Cloud of Witnesses Radio
Audio drama retellings of the stories of the Christian Saints, Panel Discussions, Cast Commentary, Reaction Videos, Screwtape Returns, and more!
Cloud of Witnesses Radio
The Sin Episode: Christian Guilt vs Shame Temptation vs Consent | Every Christian Has This Problem!
Sin is often reduced to a list of bad behaviors, but this conversation reframed it as a rupture in relationship and a distortion of identity. Join Jeremy Jeremiah, Mario Andrew, and Cloud of Witnesses special guests Father Deacon Anthony, an ordained deacon in the Antiochian Orthodox Church, and associate marriage and family therapist, Jacob Sadan (https://jacobsadan.com/) in this frank and inspiring discussion of sin.
Drawing from early Christian teaching and cognitive behavioral therapy, our guests showed that actions flow from thoughts and feelings, and those are shaped by how we name what is happening inside us. If we see ourselves as inherently evil, despair follows; if we deny fault, pride grows. The older Christian vision holds a paradox: we are made very good in God’s image, yet wounded by passions and habits that pull us from life. That paradox calls for clarity, not condemnation. Naming the wound without becoming the wound is the beginning of healing.
A vivid metaphor carried the dialogue: the black spot on the skin. We can ignore it, try to cut it out ourselves, identify with it in shame, or bring it to the physician. Only the last path actually heals. The physician, Christ, works through the church’s rhythms—fasting, prayer, confession, feasting—because rhythm regulates what is dysregulated. Like a garden, the soul shows its beauty when tended with boundaries and care. The point isn’t legalism but formation: seasons that humble pride, awaken joy, and train our loves. In this frame, guilt is not a curse; it is the pain signal that says, return to the Doctor. Shame, on the other hand, fuses sin to identity and locks the soul in a closed room.
Psychologically, the cycle is simple and stubborn: beliefs spark feelings, feelings drive behaviors, behaviors reinforce beliefs. If I believe I must fix myself alone, I will overreach, fail, and destroy self-trust. Addiction lives in that gap between imagined control and actual powerlessness. The first step to freedom is admitting limits and sorting what I can change from what I must surrender. Confession becomes a structured pause to observe the inner world: what happened, why it happened, and what to do next. Spoken aloud to a trusted guide, the most terrifying truths lose their sting and regain their meaning as invitations to growth.
Finally, community matters. A church that engages body and senses, offers communion and confession, and pairs diagnosis with prescription becomes an arena where grace meets effort. Outside that arena, there are no crowns because there is no contest. Inside it, accountability interrupts self-deception, and mercy makes change plausible. The way forward is not self-loathing or self-excuse but love, truth, and rhythm: see the spot, feel the healthy sting of guilt, ask for help, and return to the practices that tame the garden. We are beloved and broken, not worthless or sovereign; healing happens where we stop pretending to be judge and return to being patients of the true Physician.
Questions about Orthodoxy? Please check out our friends at Ghost of Byzantium Discord server: https://discord.gg/JDJDQw6tdh
Please prayerfully consider supporting Cloud of Witnesses: https://www.patreon.com/c/CloudofWitnesses
Find Cloud of Witnesses on Instagram, X.com, Facebook, and TikTok.
Please leave a comment with your thoughts!
And the judgment only gives you a system and a structure in which this is how you should live. This is the live. They provide you with a framework of how you should think about yourself. Yes. You cannot have one family.
SPEAKER_02:You're making yourself common. Because God is the judge, and he's the one who is young.
SPEAKER_03:What we say in a thing is when you're feeling dregulated. Rhythm helps you regulate. And so then the rhythm of the church and the practice is give you the structure to re regulate the dysregulated system. This is the action. There's nothing to look at. You can't see the beauty. The one lesson has been tended to.
SPEAKER_02:We always want to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and think that we are the divine. And in everything we do, there is a good excuse for it. But our brother and sister, they never have a good excuse if one like us.
SPEAKER_04:Welcome to Cloud of Witnesses. Jeremy Jeremiah here. We've got a very important episode today. We're talking about sin. If you're watching this right now, you're probably a Christian and you're probably struggling with sin. We all do. And so this episode is for you. We have two important and special guests for this topic. You're not just gonna hear me blathering on in today's episode. We have an associate marriage and family therapist, Jacob Sidon, joining us, as well as on his second time on the podcast, Father Deacon Anthony of the Antiochian Orthodox Church. We are really, really blessed to have these two guests to share their expertise from, of course, the psychological, behavioral side of things, as well as from the spiritual, from the Christian side of things. So please sit back. We look forward to seeing you at the end.
SPEAKER_03:Enjoy. Father Deacon, can you speak to? I think many people think of sin and they assume that it's just a behavior. A sin is just something I do. But but there's a lot more texture and layers to it as a human being when we sin. Can you speak to that more so than just I did something bad, but but how it affects our humanity?
