GRACE, FAITH and LIFE
A Personal Statement of Christian Faith and Practice

The NATURAL Person:

Ephesians 2:3 (NASB)
3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Titus 3:3 (NASB)
3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

 

The flesh is the fallen nature of humanity The first chart or diagram is on the fallen nature of humanity and will show how our MIND - EMOTION and WILL interact. I don't profess to have a professional presentation of our mind. What I have makes since to me. Most academic studies get so complex they are beyond meaning to the normal person.

MIND - The word translated mind in the Bible has several different meanings, indicating that the mind has several different functions or compartments, which we need to look at.

IMAGINATION

INTELLECT

HEART

INCLINATION

SPIRIT

KNOWLEDGE

SOUL

WILL

The panel "IN US WE HAVE" shows several characteristics of our nature. This is not our cognitive abilities, we will be considering how we think and how all of this relates to our thinking in a later session. These are various characteristics of our mind or personality.

I believe most Christians will agree with the idea that we are BODY, SOUL and SPIRIT. Others may not make any distinction between soul and spirit.

In this model our SOUL consists of

MIND - EMOTION - WILL

So let's take a closer look at this mind, emotion and will. First the MIND, In the mind, we have:

MEMORY

Our memory is like a databank, it is constantly being renewed and modified with new data.

Memory is some of

- EVERYTHING WE HAVE DONE

- OUR EXPERIENCE THINGS WE HAVE LEARNED

- KNOWLEDGE OUR LIKES AND DISLIKES EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO US OUR BELIEFS

- VALUES AND OPINIONS

We do not remember everything, at least we don't know that we remember everything.

Memory is based on association, relevance and soundness. We remember things which we think we will use, or which has some association with something which we have already remembered. We must also consider it as being sound, not verified but intuitively or compared to our previous experience it must appear to be sound. There is a ranking of things remembered based on relevance. Things which are real relevant we store on top or up front, and other things we kind of push back. There are bad memories which we even try to avoid or block out. How does this work with our Christianity? The same way, if it isn't relevant we won't remember it. And this relevancy changes.

KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge is everything, good or bad, which has come into our mind from all sources. Obviously there is alot of deception and wrong information (garbage) which we have to sort out. We will be looking at some of the sources of deception and wrong information later. Depending on our circumstances and schooling, all of us receive knowledge and use it in different ways. Sometimes it is force fed. Sometimes it is simply a thirst or desire. How each of us interpret this knowledge in our own way, determines how it effects our lives and our beliefs. Sometimes we don't want to take responsibility for this.Indeed, the World, in a lot of ways, is telling us that we are not responsible for this. The World is telling us THAT is who we are. Knowledge which we have confirmed to be true, AND CHOOSE TO RELY ON, becomes our beliefs, our trusts.

Our CONSCIENCE, IMAGINATION, TEMPERMENT and PRIDE can overrule knowledge based on truth. When this happens, we are giving ourselves up to control by the Flesh. We have all experienced being controlled by our emotions. This is not just another pedogogical study. We really need to know how this works.This is going to relate to our life in Christ. Satan uses all of this stuff to deceive us.

CONSCIENCE

"Knowledge of good and evil" is something we have all read about in Genesis. How Adam and Eve were deceived by Satan into thinking they could be like God by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and therefore could live independent of God an be selfsufficient. I believe that Adam and Eve received that condition, as a result of their disobedience to God and everyone is born with this condition.

- FEAR has to do with expected consequences. Fear is the opposite of love. Our fears are very controlling.

- RATIONALIZATION - Battle, in our mind, between what we should do and what we do anyway.

- DOUBLEMINDEDNESS - Thinking one way and doing something else, or doing different things in similiar situations, not knowing what we believe, not being settled.

- EXCUSES

- GUILT - Something from our past accuses us and we can't let it go

- SELF-CONDEMNATION

- REGRETS

- LOST DREAMS - Midlife crisis, not living up to our own expectations.

- CONSCIENCE is mostly concerned with the past

IMAGINATION

- ENVY

- FANTASY

- SUPERSTITION

- WHO WE WANT TO BE

- OUR IDEA AND EXPECTATIONS OF GOD, our idea of God, in the Flesh, is always wrong. Our idea of God may be based on our relationship with our parents.

- OUR EXPECTATIONS OF EVERYTHING

- WHAT WE THINK OTHERS THINK OF US

- CURIOSITY

- HOW DO WE MEASURE UP, HOW DO WE COMPARE

This is where we deceive ourselves a lot. Thinking about what might happen in the future. Or, how things could have been better now, if things in our past had been different. And, this may be true, we can really mess up our lives. This is right where some of us live. We choose to not face the real world by allowing these things to take control of our minds.

SELF

These are just some attributes of SELF. Self is more than just self-image.

TEMPERMENT

Temperment, may be innate or it may be some type of learned or remembered psychological response to our environment. We have one or more of these types. One is usually dominant. Temperment manifests itself in our character, how we act and react. This is what is normally directing our FIRST response to something, our 'FIRST THOUGHTS.'

TYPES OF TEMPERMENT

OUTGOING

ENTHUSIASTIC

COMPETITIVE

IMPATIENT

REACTIVE

PEACEFUL

OPTIMISTIC

COMPULSIVE

NITPICKER

BOSSY

STUBBORN

WORRIER

CONFIDENT

CRITICAL

PERMISSIVE

OPINIONATED

PRIDEFUL

TIMID

These are only a few types of temperments. Temperments usually define, who we think we are, whom others think we are, and who we really are. Who we are is sort of based on what we believe gives meaning and purpose to our life. This tends to control us.

Some of us live our lives always being controlled by our temperments, even as Christians.

TALENT

Talent is some innate propensity to be good at or to learn something quickly.

- BEING MUSICAL

- BEING MECHANICAL - Taking something apart and put it back together, or just understanding how something works.

ABILITY

Ability is more derived from experience, more learned than innate, skills.

CONFIDENCE

Confidence is something in our temperment which allows us to try something or to think we can do something.

PERFORMANCE

Performance has to do with our competitive nature, our training and our innate will to win. Performance, is what we expect of ourselves in order to have a good image. Sometimes we give up on this. DRIVE STRONG-WILL

PRIDE

Pride is an exalted self-image. Pride is our will to win, our competitive independent nature, our self-sufficiency.

Pride causes us to lie to preserve an image or to avoid the consequences of our actions.

SELF-IMAGE

Self-image is all of this stuff. It is what we think of ourselves, in these terms. Depending on how we think of ourselves, our self image may be very proud or may be very inferior. Either extreme is hard to live with, in ourselves and in relating to others. Either extreme is very selfcentered.

WE NEED TO HAVE A PROPER SELF-IMAGE, BASED ON WHO WE ARE AND ON RESPECT OF OTHERS.

Now this is a lot of stuff for us to deal with and there is a lot more. I don't even have the bad stuff up here.

The Bible calls this wicked and evil. It is not just one thing, it is everything.

1 Corinthians 2:14 1

4 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.

Genesis 6:5

5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.

Titus 1:15

15 Unto the pure all things [are] pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving [is] nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

Mark 7:21

21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

 

This page last updated on March 8, 1997.

Copyright © 1996 Daniel R. Boliek