The Lower Nature

 

 

Temptation

I sometimes wonder whether we have not become too worldly in certain things. Do sports, business matters, and concern for money fill our hearts too much? These are obvious “worldly” distractions or temptations. But there is also a danger that even the gifts God gives us, such as the beauties of nature or the joys of human love, can become a substitute for the real experience of Christ.

 The Letter to the Hebrews clearly states that Jesus was tempted just like any other human being. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Satan came to him and used words from scripture to tempt him. Only after the third temptation did Jesus recognize him and say, “Begone, Satan.” (Heb. 2:18 Heb. 4:15 Mt. 4:1-10)

 At one time the idea of Jesus being tempted seemed blasphemous to me. Yet now I see that there is no question: he was tempted like any other human being. That is what the Gospel says. In spite of this, it is clear that Jesus never sinned. (Heb. 4:15)

Where does temptation end and sin begin? If we are plagued or tempted by evil thoughts, that in itself is not sinning. For instance, if an impure thought comes to us and we reject it, that is not sin. But if we buy a dirty magazine in order to indulge in sexual fantasies that is sin.

 It is a question of what we do when temptation comes –what attitude we take. When Jesus was tempted by Satan, he had an answer for him each time. That is what we have to pray for: an answer to every temptation. We will never be completely free of temptation – we should not even expect it; Jesus himself never reached this state. But we should ask God to protect us in temptation and to give us the right answer to the Tempter each time.

I cannot say it sharply enough: if you flaunt your form or hair, or if you dress so as to tempt another person to an impure look, you commit a sin worthy of church discipline. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that anyone who casts an impure look at another is guilty. But if you willingly and intentionally bring another into that temptation, you are just as guilty.

(2 Cor. 10:5) Paul describes the believer’s fight against evil thoughts as a victorious one in which every thought is “taken captive to obey Christ.” Paul takes for granted that men have arguments and obstacles in their minds and that these must be taken captive to obey Christ. All of us must fight this battle. We should not be surprised if we are tempted; it is part of life.

The wonderful thing about Paul’s words is his certainty that these thoughts can be taken captive to obey Christ. Of course, victory is not always easy. We must face the fact that a war between good and evil is being waged continually for all of humankind. It has been going on ever since man’s fall, especially since Christ’s death and the coming down of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. If someone is tormented by evil thoughts, he should remember that the spiritual battle is much greater than that in his own heart. It is greater even than that of the whole church.

 The Enemy is very real, and if we recognize this, we will not be lukewarm. But Christ is also very real. To find true freedom of heart, we need to experience him.

(Heb. 4:15)  We know from the Letter to the Hebrews that Jesus was tempted as we are; he did not sin, but he understands us in our temptation and need. Everyone – every brother and sister, and every young or old person–should know that we have a High Priest, a King, (Heb. 5:7) a Master who understands. Says, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him.” All of us are guilty of sins in the past, so we should all feel like coming before God in prayer “with loud cries and tears” and turning to him in the faith that he can save us and all those for whom we pray.

 If we think evil thoughts deliberately, be they thoughts of power over other people, of impurity, of hatred, or of any other such evil, we will act on them some day. But it is very different if we are tormented by ideas, images, or thoughts we really do not want and would give anything to have a pure heart instead. With our own will it is never possible to make ourselves pure. When we are cramped up inside against something evil, it can even lead to that evil having greater power over us. But we should never forget that God sees deeper than we do. Even if we sink further and further into evil thoughts that we do not actually want, God will see we do not want them, and he will help us.

Even Jesus was tempted by the devil. But he overcame all evil by fully trusting his Father. You will be tempted too, and when you are, all that matters will be whether or not you completely trust Jesus and the power of the cross. Unless you put your trust and belief in Jesus, you will be defeated.

The feeling of being forsaken by God brings the most dreadful suffering. And for the Son of God to feel this as he died must have been such a fearful experience that we cannot grasp it. Yet in spite of it Jesus cried (Lk. 23:46) out, “Father, into thy hands I give my spirit.” Here we find the crowning of faith. Jesus’ experience of godforsakenness did not take away the trust and faith he had in his and our Father; he gave his spirit into his hands.