SPEAKER_02:It's the intention behavior that we are trying to uh to have. It's not just breaking a command or a law, it's intentionally that like how the the only always I when anyone talks about sin, I always remember Adam and Eve in Genesis, and that how the serpent has a conversation with them and saying, eat from the apple. And you see multiple dialogues. You see, Eve, for example, is talking about the tree fruit looks delicious, and so you see the glutton here and in there, and then you see Adam say, We will be like God, like when the servant mentioned that he's entertaining an idea and a concept that he can know stuff, and he can be his own decision maker away from God, and that's the whole point. And if you notice, there is two trees: the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. It's not the opposite trees where the tree of death and the tree of life or the tree of ignorance and the tree of knowledge, it's life and death because from God, once we separate, or once we choose to separate from him, is death because God is the life, and choosing him, we will be alive spiritually. And once we go away from him, then we are lost, we are we're done. We are far away from him, we're dead spiritually. So uh it's the continuous behaviors or choices, if you wanna go there, that we want to know what is the best for us, and continuously doing it over and over and over again. So it can be, and that's that's what mixes it up. So when you and and that's what what happened, we think that sin or breaking the rule is part of us, which we will talk about uh later, but it is not because in the beginning God created us and he said it is good, and then when he created Adam and Eve together, Adam and Eve together, he said, and it was very good. So the core of our humanity is very good, and that's the part where Christ's image is implanted in us, deeply in us.
SPEAKER_03:Can you speak to that just a little bit more? Because I think that might be a new idea for some people. There seems to be multiple camps on this, some who believe that human beings are are good at their core, and others who believe that human beings are bad at their core. Can you help tease that out for us?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, if we are bad in the core, then there is no hope. And why we will do anything? Why we will need to do that. Why didn't Anthony? Why we do because we will be deprived of everything. And that's some teachings that came in in recent centuries, say that we are deprived of everything and we can never know who is God or never can reach out to God. Because we are bad, because we are bad in our nature, inherently bad, and we are very dare to say, evil in our nature. But how we see it, how how from the early church that the Christians until now, most of the Christians see that we are inherently good because God is the one who created his image. And then there is that word that keeps coming up in the Bible, especially in uh in Saint Paul, and it's mistranslated by the mind, which is the word news, which is the intellectual mind. And it is the God or the eye of the soul that will connect us back to our creator. Back if you wanna if you wanna make it um I'm in computer engineering, it's like we have the operating system, and that operating system had a virus in it. That's how we see it. It's sickness. And now we are trying, and God came back and he removed those viruses, he's cleaning up everything, and now we have the choice to go back to the old habit and bring those viruses and infections back to us, or we can be holy, which is always with God, and we keep choosing him over and over and over.
SPEAKER_04:Deacon Anthony, I want to pose something, maybe for both of you. Some people will say, Well, Deacon Anthony, the proof that we're not inherently good, the proof that we weren't created good, is any preschool that all of us have seen, a kid who's got no you know, sin, but without being ever being taught so they're playing toys, and all of a sudden they go, Mine, mine, it's theirs, selfishness. And the parents are like, We didn't teach them to be selfish. Where'd that come from? Why you see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02:In other words, yes, yes, or or someone hits someone, or someone is angry, or all this. We are created with tools, and God gave us those tools, so anger, the emotions, all the emotions like anger, hate, and us being separated from God, us being away from God, us not be connected with God, we use those emotions in the most toxic way. So, for example, anger is a very righteous emotion, but instead of being angry at others, we should be angry at our sin and our status of being away from God. Once you put that anger toward the right emotion, then you you get it. For example, uh, hate also. If I hate my sin, I hate the stuff I do, that will be a righteous hate. And that's exactly so. Hate by itself is not the command, or it's not the legal term, it is how we are using any tool. A knife can be used to cook a good meal for people, or it can kill someone and hurt someone. So all of those are uh commands, like uh commands from God is to help us to navigate our emotion and so we can bring him back and see. It's like uh it's like a boundaries, and and that's why he's giving us commandments. The commandments is the alert that there is something wrong in you, it is the symptom. It's it's I can say this example, for example. So uh, if you have a good physician, you have a doctor, and you trust this doctor a lot, and you go to him, you say, Doctor, I want you to to be my physician, uh, I want to live a healthy life. And you go to him, you go to his office, and you say, He's a okay, listen, I want you to do the following. I want you to exercise, I want you to eat healthy, I want you to stay away from junk food, uh, I want you to sleep well, and I and listen, if anything comes up in your body, like something weird you you're not you're not familiar with, just let me know. Give me a call, come back to me, and I will check it. And you go by and you start living your life, and then a black spot comes on your on your on your uh skin. And so you there is multiple scenarios as a human being, we deal with that. You look at the black spot and you say, hmm, no, you know, I'm doing everything right. Uh, the healthy guy, the healthy, like I am healthy and I'm already done. Um that's it, I'm healthy. Uh, this black uh spot is not there. Uh so you just patch it, you cover it with tape, and you ignore it. And what will happen that black spot will get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and explode and might kill you. You you don't know what was that.
