Implications of Fear

When someone tries to make us afraid, they are trying to be important in our thinking. It reveals something about how they feel about themselves. Deep inside, people who intimidate others to fear them are craving more of a sense of value. They want to appear powerful and important and valuable and effective. Because they do not have the inner peace and character qualities necessary to have the respect they crave, they resort to force, intimidation, anger and threats to command attention.

Fear-brokers are people who act as assistants to the intimidators by making sure everyone around them is afraid of the same things they are afraid of. This increases the power and influence of the person initiating the fear. This oppressive atmosphere creates a sense of power over others both in the originator and the fear-brokers. But it also is a strong indicator of inward shame, worthlessness or low self-esteem that is desperately trying to be filled with worth.

Fear-tracking is a function of a small part of our brain called the amygdala. Its primary purpose is to alert our consciousness to what it considers through training and experiences to be the most important thing to pay attention to. It screens all incoming information from our senses for what is good, bad and scary. When it sees something that it considers a serious threat developing it tags that information before passing it on the the next level of the brain as high priority. People who have been raised in an environment where fear was the primary motivator become fear-trackers. That is, they ignore what is good in favor of focusing on what is bad or especially on what is most scary.

The amygdala forms very strong opinions about what is scary at a very early age and usually through some type of trauma. Once embedded, this opinion never changes throughout the rest of the life, no matter how illogical and unreasonable the fear is. The only thing that may change what we fear the most is when something even more fearful presents itself and then the amygdala transfers its attention to the more intimidating subject of focus. The fear messages are generated below the conscious level so they are not affected or changed by updated contradictory new information about that thing. The only way our mind can relate differently to that fear is to acknowledge it and then make arbitrary decisions to override it based on more mature information in our belief system.

This interesting dynamic of our mind plays into a great deal of our behaviors and beliefs. It helps us understand some of our irrational fears and why some people seem to return back to the same self-defeating situations and behaviors time after time even though intelligently they know better.

The fear-tracking part of our brain has been one of the primary aspects of our human nature that Satan has exploited the most. Because he knows that what we are conditioned to track we will pay the most attention to. What we pay the most attention to becomes what is most important to us. What is most important to us and what we pay attention to will have the strongest influence on shaping our lives, our identity and our view of what constitutes reality. And ultimately, what is most important and what we allow to consume our attention and shape us becomes what we worship. For worship is simply the giving of our highest priority. What we worship is what we become and also what we will influence others to become. It is an irrevocable, unchangeable principle of life that what we focus on the most has the greatest power and influence over shaping who we are.

Because our minds operate in this way, it is easier to perceive why Jesus made the statement that He did in Matthew 10 in the middle of some comments about fear. "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." If we have been so trained to give highest priority to fear, then the only way we can shift our fear-bonds off of what is designed to destroy us is by temporarily seeing God as even more fearful. In our minds we ascribe power to what we are afraid of. This is what Satan craves and in fact what empowers him to have so much influence in our lives. Proverbs 9:10 states that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” If God cannot get our attention and priority through the attraction of love and the truth about His character, then we are invited to use our well-developed fear-tracking circuits to shift our attention away from Satan's power to the ultimate power of life and death in the whole universe. Notice that this is just the beginning of wisdom. For when we do give our attention to the One who truly holds and sustains all of life itself, after a time our focus will cause us to realize there is much more important things about God than what first attracted our fear.

When we better understand the insight that inducing fear in others betrays internal emptiness, it is interesting to apply this discernment to Satan himself. Since Satan is the greatest intimidator in the universe it becomes obvious that he has the greatest amount of inner turmoil and lack of value more than any other creature. He desperately craves the worship and attention of every intelligent being. He uses every form of lying deception, force, seduction and intimidation available to accomplish this. He does everything possible to cause every person to be afraid and fear-track what we believe threatens us the most. Many of us can observe this about Satan and accept that he operates in this fashion even while still somewhat under the confusion of his delusions.

