaker
And yeah, missing that just like Paul had to say to the Galatians, you foolish Galatians, what's happened? You know, you've gone back to this law performance rather than this gospel of grace. Wow. And that's where we want to encourage you to understand and be able to recognize that there are tactics and don't fall prey to those tactics of the enemy.
00:19:28
Speaker
whether used by a friend or a family member or others or an organization or a group, don't fall prey to the tactics of guilt and shame and don't emulate those tactics. I like what Paul says. Did you know, and he says in Romans nine, Romans 10, he says, for the scripture says,
00:19:55
Speaker
Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. You know, God's not out shaming you. In fact, in Christ you're not condemned and you will not be put to shame. That word also means and has this idea to be disappointed. By the way, disappointed in yourself or disappointed in who you are, you will not be put to shame. The one who believes in him.
00:20:25
Speaker
So why would you want to put to shame your fellow brother or anybody else for that matter? That's not how to help someone walk free. And that's what we're all about, by the way, is helping you walk free. In fact, the little tagline we always say on the podcast is
00:20:43
Speaker
Stop talking. Just start walking. Stop talking about your identity and your righteousness. So go walk it. Why? To get more righteous? No. Because you're brand new. Just go be you. Go be the brand new you that you are. And
00:20:59
Speaker
But why do we sometimes, even as parents, I did this, I confess, I had this, you know, you think, well, this will work as a parent. You always are grasping at straws. All right, well, now what do I try? I'm going to guilt them and shame my kids into behaving. And it's an easy trap. I did some of it too, trying to
00:21:23
Speaker
try to unravel that, and I think I got better over the years with not falling into that, but I think we learn. It's a learned behavior, a learned tactic that I had, and maybe you had too, and we have to just snap out of it. That's not
00:21:46
Speaker
Grace filled. That's not truth filled. That's shame filled. Is that what you want to put on your daughter, to put on your friends? Absolutely not. Did you ever experience that growing up?
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I wrote in this, you know, in my testimony, it's like this kind of, you know, the shaming and the guilting trying to get me to change my behavior. That just led me to suicide. And that was as a believer in Christ. I was already born again. And that all that, you know, all that kind of teaching of shaming and guilty. Well, that just led me to want to check out.
00:22:29
Speaker
Yep. Because I wasn't being told. It's like, yeah, but you know, the problem isn't your sinning. You know, the problem is what you believe. You're just believing wrong if you believe, you know, if you, and then it even, you know, as we teach at GMI and the other 220 networks and other grace teachers, it's like, well, what we don't need is more information. We don't need more education. We need the revelation.
00:22:54
Speaker
And only God can give that to us. And so it's like, well, God, then just show me how good and how unshaming you are, how un-condemning and unguilting you are towards us. That's great. I mean, that's good news. That's what we need to hear. I think that
00:23:20
Speaker
for the 220 Ministries, Network 220, which we're a part of, and the other Grace Ministries, we do our best to encourage you in the truth.
Understanding Identity in Christ
00:23:32
Speaker
Why? Because it's the truth that sets you free.
00:23:35
Speaker
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and it's trust in Christ, it's understanding the truth, and the truth of what? What truth? Well, the truth of who Jesus is, and the truth of who you are, and the truth of who you are in him, and that is so vital, and we don't hear it a lot. We want you, and so, you know, if you're working
00:23:59
Speaker
with your kids and friendships, or just direct it toward yourself, my encouragement is to always give yourself room and give yourself grace. You will fail. You're gonna say the wrong thing. There's times, and that's when we need to choose humility.
00:24:25
Speaker
and just choose and choose, it's the high road, but it's really the low road because we're just lowering ourself. I was wrong, I'm sorry. Even if the other person really did some stuff that just really takes us off. But it's like own our part of it, don't justify their part, own our part and choose humility and give yourself room. Give yourself grace, don't beat yourself up. You're on a journey, I'm on a journey, we're all on a journey.
00:24:56
Speaker
enjoy the journey because it is short. I'm now 61 years old and it just flew by. The journey is short. You don't have time to fall prey, to shame, and to guilt, and to use shaming tactics and guilt tactics. Give yourself room. Give everybody else room.
00:25:19
Speaker
And yes, as parents, we need to protect them. We don't want our kids to fall into dangerous situations. So obviously that's true. But you can give them room to fail and give them room to be who they are and to accept them and to love them and to tell them that you love them. You don't have to resort
00:25:47
Speaker
to guilt and shame. That just doesn't work. What else you got, Kyle, on your fancy list that you've been on? Yeah, I copied and pasted this whole thing. It's pretty lengthy.
00:26:09
Speaker
We didn't want to make this podcast and just going through all of these. It's like being in an environment or a church circle or a group, like you were saying, where a lot of this is prevalent and going on. Just wanting to remind our listeners that with Grace Ministries International,
00:26:31
Speaker
We are a counseling ministry and to help people work through some of those, as it's been called church hurts or church wounds. Or spiritual abuse is the big word. Yeah. And some people don't, I mean, I remember when I was going through all this and
00:26:51
Speaker
I mean, I'm kind of a network guy, so I'm just reaching out to all kinds of folks. I'm trying to find groups and communities where it's like, where can I find this grace?
