We ought not to underestimate the psychological effect of the statistical world picture; it displaces the individual in favor of anonymous units that power up into mass formations. Anonymous …..cosmic loneliness tends to lead to one of four kinds of depression depending upon a person’s temperament. So what do these people do? They join the herd, and they forget. They begin to take drugs, alcohol, and become involved in immorality. When people join the herd to escape their problems, immediately they lose their identity and any possibility for proper potential development. Carl Stevens Humanism talks much of man with a capital “M” but hardly anything of the individual man. It has produced humanism out of the Enlightenment that has ended in ugliness. Francis Schaeffer. Apathy and lack of feeling are also defenses against anxiety. When a person continually faces dangers he is powerless to overcome, his final line of…
Category: <span>Walk, for Christians</span>
There is a song sung by Francisco Ortega called “Now that you’re Gone.” It’s a song about a brother lost, and of a mourning sibling; the world spins without meaning, now that he is gone. Spins without meaning, has this happened to you? It is amazing, how one’s worldview, one’s value system, forsake their meaning–providing function and betray our trust. It’s as if a mean trick has manipulated us, or has been fooling us all along. It wounds us, it strikes down our high place of safety and repose. It sabotages in a moment what has been built over many years perhaps. We spin, and spin. An essential element, a vital piece of the puzzle, an every day visitor suddenly is missing, and we have no answers. We turn to God. But shockingly we find this event has no prior reference in our conceptualized view of God. Our phony world…
I have heard it said, often even, take ownership, Tom, take ownership. We can take ownership, we must; though we may not ever realize the necessity. We may gravitate in and out of a kind of ownership, all our lives, yet there’s more about it to be learned. First, what does it mean to take ownership? Well, it means to possess what is possessed. To take hold of a principal and make it my own, partitions it, but at the core remains owning up to my personal and intimate responsibility to the call and destiny of the individual life. It is the opposite of blaming others, it is the opposite of blaming self, it is the anti-thesis to all blame and disowning. Can you see the problem developing? It is an unconscious defense mechanism to deny personal responsibility through blame. Why can’t we just accept what happened? Why can’t we…
Knowledge …is a paradoxical thing. It must be acquired with diligence, but the more I get of it, the greater my sorrows and temptation to pride — Ecclesiastes. The wise man uses knowledge aright. The wise man studies to give an answer. He increases in learning. The fear of the Lord: …Births Knowledge and Wisdom. The application of knowledge is wisdom. Fools despise wisdom. With it, we get Understanding. Vanity cycles people around and around. Vanity is a mode of mind function. It simply thinks about, adopts, and lives out the natural mind of man. The concept of self-expression parallels the circling mind. He is the fool of Prov 18:2. He makes wrong decisions over and over. He has an opinion. He wants to discover his own heart. He has not learned how to think with God” thoughts. “The subjective mind” …Functions according to its own feelings and opinions. We might not believe…
God’s healing of his people contains serious aspects. I am not certain what they all mean; perhaps we must all reconcile mentally with God’s planet-wide cursing after Adam and Eve’s sin. Life at times dishes out toil and little fun; I really don’t get it. Nobody will argue against the reward found in making an honest living and raising a family; building a house etc. Ecclesiastes 9:9 says “live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which He hath given thee under the sun all the days, of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun”. Necessary degrees of resistance sharpens the face; what else can we deduce? At last, life’s puzzle bullies us into figuring it out, and as we yield to it, more…
This next section describes ego UN-powering. First and obvious question relates to that old rat, the ego. We said it must die and die it has. The process of healing steamrolled the twirp as the scourge of God flattened pavement. Yes, a dirty old road is buried, dead indeed. It becomes a foundation for the brand new super-highway. The healed man, increasing influence ever more, fulfills and supplants this phony reality-builder. Ego worked frantically, but its operations only functioned in a sphere without scruples; a sphere where morals or restraints are dampened. Again, this type of independent-I, could only thrive in its self made sphere of false freedom. Exposed now, that world is gone. See, in the eternal scheme, the need for crafty manipulation of life events is an unnecessary operation. Pushing self ahead, creating life-solving identity and personality masking become outdated. Honestly, we have nothing left to cover up…
As people self-realize, they build. As they think to discover themselves, they actually erect the self, and call it a discovery As we think to uncover ourselves we actually build a big cover system. We cover our self from God. We also insulate ourselves from truth/reality. The process brings a person face to face with some ugly things. Many think that everything perceived in us is accurately ours and part of our identity. They don’t reckon on these findings as optional, because modern psychology has taught it —what you observe in you, is you. There is no “devil” in this thinking. There is no right or wrong. There is only you. Hey, what you find, must be realized, to make you be a “real” person. This may be sincere, unconscious observation; but tough to swallow for some watching from outside.. One, the religious-moral folk really don’t want to see the…
Can a person come to experience their position in Christ to any degree? “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, all things are become new.” “you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.” These verses describe a position or standing and salvation revealed these pregnant truths, beautiful children, yet unborn. Obviously, the verse refers not to physical death, but a death which agrees with the truth that “Christ died for all, so we are all dead,” 2 Corinthians 5:14. Can we experience it, however? Furthermore, can we let not sin therefore reign in our mortal body? Paul says forbid it in Rom 6:12. How do we do this? These are all great questions. “Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness—yield yourselves to God and your members instruments of righteousness,” is another. Romans 6:12-13. I must become a bit abstract. God’s…
On this day 12 years ago our son Joshua went to heaven. Now, what do we want? To see him again soon. You lit up our lives for a short 25 years and we miss you today, Josh, and the wait seems long; but eternity is longer. Can’t wait! St. Augustine says: He that loveth little, prayeth little; he that loveth much, prayeth much. What do you want? Surprisingly we rarely visit this thought. What do I need, what can I eat, what do I need to do and what does God want, are statements more common. Christians say, “I lost my vision when things didn’t work out and now I am just meandering.” “What do you want?” When I dutifully focus on my Savior. He says “what do you want?” Some folks in the Bible got healed because when Jesus asked them “what do you want?” —they had an…
“…and that they were afraid was the essential consequence of the fact that they retrograded from Gods love and had therefore incurred Gods wrath.” Franz Delitzsch Conscience “a knowing together with God” awakens the terriblest. Every gritty body nerve, and every psychic sinew, in denial, dreads the dawning of conscience. It arrives as a wake up call on the level of a freight-train. It whisks us away into a clawing-out mode of life. Flat-out life-loathing attends it. We’re hijacked into bustle’s whims, all of which we vowed, would get consideration when hell freezes over. But no; we’re head-over-heels right now, hot-footed feet blazing. “My life slipped way out of sync, my true-blue supporters turned out miserable liars.” “Woe is me, I am undone, a man of unclean lips.” “Thou Art the Man.” cried Nathan” Conscience: confronts the willful infant coddle and screams “get the ‘h’ off your…