God Blog

Approaching God One Thought At A Time

We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are.
- Anais Nin

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Perception

Literally and figuratively, we are all telling ourselves a story. And if, as they say, "Seeing is believing" then the question becomes how well do we really see?

With so many competing narratives vying for our attention, is there evidence the Bible’s authoritative? How similar is our story to that of Scripture? All but blinded by the media-information age, are we sharpening or loosing focus on ultimate questions about the nature of life and reality?


Jesus answered, “Nicodemus, listen to this eternal truth: Before a person can perceive God’s kingdom realm, they must first experience a rebirth.”


- Matthew 3:3 TPT


One Science is extremely interesting. This includes amazing recent developments in researching the mysteries of consciousness. In a
TED Talk, Anil K. Seth, a British professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience addressed the interplay between our senses and brain. Lacking eyes and ears, a sense of smell and tase, as well as touch receptors of it’s own, the brain is a prediction engine. By combining sensory input with past experience, our brains generate a best guess scenario by hallucinating a conscious reality of the world and personal awareness. Through electrochemical impulses alone, the human mind extrapolates what is real, what is true, what is important. Yours is doing so on a variety of levels as you read or listen to these words.

We’re born knowing bupkis. In time, via our senses and situation, once clean slates begin to fill with information demanding interpretation. As more stimuli is stored, by necessity its assimilation and consideration produces an individual’s sense of self or plot. Over time, interaction with the cares of life and the storylines of others augment and amend our own.

This has never been more true than today.
Life within developed nations is not only overflowing with input, but trillions of dollars are spent to manipulate mankind as a marketable audience. Sadly, many of modern media’s most lucrative works are heavily laced with immorality and worse. Synergized by the 1960’s sexual revolution, such a strategy has revised the internal and external dramas of billions. In a single generation all but dissolving traditional bonds of family and friends. Too often in favor of the original sin of entitlement and Me-ism.

While the
Bible is by far the all time best seller, an ever growing segment of the population has lost interest. Even among the rank and file of modern Christianity, a shrinking percentage can recall, much less accurately interpret, large portions of Scripture. Such Biblical illiteracy, combined with a plague of prayerlessness, creates a vacuum both being filled and enlarged with the concerns and diversions, temptations and deceptions of modern Life.

While this trend is understandable, the net effect has been a secularization of
Christianity into Churchianity. This, in turn, has created a many headed hydra of religious belief, with various forms of the gospel and many Christs all claiming to have the true story. In the fading light, opportunistic darkness has left humanity groping and guessing. Synergistic, shadowy sins multiply, staining the plots of our personal and collective chronicles. Even as “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” so billions have developed a sweet tooth for hi carb drama. All but loosing the taste for the solid meat of truth.


Perception Quotes

The following are some perceptive quotes as compiled by
WiseOldSayings.com:

  • There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.  - Aldous Huxley

  • Perception is created and twisted so quickly. - Louis C.K.

  • What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are.   - C.S. Lewis

  • No two people see the external world in exactly the same way. To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is -- in other words, not a thing, but a think. - Penelope Fitzgerald

  • People only see what they are prepared to see. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view. - Obi-Wan Kenobi

  • If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.    - Edward de Bono

  • Heightened perception is the goal: becoming more aware of how you see, not just what you see.   - Michael Kimmelman

  • Perception is demonstrably an active rather than a passive process; it constructs rather than records 'reality'.   - Michael Michalko

  • Some people see the cup as half empty. Some people see the cup as half full. I see the cup as too large. - George Carlin

  • Perception is merely reality filtered through the prism of your soul.   - Christopher A. Ray

  • Knowledge is love and light and vision. - Helen Keller

Misperception has taken an enormous toll on society in general and modern Christianity in particular. Today's onslaught of temptation and deception has all but devolved Christianity into Churchianity. Rather than be the salt and light society so desperately needs at this late hour, by and large we’ve succumbed to more subtle yet equally spiritually toxic worldliness and sin. True for a variety of reasons, chief among them is a growing lack of concern over the things of God. Overflowing with previously unknown blessings of every kind, fewer and fewer invest the time and energy to prayerfully and diligently read much less accurately and honestly study Scripture.

Worse still, growing levels of apathy are reinforced, if not created by, misleading popular doctrines such as
unconditional love and eternal security. Rather than teaching “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…so help me God” by earnestly investigating what the Bible actually says about such topics as repentance and salvation, sanctification and sin, fellowship and worship billions just wing it, believing (or not) whatever version of the gospel and Christ they happen upon.

Much of this confusion arises as a result of an assault on the
reasonableness of faith. Worldly doctrine and lifestyles, synergized by the claim that science has disproved the authority of Scripture, is turning hundreds of millions of “believers” into practicing agnostics. Biblically illiterate, the vast majority of church attenders are unable to quote even 10 verses in a row. Prayerless, most of these same church-goers take less than 10 minutes a day to stop and pray. Such casual seekers failure to diligently invest in truth leaves them woefully unaware of Scripture’s answers to life’s ultimate questions and compelling reasons to believe. Including the absolute and scientific certainty of the existence of God. A fact, in part demonstrated by the fantastic fine tuning and astounding intricacies of actual intelligent design. Amazing scientific discoveries described millennia ago in Biblical passages include a testable model of creation that encompasses many modern discoveries in the areas of astronomy and physics, biology and human origins, earth science and understanding the universe.

According to Jesus, following Him requires recognizing and committing to a narrow path. Tragically, one only a few choose to find:

  • “Heaven can be entered only through the narrow gate! The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide enough for all the multitudes who choose its easy way. But the Gateway to Life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it. Matthew 7:13-14 TLB

Or as the more contemporary Message Version put's it:

  • “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention. Matthew 7:13-14 MSG

Living faith leading to Scriptural salvation is far more rigorous than routinely believed. Quite possibly a in-depth and arduous 2-Step process rather requiring serious and ongoing repentance from worldliness and sin, rather than the one stop and size pop doctrine of simple mental assent and cheap grace. Principles repeatedly reinforced by Jesus and His apostles. Starting with Christ's famous conversation with the religious teacher Nicodemus:

  • Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:1-8 NIV


Process of Perception

The following short list represent some of the challenges and opportunities individually and corporately faced in the process of perceiving and entering the Kingdom of God:


1. Opening eyes


  • Honesty concerning what we see and don't see. Commitment to the process of perception, from expanding our field of view to growing in awareness of the importance of both the visible and invisible.


2.
Focusing




3.
Distinguishing

  • Discerning between healthy and unhealthy, helpful and unhelpful, temporal and eternal thoughts and words, attitudes and actions, habits and lifestyles.


4.
Interpreting







5.
Comprehending



6.
Selecting

  • Choosing from among poor and good, better and best fields of interest and areas of study.


7.
Assessing

  • Recall and analysis of narrative and objective, Scriptural and spiritual discernment, positive and negative experiments and outcomes.


8.
Communicating

  • Developing the art of contemplating and interpreting, explaining and discussing, discovering and uncovering truth.

  • Recruit, Train, Deploy, Monitor and Nurture (RTDMN) skill set necessary to teach and inspire, train and disciple.


9.
Implementing

  • Willingness to embrace the cost of personal and corporate holiness (issues/sins of commission) and sanctification (issues/sins of omission) to forward mission and Great Commission).


10.
Valuing

  • Growing ability to see and more fully appreciate our place in God's for the ages.

  • Willingness and desire to embrace the privilege and responsibility to follow Christ by daily denial, carrying our cross and "filling up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church."

  • Text: "By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible." (Hebrews 11:24-27 NIV)


More information

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