00:27:03
Speaker
And thank God it led me to meet you, Vernon, and GMI, and the rest. But it was such a difficult time of not being able to have somewhere to go where I can share this stuff. It's like, well, this is how they're treating me. Is this even biblical? Is this right? Because now I just feel worse than I already did. I know I got the sin problem. I know I got the bad behaviors going on.
00:27:31
Speaker
But now I don't have anywhere I can share it, because if in the sharing, instead of being loved more, I'm just rejected more or outcasted more. And so, you know, wanting our listeners to know, it's like there are, we just, you know, in our prayer and hope is that, you know, God will just lead you to those places of where you will find a grace-based church group, counselor, friends. It's hard.
00:28:00
Speaker
It's hard, isn't it, finding those groups of folks and really,
00:28:10
Speaker
I've seen, and this may sound heretical, I have seen some unbelievers be more accepting and loving than believers, to be honest. And that's scary. I don't mean that. But in terms, there's many out there, tons of believers out there. But it can be hard to find, one of the big requests we get often is, do you know of a grace church in my area? Oh boy.
00:28:40
Speaker
Now that's, you know, it's sometimes that's challenging and we do our best to find and of course Network 220 has got a great list of ministries and some churches that are out there. There's another guy that I spoke with and he's got a website.
00:29:01
Speaker
and it's called LocateGraceMinistries.com, I believe. And he tries to vet them, and he's got both, and when I use this, he's got non-charismatic and charismatic grace-based shirts and a very specific, and he's got them on a map, like a map that's got
00:29:25
Speaker
addresses, you can zoom in, see where you are. And so he's trying to fill that gap a little bit. We try to keep our own as well. But it can be challenging to find a group near you. And I encourage you, whether through Facebook, online, it may be
00:29:47
Speaker
You start your own group. It may be that, hey, I'm going to start a Bible study when I talk about grace. Be careful. I think, God, you've experienced this because some people just aren't ready to receive the message of grace. They're so ingrained in their performance and their box checking and that kind of that legalistic mindset that you may get
00:30:10
Speaker
some rejection. Have you had that? Oh yeah, absolutely. Just a reminder, God is faithful. And even going through that hard time where I didn't have a grace group, I go to Andrew Farley's church now in Dallas,
00:30:28
Speaker
But when I didn't have that, I mean, it was such a painful, Vernon, you know my story. It was such a painful time. And yet God knew exactly what he was doing and what I was having to go through and just still that coming to end of my flesh trip of depending on myself and realizing it's like, well, God is all I have. God, all I have is you. But that's good because you're all I need.
00:30:56
Speaker
And yet he knew exactly what I was going through and then providing in different areas. I mean, we are, I don't know, a few thousand miles from each other or maybe a thousand miles, but the Lord's put you there as a great encouragement to me while I was going through all that, not having people close nearby to enjoy this grace, to enjoy what God has done.
Finding Supportive Communities
00:31:25
Speaker
And yet, God was remaining faithful in all that. And so, to lift that burden of gloom and doom, that it's like, oh, well, I don't have a Grace Church. God remains faithful in this. He does.
00:31:39
Speaker
Andrew's brilliant and his church in Dallas and in the Dallas area and also in, what's that West? Lubbock. Lubbock, thank you. I had the L, but Lubbock, Texas also was where he started, but some great churches and he's on Facebook. And there's other churches that are out there. We want to keep building and building that network. And this one guy who's doing it just
00:32:09
Speaker
done a great job. We want to be able to point folks to a Grace-based church and just know if you are at one, some people are going to just sometimes, all of us, we just fall into this thing, this guilt or guilt trips and shame trips and
00:32:26
Speaker
Give people grace even there too, but if it's something that's continual and you're in a group or in a relationship and they're always doing that, you may need to step back. You don't need that. You need to be encouraged to be free.
00:32:45
Speaker
And you say, oh, what does that mean? To be free, to be the righteous, holy, beautiful, kind, loving person that God made you, that's the freedom that you can walk free in. And you've got the power and victory in you to do it because Christ is in you and you're brand new. And you need to be encouraged if you fail, fall, flip out, whatever at times like we all do, that's okay.
00:33:09
Speaker
You know, God's not like, there's another one, and he's not Santa Claus making the list, okay? That bad list is gone, and you are blessed with the righteousness of Christ. Your sins are wiped away, clearly.
00:33:32
Speaker
So look, we're gonna just wrap up on this. We're gonna talk some more on this stuff, on the questions you might've been scared to ask.
Conclusion and Encouragement
00:33:42
Speaker
We still have some fun questions that we think, in fact, that we would like to share and give some thoughts on. So let me encourage you just to wrap up.
00:33:55
Speaker
And Kyle, thank you for the conversation, that you are, I guarantee, more than you think you are, because Christ made you new. You are so—you don't even know how new.
00:34:15
Speaker
I don't think we have that concept. That's why Colossians 3 says that when we see him, we're gonna see him as he is, but likewise, we're gonna see ourselves as we really are, this magnificent, brand new creation in Christ. I would encourage, as Kyle said, to ask God to open your eyes to see the truth.
00:34:41
Speaker
of who you are and then I want you to stop talking about it and start walking in that brand new freedom where Christ has set you free.
00:34:56
Speaker
You've been listening to Walking Free, a production of Grace Ministries International in Marietta, Georgia. For more information, go to our website at gment.org. That's gminc.org.