SPEAKER_03:So, in that scenario, you're choosing ignorance.
SPEAKER_02:Ignorance, exactly. You pretend it's not there, like, oh no, no, I can't be doing that. And you ignore it and you don't even want to see it. And when someone tells you about it, you fight him and you tell him you're wrong why you are attacking me. The other scenario, you see the black spot, and you say, Oh, this black spot is here. Let me deal with it. You remember that the physician told you come back, but you know, he does not know well. I know much better. And then so you start removing it by your knife or by burning it, whatever you do with it, and that it goes for a while and then it comes back, it comes bigger and uglier, and it gets worse and worse and worse until it kills you, and that's pride because you think you know it, even though you did not have the tools and you did not know what's going on. You think you know, but you don't know. The third, you look at it and you say, I'm bad. I this is this is me. I'm the worst guy, and uh this black spot is part of me, and I will uh I I I just need to live with it.
SPEAKER_04:It's there's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm hopeless. Then it's become bad, and it like it's wars, and then when it's become worse, you are actually it's like uh proving you right, like that becomes right.
SPEAKER_03:It's a cycle you identify with it, and because you identify it with it, it continues to exist.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it exactly, and it goes bigger and bigger, and and the more it gets bigger, the more you see. See, I told you, he's talking to myself, I told you that's who I am, and then until it kills you, and we call that shame. The fourth one, which is the healthy one, which what we need to do, is to see it, to feel bad, to acknowledge it, feel guilty, my I dare say, that why did this came to me and not in a negative way, why I am the only one who I got the black spot. No, in a way that oh, the black spot is there. I need to do something, right? So you go, you remember the physician told me that you will have tribulation, you will have things bad coming towards you, not because you're bad, but because you still live in this world, right? Because you're good, but that does not mean everything around you is good, and you're recognizing the black smile. You recognize it, you know it's not natural, you say this is not natural, this is not me. Notice between and that's feeling guilty, and you take that pain with that, and you go to the physician and you tell him, and then the physician will do whatever he will do the tests and he will remove it. Maybe it will come back again, but he will know how to keep removing it until it's completely gone, and that will be your first barrel, and after maybe some years it will come back, but you have the physician with you. The obedience is more important than all of it, because remember the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. Tree of life represents obedience, and I want to be with God. Tree of knowledge, I want to be obedient to myself, which is a pride, and that's the both the difference. And here, when I say the physician, of course, Jesus Christ is the physician, there is no other physician, however, because I mean, unless you see Jesus Christ every day coming to you, you go to the church. But if you see Jesus Christ every day, I I don't think you will be sinning because I mean you're there.
SPEAKER_04:So before we go on, actually, can I pose a question to you, Jacobs?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was gonna add something to it, but yeah. Okay, please do, and then I've got some questions for you. Yeah, so what you're talking about really is the importance of how we are thinking about sin, is what I'm understanding. Yes, and uh in a cognitive behavioral framework of psychotherapy, we understand that the way I think about something is going to affect the be the way I feel about something, and that's going to affect the behaviors I engage in. So very um simple cog model thoughts, feelings, behaviors. So what you're saying is the way we think about sin and the way we think about our identity, and to use the black mark as a wonderful metaphor, the way I think about this, this stain metaphorically, this issue in my life, how I'm thinking about that is going to start uh cascade a cycle, behaviors, feelings, this this entire internal experience, which will either increase my suffering or open a path towards healing. Hundred percent is that correct?
SPEAKER_02:And and adding on that, we'll go back to your question, but this is so important. Nobody wants to suffer. Right. And but when we have the the the wrong philanima or wrong mindset, we do that unintentionally to ourselves, and that is the suffering of a humanity. I mean, because once we see ourselves that we are bad, and we see the black spot coming out, we say, Oh, that's proof that I am bad. Why I will do anything.
SPEAKER_03:And this is why it's important, and we should really dive into this. What is the difference between guilt and shame? Yes. What is the difference between doing something wrong, sinning, and then feeling guilty about that, versus sinning and then feeling shame? Because in a therapeutic lens, we know that those are completely different emotions and experiences, though they might sound and appear the same to the naked eye.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, people always say guilt and shame, like they put them as pairs together, but it is one of them is positive, one of them is negative, and shame. You look towards yourself that this is who you are, your identity. Your identity. But guilt, you recognize that that sin is an alien or that symptom is an alien outside of you, not part of you, and that's that's big, a huge difference between both of them. Yeah, and we see in a lot of the addiction, uh, and uh I mean the behavior that you see, that's when you start losing hope. Because you will say to Christ, like, I am, I am, I am like there is no hope in me. And you will go, you will leave the church. A lot of people do that and become atheist because they can't handle the shame internally, and they can process us, and it's just the way how we view ourselves.
