Sid: My guest is Dr. James Richards I’m interviewing on his book “How to Stop the Pain.” I’ll tell you something if there’s ever been a book that every one of my listeners must “MUST read and MUST practice” it’s this one “How to Stop the Pain.” What he says is subtitle is “Pain is Evitable,” welcome to the human race. But suffering is optional and this will bring the walls down between you and your children, this will bring the walls down between you and your wife, or you and your husband. This will bring the walls down between you and other people. Now James you have to help me out because I’m still struggling with something here in the concepts we’re talking about. Okay I see what the Bible says about homosexuality.
Jim: Um, hm.
Sid: And I see what the Bible says about gossip, I see what the Bible says about New Age, or pornography, or abortion or sins along these lines. How do I proclaim these things and then meet people that are involved in these sins and not judge them?
Jim: Again its way easier than we have believed. You know when I meet a person that’s in pornography I know that he’s in pornography, I know that’s sin. But here’s what I don’t know I don’t know why he’s a pornographer. And unfortunately when we jump to judgment we start saying “This is why you’re a pornographer you’re an evil corrupt person.” The truth is this maybe somebody that was molested as a child you know, this may be somebody that was brought into this corrupt arena. We don’t know how they got there and usually when we go to judgment it’s usually a self-righteous judgment. For example, you know many times when somebody comes to me and they’re having a problem with immorality, say a young woman comes in for counseling and she is struggling with immorality you know the most common thing to do is say “Okay what the root of your problems is immorality.” Well then I’ve just assumed to know why she’s immoral, the truth is that may not be the root of her problem. As a matter of fact I found that the presenting problem is never the root problem.
Sid: That the symptom.
Jim: That’s just the symptom so what I may discover is when this girl was living at home that her father was molesting her and when he would molest her he would say he would tell her that he loved her. And so she develops this belief as a child that the only way that she can be loved is to be sexually involved. And so she gets older and she has shame and disgrace about all of this immorality yet she has a deep deep need to be loved. And so every time the need to be loved comes up the only association she has with love is that molestation. So she’s pursuing love but something because her beliefs about love drives her back into immorality. Now see if I go to her with a judgment and just assume that you’re immoral because you’re an immoral person, then all I’ve really done is… You know I declared my judgment and you know the next thing that follows judgment is the penalty I think they ought to get. So I treated her according to the penalty that my judgment says that she deserves. But the incredible thing I’ve found you know I work with prostitutes, I work with drug addicts, I work with homosexuals and here’s an incredible thing I’ve found. I can sit down and talk to somebody about their sin and if I don’t judge them if I acknowledge it yes this is sin and how I feel about this it’s amazing how quickly people will feel safe and begin to open up and get the help.
Sid: But just to say this is sin doesn’t the person take that as judgment?
Jim: No, they really don’t it’s an amazing thing you know Christians tend to have this really false idea. Number 1 they think that if we are kind to someone in sin we think that they will believe we are condoning their sin. And so out of that we think that we got to attack their sin. They know they’re in sin they know that what they’re doing is destructive. When I sit down with them in a loving way and let them know how much God loves them and cares about them, wants to help them. And that in fact that this thing that their involved in this thing that they’re doing is what’s bringing the pain in their life and I say you know “Talk to me about how you got here.” And they will lead me to the root of how they got here and then I get to help them. I get to introduce them to the Jesus that can solve that problem and heal that hurt.
Sid: Now that’s not the way it’s normally done from the pulpit.
Jim: No.
Sid: Or done in churches by Christians. Why?
Jim: You know I believe that there’s a tendency I know in my own part I can’t speak for other people but I believe when I was a young preacher there was a tendency to really not believe that God’s Spirit could work in somebody and get them to where they needed to go. In other words I trusted my manipulation more than I trusted God’s Spirit.
Sid: In other words God need your help.
Jim: Yeah, I got to make this person feel guilty and you know I got to make sure they see their sins. As a matter of fact you know we’re taught you know when I first got born again you know I was taught you got to get a person lost before you can get them saved. Well, you know that’s really not true the good news isn’t you’re a dirty rotten scum and God is good enough to able to tolerate your rotten self. The good news is that Jesus has died for you and that God loves you and He accepts you and if you’ll come to Him just as you are if you’ll come to Him He’ll empower you and help you to come out of that lifestyle.
