Sunday, January 17, 2021So if the instant you cross the line you have to justify yourself, or in the instant you cross the line you are justifying yourself, then it's just like a property of being on the wrong side of the line.  And it's a trap, because you are deceived as to the fact that you are in the wrong and you are deceived as to the way to get out, and it sucks you in. Maybe good has its own rewards.  Namely peace and happiness, and all the fruits of the Spirit.  But evil has its draw, and it's definitely more appealing to the carnal mind.  It has great allure and once you're on its side it's a blinding trap.  Then it takes away peace and happiness and you want that, I guess.  So it's up to us what we want to choose.  Good or evil.  Evil has all the carnal appeal, and good just has peace and happiness, but it's not immediately apparent that it's necessary.  Something like that?Saturday, January 23, 2021Finding fault. I said slander, and I could have said finding fault. When someone is finding fault with something they are probably justifying themselves. You only need one reason to align yourself or disalign yourself with something - because it’s true or not. If it isn’t true, judge ye. If it is, judge ye. That’s all you need. If it’s false, separate yourself from it and be done. If it’s true, though, you'd best align yourself with it. I'm not talking about the people involved, who might be aligned with it also, because they will always be flawed. All the persecution in the world, all the slandering, all the fault finding, can’t change truth.—-Now, if we’re to wrestle depression and anxiety to the ground, how are we doing? (And other disorders.) Isn’t self-deception the big missing puzzle piece, and everything else is kind of there already, or will more easily fall into place? Sunday, January 24, 2021Or are there lots of things we don't understand and self-deception is just one of them?  Let's pretend self-deception is the big missing puzzle piece. By self-deception here we mean the whole idea that there is a good and an evil, a right and a wrong, that there is a God, that right and wrong is based on God's will and that we all have an innate knowledge of right and wrong in every situation, and then that if we act against that we self-deceive in a way that justifies our action.  That's self-deception.  Now we are equipped, or better equipped, to tackle anxiety and depression and everything. Sunday, January 31, 2021Well I'm going to sit here and write for a minute even though I don't have anything in mind to write about.  Sounds like self-deception is what we learn from the gospel - the idea that there's a God and a truth and all.  Basically that and the idea that we have a conscience that is reliable, which the world does not understand.  But many people in it understand.  So you can talk to them.  I wonder if you could start just by saying, so we all have a conscience that tells us right from wrong in any given situation, and it's completely reliable.  You can rely on it.  Because it's completely reliable.  You don't have to start saying it's called the light of Christ or the spirit of Christ, maybe you can call it a conscience, and people will get it.  To the extent that we listen to it and obey it we dwell in the truth, and to the extent that we suppress it or disobey it, we dwell in error, and that error…blah blah blah.  This is boring.  I don't have confidence anyone will listen to this.  I'm afraid it's going to just die right in it's tracks, that I won't get it communicated to anybody and that will be the end of it.  Will that happen?  I don't know.  It's my job to do whatever the Lord wants me to do with this - if it's nothing it's nothing, and if it's to write a little book or do this podcast and a few people maybe rea