Mental Obsessions |
God's View:
1 Chron. 28:9
; Prov. 6:16
; 2 Cor. 10:3-5
; Gal. 5:16
-To break any habit,
it takes a quality decision, an act of the will, which process begins in
the mind. The disease of introspection, the mind dwelling upon itself, feeds
upon itself and eventually destroys itself. Our mind can be held captive
not only by a demonic imagery but by a continuous mental obsession. Constantly
analyzing oneself looking inward to find some personal truth or reality,
and constantly analyzing whether the truth I found is true or not, one becomes
full of doubt.
Hope:
Col. 3:3
, 5
, 8-9
-We are inclined to dwell on some mental or emotional
conflict in life, and we develop a mindset based on a diseased attitude.
Not accepting my conclusion of self, I become critical of self, and even
hatred of self, and I become my own god. Scripture tells us to look up to
God, ask Him to come in and shine His light into my heart, then I will receive
an objective good, either forgiveness or illumination.
Col. 1:27 ; 2:10 ; Lu. 16:10 ; Phil. 2:12-13 -To fail to center on Christ within is to 'walk alongside ourselves', rather than being and becoming conformed to the image of Christ. The one whose center is the illusionary self, the one whose center is a complex of diseased feelings, attitudes, images and symbols has nothing to do with the new substantive, outwardly-centered self in Christ.
Prov. 27:17 ; Acts 17:28 -To be is to experience life firsthand, to live in the present moment. The one who squanders his present by trying to figure out a more secure or less painful future, lives always in the painful past and for the future. To live in the present, of "isness" of "being"is to use oneself by knowing others and we become sharpened by what "is" and we begin to rejoice in the realities outside of ourselves. The meaning of life is the allow God in me to be His fullest thru me in the present moment.
Change:
Matt. 22:37-39
; Jn. 6:63
-To lift our eyes from ourselves to others
is a decision, we can and must make. It is a minute to minute kind of discipline.
Man becomes as he obeys. We "become"as we are obedient to the best we know
at one level, to the words that come from God on the highest level. That
word becomes life.
Jn. 5:19
; 15:5
-The power to be has to do with the power of being at home
"within", the present moment, of being centered, of living serenely and
meditating from the true center. To love God is to be drawn up and out of
ourselves and into Him. In loving Him, I become incarnate of Him. God descends
into us and we are drawn into Him. With Christ, we can say "I love the Father,
I do what I see Him do, He has crowned me with glory and honor". Loving all
that "is", we learn to die daily to the introspective, self-conscious life.