The Religious Nerd

If you are like me, there have been times in your life where you have made mistakes and those mistakes have resulted in some consequences.    Some mistakes are more devastating than others, and most of the time we learn from them and try hard to avoid them over and over again.  We are imperfect beings who are born tainted with a sinful nature.  No matter how much we grow in Godliness as we grow older as Christians, we continue to sin against both God and our fellow-man.  The question we sometimes forget to ask ourselves is why? Why do we continually get ourselves caught up in sin?

I think the answer to this question is that we allow our feelings to guide us.  If we feel strongly about something, we act on it, and then we think about the outcome after the situation plays out.  Things like tradition, and pleasure directly influence our feelings and often cause us to act before we think things through.

Examples:

• If you were raised in a home with parents who are Republicans, you are very likely to relate to those same views as you grow older.  You may only vote for the “Red” candidate as the “blue” candidates are all evil (even though you know very little about them and their specific views.) You spend no time gathering facts on the Democrats and instead cast your vote based on your feelings.

• Religion is of the utmost importance to you.  As you grow older you begin to realize your family and friends are all members of a specific denomination of Christianity.  Every Sunday you hear the preacher talk about how “those other Christians views are wrong and evil” and your denomination alone is right.  You go home from church and overhear your mom and dad talking about more of what your pastor said.  They fully agree with him and accept his teachings at face value.  Nobody in your household checks the Bible to see if the pastors teachings are consistent with scripture. As you grow older you continue this religious tradition and consider every Christian who thinks differently than you to be wrong and evil. One day you finally think about your life and regret all of the disunity and divisiveness you have caused in the body of Christ.

• Things get very physically passionate between you and your boyfriend/girlfriend.  You decide to have sex –  because you think you will likely get married anyway – and she ends up getting pregnant.  You discover the news and then think about what to do about it.  Abortion?  Get married right away? Come forward about it immediately with family? You lock yourself in your bedroom and get on your knees begging God to help you.

• You’re a high school student and your friend pressures you to try some alcohol or marijuana. You try them even though something deep inside of you tells you that you shouldn’t. You like the experience and begin to use these drugs more often.  As time goes by alcohol and marijuana don’t do it for you as much as they used to.  Your friend offers up something more potent.  Before you know it you are smoking meth, shooting up heroin, or swallowing prescription pills and wind up breaking into people’s houses and stealing people’s financial information to support your habit.  Maybe you even start stealing from your parents and end up getting kicked out of their house.  You wear out your welcome at your friends house and they eventually get sick of you stealing from them as well.  You end up on the streets broke, hungry, and homeless thinking to yourself “why did I do this to myself.”

• Money is something you have never had very much of and something you really need.  An opportunity arises at your job where you could receive some extra cash. However, to do this you would have to steal something and sell it to make the money.  You steal the items, sell them and collect your cash.  Later that same week the manager does an inventory and discovers several items are missing.  The manager reviews the surveillance and discovers you were the one who stole the merchandise.  You get fired and criminal charges are pursued.

These are all very different situations, however, they all have one thing in common: these people act on their feelings first and only think about their choices after the fact. This is a dangerous way of living life that ultimately results in this outcome:

All of the examples above may have seemed to be good ideas at the time, but all resulted in a dangerous way of living life.  Our feelings are not infallible.  Often times our feelings are guided by our desire for immediate pleasure despite the long-term destructive impact they have on us.  That is not how God designed us.  God has designed us to use our minds and think long and hard about everything in life.  He expects us to gather the facts, make observations, and surround ourselves with people who are older and wiser than us who we may be able to gain wisdom from.  Jesus teaches this principle here:

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37

The mind is a gift from God and God expects you to use it and make well thought out decisions instead of impulsive decisions based on your feelings.  Think first and then act, and enjoy the outcome.  Here is an illustration with the words in the correct order:

Reconsider the examples from above.  If you were raised in the house with the Republican parents and have spent some time thinking about what a Republican is, you might find yourself relating more with the Democrat, Libertarian, or Independent parties.  When you receive the ballot in the mail and look into each candidate to see what their credentials and policy views are, then and only then you cast your vote.  You didn’t throw your vote away based on your feelings.

Maybe you are the person who grew up in the denomination who claims they are better than everyone else.  After spending a lengthy amount of time reading and thinking about Ephesians 4 you discover that God expects unity among all believers despite their subtle differences.  Instead of hating “the other team” you recognize them as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and go out and work together at making more and better disciples of Jesus Christ.

Instead of acting on impulse and having sex outside of marriage, or getting into drugs, you decide to avoid drug use and wait to have sex when you are married. Your virginity becomes a gift that you have the honor of giving to your future spouse.  Your drug free body is in peak physical and mental condition for whatever is thrown at you next in life. You become satisfied in your relationship with Jesus and you begin to grow in Godliness.

Instead of stealing, you think about it and discover how blessed you currently are.  You become content and see how God is working in every area of your life.

It’s your choice.  You can continue to live life according to your feelings.  The results will often be disastrous and the pleasure temporal.  Or you can do as Jesus commands and think first,  act, and watch and see what He will do in your life.