Cognitive Dissonance

Reblogged from gracethrufaith.com

Wednesday, March 5th, 2014

Commentary by Jack Kelley
“Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all? (Ezekiel 14:3) The dictionary defines cognitive dissonance as an anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes or beliefs. To relieve this anxiety the human mind will strive to diminish the relative importance of one of those beliefs in favor of the other.
Jesus warned us that no man can serve two masters (Matt. 6:24) and James said when we pray we must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind and should not think he will receive anything from the Lord (James 1:6-8).
God was rhetorically asking Ezekiel if He should let people with idols in their hearts even pray to Him, Jesus was warning us about becoming distracted by wealth and James was referring to wavering faith, but the principle is the same in all three instances. A close personal relationship with God requires wholehearted devotion to Him. These are the prayers God is sure to answer. There can be no cognitive dissonance found in us. We love the promise from Romans 8:28, “God is working everything together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” But how many of us know that the word translated “love” in that verse is agape? It’s the highest form of love in the Greek language and it means to be totally given over to the object of one’s love regardless of the outcome. 
Jesus loved us that way. He gave up His life for us, remember?  Romans 12:1 says we should be willing to do the same for Him.   Of course, I’m not talking about our physical life. I’m talking about giving up our version of our future in favor of His. As long as we retain any willfulness or self-determination we’re not offering our whole beings as living sacrifices.  That’s why Paul told us not to conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). We’re not to pattern our lives according to the things of this world, but according to His will for us.

Well There’s Your Problem

Let others lament over our deplorable behavior and our weak faith. I’m going to suggest that the area where Christians in the US today are the most vulnerable has to do with the cognitive dissonance we’ve developed between our desire for the Lord’s return for us and our love of the life we enjoy here. The anxiety this creates in our sub-conscious has caused our longing for the next life to be diminished relative to our desire for the Lord to restore this life to its former levels of enjoyment.

To a degree, this is understandable. For the past 65 years or so the US has been the most preferred place to live anywhere on Earth. Even people who hate America have dreamed of living here. The benefits of American life have been as generous as they have been numerous. Average Americans have typically enjoyed a standard of living that’s beyond the reach of even the privileged few in many countries.
By contrast, the benefits of eternal life with the Lord are undefined and don’t seem real to many. For them, the phrase “pie in the sky by and by” defines the extent of their understanding. I see evidence of this in the letters I get from well meaning people who are afraid we’ll be “confined” to the New Jerusalem, as some have put it, and won’t be able to visit the Earth we’ve grown to love. Others are concerned there won’t be enough room for all of us there, and still others can’t imagine how their new life could be as nice as their current one. If they knew what the Bible says they would have no such concerns.

Whose Fault Is That?

This lack of knowledge is due primarily to the Church’s terrible failure to teach believers about the blessings of the life to come. After all, it is the fulfillment of our life’s purpose. Therefore I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that asking God to save our country is a more popular thing to do than preparing to be taken away to begin our eternal adventure with Him. For many of us, returning to the good old days here seems like a better deal than longing for the bliss that lies ahead. But while the Lord never promised to save the USA, He did promise a reward to all who long for His appearing. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing (2 Tim. 4:8)
I often wonder how bad things will have to get before people stop dreaming about the past here and start yearning for our future there. I guess time will tell. To use Ezekiel’s words, The “American way of life” has become an idol we’ve set up in our hearts. We’ve become double minded because of it and if the Lord isn’t already doing so, He’ll soon be wondering if He should even let us pray to Him about it. And remember, no matter how beautiful and desirable something appears to us, if it interferes with our whole-hearted desire to follow God’s will it’s an idol and a wicked stumbling block from His perspective.
Asking Him to extend our time here rather than hasten the day of our departure is a clear sign that we’re not loving Him as He has loved us. It means we haven’t given ourselves completely to Him. When push comes to shove we don’t really want to put aside our plans for the future in favor of His. We’ve enjoyed our time here too much and don’t want to leave just yet.

When Are We Going To Learn? 

Paul said everything that was written in the past was written to teach us (Romans 15:4). One lesson we should learn from our study of the Old Testament is that when Israel lined up behind God’s will He blessed them beyond all measure. But when they positioned themselves in opposition, His response was to take away everything they desired more than Him until He was all they had left. It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to see that happening in the US today. (Maybe the best way to make life easier for ourselves now is to abandon our version of the future and get behind His).

According to Bible Prophecy God’s plan for our times is to completely destroy all the nations to which His people have been scattered (Jeremiah 30:11) and give Israel the Kingdom He promised them. In the process He’ll restore Heaven and Earth to provide them with a life that’s vastly superior to anything they’ve ever experienced. But before He can begin these things, He has promised to take the Church to a place filled with wealth and happiness beyond measure where we can be protected from the wrath that’s coming against the unbelieving world (Isaiah 26:20-21, John 14:2-3).
Saying that we want to be raptured before things get bad on one hand, but praying that He will heal our land so we can enjoy a few more years of the “good life” on the other is as clear a case of cognitive dissonance as I’ve ever seen. It’s a wonder He doesn’t just shake His head in utter amazement and walk away forever.
But He won’t. Ready or not He’ll come one day soon and whisk us all away to our mansions in the sky. He’ll do that, not because we’ve longed for it to happen, but because He promised He would. He is God after all. He can’t do anything else. You can almost hear the footsteps of the Messiah. 06-23-12

Posted by Jean-Louis at 11:39 PM 1 comment: Links to this post

Perceived or Absolute Truth

Written and published by Jean-Louis.
To read another application of the same theme click Here

I am sure all of you have already heard this cliché: “Perception is reality” with the underlying appeal to the gullible side of man that if something is presented in a such a way as to sound or look real, most people will believe that it is indeed real. Of course the concept taken in an absolute sense is erroneous. But it is used especially in the business world to train people to present in the best light whatever product they are trying to sell.

 
It is also used in other religions, or in  Christian or non Christian cults to reprogram the brain and deceive inquisitive and sincere seekers searching for God, love, peace and unity for the human race with the ultimate appealing promise of becoming god or a god.
  One definition of truth could be absolute and exact correspondence with the reality of God’s word and embodied and personnified by the Lord Jesus Christ who said : “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes through the Father except through me.” John 14: 6.

When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, Jesus replied:
“You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” John 18:37.

 
Jesus has a way of making things clear, simple and understandable. There is no gray area of personal perception. It´s either you believe or you don´t, you are on my side or on the other. No wiggling room, no tweeking the Gospel of the supernatural birth, perfect earthly life and sacrificial death on the cross, then burial and resurrection and finally the ascension to heaven.  

Now without the Way there is no going or coming because of our natural spiritual blindness, without Truth there is no knowing with absolute certainty in the midst of lies and without Life there is no real living in the present world of death and dying.

Now let’s see if under some circumstances, this can be true from a biblical point of view.
Sometimes we can interpret real factual truth to be absolute when the way we perceive the facts is distorted by experiences that have been shaped by our personal make up and emotional or intellectual understanding of life’s circumstances and our relationships.

Take for example the passage about the flight of Jacob away from Laban in Genesis 3.
In this chapter, we have 2 examples in which Laban interpreted real facts and extrapolated his perceptions to be actual truth corresponding exactly with the reality of what happened.

When Laban caught up with Jacob, as related in verse 26, he told Jacob:
“What have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword?” Was this what really happened or just an assumption on the part of Laban?

Let’s look at verse 3 to find out. “Then the Lord said to Jacob; “return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives and I will be with you”.

When Jacob related the encounter with the Lord to his wives, here is what they said in verse 15 to 17:
“Are we not reckoned to him as foreigners? For he has sold us and has entirely consumed our purchase price. Surely all the wealth which God has taken away from our father belongs to us and our children, now then, do whatever God has said to you”.

There also seems to be some duplicity in these words that sound like acquiescence to God’s command and submission to the husband. But for right now, to follow the subject, let’s continue with Laban’s apparent motive for distorting a real fact, his daughter’s disappearance and interpreting it as a the real truth.
Laban, like Jacob was a deceiver and as such, was afraid of being deceived, so he acted under the assumption, valid as it may, that Jacob thought and acted like him when in fact the daughters partly motivated by fear of being kept out of their inheritance followed their husband willingly.

Another example in the same chapter, verse 13.
Laban accuses Jacob of having stolen his household gods, (teraphim) under a false assumption. Was it a real fact that his idols had disappeared? Yes, it was.
Was it really true that Jacob had stolen them?

No, not at all. It was just a false perception on the part of Laban, due partly because of his resentment at having been dispossessed of his flocks by his nephew, but also because of an emotional dynamic present in the heart of a parent who, no matter what the behavior of their children will excuse and cover it up out of a sense of disproportionate idealizing the beloved person which borders on idolatry in disguise.

Another factor that comes in the picture to reinforce this natural tendency is that we don’t want to admit that we are wrong and would prefer to continue in our denial and self-deceit rather than agreeing with God as to what is true and real about ourselves and the ones we are trying to protect, thus taking the first and necessary step towards freedom from emotional and spiritual bondage. We can see that Laban wanted to keep Rachel as long as possible because of his fatherly love for her as well as to keep Jacob for seven more years.

Now let’s look at the role Rachel played in taking the deceit one step further.
But first let’s look at what could have motivated Rachel to take her father’s household gods and hide them from Jacob. Could it be that she really didn’t trust the God of Jacob to provide them with everything they needed, so that she felt a need to rely on her idols to protect her and make her fruitful in the bearing of children? Could it be one of the reasons why God didn’t open her womb until later on?

Back to Rachel and her deception.
Why did she use faking her condition to hide the teraphim? Could it because she knew that it would be a sure way of ensuring that her deception would be successful?
She certainly played on her father’s sympathy for a physiological condition that men recognized and perhaps respected. I am not sure about the laws of the Medianites at that time concerning contact during a woman’s natural cycle. The hygienic and health laws were given to Moses and written down later in the Exodus.

Back to false perceptions. Laban is still not getting the point and continues in his denial and deception. Since they haven’t found the household idols, the problem has not been resolved and his deceitful nature is still working against him.
Verse 43: “Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters and the children are my children and the flocks are my flocks and all that you see is mine, But what can I do this day to these my daughter or to their children whom they have borne?”

It might sound a bit callous, judgmental and cynical and I may be wrong, but what follows in verses 44 to 53 seems to be a ritual in which Laban engages to give weight to a decision that was made for him by Jacob, by invoking the name of God and manufacturing a divine stamp of approval for his attitude and behavior. After all, all God said to Laban about Jacob and the way to treat him in a dream was to:
“Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob good or bad” (verse 24).
Laban didn’t think that he was speaking good or bad when he accused Jacob of abducting his daughters and stealing his household idols. He was analyzing the situation from the mistaken premise of a false perception based on a true fact, the disappearance of his daughters and his teraphim.

This is why we need so much the wisdom, understanding and discernment of God to differentiate between what is absolute truth as revealed in the Word of God when it is revealed to us and our perceptions based on true and real facts that are nevertheless colored by our own emotional and intellectual make up and our own personal life experiences.

Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”Proverbs 3; 5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

Jean-Louis