There is a driving force that makes you act the way that you do. It is usually something you built around a ‘hurt’ that you have perceived you were inflicted with. Today, we’ll begin revealing that hurt and see how it affects every aspect of your life.

            We have previously considered the prophetic messages about the coming Messiah (see Introducing the Messiah) and added to that a theological discussion about who Christ is (see Who is the Savior). Now, I could stop right here and say, ‘If you want a great life, just emulate Jesus.’ And that would be true.

         However, most of us created ‘meanings’ about life when we were very young that have distorted the way we look at the world, and we have drummed up patterns to deal with the dangers we believe are confronting us. They are buried so deep in our psyche that we live lives in an always automatic way of being, which plays out in our unconsciousness.

            So, even though we may be saved, we have a have a self-inflicted wound that drives us back to our old sin patterns. Indeed, most of these patterns are performed unconsciously. Wouldn’t life be better if we didn’t have to continually go to battle with ourselves?

            Our wounds begin in our youth. In fact, they were first handed down to us in the Garden of Eden (see A Devilish Indoctrination). The Great Liar (Satan), planted the wounding seed when he convinced Eve, and ultimately Adam, to disobey God by convincing them that He was lying to them. They disobeyed because they thought they could be something more, god-like.

            Instead, Adam and Eve fell from God’s grace after committing that first sin – shamed and afraid of His rejection. How does this play out?

            We are composed of a body (molded from the same dust as the stars) which is meant to be a temple of God (1 Cor. 6:19), a soul (mind, will and emotions), and a spirit (a piece of God that vivifies the body and functions as our God-connection). In God’s plan, the body is subject to the soul, and the soul to the spirit.

            The devil’s strategy is to break that hierarchy by stealing your soul. He does that by distorting your soul with lies until you lose all memory of your innate goodness. This ‘distorted’ soul does the Adversary’s bidding, by yielding to the desires of the flesh, leading to corruption, and it oppresses the spirit.

         Satan spins a complex multi-layered web to capture your soul, to steal you from God, by keeping you out of your eternal home by persistently egging you on to sin. Subsequently, you begin to judge yourself as inadequate (‘not good enough’) and unlovable. This is at the root of every problem that you have…

            This warped way of thinking has been passed down through every generation – beginning with Cain. (see The Bad Seed). The result? People scurry throughout their lives searching for acceptance and love, which they don’t think that they deserve. They create laws for people to follow to gain acceptance from other humans.

            They replaced the Law of God with the laws of Man, which dictated how one must think and or act, in every conceivable situation, laws now twisted and so voluminous that they have become impossible to adhere to.

         We aren’t born with seeds of doubt or a spirit of rejection, we must be indoctrinated with them. That’s where Mom and Dad come in (see What Are We Teaching Our Children?).

            Our parents were indoctrinated similarly by their parents, and they likewise infiltrate their child’s brain with drivel that they think will help their kids to ‘fit in.’ This is an unconscious process, not a malevolent undertaking.

            Nevertheless, the child is branded with other people’s opinions about truth, evil and good, instead of letting them form their own views through experience. Worse, many of these opinions contradict what he or she can sense through their innate knowledge of right and wrong.

            And let’s not forget the malevolent mental drubbing taking place by government, media and public schools.                

            Usually, by the age of six, the devil’s work is firmly in place.

            Some of what Mom and Dad indoctrinate, may clash with what you need; e.g. maybe you’re afraid of the dark, but they make you cry your way through it, or they refuse to feed you when you’re hungry because it’s not dinner time. Your parents aren’t being hostile, they are basing their decisions on what some ‘expert’ told them.

            But you’re just a kid. All you know is that the people you love aren’t meeting your needs. Worse, you might begin to think that there might be something wrong with your needs or with you for having them – especially if your parents are punishing you regarding them as well.

         Nevertheless, kids are smart. They invent ways to get their needs met – either by ‘acting out,’ or by memorizing their parent’s ever-expanding list of ways that they are supposed to be, to make them acceptable and lovable. In other words, they’re learning to become someone who they are not.

            The children create a mental construct, (ego), to index all of these ‘necessary behaviors.’ It is a defensive cocoon of conformity for being protected from pain – a creation to help them compensate for a lack that never existed. (See Evolution of the Dark Mind)

            Ego drives its host by playing on its fears and desires. It grows a voice that says the world is a dangerous place – a place to be survived, not lived.

            However, this ego begins to feed on the power the child has given it; but then it becomes resentful because it knows that its very existence depends upon its host’s perceived need for it. Thus, it begins to berate its host with their ‘imaginary flaws,’ to increase their feeling that ego is necessary to their survival.

            Eventually, the child identifies with ego, believing its voice is his or her own. They don’t question the voice and come to forget that they created it, not realizing that it only survives through their faith in it.

            When ego is in charge, your soul takes a back seat. As it pummels you with your ‘flaws,’ you either go into hiding or try to change – neither being an effective solution. And you can’t fix them, because they are imaginary!

            Ego then contaminates all of the information you receive from your God-given brain, so that all you perceive are altered meanings / realities, which you accept as truth. As a result, your life is brimming over with anxiety. In that state, you will never pursue a good life.

            That voice in your head wants to keep control over you continually, so it goes to war with your past and future, in addition to ruining your present time. It creates a darker past with you at fault (your Life Story) and presents a future with no hope. Suffering sets in.

            When you listen to ego, you are separated from God – just what Satan wanted…

You drag your Life Story into present time, and your preoccupation with it keeps you from living, because life only lives in the ‘now.’ We try to bring comfort to the child we were in the past, feeling unlovable and inadequate, looking to fix problems that lived in that same past (see The Past Sure is Tense).

For as he thinks within himself, so he is. Pr. 23:7 NASB

            You tend to isolate yourself. Your life mirrors what’s going on in your head, which is a miasma of meaningless thoughts that has you running from what is real. You become agitated and strike out; and you take on a victim mentality so as to not be responsible for how your life is turning out.

            Your only real sin is making yourself suffer and throwing your life away. Definitely not what God wants:

“Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder the things of the past. Behold, I will do something new…” Is. 43:18, 19. NKJV

            When you live in the past, the conversation in your head becomes a series of regrets: ‘if only I would have done ___;’ ‘If only I would have married___;’ ‘If only I wasn’t so___,’etc. And life just keeps passing you by.

            Just the ways ego likes it, because it can’t control present time.

What kind of life is this? It’s painful. So, we add addictions, distractions, change jobs, relationships, or geographic locations. The pain remains. We become victims of a false reality where we exist as a perception of smallness, ineptness, and surrounded by problems.

As our lives progress beyond childhood, we encounter major events and interactions with others whom we perceived bigger-than-life or more powerful than we thought we were. We assigned false meanings to these events.

Subsequently, we avoid events / people that we judge to have the potential to bring suffering. Thus, we have a life void of challenges that might bring growth and is also filled with mediocrity and loneliness.

This isn’t the life God wants for you. To be continued…

Goodnight and God Bless.