But there is another far more subtle application of this understanding that we have overlooked and that Satan has succeeded in implanting into our thinking. What does our popular theologies about God that are based on fear imply about our belief of who God really is? Most of us grew up more or less taught ideas about a God who uses some level of threats and fear to gain our attention and respect. For most people this method lies very near the center of their beliefs about God. It is displayed quite obviously when tragedies strike and people immediately react by wondering why God imposed or at least allowed this terrible thing to happen. All sorts of conjecturing is stimulated about what is in God's thinking, but the bottom line effect is usually a propagation of more lies about a God who carries mixed motives toward his subjects.

Given this pervasive system of beliefs in a fearful, unpredictable God who keeps his children in line with regular doses of intimidation, trauma and punishment, what does it say about our subconscious belief about this God? Does it not belie the fact that if we were completely honest, we might actually believe that a God who has to make people afraid of him to serve him is a God who harbors self-doubts and may be hiding dark secrets about himself, who craves, even demands, the worship of his subjects to make him feel more valuable? This sounds at first like blasphemy and heresy, but even that reaction may be based on a deep-seated fear of analyzing our real motives for serving God and the nature of the God that we perceive. This is, in fact, the very lie that the serpent sold to Eve which first got us into the deep mess we are in today. These things may be a strong indication that very possibly the God in which we claim to believe may in fact be a god we have collectively created in our religion to actually reflect us, our own feelings, self-doubts and manipulative ways.

Along this line it is interesting to note some statements that reveal that Satan has indeed projected onto God's reputation the very attributes that he himself possesses. Carefully consider the following insights.

In Isaiah's day the spiritual understanding of mankind was dark through misapprehension of God. Long had Satan sought to lead men to look upon their Creator as the author of sin and suffering and death. Those whom he had thus deceived, imagined that God was hard and exacting. They regarded Him as watching to denounce and condemn, unwilling to receive the sinner so long as there was a legal excuse for not helping him. The law of love by which heaven is ruled had been misrepresented by the archdeceiver as a restriction upon men's happiness, a burdensome yoke from which they should be glad to escape. He declared that its precepts could not be obeyed and that the penalties of transgression were bestowed arbitrarily. {PK 311}

Sin originated in self-seeking. Lucifer, the covering cherub, desired to be first in heaven. He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw them away from their Creator, and to win their homage to himself. Therefore he misrepresented God, attributing to Him the desire for self-exaltation. With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving Creator. Thus he deceived angels. Thus he deceived men. He led them to doubt the word of God, and to distrust His goodness. Because God is a God of justice and terrible majesty, Satan caused them to look upon Him as severe and unforgiving. Thus he drew men to join him in rebellion against God, and the night of woe settled down upon the world.

The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan.{DA 21}

When it is seen that force, intimidation and fearfulness are some of the chief elements of Satan's government, then when we use those methods in the name of God or insinuate that He uses them, we join the enemy in perpetuating his lies about God and further blacken His reputation. Not exactly what could be considered truthful and faithful witnesses. But such is the testimony of most Christians and even non-Christians today.

It is time to challenge the underpinning assumptions of fear and force and all related elements in our religion, our theologies and our personal relationships with each other and with God. It is time to grow and mature in our thinking, acting and beliefs. It is time to discover and demonstrate the real truths, the glorious truths that have remained buried for millenia under the rubbish and lies about God that Satan has piled up as high as heaven. It does not matter how deeply entrenched they are in our traditions and religions or how adamantly they are defended by carefully constructed strings of texts and quotations (often very restricted to only one version of the Bible), the real truth about God and what he is like will, and is, emerging with or without our acceptance. But if we choose to believe and grow and be transformed by this refreshing breath of reality we can be privileged to become like Him and enter into the experience termed “the joy of the Lord”.

This is what we were created for. It is what only will truly satisfy the deepest cravings of every human being in existence. This is the experience of knowing what it means to be fully alive, thriving and connected. “Until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.” Ephesians 4:13.

Fear and Righteousness

Last night men's group was a bit better than sometimes. It seemed that there was more heart talk by more participants than is often the case. We got into the subject of fear and had a lengthy interaction about some of our fears and trying to understand what fear really is. The idea of walls around our hearts came into the discussion the leader brought out the story of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem after the return of the Jews from exile. It was noted that each family worked on the section of the wall nearest their home and the wall had to be interlocked with all the other sections of wall to be effective.

Another interesting observation was that the gates were built first before the rest of the wall. When we wondered how this story could relate to the walls we build around our hearts to keep everyone out, John made the very perceptive insight that God's walls have gates and ours don't. That struck me as very profound and I knew it would resonate in my mind for a long time to come.

The kingdom of darkness has counterfeits for every truth. God is in the business of tearing down walls but He is also in the work of building walls around us to protect us. The understanding that God's walls have gates manned by discerning gatekeepers to accept or reject what comes to us is very important.

Sin causes us to insulate ourselves from anyone touching our heart in an attempt to avoid our pain being reignited. We build our walls based on fear and mistrust. The walls take on all kinds of facades like bravado, pride, cruelty, piety, anything that seems to work. But they are built with the intent of self-defense because we don't believe anyone else will protect us or defend us. We believe from our past observations and conclusions that there is no one who cares enough about us to do the job right. If we don't look out for our own protection we will receive more irrepairable damage to our heart. So we build our walls thicker and higher as the blows continue to come and the missiles sail in over the top.

So my interest was piqued when I opened the devotional this morning and read this statement. “When the soul surrenders itself to Christ, a new power takes possession of the new heart. A change is wrought which man can never accomplish for himself. It is a supernatural work, bringing a supernatural element into human nature. The soul that is yielded to Christ becomes His own fortress, which He holds in a revolted world, and He intends that no authority shall be known in it but His own. A soul thus kept in possession by the heavenly agencies is impregnable to the assaults of Satan.” (SD 23)

It struck me suddenly when I read this that while our walls are built in vain attempts to protect ourselves, God's wall, His fortress, is designed to protect His reputation in our lives. When we allow God to make us His dwelling place with no other god, no other authority, allowed to stay, then He creates the wall that is the only really effective wall that can protect our hearts so they can thrive and live. If our gates are connected by a vital link to the Holy Spirit we will experience not only protection but freedom to interact and connect to others without fear. We will still experience pain and disappointment and heartache, but our value and identity will not be crushed and mutilated by shame and guilt. We will begin to experience what it means to be truly alive.

There was one more sentence in this reading that startled and amazed me. “There is no election but one's own by which any may perish.” As I read on I was attacked by old feelings of legalism when I read “that His life and character should be a pattern for all to copy, that they might have the precious gift of eternal life.” At first it seemed inconsistent with the previous, positive statements. It seemed like more double-talk that I was so familiar with and has turned off so many of my friends.

But then I realized – a copy is not a new original. When I get a copy from a copy machine I do not go through all the work of producing a new original document. I simply take full advantage of the work of the first original and make full use of it. Just the same. Jesus created the original and only perfect human life. All the rest of us can simply become a copy of His life when we trust His life for our merits. We don't have to create new righteousness in our life. We just let Him do His thing in us by the Holy Spirit and we become perfect, synchronized with God.

Personal Conviction

I woke up early again this morning this time with a strong conviction growing in my heart. I spent a lot of time yesterday evening downloading some of my favorite Christian music off the internet. These songs are a real inspiration to me. But I was now convicted that I am stepping across a line of integrity that may well interfere with my quest for intimacy with God.

This is a very subtle area that can become very confused if I don't keep my focus on the bigger picture. Many would argue that the benefits of listening to wonderful worship music would outweigh any uncertainty about the ethics of how it was acquired. With nearly everyone seemingly approving of such activity it is very easy to rationalize.

But that is for me the very essence of the danger. I grew up fine-tuning the art of rationalization, and though it exercised my ability to think, it also ingrained the habit of self-deception on the way to achieving what I craved. The Spirit impressed me that my credibility will be called into question on this issue sooner or later.

I analyzed my natural response to this conviction and saw the familiar outline of a false god inside of me. It is too easy to protect these gods because they are often there to make me happy. That does not mean they are interested in my long-term satisfaction, just immediate pleasure. That is their trademark signature. In this case, my immense enjoyment of this particular music, no matter how “spiritual” it is, can become a deceptive decoy promising to be a source of life when in fact it can turn out to be a deadly liability when I am exposed to the pure presence of God's passion. Ironically the very music that I want to listen to that may help me better enter into His presence could become my worst liability. Not because the music is wrong, but because of the hidden virus of motive I cherished to excuse the means of acquiring it.

Yesterday I commented to a friend how I felt while sharing with someone recently about my favorite subject, the real truth about God in my growing understanding of the truth about hell. I notice that when I share this liberating truth with someone who is interested that I start to feel more alive and fulfilled. I am starting to see that it gives me a reason – more than that, a passion – to live and love and connect with other hearts. I get excited when I see the light seeping into dark minds that have been deceived all their life as I have been on this subject. It is liberating because it unties and exposes so many other lies about God and presents Him in a context of perfect consistency with the love and compassion that we claim are the center of His nature.

I sense that God is preparing thousands of hearts and minds with this truth to all merge into a surprise offensive on the enemy's massive cathedral of lies assembled over centuries of deception. It will expose a level of glory for God unseen before since possibly the beginning of the world. The question He has for me is, am I willing to release and let go of any false sources of life to trust Him alone to satisfy me, or am I going to rationalize and protect any source of pleasure that I have allowed to be more important to me than my trust in God's love and plans for me.

This is what I am seeing going on in my heart right now, not just my mind. As I read the two devotional books this morning both of them had important things relevant to what God is saying to me. I could hear His voice reinforcing the words and making application to me personally. The first book, Sons and Daughters of God, had a series of very helpful insights.

“Christ's office work is to introduce us to God as His sons and daughters.

“There is an inexhaustible fund of perfect obedience accruing from His obedience. In heaven His merits, His self-denial and self-sacrifice, are treasured as incense to be offered up with the prayers of His people. As the sinner's sincere, humble prayers ascend to the throne of God, Christ mingles with them the merits of His own life of perfect obedience. Our prayers are made fragrant by this incense. Christ has pledged Himself to intercede in our behalf, and the Father always hears the Son.

“He...will look with pity and compassion upon every soul who realizes that he can not save himself.

“His hand holds you much firmer than you can hold His hand.” (p.22)

Then I meditated on the reading in My Utmost for His Highest and was reminded of the call God had hinted at earlier this morning.

“The call is the expression of the nature from which it comes, and we can only record the call if the same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not of our nature. There are strands of the call of God providentially at work for us which we recognize and no one else does. It is the threading of God's voice to us in some particular matter, and it is no use consulting anyone else about it. We have to keep that profound relationship between our souls and God.

“...As long as I consider my personal temperament and think about what I am fitted for, I shall never hear the call of God.... The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says. To be brought into the zone of the call of God is to be profoundly altered.”

I faintly sense that there is tremendous excitement and intensity in the heavenly world that I am not well atuned to yet. But God is inviting me into a deeper experience and possible soon a more active involvement if I am willing to cooperate with His preparation of my heart. The most encouraging words to me were the assurance that His hand holds me much firmer than I can hold His hand. That's wonderful good news.

“God, hang on to me.”

Ice Art

I walked around town last night taking pictures of all the ice carvings that had been created the night before. In the intervening hours we had experienced unseasonal temperatures just around freezing (warm for the middle of January) and intermittent rain. This of course seriously compromised the fine details of these sculptures but most of them still retained a fair amount of beauty.

I observed one of the craftsmen last evening carving on his blocks of ice with a grinder. My daughters pointed out to me that on the face of the blocks was white paper containing the outlines of what the object was to look like. The artist then followed the pattern as he carved away the frozen ice to reveal the beauty that already existed in the mind of the creator. He grinds, chips or melts away the excess ice according to the pattern design to create a beautiful object of art in a third dimension that before only existed in two dimensional outline.

As I reflected on it this morning and looked at the photos I had taken, I was reminded of the admonition to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Though that text has likely been misused to justify a great deal of legalistic activity through the years, I have pondered for a long time what it really does mean. As I compared it to what I was observing here it helped to make a little more sense.

Do not be too rough on the ice. Ice can be very fragile even though it seems very hard. Rough treatment will mar and ruin the original design. Of course a master craftsman could still create an alternate piece of art that could be very useful, but a lot of problems could be avoided with patience and carefulness. This art is very fragile but under the careful, persistent work of the craftsman can become very beautiful.

Do not be too resistant. The ice is shaped over several hours with sharp tools, saws and even hot flames at times. The true beauty of the object is difficult to see until it is nearly finished

This analogy has some good lessons for me. But in the end, like most analogies, it breaks apart. While I want to cooperate under the skilled hands of God in bringing out the beauty and glory that God designed for me, in the end I want to be much more than a frozen, melting piece of frigid water. I was designed to have a heart aflame with the very passion of God, that is warm and caring, soft and vulnerable, connected to the very Source of life itself.

These pictures are after almost 24 hours of semi-warm temperatures and intermittent rain.

Heart vs. Head Control

We were created to live from our heart and God's restoration process will take us back into this arrangement. Because we were designed this way it stands to reason that our heart has available to it more resources and better equipment to do the job correctly. An analogy might be like trying to operate a complex, large piece of equipment with some of the controls missing. Living from the intellectual side might be like trying to drive a car without one of the needed pedals or with some of the critical gages missing. Or maybe a better analogy might be trying to fly an aircraft without important gages or with certain controls missing.

The left brain is so independent and proud and so sure that it can successfully do the job better that it will develop coping strategies that it is sure will be up to the task. This is the deceptive legacy all of us received from our first parents. This is where we picked up the “picker” and its affects have dominated our lives ever since. Our selfishness and independence will always lead us to believe that we can figure things out given enough information and time and resources. But this is not living from the heart or being led by the Spirit and sooner or later it is guaranteed to fail. This is living by rules and logic.

Living a rule-based life is what Paul identified as living under the law. This is when we use the “picker” to guide our life and choices. We compile and synthesize information and then sometimes ask for guidance by the Holy Spirit and may even have wonderful insights and spiritual knowledge. But if the leading edge of our life is guided more by our logic and rule-based thinking then we are actually living in the flesh and often wondering why we are having a Romans 7 kind of life. We may firmly believe that we are indeed led by the Spirit while still depending on our picker. It is quite amazing how easy it is to remain deceived in this area of life.

While it is true that the heart has available to it all the “controls” necessary to guide our lives and was designed for that job, it is also true that sin has damaged our hearts so that they are immature and untrained. When we try to live from our heart, for awhile it can appear highly unstable and untrustworthy. This is why the idea of living from the heart often has so little credibility because it can be very messy and erratic especially at first compared to those living an apparent stable existence from their head based on rules.

Because of sin and its crippling effect on our setup, our hearts are no longer capable of making right choices without outside intervention and guidance even though that was their intended role. While this guidance can only be safely supplied by God's Spirit, it is this very deficit in our heart that invites takeover by the logical left brain. So our hearts are the proper driver's seat from which we need to live genuinely but they also need a divine vital connection to succeed.

A counterfeit of being led by the Spirit is being led by our own emotions and base desires which will always be infiltrated by spirits from another source. This results in possibly living from our heart but from a hijacked heart. This is the arrangement that most people indulge in who have become cynical about hypocritical religion and watching rule-based people try to be “good” without living from their hearts. They see that living from the head is so destructive to relationships and steeps people deeper and deeper into the results of legalism. So they decide to take an apparent opposite course and immerse themselves in emotionalism or pleasure-seeking.

But neither of these are what God has designed for us to live successfully and thrive. We need to realize our need and dysfunction and understand what ditch we find ourself in and then participate in the plan of restoration (salvation) that God has put together to bring us back into living life abundantly. We need to learn what really satisfies our soul instead of going for temporary pleasures that only mask our pain or immerse ourselves in rules and formalism which also ignores our real emptiness.

When we finally connect with the Lover of our soul who is also the only Source of real life; when we allow Him to restore the proper functional arrangement within our minds with our hearts at the top under the control of His Spirit, then we will truly begin to experience life as described in Ephesians 4:13. “Until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.”