Of all the things that can come between people and poison life in community, possessiveness is perhaps the most common.
My dear S.S….
The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in heaven and in hell, and we must keep them doing so. Much o the modern resistance to chastity comes from people’s belief that they own their bodies- those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another! It is as if a royal child when his father has placed, for love’s sake, in titular command of some great province, under the real rule of wise counsellors, should come to fancy he really owns the cities, the forests, and the corn, in the same way as he owns the bricks on the nursery floor.
We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion. We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun- the finely graded differences that run from my boots through “my dog”, “my servant”, “my wife”, “my father”, “my master”, and “my country”, to “my God”. They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of “my boots”, the “my” of ownership.
Self condemnation is a natural phenomenon that feeds on the human awareness of guilt. In the book of Genesis 3:10, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and without anyone scolding them, they were condemned in their hearts: “And he said, l heard thy voice in the garden, and l was afraid, because l was naked; and l hid myself.”
Self condemnation is not the same as sorrow for sin. sorrow for sin leads to repentance but self condemnation leads to fear, inferiority complex and low self esteem. The Bible teaches that God has offered us forgiveness of sin through the death of Jesus Christ. Self condemnation produces feelings of shame, disgrace, fear, terror, and depression, according to Ezra 9:6, that says: …..”O my God, l am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens”
And according to Isaiah 6:5….. “Then said l, woe is me for l am undone; because l am a man of unclean lips, and l dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.”
Self condemnation could sometime be very dangerous in cases where it develops into depression, because it has succeeded in sending some people to their early graves. In Matthew 27:5, Judas Iscariot suffered from serious guilt and self condemnation, “And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.”
The sorrow of the world is synonymous with guilt and self condemnation, the Bible says it brings death. Guilt defiles human life, produces feelings of anguish, despair, shame and disgrace. Guilt also produces feelings of unworthiness as in the case of the prodigal son in Luke 15:21, in the Name that is above all other names, self condemnation is broken.