SPEAKER_03:Right. And this is the the important thing too guilt, feeling guilty about sinning, about doing something wrong, that experience internally is an invitation. If you feel guilty about something, if I steal a candy bar, there's something inside of me that that asks me to pause and reflect and notice ooh, that that didn't feel good. That didn't that didn't feel like me, right? And so guilt then gives you an opportunity. Would I like to do something different? What is this inviting me to look at with within myself and and and the layers of myself? And that's a path towards healing. Shame, you're condemned. That's it. I am bad. I did this. This is me. This is my identity. And there is no path forward.
SPEAKER_02:When you say that, it's like how I want to see everyone. Do we give the benefit of the doubts? Or do we think the worse of the other people? And in the shame of guilt dance, do I give the benefit of the doubt to myself? This is not who I am. You see? Do I love myself or I don't love myself? If I hate myself, I just want to believe that I am bad and I deserve all the bad things that happen to me. If I love myself, then I want to believe I am good, but I am good because it's the Christ's image in me, not to be prideful. Right, right. Also, that's also another way to go very bad, very fast. So you have so you have Christianity is to balance between those two views and and to to keep ourselves in the middle. So we will not go, and there is a lot of parents I notice, oh, don't feel about that. No, we should feel bad about when we when we hurt someone or we we we do something not good. Feel bad. I mean, please feel bad, but don't dwell in it for longer time because that will itself become evil. Feel bad enough that you take this, you analyze it, you see why you're doing it, and the more and and don't just shove it down. Process it, acknowledge it, think about it, talk to your uh spouse, your friend, the most important, your spiritual father, father, why did I do that?
SPEAKER_03:So and and forgive yourself in the end of the day. So, but what you're talking about requires us to be able to step back and observe ourselves. 100%. And that's very difficult. Can I can I watch myself and ask what happened, why did it happen, how does it not happen again, and not be totally fused with my behavior?
SPEAKER_02:100%, because a lot of us have this perspective that we're either all good or all bad. So if I did the bad, that means I'm bad. So what we do, so uh and this is the crazy, like this is literally the core issue. If I am a Christian, then I have to be or I have I have to be holy. I have Christians do not do bad things, for example. So then I am faced with the reality that do I did bad things. So now I'm looking at myself. Am I Christian? Does that mean I hate Christ?
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:But the answer is not, you're looking at it differently. I don't want to say that because it it's it will sound very weird, but when when something wrong is happening, when you broke a law, a sin, let's say, stole a candy bar. Stole a candy bar and you feel the guilt, you should be happy. Why? Not because you stole the candy bar, but because God is allowing you to see what is wrong with you. He this was an allowance from him, and instead of you denying it, you should embrace it, be happy and joyful that this happened and you see it, because now you are able to fix it.
SPEAKER_03:So, in that framework, the most important thing, in that framework, then there's nothing more human then than to feel guilt that's when you do something wrong, when you sin.
SPEAKER_02:Because you human beings in the core of each human being, I think we talked about it the other day. Like you have this, your part of dirt, you're from dirt, and then you're you have the breath of the divinity, and being a human is to recognize and acknowledge both sides, yeah, and coming in terms as a friend, as as this is who you are, with both sides together. Because both can be true, both can be true. Both are true, right? We have that divinity that God breathed on us, the image, and we have this animalistic need, and we can go all the way here and all the way here, but we but once we say that I want to be fully divine without God, that's when we become the different. And when we say I want to be an animal, that's when we are like fully with our passions, our untamed, untamed, like with the lusts, with food, with with like all these.