If we want to be healed of the wounds made by Satan’s tricks and arrows –by evil feelings, thoughts, or ideas–we must have the same absolute trust in Jesus as he had in God, so that even if we feel nothing yet, we give ourselves absolutely and without reserve to him with all we are and have. Ultimately, all we have is our sin. But we must lay our sin before him in trust. Then he will give us forgiveness, cleansing, and peace of heart; and these lead to a love that cannot be described.

When depression or anything other than Jesus threatens to rule our hearts, we must go to Jesus. There we will find victory and peace. I am quite sure that at the cross we can be victorious over all things that come to us in life, whatever they may be.

Sin

Many people no longer know what a good conscience is; they are burdened daily with the sins of our time. We must take care to keep our consciences pure, and we must do this from childhood on. Once we get used to living with a bad conscience, we will lose everything: our relationship with God and our love to others.

(Heb. 5:7) Which of us takes our struggle with sin so seriously that we fight with loud cries and tears? Jesus did. No one has ever fought like Jesus –no one. The devil wanted no heart more than his. And because he fought much harder than any one of us will ever have to fight, he understands our struggles. Of that we can be sure. But we do have to fight. Jesus says that those who (Mt. 16:24) want to follow him must take up their cross as he took up his. I want to challenge everyone to fight as Jesus fought–to fight until death.

Paul the Apostle spoke of himself as the greatest sinner. These were not just pious words; he really meant them. He had persecuted the early church and was responsible for many martyrs’ deaths, and he knew he was an enemy of God.

At Pentecost the people in Jerusalem also saw themselves as sinners –they did not feel they were good. (Acts 2:37) They were “cut to the heart,” and when the Holy Spirit came to them, they did not feel worthy of it. In fact, they saw themselves as the murderers of Christ. But because of this recognition, God could use them. If we want to be used by God, we must not talk and preach to one another about love without recognizing that each one of us, too, is actually a sinner.

Sin is not only a matter of our lower nature. We all have to fight our lower nature, but some people go further and fall into satanic sin. Satanic sin is wanting praise for oneself and wanting the glory that belongs only to God. It is the desire for power over the souls and bodies of others so as to be adored, and ultimately it is the desire to be God. It is the way of the Antichrist.

If we give ourselves to satanic sin, all the sins of our lower nature will show themselves too: impurity, mammonism, hypocrisy, envy, hatred, brutality, and finally murder.

 I thank you for your long and full account of your life and for your attempt to confess your sins fully. I have deep compassion with you when I hear about your difficult childhood. When I think what a blessed childhood I myself had, I feel ashamed; God will surely ask more of me than of you. Your past makes me think of Jesus’ words, “I came (Lk. 5:31-32) not for the healthy and the just, but for the sick and the sinners.” Do not forget this; hold on to it through all hours of need and temptation.

Dear brother, we need to see and experience the whole Gospel: the exceedingly great love of Jesus to the sinner, for whom he died, but also the sharpness of his parables and his shaking words for those who do not (Mt. 8:12) repent: “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Revelation 22:12–15) contains the essence of the whole Gospel: it tells of the wages paid to everyone who has done good works and of the blessing given to everyone who has purified his garments in the blood of the Lamb. But then comes a sharpness which we (Rev. 22:15) cannot soften: “Outside are dogs, sorcerers, and fornicators; murderers and idolaters; and all who love and practice deceit.”

 If we give our hearts to evil, the devil will enter us and rule us. He does this whenever we make our own gods. For the ancient Jews it was a golden calf. Today mammon– the dollar–has become a god. Therefore God’s (Mk. 12:30) First Commandment is to love him with all our heart, mind, and being. Of course, it is impossible to fulfill this commandment without really trusting God – without being able to believe that only good comes from him and that he always means it well with us, on the condition that we do his will.

(Mk. 12:31) Jesus’ second commandment, which is as important as the first, is to love our neighbor as ourselves. The devil will always whisper to us and tell us not to trust our neighbor, and if we listen to him, division, mistrust, and sin will enter our relationships. Here in America we see this especially in racism. But we see it over the whole earth: in war and in every human heart where there is hatred against another.

There is nothing you can hide from God. You might hide your sins from others, but ultimately they will all Heb. 4:13 come to light, including your secret thoughts. Whether an evil thought is a sin or not depends on whether you entertain it or take a stand against it. Luther said that evil thoughts come like birds flying over our heads. We cannot help that. But if we allow them to build nests on our heads, then we are responsible for them.

