The Mind Can’t Be Trusted

Our own minds prevent us from coming to a knowledge of the one true God because 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. 

We humans have a problem with the ego, which I am using here to mean the primacy of one’s own perception as an all-powerful “self”. This primacy of the ego has given rise to the postmodernism we live in 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 humans 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 are inclined to believe that life is not accidental or governed by chaos. Returning to our consideration of life after death, 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? 

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 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, we have covered such primacy of the ego as it relates to postmodernism. 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 reacting against culture. 

I plan on writing a separate blog about why Christianity is countercultural. I may have to convince you of that first before I can really drive home my point here. However, I will abbreviate my argument with a summation. First off, Christianity is not a club. One does not wake up one day, join a church, call himself a “Christian”, and be assured of eternal salvation. Just be aware that there are many false Christians.  Christianity as a mass movement doesn’t even 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 is an uplifting experience to learn more about the word of God and be around other genuine believers (again, discerning between true and false believers warrants its own blog post about the posture and mark of an authentic Christian), 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. This 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.

So I’ll ask you, how countercultural do you think you are? Take a real self-assessment. What I’ve been trying to show you is that absolute truth exists and that you can come to a heart-knowledge of that truth; however, my personal opinion is that separating yourself from culture as much as possible can be an effective and essential way to do that. I am not speaking of outward appearances — what car you drive, what clothes you wear, how many tattoos you have, etc. I’m speaking of internalized values or what a person considers right versus wrong.   

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. 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.)

I’ll end with this: 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 through 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 yours. 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. 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 on darkness by using the gifts God has given them. 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 life with you, brothers and sisters. I want you to experience this gift that is free of charge. It offers new life 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