SPEAKER_03:And this can be this can be so enticing. I mean, the fantasy that I would have no rules, that I would do as I please, and yet what we know a garden comes to my mind. A kept garden is beautiful. Where the hedges are trimmed and the flowers are pruned, that is a garden that you look at and you enjoy. Yes. An unkept wild garden is nothing to look at. You can't see the beauty unless it has been tended to. Yes. And so what I hear you're saying is we have to do this with ourselves. We have to allow ourselves to be tamed through Christ so that we can experience and live out the beauty that He has placed within us.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and that's where the ascetic life comes through the church. And so to be able to live like that, or to be to succeed in stepping out of yourself and see what you're doing, you you need the grace. And that grace you always need to pray. You always need Christ with you in the end of the day. And what the church does, it provides you with a system, a full system. And you see that echo multiple times in the old church, which is the Israel, and the new church in the New Testament. You see fasting, praying, attending services even in midnights, uh like keeping vigil, uh, forgiving, those things are there to it it put you in a system. So, for example, uh, I always tell my uh loved ones, like, for example, uh, yes, an alcoholic became Christian, for example. But if he still lives next to a bar and he has a whiskey bottle in the house, and his friends are alcoholic, well, it does not need a scientist to tell you that guy is going back. So the church try to take you out of the world, but keep you in the world and provide with you a full system. Some people will think, oh, well, the church like overwhelm us with these things, but they create this feasting and fasting seasons for you, right? So you will feel bad, if I dare to say, like in the land time, and we feel joy in the resurrection and the holy week. We feel in this nativity now, we feel weak and helpless, and and like 40 days in the winter fast were no good fat, so you feel weak. We called it the winter land, and then the the feast comes, and one week you're not allowed even to fast or prostrate or do all these things, right? So you feel this emotional cycle, not because they're shaping you only, but because they know what you need as a human. And this system was not put by humans, this is what Christ wanted us to follow, and that's why it fits us perfectly.
SPEAKER_03:And the church not only gives you a system and a structure in which this is how you should live, this is the best way to live, but they provide you with a framework of how you should think about yourself in that system. And you cannot have one without the other. Yes. Can you speak to that?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, so as you said, it's a full system. So you have the church, you have the pheronima of how how Christ sees us, and how first you know the Trinity, how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit sees each other, unity and love, and then how they see us united to them in love, and that how we are together, united with each other in love, and then you see that, and then how we need to view everything with the lens of love. But what does that mean? And then the church have a lot of 2,000 years of wisdom about that, right? And then you see, on the other hand, like the how to live your life in wisdom, like the physical, and and how to live with your neighbor. So, and you see all of them coming together all the time to shape you and help you. And if you and of course, the confession, for example, like confession is very important. For example, the people who do not like I I want to know, for example, I want anyone to ask himself, if I am not like if I don't have a spiritual father, what does that mean? What the to have a spiritual father, St. Paul talked about that, and he said you can have multiple teachers, but you are to have one spiritual father, and the understanding of that the spiritual father is the the father who who will be taking care of you, he will be you will be obedient to him. So, for example, uh fasting comes, and then I go to Father John. I am the worst to speak about these things, and say, Father, you know this fasting, I'm so excited. I just don't want to eat three days, or I literally I told him, I just want one meal a day. That's it. Please say it. And he looks at me, you know this is not Lent, right? And he said, I said, I know, Father, you eat two meals. Okay, father. So sometimes I know people they wanna three, four days only eat once, but then your spiritual father is what will tame you. At the other extreme, because why? In the end of the day, if if you can't do it or if you feel angry, I know one time also a brother is like, okay, okay, let's do in the land, let's do uh one meal every two days. However, your wife is your witness. If you get mad at her and she tells you eat, you will eat. So if you and that's that you should you see the balance, it's negotiating between you and your father. And your father wants to make sure you don't go crazy and fail, like a father. Or cares about you, he wants what's best for you, exactly, or go prideful because if me fasting one week without food and water, for example, will make me look more like oh, I am better than all the other people, then it's better not to fast. Right. So he's the one who put you in a check, and he's the one who you do your confession with. And if you have a wife and kids, that's where we they go. So, for example, uh you will complain about your kids, those kids are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then the kids come, he will have the full view. Daddy screamed at my mom, and like you know, kids.
SPEAKER_03:But why do we need a confession father? Why can't I just go to Christ and share with him and can't he take care of it?
SPEAKER_02:I I it and the idea is the purpose of everything is to love, and with the love cannot come because love cannot come without a humility, and the humility cannot come without obedience, and that is the purpose of everything, all the ascetic life that we do, like for example, even with the fasting, like some people will be blessed to have eggs or chicken or egg or protein shake or whatever, right? And it is not about the food, it's about am I being obedient to Christ in the end of the day. Now am I obedient if if I say, Oh yeah, you know, in this first, I am okay to eat chicken or protein shake, for example. It makes sense, I will do this rule for myself. You're obedient to who then yourself, to yourself, which will lead you to pride in the end of the day, and because the devil is sin is a pride, and Saint Paul says, or all our fathers say that the devil does not eat, does not sleep, right? And he knows the Bible very well. So he's intellectual, he he's vigil all night, he can be, and he's fasting, but the only thing that he cannot do is to be humble, and that's the core of everything. So to be an obedient, you need to have someone that you trust, someone who you know he has a spiritual experience, someone who walked the path before you. And you know, I I I talk to uh a lot of people, and you know they say you can I can read hundred books about love, but I will not understand where it is, but I can live with someone who loves and see him multiple times and understand what is the point. And us going into the church, being with father or our spiritual father, we choose him by the way, and we choose him to be a holy man in the end of the day. He's a human, he does mistakes, a lot of it. But if he loves and he's compassionate, then that's your spiritual father to you and to your kids.