 I plead with you to turn away for the rest of your life from all hardness and cruelty, especially cruelty toward children and sick or weak people. What did Jesus say to his disciples when they wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy the village that refused to take them in? He was shocked by their hard, unchildlike spirit and rebuked them: “You do (Lk. 9:55-56) not know to what spirit you belong. The Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” Think always of Jesus; then your heart will change.

 I do not understand why you came to the church and lied. When Ananias and Sapphira came to join the church at Jerusalem but held back their money dishonestly, Peter asked them, “How did you (Acts 5:4) contrive such an act in your hearts? You have lied not to men but to God.” He also told them they could have stayed away from the church and kept what they had for themselves.

Why do you come to join us if at the same time you burden your conscience by lying to God and to us? You will have to give an account for this. Man’s destiny (Heb. 9:27 Heb. 10:26-27) is to die; after that he must be judged by God. If you do not want to face judgment now, you will have to face it later. We will not force you. Hebrews 10:26 –27 says, “If we remain willingly in our sin after we have recognized the truth, there will be no sacrifice for us anymore, but only the expectation of terrible judgment and the wrath of fire.”

 Hebrews 12:15 says that no one should forfeit the hour of God’s grace. You are free to continue playing with God, but then we can have nothing to do with you, and you will have to answer to God alone. There is still a chance for you to turn around!

 

(Rom. 8:1-2) There is no condemnation for those who are united with Jesus Christ, because in him the life-giving law of the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin and death.” This is such a joyful thought – all sin is overcome. But if we look at our own experience we see that it is not overcome everywhere, and the reason is simply that we are not living in Christ Jesus but in our old nature. It is an illusion to think that we do not have this lower nature. We have come into the world with (Rom. 8:5) it, and we ourselves cannot change it, even with the best intentions. But Christ can change it if we trust him and give ourselves unconditionally to him.

“Those who live on the level of their lower nature have their outlook formed by it.” We experience this again and again: people whose outlook is based on their lower nature come forth with hatred, jealousy, and envy – as if Christ had not come, as if he had not died on the cross, as if his sacrifice was in vain. This is extremely painful. Paul says, “The outlook of the lower Rom. 8:7-8 nature is enmity with God. It is not subject to the law of God; indeed it cannot be: those who live on such a level cannot possibly please God.” It cannot be put more strongly: those who cannot overcome their desires may mean no evil, but in actual fact their lives are hostile to God. They are not subject to his law. This goes for anyone who lives in impurity, hatred, jealousy, deceit, or other sinfulness. It is impossible for him to please God.

 

Paul speaks in Romans 8 about the lower or fleshly nature, and we must be clear that this includes our desires for food, comfort, and sex. All must be subject to the Spirit. We need food and housing, and we affirm sex within marriage, but if these things rule us instead of Christ, we are sinning. God knows that we need food on the table every day, but that must not rule us; we must not become dependent on good food or spoil our children and ourselves. Food is just a simple example, of course. If we are ruled by anything but Christ, even spiritual things – religious thinking and reading – we are living by the flesh. Even if we were to adhere to the most self-mortifying philosophy, like that of the Buddha, it would still be fleshly, because we would be blowing up our pride by putting ourselves in the center instead of Christ.

Everything depends on whether we are completely given over to Christ. Romans 8:9 says that he who does not have the spirit of Christ is not even a Christian. Yet we cannot acquire it ourselves; we can only receive it by giving ourselves to him. The Gospel says that “everyone who asks receives . . . to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” In other words, he who asks will receive living water without needing to pay anything. We have great compassion with people who struggle in vain, year in and year out, to overcome their weaknesses, but at the same time we must admit that (Rom. 8:1-2) actually they are guilty. (Mt. 7:7-8)

There is no excuse for them, because they do not give themselves in faith to Christ. As Paul writes, “There is no condemnation for those who are united with Christ Jesus, because in him the life-giving law of the Spirit has set us free from the law of sin and death.” This possibility is open to everyone. We cannot hide from God and say, “We are too weak,” or “We want to change, but cannot.” Ultimately these excuses have no foundation. Paul continues:

(Rom 8:12-13) It follows, my friends, that our lower nature has no claim upon us; we are not obliged to live on that level. If you do so, you must die. But if by the Spirit you put to death all the base pursuits of the body, you will live.

