Can Life Essentials Help Me?

You – like the writers of this course – have probably felt, said or done things that left you shaking your head, wondering, where did that come from?  You might find yourself asking, “How can I avoid mistakes that flow from motivations I’m not even aware of?”

The problem of reacting to unconscious factors is one of biblical proportions!

It’s central to the reality of being human, being a person created and loved by God the Father, and yet stuck in a fallen, messed up world subject to sin.

The problem is sin.  Sin is turning from God and seeking our own way. Sin often involves trying to avoid pain and get happiness by acting as if we are God and can control things.  It also involves acting on irrational conclusions from childhood that we are not even conscious of.

This course is about that the human condition, the tendency we all share to ‘do it our way’. It is also about the process of engaging with the life-long process of the healing of our condition. The Bible’s grace message points us to this path of salvation, but the enemy’s shame message drives us to self-directed survival and hopelessness. Grace is too often reduced to just another earthly system; a system that dooms us to a life of trying hard, falling short, and self-condemnation.

The Bible speaks of living by the Flesh, vs. living by the Spirit. But what does that mean?

Life Essentials proposes the following definition:

 Living by the Flesh is about surviving. It is using our own personally devised mechanisms and tools to get happiness and avoid pain. That results in a life that settles for a less than inspiring existence. It’s based on performance, or what the church calls “works”. The benefits of God’s Grace are seen to be earned, not granted as a free gift. There are limits to this existence, as we will usually reach the point where we may say ‘this is as good as it gets.’

Living by the Spirit is about really living. It seeks a life guided by God that results in a life that is really, observably being transformed. The Bible calls this “the Abundant Life”. It is encountered as we let loose of the idea of being able to earn our way to God’s approval. We do not seek perfection. Instead, we seek to experience an ongoing process of transformation that brings life, builds faith and engenders hope.  But how do we do this?

We propose that we begin by examining ourselves-- our motivations, beliefs, thinking—and thereby become aware of our conscious and unconscious biases, the filters through which we decide how to navigate our relationships with others—family, friends, bosses, co-workers, patients, etc. It has been said that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’.  We agree.

Upon recognition of our true motivations, beliefs and thinking, we then can search out the underlying reasons for them. Like the apostle Paul, we are bewildered at our inconsistent behaviors. And the Enemy would love for us to believe there is no way to know why we ‘do what we don’t want to do, and do not do what we want to do’. (Romans 7) But there are reasons, and they are knowable. These reasons are typically a set of lies we believe, which result in a view of ourselves that seems unhealable. It creates a fundamental lie within us that we do not even realize – that the Gospel is not for us. And so we believe in our innermost being that we cannot be healed. 

We have found that these lies stem from wounds we receive early in life which, due to our under-developed emotional faculties, we can only receive as true. These unattended wounds cause an arrest in our emotional development. This freezing of our emotional growth results in behavioral patterns, or ‘baggage’, that are brought into adulthood. This baggage results in unsuccessful and/or broken relationships, with God and people. And we do not know why.

The apostle Paul explained that ‘when he was a child, he spoke like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child. When he became a man, he put childish ways behind him.” Paul implies that childish ways can either continue to be lived out in adulthood, or we can put them behind us. But it takes courage, commitment and effort, engaging with the Grace and Truth of God and connection with others to do that.

As part of a path of Intensive Discipleship, Life Essentials seeks to help us uncover the truth about what runs us, what brought about those ways of surviving, and to teach us ways to unearth the survival system of the flesh that leads to a shame-based existence, which is a life without clear hope of redemption. As this is done, our journey can actually free us to live a life that is enlivened by Grace and led by the Spirit.

In safe, confidential conversations and community, Life Essentials offers the chance for discovering real freedom, peace and joy.

This results in, not a perfect life, but a life that is consistently and progressively more sane, stable and spiritual.

We invite you to consider taking this heroic step toward real freedom in Christ. We would be delighted to be on that journey with you. May God bless your path.

Life Essentials Development, Inc. is a For-Profit business entity which supports the delivery of the Life Essentials classes.

Life Essentials Education, Inc. is a separate, 501c3-classified business entity which supports ongoing development of the mission of Life Essentials, as well as providing scholarship funding to students whose financial condition might prevent them from enrolling in the Life Essentials Course.