Instinct, Reactivity and Responding – Freedom in Christ Purity 769

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of farmland and my canine companion Harley thrusting his head into some roadside weeds underneath pleasant blue skies comes to us from yours truly as I captured this random photo somewhere along Waite Road back on May 29th. The power lines in the background that obscure the simplicity of this pastoral scene and the fact that my doggy friend's head head is in a bunch of weeds would usually relegate a photo like this to the trash, but apparently I take more photos than I look at, and this photo remained on my iPhone for the last month, and it is oddly appropriate for what's on my mind this morning. My friend Harley follows his nose. Although he has learned to respond to some basic commands, he is still mostly pure instinct. Here, his nose causes him to thrust his head into some roadside weeds, possibly smelling the remnants of the scent of a rabbit, another animal's spray or waste, or something dead, all of which seem to be a dog's nose bread and butter. As much as I think at times that Harley is a good dog who listens, sometimes his instincts kick in and causes him to behave in ways I wish he wouldn't. The best example of this is when I began trusting him off his leash to allow him to run free in those farmland fields unencumbered, as he on several instances would run at top speeds with the unadulterated joys of freedom and would make his way back to me without incident. But then, on Easter Sunday, his instincts got the best of him. While running free, Harley discovered the delightful scent of cow manure, and out of his pure joy and instincts, He inexplicably rolled around in it, in said manure, putting me and him in the doghouse of disappointment when his new scent was discovered back at the house. I can imagine, I can imagine me saying, "Why did you do it, boy?" and his silent, unblinking response as if to say, "What did you expect? I'm a dog." As if to paraphrase a line from the movie Animal House, which I will edit, You messed up. You trusted us. But he's a dog, right? Surely humans should know better and learn from their mistakes and not just blindly react to situations in ways they have in the past, especially when they have had a measure of success in overcoming their old patterns of behavior. Oof. I wish I could, could say it wasn't so. I don't have to look far, maybe only as far as the nearest mirror, to be able to testify of the difficulty of changing the ways we behave. "Relapse is part of recovery" is a phrase because of this tendency to react rather than to respond and to go back to old thought and behavior patterns when we are not diligent in renewing our minds with the Word of God. Recently, I was disappointed to hear of a teen who had, who had success in overcoming symptoms of depression, thoughts of suicide, and acts of self-harm, but they had an emotional relapse and reverted to an act of self-harm, cutting themselves. Their parent was dumbfounded because they had been so doing so well, having successfully gone through a teen mental health treatment program and been removed from the bullying elements that caused much of their problems. However, this teen, who had apparently only moments before been happy and interacting with family, went to their room overwhelmed with emotions and shortly after emerged distraught with bleeding wounds. I don't know the details, but the trigger to this outburst was a text message that they had received from someone from their past. Someone warped— some— so one warped individual with no compassion or empathy decided to reach out and touch someone and intentionally or not caused this teen to be dragged back into depression, thoughts of suicide, and an act of self-harm. It's very easy to place blame here. The texter is obviously at fault here, but without knowing the content or context of the message, we can only speculate and assume that it was a negative message of derision. But to be honest, with text especially, the message received may be different from the message sent, especially when emotions are involved. Communication can be a subtle thing. "I know what you meant." "I didn't mean that." Because of the complexity of human emotions and the difficulties of communications, the possibilities for an event that would precipitate an emotional reaction and unwise decision are endless. As I consider this situation, I was obviously angered by the texter, but as I contemplated the responses of this teen support group, I was a little dumbfounded by how there seemed to be little consideration of the relapsed teen's personal responsibility in the way they chose to react to the text. I can only assume that some— somewhere along the lines in this teen's previous mental health treatment that they were given instruction or encouragement to talk to someone when they were having problems. They were surrounded by family, so why didn't they go to someone? Why didn't they show someone the text? Why didn't they tell someone what was going on in their life? Why didn't they stop themselves when they had thoughts to hurt themselves? And then I thought about it. We only learn what we choose to learn. We only do what we— what is required. To get out of a mental health hospitalization, all you have to do is demonstrate that you are no longer a danger to yourself or others. You have to demonstrate through your affect, your mood, that you have been— have stabilized and can verbally express your intention not to harm yourself or others verbally. And agree to seek help if you are in crisis. That's it, really. The hospital and mental health systems don't exist to imprison people, and they can't— cannot read the thoughts and intentions of the people they treat. Unfortunately, most of modern psychology has an atheistic worldview, and the relativistic morality that it brings paints the world in shades of gray. And is hesitant to instruct clients with the wisdom of good and evil and the basic tenets of problem solving. While the world and all that is in it, including malicious Textor, is a big problem, it isn't the problem we should try to resolve. The problem of mental health is in self-perception and the way we interact with the world. A Christian worldview would insist on each of, uh, on each, uh, let's see, a Christian worldview would insist on each of our personal responsibility for the things we say, think, and do, and how that lines up with the very black and white moral principles that God establishes in his word. Our guilt feelings, depression, and low view of ourself may be a result of the fact that we are living independently from God. And have ignored all of His wisdom and have instead decided to live by the world's dog-eat-dog, it's-a-jungle-out-there, I'll-do-what-I-want mentality. In this instance, whatever was sent in the text and whatever it said about the teen who received it, whether it was