DN= Archives — truthmission.net

Overcoming the World: Part 8–The Struggle

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:10-12 NRSV)

Back in Part 6, we discussed how fear can gradually wear us down. By maintaining a continuous level of inner turmoil, we become less effective at pretty much anything useful. Some of this mental stress comes from what we actually see and hear. Have you noticed though that sometimes what bothered you hours, days, or weeks ago still seems to have some hold over you?

Now some folks are better at letting things roll off their backs than others, of course. This is a process I am still learning myself. But I am not talking about merely having a good attitude here or learning to relax. I am talking about nagging thoughts that linger to the point where someone can be sitting still with no apparent external stimuli and be teetering on the edge of a panic attack or a ragestorm.

So what’s going on there? A psychiatrist might look at such a person, diagnose some sort of disorder, and throw a pill at it. I can personally testify that pills do help somewhat. However, like any pill, they treat the symptoms rather than solving the problem. While I do appreciate being able to face my struggles with a rational sense of calm, the struggle remains.

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So what is the real struggle?

It’s not about comfort or safety or a sense of belonging. It’s not about politics or world affairs or getting the last word in on social media.

We all have a common enemy folks. His name is Satan, which means “adversary.” He is not some made-up cartoon figure with horns and a pitchfork to scare little children. He is real; he doesn’t sleep, and his primary goal is your destruction and mine.

The devil begins his attack with fear, attempting to paralyze you into submission. If he finds that he can not make you afraid of something or someone, then he will use deception. He will try to stir up your basest emotions with things that just aren’t true. If you won’t buy an outright lie, then he will work on you with subtle half-truths. But if you are on your guard against such nonsense, then he will move on from deception to distraction. If he can’t win you over, he can at least keep you from doing good.

So why is the devil so effective at carrying out his schemes? Because most of us are unaware that he is even there. And that’s just how he likes it.

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The reality of spiritual warfare

If you are on one train of thought, and something else intrudes on that thought out of the blue, that is not the random firing of a synapse. That thought that just popped into your head didn’t just pop into your head. It was PLACED there. This doesn’t mean you can’t think for yourself. That’s what you were doing after all before your thought process was interrupted. But what will you do NEXT with this new thought? To answer that, you need to know who introduced it.

When Christians talk about receiving a message from God, it is almost never an audible voice. If it is, many times that is a sign of something else going on that is more mental than spiritual (cue the psychiatrists). More often, you will hear people use phrases such as “prompted by” or “led by the Spirit.” Sometimes this is in direct answer to prayer; sometimes it’s seemingly out of nowhere. However it happens, you can always tell that the message is from God if it is in line with scripture, illuminates the solution to a problem and leads to a good result for all concerned.

Here’s where things get sticky. Sometimes you might have a thought that solves YOUR problem but creates one for someone else. Sometimes acting on that thought leads to a result that works in YOUR favor, at least for the short term, but has far-reaching consequences that you don’t even notice. And of course, if you don’t know Scripture, then you have no way of telling if the message you are receiving is in line with God’s will as revealed in His Word.

Even worse, if you’re not aware that this spiritual influence is even happening, you probably think that the idea was your own idea in the first place. After all, no one spoke it to you out loud. But remember, you didn’t think it up yourself if you were actively thinking of something else when this new thought “occurred to you.” Satan’s easiest targets are the people who don’t believe in him. He has the easiest time influencing people who have no idea that they’re being influenced.

However, now that you have read this, you are aware and can no longer claim ignorance.

(So what do you do now? Come back for Part 9—The Armor of God)

TRINITY RANCH

DN=: Part 16–Hypocrisy

I find it interesting that the Greek origin of the word “hypocrisy” comes from the theatre. You may know that ancient Greek plays were performed by actors wearing masks. These actors were called hypocrites, not because of any character deficiency, but because they were literally “pretending under a mask.”

This meaning makes sense when you think about people whom you may have considered guilty of hypocrisy. What they are doing is showing the world one face, their “mask,” while pretending to be something they are not. One of these masks is self-righteousness.

Why do you see the splinter in your brother’s eye but not notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when you have the log in your own eye? You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye; then you will see clearly, so that you can remove the splinter from your brother’s eye! (Matthew 7:3-5 CJB)

Jesus’ warning against hypocrisy from the Sermon on the Mount is one of the most humbling passages in scripture. However, as is so often the case when people use the Bible as a defense mechanism, many of us want to put a period where God put a comma (or in the case of the translation used here, a semicolon).

Notice that Jesus did NOT say, “You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye” PERIOD! There is a “then” after the “first” and a “so that” after the “then.” The purpose of taking the log out of your own eye is to clear your vision. And the purpose of clear vision is to successfully complete the task of helping get the splinter out of your brother’s eye.

Jesus is clear in noting that the fault does not lie with the person giving correction, but with the spirit in which it is given, namely that people with issues of their own ought to address those before pointing out someone else’s.

Nowhere in the passage above does it say that it is OK to have a splinter in your eye. It also does not state that one must be perfect to remove a splinter. After all, no human was ever perfect besides Jesus. And since He is clearly advocating the removal of splinters from eyes by people who are less than perfect, it should be equally clear that imperfect people, under the right conditions, are qualified to remove eye splinters.

IMPERFECTION DN= HYPOCRISY

Have you ever tried to be perfect or maybe felt that you wouldn’t measure up if you were anything less than perfect? It’s stressful, isn’t it?

Many Christians fall into this performance trap. Sometimes we get the impression that in order to be worthy bearers of the name of Christ, we can’t slip up, lest the onlooking world accuse us of hypocrisy.

I would like to do my part in helping break this cycle by saying that it’s actually a good thing for the world to see us fail. It doesn’t seem so at first, when we are enduring the taunting, the ridiculing and the finger pointing, but when the dust settles, we have a unique opportunity.

We have the chance to publicly demonstrate personal responsibility by swallowing our pride and owning our fail as well as the consequences thereof.

In other words, we can take off our masks and show the world what’s underneath.

He turned now to his disciples and warned them, “More than anything else, beware of these Pharisees and the way they pretend to be good when they aren’t. But such hypocrisy cannot be hidden forever. (Luke 12:1b TLB)

The few of you who have stuck with me during the LONG pauses between posts in this series may have wondered what the delay was all about.

I knew that I was going to be closing out my series exposing the hypocrisy of the “=” movement by talking about hypocrisy itself and how those who bring that charge the most strenuously seem to be the guiltiest of it themselves.

Then I looked in the mirror one day and saw the log. So I’ve been spending the past several weeks trying to figure out what to do with this log in my eye.

You see, the thing is, I’m a wanderer. I guess we all are, because we are all susceptible to sin in general and the sin of pride in particular, but I’ve been doing quite a bit of wandering lately. I can totally relate to what Paul was feeling when he wrote this to the Romans:

I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to—what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. But I can’t help myself because I’m no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.

I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. Now if I am doing what I don’t want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.

It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind, I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin.

So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? (Romans 7:15-25 TLB)

I think at some level I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to finish this without dislodging my log.

But then I considered the question that ends the passage above. Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Well, duh. Jesus already did. I’m still working on my wood-vision, but at least I’m aware of it. The fact that I want the log out of my eye is the evidence that it is possible. Especially when I consider the alternative:

If anyone sins deliberately by rejecting the Savior after knowing the truth of forgiveness, this sin is not covered by Christ’s death; there is no way to get rid of it. There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible punishment of God’s awful anger, which will consume all his enemies. (Hebrews 10:26-27 TLB)

The unfortunate fact that I am prone to wander from the Truth does not make the Truth any less true. Therefore, it is not hypocrisy for an imperfect messenger to deliver a perfect message to someone that would benefit from it.

For this reason, I will press on, and continue doing what I have been called to do.

Because falling down DN= falling away.

DN=: Part 15–Homophobia

Homo- Greek prefix meaning “same”

-phobia from the Greek ‘phobos’, meaning “morbid fear or dread”

(A phobia is defined as) a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational. In the event the phobia cannot be avoided entirely, the sufferer will endure the situation or object with marked distress and significant interference in social or occupational activities. Edmund J. Bourne—The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook

So taken literally, to be homophobic should mean to be irrationally and constantly in fear of being the same, to the point of avoiding conformity even when there is no direct threat to your individualism, and if that conformity proves unavoidable, submitting to it would reduce you to a quivering lump of Jell-O.

The word “homophobic” was invented by psychologist and gay activist George Weinberg in the 1960’s. It first appeared in print in 1972, when the American Psychiatric Association still considered homosexuality a mental illness.

An actual phobia, on the other hand, IS a mental illness. It is a form of anxiety disorder that frequently requires psychiatric intervention to overcome.

Now if a person were to freak out being in a room full of homosexuals, perhaps due to a fear that gayness is contagious, and was unable to function for the rest of the day as a result of that trauma, then yes, THAT would be a phobia. Specifically, a form of xenophobia.

I don’t know any Truthseekers who behave that way.

Therefore, I call B.S.

CHRISTIANITY DN= HOMOPHOBIA

Since a Truthseeker’s habit is to push the boundaries of his or her comfort zone, fear has no opportunity to enter the equation.

For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgment. (2 Timothy 1:7 HCSB)

Because fearfulness and sound judgment cannot occupy the same mind at the same time, a Truthseeker could not conceivably hope to correct behavior from a position of fear. This makes the suggestion of a Truthseeker being homophobic, even if that were an actual word, a logical impossibility.

The irony here is that the correction that is inspired by God’s love, which drives out fear, is the very thing that the “=” community regards as being homophobic.

Because of this, some may ask, “What gives you the right to go around ‘correcting’ people anyway?” Actually, it isn’t a right so much as it is an obligation:

“Do not hate your brother in your heart. Correct your neighbor boldly when he does something wrong. Then you will not share his guilt.

“Do not try to get even. Do not hold anything against one of your people. Instead, love your neighbor as you love yourself. I am the Lord.

(Leviticus 19: 17-18 NIrV)

Notice that “Do not hate” is followed immediately with “Correct your neighbor boldly.” Hatred and correction, then, are clearly opposites.

Therefore, it follows that the absence of correction where it is needed would indicate the presence of hatred. It does not matter whether one actually FEELS hateful or not; it is the actions, or lack thereof, that make the difference.

For this reason, correcting the behavior a homosexual, or that of any other sinner, is an act of love based upon sound judgment. It is not an act of hate stemming from bigotry and judgmental criticism.

Nevertheless, there is still one more hurdle to overcome. It is the nature of all humans, not just homosexuals, to reject correction.

Our pride makes us become defensive when our belief systems are challenged. Frequently the first method of defense that we use is to deflect the correction back at the corrector. Basically, we sweep our own faults under the rug while attempting to drag our neighbor’s faults out from under the same rug.

When Truthseekers are on the receiving end of this defense mechanism, they usually find it accompanied with another H-word.

(Which we will explore when this series concludes with Part 16–Hypocrisy)

DN=: Part 14–Equal Opportunity

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .

(Declaration of Independence)

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

(George Orwell—Animal Farm)

“Equal opportunity” is another way of saying that everyone has the same chance to succeed or fail.

However, instead of designating an equal chance at success or failure, “equal opportunity” has become synonymous in our culture with entitlement. Success is now assumed, and if a person does not succeed, well then that person has been denied “equal opportunity.”

But if equal opportunity in the true sense means the same as fair play and justice, then it would make sense that everyone already HAS equal opportunity. If justice is universal, then so is opportunity.

Oh, but wait a minute. Justice also means getting what we deserve. So we have equal opportunity to make our own choices, but we also have equal responsibility to own the consequences of those choices. Sometimes, those consequences are not favorable.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY DN= EQUAL RESULTS

So it should be plain by now that the “=”movement is not really about equal opportunity at all. What the “=” community is really after is a life and a world that is free from consequences.

The irony is that if the “=” community actually got what it wanted, then it would be UN-equal, since having freedom from consequences would set it apart from the justice that everyone else would receive from making the wrong choice.

“=” DN= EQUAL

Let me pause for a moment here, because I know a lot of you are wondering: “Why does he keep saying ‘the “=” community,’ when he’s obviously talking about the LGBT community?”

The answer is that gay marriage isn’t the real issue here. Sure, the media and our politicians would like to make it the issue, but in the big picture, it all comes back to a problem that plagues everyone, gay or straight—self-righteousness.

Paul makes it clear in his letter to the Romans that homosexuality is not the disease, but merely one of many symptoms:

What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.

Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best! (Romans 1:21-22, 26-32 The Message)

Now that sounds awfully harsh, particularly in the Message paraphrase, but can you deny the reality of that in 21^st-century America?

One of the saddest things that I have yet seen is when churches water down or discard this message. It is not a church’s job to provide a safe space for sinners of any kind to come together and “be who they are.” A church’s function is to bring people together to find out who they are in Christ.

Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. (Galatians 3:28 CEV)

That’s right. The Truth is that we all have an equal opportunity to be equal in Christ. We have always had it and always will.

Sounds simple enough, but ah, there’s that pride thing getting in the way again. The problem with this simple solution is that it involves surrendering your will, and it is not in our nature to want to do that.

So what is left then for those whose pride prevents them from humbling themselves before God and admitting their failure?

They find someone else to attack.

Christians.

Since there is no Truth or common sense in their argument, based as it is upon their own self-righteousness, then the only avenue left to them is to tear down Truthseekers in order to maintain their perception of superiority.

And since PC code words are their forte, they have come up with the ultimate man-made nonsense word.

(And for that, you’ll have to come back for Part 15)

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DN=: Part 13–Fair Play

“It’s not fair!”

Every child ever

Justice, as you’ll recall, is when we get what we deserve. It’s interesting, though, to note how abruptly our stance on justice and fair play adjusts depending upon which side of the justice we find ourselves.

We sure don’t mind dispensing justice; however, receiving it is a different story.

As in so many other situations, our pride is the problem. If we exalt ourselves to think that we are above justice, and that “the rules” don’t apply to us, then it would follow that we wouldn’t expect to partake in the natural consequences of breaking those rules either.

JUSTICE DN= GETTING YOUR WAY

So although justice is always fair, it only FEELS fair if we have a clear understanding of what it is that we truly deserve:

Adam sinned, and that sin brought death into the world. Now everyone has sinned, and so everyone must die. (Romans 5:12 CEV)

However. . .

The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
very patient, and full of faithful love.
God won’t always play the judge;
he won’t be angry forever.
He doesn’t deal with us according to our sin
or repay us according to our wrongdoing,
because as high as heaven is above the earth,
that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor him.
As far as east is from west—
that’s how far God has removed our sin from us.
Like a parent feels compassion for their children—
that’s how the Lord feels compassion for those who honor him.
(Psalm 103: 8-13 CEB)

Did you catch the key phrase there? David repeated it to make sure that you would. Justice is universal, but God reserves grace for those who honor him.

Without this grace, the only thing left for us is justice. The universal natural consequence of our universal sinful nature is death. This is the ultimate Truth of our lives, and complete reliance on Jesus for our salvation is the only way out of it.

Obviously, many reject this Truth. Equally obvious is the fact that we all have a choice to accept it or reject it.

Nevertheless, for some reason the prevailing mentality in this country has become that one can do whatever one wishes, up to and including a complete rejection of universal Truth, and suffer no consequences whatsoever.

FAIR PLAY DN= ENTITLEMENT

We all have desires. However, a person who is ruled by pride will view the fulfillment of his or her desires as the primary goal. Those that are successful in fulfilling a few of these desires may quickly begin to regard this fulfillment as an entitlement.

Then, in their own minds, they will conceive a bogus sense of justice and fair play, in which they “deserve” to get whatever they want whenever they want, and anyone or anything that would deny them that is guilty of an injustice.

However:

Many people vie for special treatment from a ruler,
yet genuine justice proceeds from the Eternal. (Proverbs 29:26 VOICE)

Because God alone is righteous, and because God alone determines Truth, it is only by God’s authority that true justice can be dispensed.

The eternal, indisputable and universal justice that applies to all humanity is not only manifest in our rights, but also in our consequences.

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A majority of humans may get laws changed. A government skilled in social engineering may even be able to get the attitude of a nation changed. But NOTHING a government or its advocates can do will ever be able to change the natural consequences of a choice.

A government can grant or deny privileges. A government can mandate civil responsibilities. A government has the authority to set its own civil penalties for breaking its own rules and laws.

But a government will NEVER be capable of conferring rights upon any subset of the human race.

Yes, this even includes homosexuals.

(Yeah, I went there. Wait till you see where I go next in Part 14–Equal Opportunity)

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DN=: Part 12–Civil Liberties

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12 NIV)

I’m free to choose who I see any old time

I’m free to bring who I choose any old time

Love me hold me love me hold me

I’m free any old time to get what I want

“I’m Free” Mick Jagger/Keith Richards

One of the main functions of a father is to establish and enforce boundaries for his children. The intent of setting these boundaries is to protect his children, because he knows more than they do.

There is no condemnation in this, only a sense of love and protection. The child picks up on this, and remains content within the security of the boundary.

Now if an earthly father can manage to set healthy boundaries in love, how much more effective and useful are our heavenly Father’s boundaries! Would it not stand to reason that an omniscient God, who knows every possible outcome of every possible choice we could make, would know what’s good for us and what isn’t?

The most obvious example of this is the 10 Commandments. A lot of people are put off by them because of the “Thou shalt not” tone that most of them have. So why would a loving Father God put such restrictions on the freedom of His children?

One word—consequences.

LIBERTY DN= FREEDOM FROM CONSEQUENCES

Some consequences of violating God’s boundaries are obvious. Take for example “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” If you break that commandment, the most obvious and immediate consequence is generally the breakup of a marriage.

Long-term and indirect consequences are difficult to predict, however. We can’t know for certain how young children will be affected by the divorce—how they will cope with the sense of loss, how they will develop socially as they grow, what baggage they might carry into their future relationships and marriages.

God sees every potential negative consequence, and wants to protect us from them. Nevertheless, our nature instinctively reacts to any kind of boundary as a restriction on our freedom. Christian or not, nobody likes being told what to do, or to have their “freedom of choice” taken away.

But when you stop to think about it, this is a ridiculous notion. NOBODY can take away your freedom of choice, not even God. He’s the one who gave it to you in the first place.

Boundaries

God doesn’t set boundaries to take away our choice. He places them there to assist us in making the right choice, because he knows which choices will have good consequences and which will have bad consequences.

However, somewhere along the line our culture developed a callous disregard for sin, or crossing God’s boundary lines, and its consequences. Our culture has been brainwashed to believe that God’s boundaries, as set forth in the Bible, are out of date and out of touch with progress.

Since the Bible is God’s Word, and therefore our most definitive written source of Truth, this Truth gets dismissed along with the Bible. Inside this moral vacuum, people get the idea that they can create their own truth—a moving target that is relative to whatever suits their whims at any given moment—and anything contrary to that amorphous worldview then becomes a violation of their civil liberties.

Only here’s the problem. Since Truth is universal, and it’s found in the same place where God’s “restrictive” boundaries are, then it would follow that the consequences of crossing those boundaries are also universal.

The consequence of mentally turning sin into civil liberties is that to do so, the concept of civil responsibility is totally abandoned. You can’t be “free to do what you want any old time” and be your brother’s keeper at the same time.

Fortunately, God has a way of evening things out.

(To find out how, come back for Part 13–Fair Play)

DN=: Part 11–Backwards

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana—The Life of Reason

All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.

C.S. Lewis–The Four Loves

Last July, we talked about three ways of learning. There is experience, or making your own mistakes and learning from them. Then there is wisdom, which is learning from someone else’s mistakes so as not to repeat them. And then there is common sense, which is collective wisdom that has taken root in a population.

Observing this progression, it is easy to see that common sense results from people building upon what has gone before. It is the sum of the mistakes and the corrections of previous generations. It would logically follow, then, that to employ common sense in one’s reasoning, one must look backwards to history.

Nevertheless, our culture inexplicably does not seem to value this type of reasoning anymore. The “progressive” ideology dictates that all things must change in the name of moving “forward.” Whether it was working well or not is immaterial.

But common sense dictates that if you have made a wrong turn, forward is not your best option. To get back on the right road, you’ll have to go backwards until you reach the spot where you made the wrong turn. THEN go forward.

Obviously, you can’t go forward and backwards at the same time. Therefore, by completely ignoring (or worse, attempting to modify) history, a “progressive” mentality completely nullifies any potential of employing common sense. This makes failure a virtual certainty.

The primary reason that Truth Mission exists is to declare war on this intellectual futility.

Truthseekers proclaim God and His Word as the source of all Truth, which is unchanging and applies equally to all people in all situations. Truth never fails, because God never fails.

Understanding this, it then becomes clear why Christians look to the Bible for answers when life poses difficult questions. The Bible has an example for nearly any situation in terms of which strategies work and which ones don’t. Because the Bible is the ultimate source of correction, it will always improve our situation if we heed that correction.

More importantly, however, because God’s Word is eternal and unchanging, the lessons it teaches will always have value, regardless of the circumstances of the world or our individual situations.

ETERNAL DN= OUT OF DATE

As we have already noted, one cannot go backwards and forward at the same time. Therefore, anyone obsessed with moving forward at all costs misses the opportunity for the course correction that only history and Truth can provide.

Since one with such a worldview only sees the Bible as a musty old book, and not God’s eternal Truth, the further “forward” they go, the smaller Truth becomes in their rearview mirror. Since they consider everything behind them “out-of-date,” then the Truth and all who proclaim it become, in their minds, “backwards.”

So forward they go, until inevitably, they find a tree in their path, yielding the all-too-predictable result. Busted face notwithstanding, their pride remains intact, since that was what led them forward in the first place.

In the absence of the common sense that has been left behind, this pride initiates the blame game by rationalizing: “I am superior to the backwards thinkers, yet I have a busted face. Those to whom I am superior do not have busted faces; therefore, it must be their fault that my face is busted. Indeed, they are likely the ones who planted this tree to prevent me from going forward. I should have the freedom to walk wherever I choose without having to worry about my face being busted!”

(So what’s the problem with freedom of choice? Come back for Part 12–Civil Liberties)

DN=: Part 10–Affirmation

For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:43-45 ESV)

If a person’s words are trustworthy, that person will have an established record of trustworthiness. You are not going to be led down a successful path by someone who has never succeeded.

Likewise, a person known for encouraging others likely won’t tell you something that will be a stumbling block to you. Even if it’s something you didn’t expect, or didn’t WANT, to hear.

We all come to a day of reckoning where we realize the direction we’re going isn’t the one in which we ought to be. I can’t imagine anyone going through his or her entire lives without making at last one major course correction. (If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet, don’t worry, you will.)

No matter who you are and what your situation is, that situation, and your destiny, will never change without you making some conscious decision to change your way of thinking and go a way you haven’t gone before. This could mean a slight change in direction, or a complete 180.

The churchy word for a change of mind accompanied by a change of direction is…

Repentance

The important thing to understand is that repentance cannot occur without new information entering the cranium. You can’t change your mind or choose your direction without knowing that you have a choice to make.

The trouble is that the right choice is not always the easy one. In fact, it usually isn’t. The right choice usually results from your having received information that you needed, but not necessarily that you wanted.

Anybody can tell you what you want to hear. If you want your current belief system to be affirmed, the internet is more than happy to oblige. All you have to do is type what you already believe into your favorite search engine. You will find thousands, maybe even millions of people, to affirm your point of view.

There’s just one problem with this. Belief DN= Truth. As such, a quest for affirmation will never lead to intellectual or spiritual growth.

AFFIRMATION DN= INFORMATION

Now don’t get me wrong; I am speaking of affirmation in the sense of affirming a point of view, not one’s own self-worth. The latter is healthy affirmation. I will tell you plainly that I crave that kind of affirmation nearly as much as I crave oxygen.

However, a quick perusal of the Truthseeker Manifesto will illuminate everything that is detrimental about a quest for affirmation of one’s worldview.

You can’t end an argument by attempting to bolster your own position. You can’t establish common ground without leaving your own ground. Seeking to affirm your beliefs does not afford you the opportunity to test them. Also, it is very difficult to explain your own reasoning when all it consists of is quote mining from other people’s reasoning.

Essentially, the quest for affirmation is a rejection of Truthseeking. The desire for affirmation is a symptom of insecurity. Specifically, it is the fear of losing everything that is familiar to you on the off chance that whatever, or whoever, is challenging your belief pattern might have some information that you would have to accept.

The only way to overcome this fear is to have a burning desire to be informed, not just to believe, but to KNOW! But knowledge only comes when you take the lid off the glass.

In a culture that values affirmation, however, this is easier said than done. If we are serious about obtaining information that is worth knowing and passing on, we may have to look to history.

(For a different kind of history lesson, come back for Part 11—Backwards)

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DN=: Part 9–Brainwashing

Brainwashing (n.)

1: a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas

2: persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship

(Merriam Webster dictionary)

Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth,
    bend your ears to what I tell you.
I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb;
    I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths,
Stories we heard from our fathers,
    counsel we learned at our mother’s knee.
We’re not keeping this to ourselves,
    we’re passing it along to the next generation—
God’s fame and fortune,
    the marvelous things he has done.

He planted a witness in Jacob,
    set his Word firmly in Israel,
Then commanded our parents
    to teach it to their children
So the next generation would know,
    and all the generations to come—
Know the truth and tell the stories
    so their children can trust in God,
Never forget the works of God
    but keep his commands to the letter.
Heaven forbid they should be like their parents,
    bullheaded and bad,
A fickle and faithless bunch
    who never stayed true to God.

(Psalm 78: 1-8 The Message)

When you see a child who behaves well in public, what is it you always say? “The public school system sure has made a great citizen out of that boy?” Or, “Our governmental programs have certainly taught this young lady how to be a good American?”

No, you say, “Their parents must have taught them well.” If the parents are present, you might thank them directly for being such good parents. Lord knows if the kids AREN’T behaving, it’s the parents you’re going to blame, right?

So if it is this obvious that everything a child is and does is shaped by the examples set by his or her parents, then why does our culture get so bent about Christian parents setting a Christian example for their kids?

School’s in session.

Education, of course, is a good thing. If we never learned anything, then we wouldn’t know anything (duh). And common sense, that is, the collective wisdom of all the I told you so’s from all the parents ever, tells us that the primary source of any child’s education is at home.

Face it; we’re all home-schooled, no matter what our diplomas say.

Our parents have us from day one, when we are completely empty glasses. From them we learn to walk, talk, eat, pee and poo where we’re supposed to. Sometimes they even teach us to read, write and count before we start school.

Most importantly our parents, and specifically our fathers, are the primary shapers of our value system, our moral compasses, our sense of right and wrong.

So is this education or brainwashing?

EDUCATION DN= BRAINWASHING

Look back up to the top at the dictionary definition of brainwashing. It’s not just indoctrination, or even FORCED indoctrination; it is forced indoctrination designed to replace one way of thinking with another.

Parents are teachers, not indoctrinators. They are filling empty glasses. A child does not yet have a way of thinking or a value system to replace.

Therefore nothing, let me say that once more for emphasis, NOTHING that a parent teaches his or her own children can possibly constitute brainwashing. This includes the passing on of Christian faith, the bedrock upon which the family has been established generation after generation.

So if giving your own children a Christian education is akin to pouring the Water of Life into their empty glasses, then by contrast, cultural brainwashing is coercing an educated person of any age to pour out their water, smash their glass, and take a deep drink from this brand new glass of fruit juice.

What do you mean it tastes like Kool-Aid?

(For an alternate beverage choice, come back for Part 10: Affirmation)

DN=: Part 8–Hate Speech

Be clearheaded. Keep alert. Your accuser, the devil, is on the prowl like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8 CEB)

All of humanity has a common enemy—Satan, the accuser. The enemy’s primary goal has always been our destruction, but he has been busy developing some new tactics.

First to review, you’ll remember that in Part 3, we identified “righteousness” as being a right standing with God the Father, which is made possible only through a trusting relationship with His Son, Jesus. Those with whom the enemy succeeds in denying this opportunity for righteousness will nevertheless still crave it.

However, since they have allowed themselves to be cut off from God’s saving grace, they are only able to manufacture a false perception of righteousness. In their desperate attempt to elevate themselves in their own minds, they find themselves compelled to disparage others in order to make that possible.

The enemy facilitates this process by helping those under his influence categorize people into groups and label them. Then he directs his unwitting followers to abuse the people in those groups by treating them unequally and criticizing them based on their differences.

Over time, these blanket condemnations become a habit, and hatred develops. If left unchecked by correction, it is possible for this hatred to swell into an epidemic of ignorant bigotry. This bigotry will then be projected toward the groups of people to whom they are trying to maintain their sense of superiority.

Combating this is a struggle we all share. And it is indeed a daily struggle. Seeing other people as individual human beings, instead of part of a labeled subset of humanity, requires a generous helping of both humility and critical thinking.

Knowing this, our enemy imparts his unwary abettors with a liberal dose of arrogance, which suppresses all traces of humility and artificially inflates their perception of their own intellect, eliminating the prospect of any critical thought taking place.

This is where the enemy plays to his greatest strength. He advises his impressionable followers, “If you can’t convince ‘em, accuse ‘em!”

And this is how it plays out.

When one of these people attempts to engage a Truthseeker in debate, he quickly discovers the futility of this venture, since the primary objective for Truthseekers is to end arguments, not win them. Since the arguer finds that he cannot claim the logical high ground, he will then attempt to lower the ground beneath his opponent by attacking his character.

But here is the twist! Since unwarranted character assassination would make him guilty of judgmentalism, he must first deflect his own guilt by accusing the Truthseeker of being judgmental himself, thereby forcing him into a defensive position. With any luck, the Truthseeker will take the bait, lower himself into the argument, and thus become that which he has already been accused of being.

On the other hand, a mature Truthseeker will not take the bait, but will simply hold fast to the Truth, and not change course.

When the arguer sees that his attempts at both logic and character assassination have failed, he plays the only card left in his deck by attacking Truth itself.

He does this by labeling the Truth “hate speech.”

DEFENSE OF TRUTH DN= HATE SPEECH

The irony of this concept of “hate speech” is that the people most commonly accused of hate speech are in actuality the ones most commonly on the receiving end of it.

For centuries upon centuries, Christians have put their trust in the eternal God, in his indisputable and unchanging Word in which He is revealed, and in His universal promises and plan for all of mankind. In a world where people follow after every wind of change, no matter how ludicrous, we build our lives on the solid rock of eternal unchanging Truth, passing it down from generation to generation.

But instead of a fixed and eternal rock, our faith is now portrayed by our degenerate culture as an ignorant and hateful tradition. We are even demonized for faithfully carrying out our most important responsibility as parents, the passing on of our faith to future generations, with the charge of “indoctrinating” our own children!

If parents should not be the ones most responsible for helping to frame the basic worldview and shaping the character of their own children, then who should? The enemy has some ideas about that.

(And you’ll hear all about them if you come back for Part 9—Brainwashing.)