SPIRITUALITY AND SELF CONTROL

SPIRITUALITY AND SELF CONTROL

This article is not dictatorial, or agenda driven but is simply my idea of spirituality and self control, and hopefully will stir your thinking!! So please feel free to comment on it!
When reading a book, we use our mind to produce or form a picture of the story, so it takes quite a bit of concentration.
Watching a movie requires very little concentration or attention, because the mind doesn’t have to form a picture of what’s happening.
Before a child can read words, story books have accompanying pictures so the child can connect the words read by the adult, to the pictures. This is the process of learning to use only the written word to ‘get the picture’!
The Bible is the same, it’s simply a book of words from which we concentrate on forming a picture in our minds to understand the message, or story?
To be able to use the mind and feelings of the heart to control the body, or the physical side of us is really what Jesus taught, and later, the apostles. (For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace....Romans 8:6)

When reading the Old Testament, especially the Torah, (the first 5 books) a picture is formed of a very physical form of worship, with self control and obedience being induced using physical requirements, that is, things to do on certain days, looking for a new moon to count off from, incense and sacrifice etc.
The animals have a mind that simply tells them to eat, drink, mate, and to fight or flee!
We have the same attributes, but we have something they don’t have; the ability to control those things.
That’s the concept of ‘fasting’, voluntarily going without food for a period of time, to check our ability to have self control over a physical requirement!

Hypnotism is an example of mind control, but you have to be a willing participant for it to work! The hypnotist has to take control of your mind, in order to have you either do or not do something physical. If you haven’t got enough self control to give up smoking, then hypnotism may help to achieve it.
Jesus said ‘God is spirit, and we must worship Him in spirit’ (John 4:24), so why are we still tending to certain days, seasons and cups and priestly clothing etc??? (Galatians 4:10)
When we read Math 6:6-8, where is the physical requirement of prayer, there??
In fact, when I read all of the ‘sermon on the mount’ (Math 5, 6 & 7) I see a picture of self control, from the mind and heart, in our relationship with others?
Food and drink sustains us physically, but Christ’s body and blood sustains us spiritually; that being the meaning of what is commonly called the last supper!

Next time you pray, whether it’s your normal daily prayer, or for something specific, try not speaking it! Just say the words in your head, just like you do when you read something. Do you think God will still hear them?
Compare that idea to verse 28 of Math 5; would God know if a man ‘lusted’ after a woman in his heart? Obviously He would!
All this is reinforcement of the ‘tenth’ commandment way back then!!! (About coveting)
The real ‘switch on the wall’ to spirituality was the resurrection, where the physical Jesus became the spiritual Jesus.....faith by mind belief only? After all, the apostle Paul (previously Saul) who had never met Jesus in the flesh was converted by the spiritual Jesus on the road to Damascus! (Acts chapter 9) and he went on to write most of the New Testament!

To quote Paul in Romans 12:2....”Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--- his good, pleasing and perfect will”.
In fact, I believe personally, that God produced Christ at the time He did, in order to use the Roman Empire to do two things; physically carry out the crucifixion, and later, destroy the temple and the city, the latter of which Jesus said would happen. (Math 24:1&2)(Mark 13:2)
The obvious reason why the temple had to be destroyed (in 70AD), was to mark a definite symbolic end to the old physical worship system.
The ‘picture’ I get from the New Testament writings is of the apostles trying to convince the people to be spiritual with God and their neighbours? Love God and love your neighbour is spiritual, from the mind and heart!
WHAT MAKES YOUR RELIGION THE RIGHT ONE?
To continue with this train of thought, have you ever asked, ‘what makes Christianity the right religion?’ Is it just because your church or some individual said it was?
The Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and the Judaists surely will say theirs is!!
When I read ‘The God Delusion’ by atheist Richard Dawkins, I realised he had made some good points? People seem to follow a religion blindly without really thinking about it, sometimes defending it with violence when it’s criticised.
The Catholics and Muslims fought for supremacy in the crusades, and the Catholics and Protestants fought in Ireland; even the Hindus and Muslims fight??
After looking at the worship procedures of the various religions, I thought to myself ‘there has to be something that makes my religion, Christianity, unique or a ‘stand-out’ compared to the others, otherwise it is no different from the rest and therefore just another religion!
All the others have some form of physical conformity for their worship, whether it’s temple attendance, praying a certain way and at certain times, or ringing dongs, observing certain things on certain days and wearing particular clothing etc, etc?
So, I refer you back to the previous part of the article.....spirituality.

Now, what are the physical requirements for Christianity? If you jump up and say, ‘oh it’s the festivals or the Sabbath, or Christmas and Easter, or Sunday church then you have just proclaimed that your religion is no different to the others. If you say it’s Jesus Christ, that in itself is no different than Islam’s Mohammed, or Buddha? It’s what Jesus Christ provided that is the key.
So, if you said, ‘I am not controlled by, or tied to any physical requirement to believe in my God, because the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ took all that necessity away, then you would have a unique religion, operating on a spiritual basis only.

Unfortunately, that message, or idea, hasn’t been conveyed to the likes of Richard Dawkins, because the denominations they get their information from don’t promote that, so Christianity is just bundled into the one basket with the rest!
When the early missionaries arrived amongst primitive peoples, the first thing they did was to build a physical temple and coerce the people to come there on particular days, and of course put up decorations on Dec 25th!! This didn’t present Christianity as a new idea; the locals had been doing similar things for thousands of years before that!?
Biased denominational control using some form of physical requirement for worship, permeating right down from the Catholic Church has produced many problems for believers, instead of spiritual unity. Galatians is a great book of explanation from the man (mentioned above) who was converted by the spiritual Jesus (Acts 9), and therefore knew what spirituality was all about! The book of Hebrews also provides good insight.

Peace to all, Colin Bowater.