The Mind Can’t Be Trusted

Our own minds prevent us from coming to a knowledge of the one true God because we have a tendency to identify with the intellectualization of belief while remaining ignorant of what’s in our hearts. In other words, we cannot “think” our way into comprehending the gospel, and it follows that, because the message of the gospel is dependent upon our recognition of our own sin, we cannot think our way to salvation, which is essentially the moment when our heart cries out for Christ upon recognizing how depraved we are compared to God’s holiness. The first step toward perceiving one’s mental distortions is to acknowledge that one’s individual pride is the wall that separates God from the inner man. Pride, however, comes before the fall, and that fall is necessary for submitting oneself to the one authority whose truth is infinitely more pure than that which we seek to attain solely intellectually.

We humans have a problem with the ego. (Herein I use “ego” to mean the primacy of one’s own perception as an all-powerful “self.”) This over-reliance on self-determined identification with ephemeral cultural values as well any schools of thought that resonate with how we think the universe should work has given rise to the postmodernism we experience in American society today, which is essentially the idea that I believe what I believe while you believe what you believe, and we’ll just let that ride while ignoring that an absolute truth actually exists. The problem with this way of tolerating diverse beliefs is that we go to the grave believing that our thoughts will create our reality. So if John Doe chooses by his own free will to believe that he’ll reincarnate as a dog, he fully expects to reincarnate as a dog, and if Jane Doe believes she’ll blissfully reintegrate into the universe’s cosmic energy field, then she assumes her wish will be granted. But by a simple act of logic, different rules cannot apply to John and Jane without one of them being wrong.

Let me ask you this: can you observe order in this created reality? If you have any knowledge of mathematics and physics, for example, you would be inclined to answer in the affirmative. We as created beings have been able to apply systematized knowledge in order to expect that certain things will happen under a given set of conditions. In other words, we tend to believe that life is not accidental or governed by chaos. Returning to our consideration of life after death (because the fear of death is a common psychological malady and, I believe, a cornerstone of behavior and driving determinant of religious beliefs), why, then, would we tolerate the idea that chaos reigns in death? That each individual’s idiosyncratic beliefs about death govern that individual’s fate? So, you see that we’re caught up in agreeing to disagree. We may be able to agree that the conditions of the afterlife are governed by a set of rules, but we all disagree about which set of rules apply. Therefore, each person feels free to go his or her own way, and moving closer to truth evades us as choas pervades our intellectual musings on the subject.

Now let’s consider an alternative. Instead of the postmodernistic proliferation of diverse beliefs, consider the concept of shared beliefs. Often, the ego problem that gives rise to an individual’s preference to want to invent or adopt his or her own ideology is a reaction against shared beliefs. Christianity is a great example of a shared belief that drives people to react against Christianity and pursue different “truths.” If this is you, I urge you to be very careful about what you’re reacting against. If you feel that Christianity simply doesn’t “resonate” with you, I would again point out that facts don’t care about your feelings, i.e. gravity still works whether you like it or not. (I know, I know. How presumptuous of me to have used what you suppose is my ego to find a “religion” that resonates with me while claiming that you must be in error because it doesn’t resonate with you. Please read on to discover the heart behind this argument.) However, if you feel that those who claim to be Christians are repelling you from the faith, then be clear with yourself that you’re likely reacting against culture, and culture is, more often than not, an extremely poor barometer of eternal truth because it changes so rapidly.

Likewise, the culture of the church experience has changed considerably, and that may be because most churches (wrongly) operate as businesses with the chief motive of filling as many pews as possible by appealing to their congregants with contemporary bands rocking the pulpit, coffee and bagels in the lobby, and so on. (If culture prevents you from entertaining any faith, you have no excuse not to do your own investigation. We live in an information age that enables you to learn in the comfort of your home by streaming customized content, freeing you to focus on the message while extricating yourself from the culture that you may loathe.) However, Christianity is not a club. One does not wake up one day, join a church, call himself or herself a “Christian,” and be assured of eternal salvation. Just be aware that there are many false Christians (discerning between true and false believers warrants its own blog post about the posture and mark of an authentic Christian), and Christianity as a mass movement doesn’t make sense to me because the Kingdom advances one soul at a time, as each individual’s heart is transformed by the Lord. Yes, Christians gather together, and it can be an uplifting experience to learn more about the word of God and be around other genuine believers, but each true Christian’s individual life is a highly personalized walk of faith replete with its own struggles but guided by an undying hope in the power of the Lord to carry out His sovereign and good will.

