Grace For the Abused

“If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Mat 6:23b).

Have you ever been spiritually abused? Are you suffering from the effects of that abuse? Are you wondering how to move forward? Unfortunately, there are many who can identify with your suffering, including myself.

It is a great burden to bear when someone’s perceived help becomes an abuse. Perceiving themselves to be helping, false care givers, wittily or unwittily, injure others. Devoid of an understanding and experience of the grace of the cross they harm in the name of “caring.” Their light is experienced by others as darkness––and how great is that darkness!

Having very little perceived need of grace for their own souls they have no grace within themselves to offer others. The abusers, who are empty of God’s infinite love and grace, painfully afflict their victims, teaching those they harm that their “helpers” cannot be trusted.

The words and actions of those who wound others do not agree. The inflictors of pain become a sounding brass and a clanging symbol of lovelessness (1 Cor 13:1). Mercy and lovingkindness have vanished out of their hearts. Harsh judgementalism becomes their mode of operation.

Victims rightfully want and seek separation from the abusers by any means available. Distancing oneself becomes a necessity. Justice demands that there be those who hear their cries and intervene in wisdom and love.

The great darkness they call light is an afflicting self-deception that scars the lives of others. Justice demands that such abuse be resisted and exposed for what it is––a false light––sinful, devilish, darkness.

These spiritual bullies perpetrate a progression of darkness composed of a perception of power that leads to a desire to control that brings forth an inevitable abuse. They often act freely with very little supervision or evaluation. The lack of accountability emboldens them and multiplies the abuse. Checks and balances must be put in place and those responsible for abuse must be held accountable, bringing their malicious behavior to a complete end.  

Those that have been abused by those whose hearts are filled with self-righteous darkness must be offered the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ which can heal every wound. When applied, God’s love and mercy are a powerful force that can produce God-honoring forgiveness and restoration.

If those who have afflicted spiritual damage on others realize the darkness of their behavior and turn to God in humble repentance, seeking forgiveness, an ocean of grace will cleanse and restore, bringing God-honoring reconciliation. Unending grace always presents us with the possibility of a new beginning.

Grace calls us to leave every form of controlling abuse and to open our hearts to the love of the Savior who bled and died to heal our souls. Calvary’s grace comes to deliver us from our religious self-deception, enabling us to see the reality of the fallenness that still is hidden deep within our own souls.

As we see our own desperate need for grace, we live in humility and learn the patience of offering grace to others for their weaknesses. The grace of the Savior tells us that we are no longer condemned and therefore we no longer seek to condemn others. God’s grace calls us to repent and abandon every thought and desire for power and control and surrender to the freedom of new life of Christlikeness found at the cross.

Golgotha’s grace awakens us to the reality that we are all still broken, compelling us to live with a vigilance over our own souls, purposing through the mercy of God to live a crucified life––dead to the sinful desire for power and its abusive fruit. Unending grace empowers us to put an end to sinful patterns of repeated abuse and learn to truly love as we have been loved by a humble, forgiving Savior.

Through grace the cycle of the darkness of abuse is broken as the heart is changed, learning to walk in the liberty as beloved children of God. A new humility clothes us. Light replaces the darkness and we learn to act in love. The desire of our renewed hearts is to be the greatest by being the servant of all (Mat 23:11).