SPEAKER_04:What I'm hearing in here is one of the beauties of the church, the body of Christ, is and what you're saying, Deacon Anthony, is that it helps us to be reminded of our sin without having to go sin ourselves, right? Yes, the the cycle of the church. Lent is going to remind us of our failures, of our sins, of guilt. And so thereby, hopefully, we'll already know. Oh, yeah, okay, I remember what it feels like to feel that guilt. So maybe we'll it will help us from sinning more.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, accountability.
SPEAKER_04:Accountability.
SPEAKER_02:Because let's uh let's think that we have no spiritual father. When we will sit down and say, when did I send last time? What did I do in the last three months, for example? Who will do that? But if if my spiritual father tells me, you know, every week you have to uh do uh confession or every month or every quarter or every fast, then you will you will be forced to sit down and say, What did I do wrong? And then the answer will be nothing. And then you will know, well, that sounds not right, like you see, it's the process, yeah. Yeah, because we always want to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and think that we are the divine, and everything we do, there is a good excuse for it. Right, but our brother and sister, they never have a good excuse, like one like us. How dare they?
SPEAKER_04:How dare they absolutely one of the examples that was given by the physician, right in this black spot? One of the examples seemed to be what I wrote in my notes as kind of self-treatment. The one where it's, yeah, I'm not gonna, I know I should call the physician, but I'm not going to, because I can handle this. You mentioned the burning, I'm gonna try to burn this off.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Or now I'm gonna try to use some medication. I'm gonna do these different things. Can before Deacon Anthony expounds on that further, from the the Christian side, the Christian answer to that, can you talk to us, Jacob, about what's going on there psychologically?
SPEAKER_03:What's happening for somebody who sees something wrong and assumes that they can take care of it themselves? Which, by the way, is a recipe for destroying your self-esteem. The belief that that I can do something and take care of something outside of my control is the foundation of almost any addiction, right? Which is why the first step in any 12-step program is we admitted we were powerless and our lives had become unmanageable. So, what exactly causes someone to believe that they can take care of something themselves, I think is actually more of a spiritual question. Uh how do we get somebody out of that? Spiritually, there's there's a medicine for that, but cognitively, it's the recognition and the belief that I am powerless and that there are things that fall into two buckets: things that I have control over, things that I can manage, and things that I can't, and that I have no business touching. And when we mix those two up, when I believe that on my first day in the gym, I should be able to walk up to the hundred-pound dumbbells and pick them up, because I think I should be able to do that. My friend, you're not gonna do it. And if you pull and pull and pull, the only thing that's going to be crushed is your image of yourself and your self-esteem and what and and what you believe you actually can and can't do. Does that does that make sense? Hundred percent. Yeah, that's powerful.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, and this is exactly what the devil wants you to do. Completely because there is those two sides. It's the old game. We know it for more than 2,000 years now. It's either you're so good, you are amazing, you're the best. You can everything you can do, pride, and then you are nothing. And you worth nothing, and you are hopeless. The Christ will not even look at you. What have you done? And those are the two sides that the devil always. It's his game. What he does, either this or any conversation, any thought you will, it's always those two. Because that's what you know. And it's so easy to crack, so easy when you think of it, you just do the cross sign and say in the prayers of our holy fathers, or Jesus Christ protect me. And it will it will vanish step by step. It will go. But with your spiritual father, always. This is very important. There is no crowns outside the arena. And the arena, we are all part of it. And the church is where you Christ in the end, He will give us crowns for our struggles. And that's beautiful to think of. If we see that like I'm addicted on alcohol, for example, or or any of the any any other stuff, like the P word or whatever. I will get a crown when I see I am helpless, and I go and and I will check, I will, I will feel bad that I did that 100%, but I will keep going to my spiritual father. And what you're doing, if you're addicted for so many years, every time you go and you do the confession, you're literally stripping down something. And mainly what protects it is your pride, your self-image of that you are the best one. And God allowed things sometimes to humble us, to know that no, no, you're good, yes, I love you, you're my son, you are on my image, you're good, but you're good through me, not through yourself. So when you say, I am better than the other people, in that moment, Jacob showed me this example where you line up a lot of people, and then the moment you say I am better than all of them, you step ahead of the line, and the demons will have you. Wow. In anything, in your theology, in your thinking, in in anything, because in the end of the day, it is the grace of God only that made you good, if you want to say that. Yeah, nothing gets. So always glory is to God. That's it.
