By His Wounds - A Free Course

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Day 3 - Part 1

Dear Friend,

Welcome back to Day 3 of the By His Wounds course. We do hope and pray that God is beginning to work in your heart to change your desires and thinking and living.

Let us discuss why we give into sinful self-medicating practices (cutting, self harming thoughts, suicidal ideology etc). When we discover the answer to this question, we learn how to break the sinful habit. The Bible has the answer for us, as we will see throughout the remainder of the course, but let us state the answers briefly here:

One of the reasons we harm ourselves or contemplate harm is because the human heart craves fullness and satisfaction. Perhaps you have believed the lie that says that by self-harming, the pain will ease inside and I’ll feel satisfied. As you’ve no doubt discovered, however, the satisfaction from this is superficial and temporary, and can even spiral us into further sin.

There are, of course, many other reasons why we wish to self-harm, such as the desire for comfort, to "medicate" pain, to help with loneliness, or to feel "in control". But, for this lesson, we will focus on the heart's desire for fullness and satisfaction as this is common to everyone.

Ruth writes, "perhaps you are like me and have craved the feeling of being loved, accepted, and satisfied with who you are. Through the self-damaging thoughts however, nothing fulfilled me and giving into the thoughts never satisfied me."

Please read the following passage slowly and answer the questions below:

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