These are very strong words. Who can really say that the lower nature has no claim on him? Such freedom from sin depends on absolute dedication to Christ. We must put to death every form of sin. Then it will be impossible for jealousy, hatred, impurity, lying, or any other sin to be victorious in us.

There are people who do not break with sin because they think they cannot. But that is an untruth. Jesus Christ is always there, and so is the Holy Spirit, and if any soul really cries out to God, the Spirit will speak to God for him. So there is no excuse whatsoever not to stop sinning. There is no one who has as much compassion and love for sinners as Jesus, but he does not excuse sin. Let us plead that everyone may find freedom from sin in Christ Jesus.

Self-pity and pride, which are closely related, have nothing to do with the cross. Both of them are concerned only with me, me, me. We must turn away from them, otherwise we cannot experience complete victory over our sinfulness. It is said that in the time of the early church, the demons cried out, “Who is he that robs us of our power?” The believers answered with the exultant shout of victory, “Christ, the crucified!”* That should be our proclamation.

 

Love one another” is one of the most important commandments of Jesus, and we cannot take it seriously enough. There are other commandments that we must obey too: we should not love money; we should not commit adultery; we should not defile the flesh; and there are many other sins we must avoid. Yet Christ’s greatest command is love. And therefore I think lovelessness is the greatest sin.

God will judge all forms of lovelessness, but especially contempt – the act of making someone believe he is a (Mt. 5:22) fool. Christ says, “Anyone who nurses anger against his brother must be brought to judgment... and if he sneers at him, he will have to answer for it in the fires of hell.” Who has never been angry with his brother, or never sneered at him? Who has never spoken degradingly of another? Christ challenges us to live in perfect love.

 I feel guilty of being too harsh and even angry at times with my brothers and sisters. We must learn from Jesus how to be kind and gentle. On the other hand, we must never be wishy-washy; our compassion must always be mixed with the salt of Christ.

The idea that we are “in the world” but not “of the world” cannot be understood by the intellect alone. Certainly, we will remain in the world as long as we live. But we are not to be “of it.” Some people say dancing is “of the world” or “of the flesh.” Others say it is worldly to wear short dresses. Still others say that alcohol is worldly, or that certain music or certain cars are. There are many so-called worldly things. If we are living in the Holy Spirit, we will feel in our hearts those things of the world which we must give up. May we not desire what is of the flesh; but may we be saved from making rules and regulations to prevent worldliness! May God show us what is of the Holy Spirit and what is of the spirit of the world. (Jn. 17:15-16)

If we had only the Law, we could still hate someone even if we didn’t kill him; we could still think evil thoughts of someone without shedding blood. But that is not enough. As Paul rightly says, the Law can never change our hearts. It is Jesus who must live in us. Through him we can love our enemy, and through him we can fill our hearts with thoughts of God.

 You need to become absolutely determined to follow Jesus. It is not true that you are too weak to overcome sin – that is a lie of the devil. In Jesus it is possible to overcome sin. That is why he died on the cross. Live totally for him. (Rom. 7:22-25)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, blessed are those who are merciful, blessed are those Confession who are pure in heart.” To be pure in heart is perhaps the hardest. It is easier to hunger and thirst for righteousness or to be compassionate or merciful. We ourselves cannot make our hearts pure. Only children have pure hearts, and therefore Jesus says that we must become like children. Yet we know that even if we strive to become like children, things that are not of God – impurity, envy, and vanity – enter our hearts continually, and so we need to be purified again and again by Christ. (Mt. 5:6-8)

Confession

I have deep understanding for anyone who feels oppressed and burdened by sins of the past and has a longing to confess them. But confession itself is no help. People pay a lot of money to tell psychiatrists all their sufferings and sins, and these psychiatrists help them to find ways of quietening their consciences. But psychiatry alone does not bring true freedom.

 You say you have confessed your sins but not found freedom. You will find it only when you confess your sins in faith: faith in God and in the cross of Jesus Christ, who died for the world’s sins. All other confession consists of simply unloading your burdens onto another person, and later the burden will just come back. Peace is found only by those for whom confession of sins is bound together with a living faith. I wish you this faith.

With regard to confession: every conscious sin should be confessed, but this does not mean digging in the subconscious for every little thing. Where God tells us through our conscience that something is wrong, we should confess it and clear it up so that it can be forgiven. But confession should not make us self-centered; we want to find Jesus, not ourselves.