based on facts regarding the teen's appearance, behaviors, or past, wouldn't overrule what God says about that teen. The "Who I Am in Christ" list which I shared recently, and I'm sharing a link to the post in which I shared it today on the blog, spells out what God thinks about us when we are in Christ. In Christ, we are accepted, significant, and secure. If this teen knew this, they would disregard the opinions of men. They, they could disregard the opinion of some teasing adolescent bully who undoubtedly has some unresolved issues in their life that they feel they need to build themselves up by tearing someone else down. So, as much as the world sucks, and as much as people can suck, it is up to us to know that it is not the world that defines us. Of course, this all presupposes some knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ. While we can use cognitive therapy from the world to develop better strategies to employ when we face triggers, those strategies won't set you free. The world's positive affirmations are usually pretty general. And won't give you any authority to base your positive affirmations on other than man's logic, which can so easily be derailed in a world that is quite often irrational and chaotic. So with— without peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ, there is only so much you can do. Thus, relapse is a part of recovery. This seemingly contradictory statement is accepted wholesale in the world because What did you expect? You messed up. You trusted us. Without Christ, we are in bondage to sin. We are separated from God, and all those good things that the "Who I Am in Christ" list says about us isn't true for those without Christ. And they don't have the authority of the Maker of the Universe to tell them that they are loved, significant, secure, or accepted. Christ gives us the forgiveness of sins and life eternal, but he also gives us the power to overcome. Through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, the power of Christ in us, we can say no to sin. With the word of God, we can renew our mind to change our thoughts and emotions. And we can stand on the authority of the Maker of all things to know the truth and to see it grow in our lives. So stop acting on instinct, stop reacting, and start responding by seeking the Lord and his ways for our lives. Step 1 is surrendering to the Lordship of Christ by making Christ Christ our Lord and Savior. Step 2 is to surrender to the truth of who you are in Christ. Step 3 is to start living according to who you are in Christ and by the wisdom of God's word. While we may run off from time to time and make a mess of ourselves, when we are in Christ, we know always— we know that we always have a home, we always have peace with our Master, and we start— and When we start obeying our Master by believing what He says about us and by doing what He would have us do, we can have one doggone good life in the peace of His presence. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is 2 Corinthians 3:18, and it says, so all of us who have had this That veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord, and the Lord, who is the Spirit, makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. Today's Bible verse speaks of receiving spiritual sight and the process of sanctification. Here the Apostle Paul describes our new life in Christ, our transformation. We see the truth of God, and then we become more and more like him. It's not about perfection; it's about progress. The more we seek to see and reflect the Lord's glory, we become more and more like Him. Our faith was never supposed to be spent sitting idly in worship services and remaining more or less unchanged. Our faith is a process of change, a process of transformation that brings us closer and closer to God until we reflect His goodness, His character, and His glory. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Clinton Arnold's Powers of Darkness. Today, um, we're still in chapter 4, and the topic today is the angelic fall. And so if you wanted to read something about that and the different classes and names of angels, um, there's a small section on, on, on each of those, uh, on the blog today. So just go to mtforchrist.org and go to the bottom of the blog post, you'll be able to read that material. As always, we encourage people to purchase Clinton Arnold's book, um, to read for yourself and put it in your library, uh, for reference. It's great reference on the powers of darkness and, uh, spiritual warfare, um, and, uh, you know, a good view of, uh, what, what the world was like when Paul wrote his his letters that tell us about the principalities and powers of darkness that are out there. As always, we encourage a life of discipleship. So if you need instruction on that, we provide our classes online through our podcast and our YouTube channel, both called M.t. for Christ 24/7. Um, if you, uh, if you want to find them, they're under the headings of Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. We also obviously encourage people to study the Word of God, and we do a Bible study, Bible Study with the Zinkatis, once a week. Those are also on the podcast and the YouTube channel. Well, things are running late lately. I don't know, I just start writing and writing, and then, wow, I'm out of time. I gotta go to work. So it's my prayer that this Tuesday finds you well, and I guess we'll pray the rest. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you for all that you do, all that you made us to be. Um, we love the fact that you've given us new life and the, the power to overcome, Lord. We don't have to act on instinct. We don't have to just react to the world and its, and its evil. You give us the power to respond by knowing who we are in Christ. We can know that we're loved and accepted and significant in all matters of life. And that no matter what anyone says about us, that you say we are yours, we are loved, and that we're— that we have a purpose and an identity in you. We thank you for the purpose you've given us and the power you've given us to overcome. Lord, we just pray for you to go with us and help us in the process of becoming more and more like you. Today we pray for you to go before us and go before the people who are listening, Lord. We We pray for you to hear our prayers and to answer those that will help us in our relationship with you and help us here on earth. Lord, we need all the help we can get because otherwise we'll just run off, and, uh, we need you. So Lord, we just pray for you to open our eyes today with the power of the Holy Spirit to show us what's good and holy and, and, and, uh, and what's beautiful in the world. And we also ask you to direct our steps to to help us to do the best we can today and, uh, and, and all that we're faced with, and to reflect who you are and who we are in Christ. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.