Christian Living
Subliminal suggestions come in various forms. We are bombarded with them on a daily basis and that is important. It is important because we live our lives functioning on the ideas that are suggested to us.
If we took the time to scrutinize the messages we recieve we would know the truth about the suggestions. Most of us live our lives on the run and don’t take time to think through what people say or to evaluate the images we see.
We are formed as a society by the things we see, hear, and then act upon. The things we see and hear are primarily in the form of our television, magazines, internet, music, the educational system, and also from family values, and by the pulpit, if we go to Church.
The family is the foremost shaper of us as a person and as a part of a collective society.
Children, who are are raised by those who claim to love them, and whether it is true or not the child needs to believe it to be so, will accept and act upon the values they see, hear and experience. Since the child is helpless to provide for themselves, and they are under authority, even their stature makes that fact clear to them. Therefore, if the values of the family are less than pristine, the child grows to live by values that will not bring them a successful life nor a Godly life style.
I became aware of the fact of this situation when I taught in a youth correctional facility. I learned to have a great deal of understanding for the young men as we discussed why they did such things as breaking and entering or selling drugs on the streets.
Most of the young men had a basic expectation for themselves that it was normal to spend some time in prison. Their thoughts about picking up things that did not belong to them was, "That of course, if you have left it where I could reach it, you meant for me to take it because you knew I would do it." It is a skewed way to excuse their willingness to steal.
Is that a little disgusting? I suggest that all of us check our behaviors against reality, and find ourselves with skewed excuses for the things we do wrong.
“Right” and “Wrong;” we sometimes think that rights and wrongs are really a product of the culture from which we come, and that is true about some of our activities. I will not eat dog or cat or snake, and some cultures consider those things to be delicacies. Those are not the rights or wrongs that I present for consideration. I am really speaking about the actions of our lives that violate the Laws of God and ultimately bring trouble to our lives.
My question posed for consideration is, “How much of my behavior, of your behavior, is really wrong in God’s sight and yet it seems acceptable to the society about us when it is in fact not acceptable with God according to the Scripture?
All of us are a living being with a body and a soul and that composite us is able to live because of the spirit God put within us. The “spirit” that God has placed in each of us knows God and knows His Laws. “When a man dies the spirit of man returns to God Who gave it.” Jesus said, “Do not fear them who can only kill the body; rather fear Him Who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”
Jesus did not say the spirit of man ever goes to hell, it is not the man’s possession, and it is God’s possession. The spirit that came from God to our body returns to Him. If there is a part of us that came from God, then conclusively, we have knowledge of God and of His ways. I do not believe that there is anyone who is truly an atheist. God says that He has written His Laws on the heart of man.
For the person that has received Jesus as his/her Savior, they have a spirit that has been made alive by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit of God then lives in our bodies as well; but all humans have a spirit which God gave to us. Some are regenerated and some are not, depending on our having accepted Jesus as Savior or having not done so.
I tried several times to read Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique. It made no sense to me until I was in my thirties and was assigned to read it by my professor for a sociology class; then I could understand what the author was saying.
I am a product of the June Clever society. Betty Friedan’s book is an expose’ of the marketing techniques used to create the “June Clever” type of woman for the purposes of selling products. Think of it, gloves and hats and high heel shoes, the white picket fence in the perfect little house that was perfectly clean, with perfect children and perfect husbands, whom were served as a god. This was not a man’s world, nor one that was good for them either. They were expected to be the wind-up “go to workers” and the expectations for them were likewise stressful and unattainable.
All of it intertwined created a serious down fall of family life. Many women became psychotic and were given medications to sedate them. How effective can a drugged woman; wife; mother; be in her homemaking activities? How can any woman be successful with such an unrealistic goal set before them? Those women had become the victim of subliminal suggestions. Whether they all fell victim to the drugs or not, most of the women’s lives were adversely affected by the culture that was created by the marketing professionals for the purpose of selling products.
Look around you and see it happening even today. You won't see June Cleaver look alikes; but evaluate it, who are you seeing?
To cover all the activities of our lives and give thought to every part of our society that is contributing to the unacceptable activities of each of our lives is impossible in a single article. We have no excuse, however, for activities that violate God's Laws.
We all know the Laws of God, known as the Ten Commandments. I suggest that it is a duty of each of us to mediate on them, or to at the least read them regularly. If we keep them “before our eyes,” “written on our foreheads,” as God tells us to do; we would then have programmed our minds with “a standard” that can quickly filter ideas presented to us, as to whether they are alright or not alright.
I am certain that God knows the effectiveness of what we see and hear. Perhaps that is why He told us to hang the Scriptures on our walls and to talk about them with our children day and night.
We cannot get around the “subliminal” suggestions that flood our lives, but we must have control over the "filter" by which we evaluate those suggestions. It is done by exposure to the Scriptures on a regular and daily basis.
Ramona, 09/19/2011
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