Moreover, Christianity is an “upside-down Kingdom" operating sort of undercover in the secular world at large. Christians hold values that are not supported by the age or culture we live in, thereby defying popular operating systems. Those values are grounded in the law of God, which is unchanging in the face of cultural shifts. Adhering to God’s law is not about moral superiority but living in alignment with how we have been created by our Creator. Additionally, keeping commandments does not put a yoke around the Christian’s neck but, when practiced, lead to fulfillment and can operate as guidelines or boundaries for avoiding mines in the minefield of the world. And let’s not forget about the very life of Christ put into its historical perspective. Everything he did and taught was supernatural and posed an existential threat to the ruling authorities of the day, whether they be the Romans or the Pharisees. As true Christians live to emulate our Lord, we are likewise prepared to be outcasted, slandered, mocked, enslaved, and even killed for our allegiance to our King.

Therefore, my argument is that Christianity runs counter to prevailing societal/secular norms, and my personal opinion is that separating yourself from those norms as much as possible can be an effective and essential way to discover something true. I am not speaking of outward appearances, although many times, materialistic pursuits (cars, clothes, hoes) will reveal that you’re not countercultural in the least. I’m speaking of internalized values and what you consider as right versus wrong. So I’ll ask you, how countercultural do you think you are? Take a real self-assessment. If you consider yourself countercultural as a point of pride that causes you to only trust in the machinations of your ego or are the type of person who thinks you’re too intellectual for what you perceive is one big fairy tale made up by men to accomplish some nefarious plot, you don’t comprehend anything fundamental about the nature of the word of God or the true power and character of Christ. Again, coming to faith in Christianity is highly personal despite the culture against which you may be reacting, and salvation is a complete repudiation of who you used to be; that is to say, Christianity is countercultural in that Christ can cause you to fully transcend every part of you that once identified with secular or worldly conformity and concerns.

We usually hold values that we gauge as acceptable because they’re reflected to us in some part by some segment of culture we identify with, consciously or not. But the values of today aren’t even the values of a few decades ago, so if we can drift so far in so little time, then what foundation are you really standing on? The only true gauge of the acceptability of our internalized values, and by extension human morality as a whole, is one that is absolute, that is, the values of the one true God in whose image we were created. (This statement is often misinterpreted to mean that God has a form like ours. Nobody knows what God looks like because no one has fully seen God except Christ. Being created in God’s image means that we were created with the attributes of God as we are creative and intelligent beings with the capacity for love and wisdom.) You see, the ego feels absolute to us, but in reality it’s only molded by the influences we have experienced in our very short lives. I would say that most of those influences are born of cultural constructs that need to be obliterated so that God can access a deeper part of us, the inner man, the heart. Absolute truth exists, and you can come to a heart-knowledge of that truth as you die to your deceptive ego and submit yourself to the good design of your Father. This requires humility of heart and admitting that you are a lost soul who is but a feeble and fragile creature in comparison to the unfathomable wholeness of the Lord Almighty.

God knows you extremely intimately beyond your ability to know yourself. Therefore, He can speak to you in a highly personalized way that can be your evidence that He is the one true God and that Christianity is the one true faith that permeates the cosmos. That’s why Christianity is hard. It’s hard because once God gives you undeniable proof that He is real, He will have done so in a way that pierces the primacy of your ego, that trickster ego that simultaneously wants you to find your own separate, relative truth while convincing you that you need to adopt the moral values of culture to gain your footing in this world. Once the truth breaks past the defenses of your mind and regenerates your spiritual heart, you will want nothing more than to convince another person of that truth. But you will find out that doing so is beyond your capacity as a human being because the other person’s ego will not submit to what he or she perceives as a belief born out of your ego. The only thing, though, is that that belief is not in your head, it’s in your heart, in your entire being. And, truthfully, it’s not even “belief,” that is, it’s not simply a thought that you just keep on thinking. It will have become your foundation, your new identity, and the countercultural absolute in a world of relativism.

I am so weak and unable to do anything, unable to break past the barriers of those I care about most, but I hope and pray that God can use these words to speak to you. I need you to be a child of the Light and not a child of the night because we are swept up in a cosmic battle between good and evil. Once Christ saves you, you can join forces with a movement of souls who push back the darkness by using the gifts God has given us. We Christians are a rag-tag bunch of people, and many of us have come out of dark-and-dire situations and circumstances. But God chooses the weak and lowly to show a thing or two to the proud and arrogant. The way is narrow that leads to life, and the path is broad that leads to destruction. I want that life with you, brothers and sisters. I want you to experience this gift that is free of charge. It offers a new heart and purpose, and there’s no better way to live. Try your best to put that old ego to death where it belongs. I promise something better is waiting on the other side. Blessings.

Photo Credit:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos