Hello all my faithful readers! (Yes, this is meant to be funny.) Flint JAHbone here with my first cerebration on WordPress.com.
I usually post a disclaimer and will thus do so on this post. You therefore must agree to my 4 steps before you read this blog. And they are:
1. Hear me out before you freak out!
2. Look at all my points before you deem me a heretic.
3. Read carefully what I’ve written and weigh it.
4. When your done reading and think you’ve got an opinion of what I’m saying… See steps 1 – 3.
Now that that’s out of the way let’s get started.
I have a problem with “Jehovah” and I’m not afraid to say it. Some of you will think I’m nuts already, but see steps 1 – 3 if you need a refresher course.
Thanks to those who have decided to continue on! One of the most powerful things, broken into 2 subcategories, in our world is perspective/perception. The way one views something is how they’ll treat it regardless of it’s real worth, value or meaning. Once you see something one way, it is very hard to see it in any other way. Some people, knowing the power of perception, put on a display but are inwardly different.
Proverbs 23:6-7 (ESV)
6Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy;
do not desire his delicacies,
7 for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.
“Eat and drink!” he says to you,
but his heart is not with you.
Or in the Message Bible:
6Don’t accept a meal from a tightwad;
don’t expect anything special.
7He’ll be as stingy with you as he is with himself;
he’ll say, “Eat! Drink!” but won’t mean a word of it.
This person is showing that he’s generous and hospitable, but inside he’s greedy and really doesn’t want you to take it, eat it, or use it. We even have the ability to view ourselves in such a way that we deceive ourselves.
James 1:22 (ESV)
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
So by not doing what the Word says, you’re in danger of deceiving yourself into thinking you’re doing something your not.
Galatians 6:3 (ESV)
For if anyone thinks he is something, when he becomes nothing, he deceives himself.
We are a people who have deceived ourselves and others. We often say one thing and mean another. We’ve continually, simply fallen in line and followed the leader and never challenged our beliefs or systems of belief. We use terms we don’t understand, and because they’re common “Christianese” terms they seem to fit (repent, gospel, Jehovah) and no one questions what we mean by them. We’ve become a people who hear the Word, hopefully, but don’t do it. Because most Christians today only get what is presented on Sundays, sometimes that’s garbage. (Yeah I said it.) In any case that’s all we hear and we don’t even do that half of the time.
There aren’t a lot of people being found with their noses in the books or whatever one uses to study their Bible in this technological age. Studying the Word, meditating on His truth should be something that is of the utmost importance to us especially since Paul wrote, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15 -ESV)“, and to, “…not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12b – ESV)” This idea of studying and laboring in the kingdom has been hindered because we’ve become a society of lists. We are a society that’s organized into lists, even our chaos is organized in most cases. We prioritize and weigh what is the most important thing and place it on a list. This list has the ability to change and shift based off of our most current outlook (p/p*). For instance if we’re amongst other Christians, or when things are going our way, or when God’s “being good” and/or “blessing us” our list looks one way. However when it’s going down the tubes, it may look another. For example, if you were to ask the average church-going, born-again Christian what their list of priorities was they would most likely say something like;
- God
- Family
- Church
- Work
- Self
However when stuff starts going wrong, and our outlook on life’s not so good it starts to shift and we see a new list (and I’m being generous);
- Me
- Myself
- I
- Maybe God
- Church I guess
This is why God can’t be on a list. In our minds, as long as we say He’s on the list at number one, we’re good to go, when in fact He can’t be on a list of priorities when He’s supposed to be your life. Myself, as a married man with kids, should have a list with my wife first, kids next and so on with God as my life. It’s definitely more comfortable with Him on a list because then our lives are still our own and He’s there to hook us up when we need it. When you become a person of The Order of the List you become fickle. What church you go to doesn’t depend on where God wants you, but where you want to go, as long as you’re at a church, because that’s on your list. Then you’re covering God and Church in one swoop. If God’s on a list we don’t have to pray, study or get into the Word at all if we don’t want to, because He’s at the top of the list and that’s that. If He’s your life, the thing holding you together then you’ll want to know a little more. In turn we won’t do the things God wants because He’s on our list of wants.
So we can see that these things are all a matter of perspective/perception which, as we’ve seen, a very powerful thing. Take for instance the ever-hilarious, FART! I know. I’ve just gotten some sort of reaction out of you. Whether it was your laughter or whatever, there are 4 main reactions to the methane emission and they are:
- Shock/Horror: “LET ME OUTTA HERE!”
- Disgust: “YOU’RE TERRIBLE! YOU DISGUSTING PIG!”
- Indifferent: “WHATEVER MAN”
- Hilarity: “BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
So the stimulus in this case is the “Fluff/toot” and your reaction to it is based off of your p/p* of the act.
END PART 1
* p/p represents perspective/perception
)