You ask which evil thoughts one ought to confess. Every human being has thoughts come to (Mt. 16:23) him to which he must say, “Get behind me, Satan!” If you meet evil thoughts with this attitude you do not need to confess them, though you should forget them as soon as possible. Even if you have to fight against an evil thought for some moments before you reject it, you do not necessarily have to confess it. But if you give in to an evil thought and let it become part of you, you should confess it. I would advise you not to occupy yourself too long with your thoughts.

 I uphold the sanctity of private confession in the fear of God, and I do not think it right if people who unburden their sins are then labelled because of them. However, in keeping the secrecy of confession, there is a point at which I would be sinning if I kept what I heard to myself. When a member Spiritual Pride Mt. 6:3 of the church has committed a serious sin such as fornication or adultery –or even murder (which has never yet happened to us) –I would feel I was betraying God if I kept quiet about it. 

Spiritual Pride

The Bible says we must fight against the flesh, and people usually understand this to mean our sexuality, or perhaps excessive food and drink. But that is not the only meaning of the word “flesh.” Certainly, sexual impurity and a luxurious lifestyle are “of the flesh,” but so is the ego, and so is spiritual pride and everything else in us that is not of Christ.

 We must ask God that the flesh in us –particularly our pride –may die. If we are proud, God cannot come to us. Pride is the worst form of the flesh, because it leaves no room in the heart for God.

Jesus warns us very sharply against false piety –against wanting to be seen by others as “spiritual” or “good.” All who want such recognition will find no reward in heaven. In being honored by others they have their reward already now. The same applies to people who do deeds of love and make a show of it. Christ says that the left hand should not know what the right hand does.

 We all have within us the desire to be liked, respected, or honored for our goodness. But Jesus warns us against this temptation and says that our piety should not be paraded before men. God sees what is hidden, and he will reward it. As soon as we feel that we are something special or that we have something special to represent to others, we are in danger of losing everything we have received from God. No matter what we have experienced of God, we ourselves are still spiritually poor. There is a religious truth in Jesus’ words, “Woe to the rich; woe to those who have much.”

 As soon as we hold to our (Lk. 6:24-25) own recognitions of truth instead of to the living God, our religious experience will become like a cold stone in our hands. Even the deepest or richest spiritual experience will die if it becomes a thing in itself.

Dear brother, you have been proud of your work; you have thought little of your brothers and sisters, and you have lived in false humility, which is the deadliest form of spiritual pride. There is no question that you are gifted, that you are strong, that you are smart, and that you can get a lot done, but that is not the issue. We do not live together on account of these gifts. They are all mortal and will pass (Mt. 5-7) (Mt. 11:18-19) away. What lasts forever is humility and love – love, the incorruptible “treasure in heaven” of which Jesus speaks in the Sermon on the Mount.

 When John the Baptist did not eat, the people despised him, and when Jesus ate and drank, they despised him too. Looking at one’s brothers and sisters as if through a microscope to find something to criticize can bring complete destruction to a community. Let us not expect of others what we do not expect of ourselves.

 Dear sister, turn away from your opinionatedness and your need to be in the right. How different things would be if you had a humble, listening ear. When we speak, let us be open to the heart of the other. Let us share with one another and listen to one another. Ultimately we have to see that we are all stumbling blocks. Only God is good.

 Your way of judging people to be either great or insignificant, weak or strong, is completely unchristian. Do you think the apostles were strong? They were poor in spirit. Peter was without doubt a coward when he denied Jesus three times, and his story has been told through all the centuries. He was not ashamed that his betrayal was recorded in each of the Gospels, even though he repented for it his whole life long. You want to be great; you want to be strong, but by it you do an injustice to your brothers and sisters.

 When Jesus comes close to people, he looks at what is in their hearts. He has compassion with the sinner. But he never calls sin good; he judges it. You must cleanse your heart of all critical thoughts, all jealousy, and all hatred, and you must stop classifying people. I think of you with great love.

 Do not fear that you can never be freed from pride and envy. You can be freed. But first you must see how much greater Jesus is than all your sins, and then he can take them away. Ask yourself, “What is there still in me that hinders Jesus from overwhelming me fully?” For Jesus to fill your heart, it must first be empty. Read the Beatitudes: they begin with (Mt. 5:3-12) “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” That means becoming completely empty and powerless before Jesus.