Sid: Jim you touched on something in a previous broadcast that’s very important to me. As I read the New Testament about healing the thing that jumps out at me about Jesus is His compassion.
Jim: Oh yeah.
Sid: And it was the way I see it my spin is if you will, it was His compassion that released the power of healing into these people and you said judgment will make you not have compassion for people speak to that.
Jim: You know many times people would come to me when even I was young in the ministry and I’d have somebody sitting before me and you know maybe they had gone through some kind of a pain and I’d look back at my life and I’d think okay you know I was living on the streets you know before I was 14 years old.
Sid: Hm.
Jim: And you know I slept in cardboard boxes and I’ve stolen to eat and even as a young boy before I got saved prostituted myself literally just to have a roof over my head. And I’ve got somebody sitting there telling me about you know some great pain in their life and I passed this judgment…
Sid: And this pain is nothing compared to what you’ve gone through.
Jim: I passed this judgment about why this is hurting him so bad my judgment is “This is nothing the reason is anything to you is because you’re a big self centered baby.”
Sid: Hm.
Jim: And I tell you I actually left the ministry for a year. I had a lot of physical problems happening I had a lot of things going on in my life at the time but the honest truth I left the ministry for a year was because I realized that I didn’t have compassion for people and I knew that if you don’t have compassion for people you’re not fit to be in the ministry.
Sid: So how did you change that?
Jim: Well number one when I backed out of the situation and I would start looking around here’s what I discovered I discovered that… You know I literally had a woman come to me when she was a child she didn’t get a Barbie Doll for Christmas. It affected her dramatically and she had great depression and she started questioning the love of her parents. You know I’m sitting there thinking “You know I had 2 Christmas’ that my brother and sister got gifts and I didn’t get anything not one thing.” And you know I’m sitting there thinking “Don’t tell me about not getting a Barbie Doll for Christmas.” But here’s what I came to realize it is not how monumental the harm that was done to you, it was the judgment you passed about it that determined how much pain it would bring into your life. You know when my stepfather stabbed me there was nothing to figure out he hated me, I hated him. He wanted me dead I actually tried to shoot him I pulled my gun on him and pulled the trigger and got a misfire or I might have been in prison today because I killed my stepfather. Well you know I didn’t pass a lot of judgment about that it was pretty open. As a matter of fact open rejection is easy to deal with but let’s say you grow up in a pretty normal family and you’re a young child and you’ve got your hopes really set on something and it doesn’t happen. You start saying “This is why my parents didn’t do this they don’t love me.” And the truth is that woman that didn’t get a Barbie Doll when she was 8, honestly based on the judgments that she passed could bring more pain in her life than me getting stabbed in my sleep.
Sid: Hm. So it’s not how bad the offense is.
Jim: That’s right.
Sid: It’s what you make out of it.
Jim: That’s exactly right. So that brought compassion back to me because I realized that people that had been through much less than I’d been through could actually be hurting much worse. And if I could free them from their judgments not just not just get them to forgive the people in their past but get them to release those people from their judgments. That that pain would no longer have any power their life.
Sid: You must talk to people that have been free as a result of your teaching and you know some people don’t know what it’s like to be free. But my understanding is that Jesus came to set up free not to just allow us to exist.
Jim: That’s right He didn’t come just to end sin He came to end the affects of sin. He came to end the affects of this painful dysfunctional life that we’ve had…
Sid: Do many people judge themselves?
Jim: Oh yes! As a matter-of-fact that’s the number one cause of physical sickness. As related to judgment self judgment is the number one cause of physical sickness.
Sid: Give me an example that might come to mind.
Jim: Okay for example I had a friend not too long ago die of cancer. He was a pastor who had committed immorality and all of the way to his deathbed he believed that his cancer was the judgment of God against his sin. Now when we form a judgment and we can talk about this on tomorrows program when we form a judgment everything in our body goes to work to make that judgment become real.
Sid: Physiologically this is true.
Jim: Yes every cell in your body because it has intelligence, every single cell in your body works to bring about what you believe to be true.
Sid: Oh, we’re out of time.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth