Category: godliness

There is a strange mindset people often get wrapped-up in. It is more of “mode of instinct” than any actual thinking. It is highly selfish and tends to latch itself onto people who amass power and influence over others.

Know it by this: It is prone to violate moral absolutes with heavy self-rationalizing.

No matter how good you are, no matter how ethical, this can happen to you! Recognize it when it does.

The types of wise principles this “animal mode” will tend to violate are often the most basic morals—communicate, do not accuse without a fair trial, wait for and keep marriage vows, don’t steal, do not do normal work on your sabbath no matter how much it feels like you should. Generally and for some reason, these often include the Ten Commands and instructions in the New Testament like Jesus’s teaching in Matthew, James’s “slow to speak, slow to anger, quick to listen”, rules about lust, temptation, immorality, and others. These are simple, objective moral guidelines. But, when we get into “animal mode”, we forget them all.

Clinging to moral principles keeps you out of animal mode. When you see yourself crossing those lines, you know you must stop yourself. If you don’t, it could be the beginning of the end for whatever your current life’s work may be.

These moral codes not only guide us, to keep ourselves on track. They also warn us about others.

When you see someone in “animal mode”, unwilling to knock it off, just zip your lip and step back. Be cordial but resolute, especially when he’s in the power seat. That person will self-destruct. The clock is already ticking. This was your alarm.

In truth, this “animal mode” could be a form of spiritual attack. Demons try to tempt and influence anyone. However much mind control demons and evil spirits can exercise, they show it in “animal mode”.

Whether “animal mode” has come for you or someone you know, morals are vital to guide and warn you. But, you also need a strong, ongoing fellowship with God or you don’t stand a chance. “Animal mode” destroys anyone without a daily life in prayer and Bible.

Matthew 17:18-21, Mark 9:28-29

Never let instruments and labels lie. If the bottle says “iodine”, don’t take the dabber and touch it directly to your skin so that the bottle contains “iodine and dead skin cells”.

This is basic science lab conduct.

When you’re still angry at your father for yelling at you five decades ago—or however you exaggerate numbers and cling to your past—don’t remember him as a bad, evil monster that eats trees, rubber, and even asphalt. Just remember that he was your father and that he yelled at you.

When we level the charge it makes complaints much easier to manage.

When the car is low on fuel the dashboard doesn’t display a “low oil” light just to get our attention. Yes, low fuel is a problem, but it needs a petrol station not a mechanic to rebuild the engine. As anyone should know, by the time the “low oil” or “low coolant” lights comes on, the engine is probably already damaged.

Only a bad teacher would dare to think, “Students only do 50% of what they are instructed, so I will tell them to do 200% so they end up doing 100%.” A teacher who does this will only attract “fifty percenters”. Students who are serious need accurate figures to calibrate their efforts. Under such a teacher, students will rightly harbor resentment, something no one wants from people who give 100% without needing to be asked.

As a parent or supervisor, do not over-punish and never ignore good work. If your “children” do a good job at their morning assignment, but fail their afternoon assignment, don’t score a “FAIL” for the whole day, only for the afternoon. If a bad afternoon means that the morning doesn’t matter to you either, then people will give you the effort of a “FAIL” for the whole day tomorrow.

Accurate reporting is part of justice. If people don’t seem to care or lack self-motivation, deceiving them with an artificial reality of false physics won’t do anyone any good. Report accurately to yourself. If the truth can’t help you help people, then you either need to learn the truth yourself or you need to find the right people.

Leviticus 19:35-36, Proverbs 10:9; 20:23, John 8:32, Colossians 3:9

Take a long look at the world around you. Consider science and exploration. Look at history and wonder. Don’t be biased—look at all science and medicine—traditional, Chinese, Western, homeopathic, pharmaceutical, herbal, spiritual… Everywhere you look, we find wonder and mystery and sensibility wrapped into one.

Never let anyone or anything convince you that our natural universe was not created by a benevolent and wonderful God.

Conclusions from observations must be properly ordered. The “Biblical” God is wondrous and immense and fascinating. How absurd of a claim that the universe is too immense, fascinating, and wondrous to have been made by the immense, fascinating, wondrous God of the Christian Bible! Such science is not scientific.

When God put His awesome splendor into creation, He was not merely giving us evidence that He exists and created all in Heaven and the universe; He was also expressing invisible parts of His Divine Nature—abstract nouns, if you will. The harmony and dance between simplicity, beauty, and functional fortitude throughout nature explain the character and ways of God. Being His Image, we can’t not find nature fascinating because nature also explains the original from Whom we came and reflect.

The Bible presumes that we can establish science and research on our own. As we look at the skies and whatever appears through a microscope, as we walk among the fields and even ponder the miracle of our hands themselves, the Bible offers additional explanation for all of it. We look and work in this world and make our own discoveries, while the Bible guides us to understand what we would never figure out on our own. These two work together.

Thomas Aquinas explained this, that “All truth is God’s truth.”

The one thing we always learn from science is that we can never learn everything. This is the same lesson we learn from theology—that knowledge about God is just as inexhaustible as knowledge of what He has created. Nature reflects His unseen character. Once a godless science or arrogant theology persuades our worldview, we also become so godless and our inner life force breaks down. A godly, thus thriving, life begins with a godly cosmology.

Joshua 3:5, Job 5:9; 9:10, Psalm 19; 86:10, Proverbs 11:2, Romans 1:20-21; 11:33-35, Ephesians 3:18-21