The more deeply you recognize that your pride cuts you off from God, the deeper the peace you will find. The pride you have in your wealth of knowledge is your greatest enemy. If only you would recognize how poor and miserable you actually are, dear brother, and how wretched you are in your sin! I wish you true repentance.

I cannot say it strongly enough: your spiritual pride –your listening to God’s Word in order to be exalted, instead of to be judged and given new life – is completely opposed to the way of Jesus. Give up your religious vanity. It leads to death.

I believe that your bondage to sin has its roots in a terrible self-righteousness and pride. When you see little wrongs in others you feel spiritually great. It should be the other way around. As Christians we should be lowly and remember that whoever is forgiven much loves much. Pride is a poisonous root that draws love to itself and away from Jesus and our brothers. If we are humble, the root will die, because it will find no food and water in our hearts.  (Lk. 7:47)

 In Paul’s time some believers proclaimed Christ out Phil. 1:15 of jealousy and a quarrelsome spirit, not out of goodwill. This was terrible, and it came about because they wanted human honor. Let us become humble and recognize that all human honor takes honor away from God, to whom alone it belongs. Let us honor no one but God, and let us never accept honor for ourselves. What matters is that God works in us, inspiring both our will and deed. For him to do this we must give ourselves to him and give up all self-glory and honor.

Self

Those whose thoughts turn only around themselves forget that Christianity has an objective content. Christianity is a cause for which a person must completely forget himself and his little ego. When we put ourselves in the center we make God out to be very small. It is important to recognize that he exists even without us. His cause is so very much greater than our existence. It is wonderful if we are used for God’s cause, but it would exist even if we were not there.

The best way to experience nothing is to keep looking into yourself. But the more you are able to look outward and forget yourself, the more you can be changed by God. There are some people (and I have great pity on them) who are inclined to watch themselves constantly, as if in a mirror, and because of this they are often unnecessarily tense and cannot hear what God is saying to them.

We cannot redeem ourselves or better ourselves in our own strength. All we can do is to give ourselves completely to God. When we give ourselves to him without reserve, he helps us. That is our faith, our belief, and our experience. Self-redemption is out of the question, and here we must recognize the limitations of psychology and psychiatry. We do not reject them completely, but they are limited. God is far greater.

If you look at yourself honestly you will see pride, impurity, selfishness, and all kinds of evil. Don’t look at yourself. Look to Christ. There you will find a perfect character.

Turn away from yourself, the fear of your sin, and your fear of having possibly sinned. Open yourself to God and his church. He is not so unmerciful that you need to live in constant fear. You are inclined to analyze and judge yourself in a way that does not free you. There is a sense in which judging yourself can make you free: Paul says that he who judges himself will not be judged. But there is a certain self-judgment which brings terrible depression and leads away from God. The difference lies in whether or not you have a childlike faith in Jesus Christ, who wants to free us from all sin. Judge yourself in this faith and there will be a blessing on it. The way you are judging yourself now could make you mentally ill and even lead to complete disaster. (1Cor. 11:31)

 It may be that you have a strong inclination to this or that sin, but this tendency is there to some extent in every person – and every person has to die to it. Every­ thing depends on believing that Christ died for your sins. Read Hebrews 5:7–9 with a childlike heart:

(Heb. 5:7-9) In the days of Christ’s earthly life he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to God, who was able to deliver him from the grave. Because of his humble submission, his prayer was heard: Son though he was, he learned obedience in the school of suffering, and, once perfected, became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

If you really believe this, you can find healing.

If we think of how much Jesus does for us each day, it should keep us faithfully seeking him again and again. You feel you have nothing to give Jesus in return. But even if you have to recognize your selfishness and your lack of love, I do not think your depression is right. The early Christians said that there is a sorrow that leads to God and a sorrow that leads to the devil. If you think deeply about these words, you will turn from all depression that hinders love.

Please give up your wanting to be loved. It is the opposite of Christianity. The prayer of St. Francis says, “Grant that I may not so much seek to be loved as to love.” As long as you seek to be loved, you will never find peace. You will always find reasons for envy, but its real root is self-love. It is your wanting to be loved that is your downfall. You can change; there is no reason for despair. But you must learn to love your neighbor as yourself.

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