Following the Lies

I started this a while ago and have been wrestling with it since then. As always, welcome to a work in progress.

I don't know who we're deceiving - certainly not God and at times not even ourselves. We continue to act as though we are in control of everything in our lives as it suits us. Sure, we experience things that are out of our control, the effects of which we want to blame on someone else, but control is what drives us. Whether we believe that we are in control of our lives shapes who we are.

In a study done a few years ago, nursing home patients were studied for how perceived control affected their lives. Those who believed they had more control (like choosing something rather than being given it) were typically happier and even had a lower mortality rate during the study. The extent to which we believe that we can control our lives is far-reaching. Happiness, longevity, hope, satisfaction and stress are just a few aspects of our lives that rely at least in part to perceived control. This perception of control also affects how we respond to stimuli, depending on the degree to which we believe that our responses will affect the outcome.

An episode of Joel Osteen's preaching was on recently. Strangely it seemed like the same one that I noticed a week or so prior when I was flipping through the stations. Maybe the message doesn't really change. But I've digressed. Joel was speaking about how he realized one day that worrying wasn't going to help him in any way. Just like that he decided never to worry again; supposedly he hasn't looked back either. To Joel, his response to stimuli has immense consequences because he believes that what he says or thinks or does is powerful; he believes that he is ultimately in control of his circumstances.

He also went on to say that we must not speak negativity into the future. Do you really have that kind of control over your circumstances to just decide one day to completely alter your thought process and never go back to the old way? If it's just a matter that not all of us have the faith for that kind of change, in whom have we placed our faith - in the risen Christ or in ourselves? It's an area that we all need to address earnestly because rationalizing or otherwise lying to ourselves harms our relationship with God, the body of Christ, and with everyone else. Pride can often be a sin in our lives, but we seldom see the pride, only its effects. Seek out the sin in your own life and repent. Christ grants forgiveness through His death and resurrection to those who confess Him as Lord and Savior and belief in Him. But you must confess your sin and repent of it. Turn from it, and leave it.

Since the first temptation in the Garden of Eden, humans have bought into the lies of autonomy and self-sufficiency. Being like God and knowing good and evil sounds like a good start to being how God intended us to be anyhow, right? We are told that knowledge is power. But there's still the matter of volition. I can choose how I act, what I say and what I think (at least to some extent). I should be able to control whether I go to heaven or hell (if I choose to believe in their existence). Would a loving, merciful god actually send someone to hell? That argument sounds reasonable enough, and from it we might assume that control over our destiny is our own. If I want to go to heaven when I die, being "good" should be sufficient to get in because once again it all comes back to me. Therefore even if going to heaven is based on my works, I have control only to the extent that I choose how to act. Again, it's all about me, and if this god knows me, presumably he'll know when it was me consciously acting and when something controlled me - subconscious or genetics or whatever. But I'm sure there's room to slide, because it's about me and my sense of control.

We begin to slide further down this slope when we start making claims about what counts and what parts of our lives are somehow exempt. If I claim that I am not responsible for my feelings because somehow they are beyond my conscious self, though my thoughts are my own, then my feelings cannot be considered wrong. But then what is the difference between how I feel and my reaction to something if it is not premeditated? That would make it seem that I cannot sin in those areas since they are outside my conscious control. Can we feel the earth sliding out from under us yet?

Total depravity is a concept that so few of us are willing to accept, and to me that seems to be an ever-stronger argument in its favor, at least lately. Without the work of the Holy Spirit, how can anyone even see their need for salvation? What urges us to examine the gospels and to take them seriously? What makes someone's testimony poignant to us? I was so blind to my sin that I could not perceive my own wretchedness in light of a holy God. I am grateful that He considered me worthy of receiving such a gift as salvation at such a high cost to Him. But there is a way out from all of that sin - found in the work of Christ. It's not about you or me. It's about God - the Father, whose decision set in motion everything in order to free us; the Son, whose sinless life and physical death and resurrection provided a means for our salvation; and the Spirit, whose work in our lives and in the world provides for our acceptance of the free gift of salvation and the ongoing process of sanctification. Glory to God, for He is in control. Glory to God forever.