SPEAKER_03:And when you stay yeah, can we bridge this to the importance of confession? Because this is something that I that I think is so undervalued. The the idea, and we know this in therapy, that when someone comes to you and they share what they're struggling with, when they speak the thing that they are most terrified to say, something about that is healing. Wow. And so, and so doing that in the church, in the arms of someone who's there to love you and embrace you. And for many people, in the very place where they've been perhaps most hurt and rejected, being able to state, I'm struggling with this, I'm thinking about this, this has been on my mind recently, and have someone say, You are not condemned for this, but you are loved and you are embraced, and and we're gonna work this out together. This is so healing. And it's one thing to come and sit with me and do it with me, and and that in and of in and of itself is is really important and powerful, but it's different in the church. Can you speak to that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, in the church, you're not going to your spiritual father. You are, but in the end of the day, he's just a representation for a Christ. He is the witness that when the end of time comes and we will be accounted of everything that we did. That's what the Bible teaches that we will be accounted of everything, and the things that we did not repent from, the things that we did not change our mind from. And it's a scary, terrifying idea. That's why a lot of uh Christians become they want to be righteous to cover like to cover it completely because they want to deny it. And that's also is very dangerous and bad. No, we acknowledge it and we carry that guilty feeling to here. What are we acknowledging? That we are weak, that we we are not perfect, we are not fully divine, because we are not. We do do mistakes, we do do break away from God through unloving ourselves, the neighbor, our neighbor, and God. So we are acknowledging the truth. We are acknowledging the truth, and the truth sets.
SPEAKER_04:Can we draw a distinction, gentlemen, that sounds to me important based on your last question, Jacob? There is a difference, and I'd like you both maybe to speak on this. When someone comes to you and they're talking about their struggle with sin, maybe it's an addiction or whatnot. There's a line, isn't there, in Christianity between the temptation, the tendency, versus the actual sin itself. If is that correct?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So the the the war of thoughts, how we call it also, uh, as long as it is not in action, you are not gonna be accounted for. So we are accounted for the actions that we do. But remember, those thoughts are outside of you. And that also, I mean, seriously, thank you for bringing that up. Because a lot of people I sit with also, they think that those thoughts, those evil thoughts, are part of who they are, and they dwell in them, and they feel bad, they should they feel ashamed. How dare I thought of that? Right, and it those thoughts are not from us, those thoughts are coming out of us, coming to our brain, and the problem we receive it and we dwell in it, and we think. And in the beginning of my life, I used to think that those thoughts are part of me. But I was reading one of St. Paesius' books, and he said, those thoughts are external from you. And he said, when the evil one even towards him, he brings those thoughts, he sees he says, and I love that. He says, I looked at them like how I look in the plane, like 10,000 feet up high, and I say, Wow, and it goes once you see that the evil one is trying to make his thoughts your thoughts, wow, you're like, Wow, that was impressive. How did you do that? Like, you see, and you see, it's totally outside of you. He he tries and tries and tries and tries and does so many plans just to let you fall. And for weeks he plots things, traps here with your brother, with your sister, uh, something from here, something from there. And then when you go to confession, all those traps are waste because now you're forgiven. So the only one who literally will tell you anything about confession, so you will not go is the evil one, literally. Because imagine you planning for years or months or weeks or days for Deacon Anthony to do something bad, and then Deacon Anthony, I did something wrong. Yeah, let me go to Father. I go, father, one, two, three, four, happen. I know I'm bad. I mean, but like I did not mean it, but this is what happened, or or whatever we're discussing. And he's like, Okay. Like last Sunday, for example, I I thought it would be one-hour confession. It was literally two or three minutes, and he said, not because I forgot, because I thought he would be asking me and like all the details and everything, and then I said, Okay, and that's what it's happening. And it's gone, it's gone.
SPEAKER_03:Like, literally, it's gone. Right. The other thing that confession offers you the opportunity to do is to truly examine and take a look at your internal world. Yes. And the difficult thing is sometimes we'll think that's too painful, that's too ugly. I don't want to look at that. Yes. Yeah. And so rather than observe it go by, we don't even want to look at it. And that can cause it to kind of sneak into the background and wreak havoc and and come out in other parts of our life. And we're like, why am I engaging in this? This I and we can't really make sense of things. Yes. And in confession, you're given the opportunity that, especially in the busy world we live in, we seldom have to pause and to ask myself, what is happening for me internally? What do I make of this? And what do I want to do about this? And then we bring all of that to confession, and we're offered an opportunity to change.
SPEAKER_02:It's the beautifully question that why did I do this? And instead of running away from it, so and this is two different dynamics now. This is the action happened, not a thought that I'm thinking of because thoughts are outside of me, they're not me. But once I do an action, now I am fully responsible for it. And I need to know how did I allow this? Not from prideful perspective, but what is God is trying to show me and allowed that I will be doing this. Right. So I'm taking responsibility. This is outside, like this is not, it is, I did that, but it's not part of who I am. It's not your identity, yeah, exactly. Because in the end of the day, that's not who is, but I have something in my brain, in my mind, that internally caused me to go there.
