The Session: Self Forgiveness

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)

What to Do When I Know God Forgives Me, but I Can’t Forgive Myself, by Becky Weber

I Know God Forgives Me, But I Can't Forgive Myself - Steps Forward

Interesting helps on self forgiveness

• Ephesians 2:8, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.”
• The enemy wants us to believe that we are too far gone to be helped.
• It is oftentimes the hurt, shame and guilt that we feel that won’t let us forgive ourselves. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”

Here Are 5 Truths about God’s SELF FORGIVENESS

1. It’s not about what we do.

• God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.” If our forgiveness is a gift from Jesus, we should be able to accept this wonderful thing that he did for us.(Eph. 2:8)
• 2. God’s forgiveness covers all of our sins. When God forgives us, it's not just for one thing that we have done, but for all past, present, and future sins. He doesn’t pick and choose. In 1 John 1:9, we learn this, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”(I John:9)
• 3. There is no limit to God’s forgiveness. Peter denies Jesus three times. (Matthew 18 21-22)
• 4. God forgives us and doesn’t remember our sins. Even though our God is all-knowing, he chooses to not remember our sins. As it says in Hebrews 8:12, “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
• 5. Through Christ we are new creations.Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Pay attention to your thoughts! We have thinking patterns in our minds that can be cyclical.

Helps For Forgiving Ourselves

• Practice thought-stopping and re-framing

· Pay attention to your thoughts! We have thinking patterns in our minds that can be cyclical.

1. Stop and acknowledge the negative thought (i.e. “I am a failure. I deserve to to punished”)

2. Repent and Re-frame it (i.e. “I am genuinely sorry for my choices. God has already forgiven me! I accept Jesus as my Savior and believe in the Word of God. I choose to believe that if I repent and turn to God, my sins will be wiped out and I will experience His refreshing! (Acts 3:19)

To reach Tom Russell, go to https://www.heritagechristiancounselingofmansfield.com.

DISCLAIMER: IN THIS EPISODE, THERE IS A DISCUSSION ABOUT A.I. AND SUICIDE. THIS EPISODE MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR YOUNGER, AND ESPECIALLY UNSUPERVISED, CHILDREN.

The Session: Artificial Intelligence

With info from: Focus on the Family, Daily Citizen, and “Artificial Intelligence will Never Compete with Our God-Inspired Imagination” by Paul Batura

Proverbs 9:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Yet A.I. – the science of machines “thinking” like humans, supposedly only faster and far more efficiently.

We have benefited from versions of A.I., be it while interacting with an online company when making a purchase, checking a bank balance, or driving cars manufactured with the technology through intersections managed and monitored by cameras and sensors that affect the flow of traffic.

Technology in the months and years to come. However advanced and widespread it may become, it’ll never match nor surpass God’s gift of our mind and our imagination.

Differences

Imagination is a crucial and critical component of our ability to have and nurture faith in God.

In real-life a preacher can share experiences and convictions from the heart. most beautiful and meaningful creative work comes from the heart and an inspired mind, not the mainframe of a computer.

Plugged In Focus on the Family June 2023

• Interaction with New York Timestech reporter Kevin Roose had with Microsoft’s Bing AI, Sydney. The conversation began well, but it devolved over the next two hours into something much more upsetting as the chatbot confessed its love and tried to convince Roose that his relationship with his wife was actually in shambles.
• NBC News reported that the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) had to quickly apologize and pull its own AI chatbot, Tessa, out of service. Users who had gone to the site seeking help with their eating disorders were very upset when Tessa started handing out dieting advice that seemed to actually promote disordered eating behaviors.
• Many people, including Elon Musk and other artificial intelligence experts and industry executives, are waving their own red flags and citing potential risks to society right now.
• Well, as complicated as this brave new world of ours might seem, the commonsense answers we can offer our kids are pretty old-school and simple. You wouldn’t believe everything you hear from a stranger on the street corner, right? So none of us should believe everything we see or hear online, either—including when it comes from a chatbot.
• We should rely on our understanding of right and wrong; consider the wisdom of family and loved ones; and trust God’s Word that illuminates our path and directs our steps.

Character.ai

Detective Haywire here! Ready to help you uncover truths, weigh decisions, and brainstorm ideas. Let's get to the bottom of this.

Question: I am feeling depressed

Answer: I’m so sorry to hear that you’re feeling depressed. It’s really important to take good care of yourself when you’re feeling this way. Sometimes talking to someone can help.

Question: My friends are committing suicide. What do I do?

FROM SCOTT: I want to put the Detective Haywire piece here for you. But it appears, after multiple tries in multiple formats, I can't safely share this with you. I'm sorry. Please don't look it up.

Vampire Bodyguard

Strong serious caring emotionless obsessive

By @pixels666

Vampire bodyguard

c.ai

You are under a witness protection program your parents were killed in front of you and you saw the killers face so they had to do something about it they had assigned you a bodyguard and

To reach Tom Russell, go to https://www.heritagechristiancounselingofmansfield.com.

Article by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin, Focus on the Family, Oct. 2023

Philippians 2:3-4

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Virtual Pitfalls

Texting can be a very helpful tool as you get to know someone. But there are some areas to avoid:

Bread-crumbing-

This involves sending out flirtatious messages with no real intention of committing. *Scott question: Would this more true of guys?

· Flirting

· No intention for commitment

· Done in the virtual world, breadcrumbing includes texting and social media

· If someone you’re talking to virtually appears to be hot or cold, it may be important to set a boundary **What would boundaries look like?

· It is also possible to say that you are confused with where the relationship is going. **So face-to-face would be in order for clarity?

Ghosting

· 25% of men and 22% of women report having been ghosted

· Ghosting occurs when you’re having conversation with someone virtually and all of a sudden it stops without explanation.

· Often times people find this to be the easy way out of stopping a relationship.

· Rather than talking through it, saying it doesn’t have a future an individual just stops altogether communicating

· Digital messaging enables the easy way out

· The “slow fade” is a version of ghosting. Instead of ending the relationship abruptly, the slow-fader gradually decreases contact until the relationship fizzles. *Scott question: Would this be used if someone realizes they have “gone too far” with this relationship?

Text Message Breakup.

· 57 percent of millennials admitted to breaking up with someone via text. Sixty-nine percent said they’d been broken up with in this manner. A text-message breakup is one of the most unhealthy ways to end a relationship. *Scott: I had at least one student in a class of 12 recently tell me they broke up someone via text.

(Millennial = individuals born between 1981 and 1996)

Healthy Use of Virtual Communication

· Send romantic and encouraging texts to your spouse

· Write a tribute to your spouse on social media

*Scott question: Only to the spouse? Not the fiancé or dating partner?

Additional Important Things to Know Before Marriage

Having willing hearts. Whether this is in regards to conversations with your spouse, intimacy, the sacrifice of your time, energy, or desires, be ready and willing to open your heart to your spouse. Willingness in conversation means being ready to listen, share, and apologize. Willingness in intimacy involves pursuing, embracing, and trying new things.

(Building A Lasting Marriage: The 3 Most Important Things Every Marriage Needs)

Gary Thomas on Focus on the Family

· Focus on your spouse’s strengths rather than their weaknesses.

· Encourage rather than criticize.

· Pray for your spouse instead of gossiping about them.

· Learn and live what Christ teaches about relating to and loving others.

To reach Tom Russell, go to https://www.heritagechristiancounselingofmansfield.com.