SPEAKER_03:And we have to look at it. You have to look at it.
SPEAKER_02:I have to look at it. I have like a physician with my my spiritual father to take it out. And father, I don't know why this happened. Uh, can you show me? Yeah, and maybe you have thoughts, uh, you bring it to your father, and he will tell you, yeah. For example, let me add something, real quick.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. One of the things we know, it's been said for gosh knows how long. Um, what you resist, persist. What you resist, persist. And we know this, especially with difficult feelings and difficult thoughts. Uh, the most common one that I see is with anger. Someone comes in angry, they're angry about something, they feel guilty about being angry, and what do they do with the guilt? They take it out on themselves. And especially when this happens relationally, if I'm angry at someone I love, the only problem, it's the only reason it's a problem is because I love them. That's why the anger is an issue. It's very hard for us as human beings to hold two emotions at the same time. It's hard to feel angry at somebody and feel love towards them. And so, what we often do is here, take the love and I'll take the anger. Wow. And we punish ourselves for having that emotion. And so, what you're speaking about is how do I, as opposed to doing this, how do I hold both of these and examine them and question them and bring them into the church? Yes. Instead of condemning myself for having any particular thought or any particular feeling, can I look at it long enough and with somebody who loves me and trusts me and is offering me the love and grace of Christ and grow from that experience?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and and this is the hilarious part. You say the beautiful word, condemning myself. Literally, you're making yourself God because God is the judge and he's the one who is, he knows. Did you do and a lot of my confessions? I really don't know if I did the right thing or the bad thing. I take it to God, and God will know what is the right end wrong. Absolutely. Not me. Who am I in the end of the day? I am like, who am I? I asked that to Father Nathan. He said, Oh, you're deacon Anthony. I'm just thank you for that. So, like in the end of the day, leave the judgment to God. Because sometimes, by the way, the black spot is nothing, it's just maybe some oil or or something that came on you, and then because you did not know it's nothing, you start digging in your flesh, and you thought it became better, but what you did now, you're infecting your body more and more because now you're a pride for more.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So, so I mean, that's why I say always give yourself to Christ and to the to so he will be taking care of you.
SPEAKER_03:Part of what I would encourage people to do, if you're in a church, if you're attending a church that you feel like is not utilizing uh to use almost elementary terms, your five senses. If your mind, if your body, if your eyes, if your ears, if your if your being is not being healed and and made uncomfortable in some ways and invited to participate in the service and in the worship, there's potentially an opportunity to find somewhere that could fit you a little bit better. Um if your church doesn't offer communion, explore one that does. Uh if you're if your church is making you uncomfortable, meaning they're they're providing you with a diagnosis of what is wrong, but there is no prescription for healing, you might want to look for something different. And that's okay, and that can be very, very scary because we are tied emotionally, we are tied relationally to where we worship. And so then recognizing and prioritizing ourselves and saying, you know what, I think I think I need something different. I I'm I'm hearing something as I'm listening to to those in the community to channels like this that just sounds like a different experience and different relationship with Christ that I just feel like I'm not getting. That's okay. And that's a prompting and an invitation that you should acknowledge and explore.
SPEAKER_02:Truth, why Jesus always says, I am the light of the life. Right. Because the two sources of light in the old time was the sun and the fire. They did not have the neon lights. Right. So the fire can burn you if you don't know how to handle it right, or can enlighten you if you have if you're so and always you open the window, and that's where the truth comes. And the darkness of your soul, of who you are, will be overshadowed and you will see everything. It will enable you to see not only the goodness on you, because inherently you're good inside of you is good, but to show you where to navigate, where you're good at, and where you're bad at.
SPEAKER_04:Gentlemen, thank you so very much. Um, Jacob Sedan, associate marriage and family therapist. Where can our audience find you if they were interested in reaching out to you for your services or to maybe ask questions?
SPEAKER_03:Simple Google search, JacobSedan.com. Send me an email, I'd be happy to check out.
SPEAKER_04:Excellent. Yes, Deacon Anthony. Um, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Look at that. You made it to the end. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. I think there were some really valuable nuggets of information and Christian wisdom that I hope you can apply in your life. I know that I am trying to apply them in mine. We ask for God's mercy and grace. Please leave us your thoughts down below. If you liked this video, give us a like. If you want to see more like this, please subscribe. Uh it doesn't cost anything to subscribe. If you want to see the uncut, unedited video of this episode, please check out our Patreon. That's Cloud of Witnesses over at Patreon. It is the best way to support Cloud Witnesses in the ministry. Um, it helps keep the lights on and the cameras rolling. We look forward to seeing you in the next one. Thanks again to our special guests. God bless you. Bye bye.