(Full Notes)

Saturday, August 29, 2020

I said that it is a delusion that you’re worthless.  It’s correct that it’s untrue.  But it’s only untrue because God loves us with a perfect love, right?  If not for that, we’d be in real trouble, yes?  I think about all this stuff, if not for the atonement of Jesus Christ, we would be in real trouble.  There’s a logical way in which that works, seems to me.  If you’re smart, and insightful, you can see that this life is kind of meaningless and certainly your own life wouldn’t matter too much.  But that’s ignorant of the spiritual truth that we are of infinite worth to our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.  That’s ignorant of the truth that we existed before this life and will exist after, forever both ways. 

Well how do we make progress on this quest to understand psychology, with the aid of the truths we know and with the idea of self-deception? 

Monday, September 14, 2020

Hold on.  Before I answer that – we existed from eternity to eternity.  We are eternal beings.  Is it correct to say that we have intrinsic worth, or is that meaningless independent of our God, who is in a position to love us and bring us to a level of progression where He is?  Other people might love us, too.  Our parents, for example, or our friends, or someone else who is filled with the love of God.  I guess I don’t know if there is such a thing as intrinsic worth of a being, independent of who they’re worth something to.  But we can be worth something to ourselves, surely.  Or not, if we are not filled with the love of God for ourselves.  Is that weird to say that way?  Seems if we are filled with the love of God we are not so concerned about ourselves and our self-worth.  It’s only under that influence of the adversary that we begin questioning that. 

Alright, on to the question of how to understand psychology.  Let’s do some thinking-exploring here.  I wonder if I’m making it more complicated than it is.  Well, you have to understand it against the wiles of the adversary that are out there, right, to fully understand it?  But let’s pretend I’m making it more complicated than it is.  It’s not complicated, let’s say.  God loves us with an infinite love, we are of infinite worth to him, we are eternal beings, like He is, of the same species, if you will.  We are as gods, knowing good and evil.  We are the offspring of God.  And if His offspring, then heirs.  We are not talking about our mortal lives.  Surely our mortal lives are important.  But not so much, compared to our eternal existence.  We can never be obliterated, as far as our spirits go.  We die spiritually when we are separated from God.  That’s spiritual death.  The second death is hell.  Or being separated from God (again?)  Hell is a separation from God.  We are cast off, as it were.  To be redeemed, at last, to be sure, but cast off nonetheless.  And some, the sons of perdition, will remain cast off at the last day.  It is a separation from God.  A separation from His presence. 

Moses had a confrontation with the adversary trying to get him to believe he was something different than he was, less than he was.  “Son of man,” he called him. 

And this is depression, is it not, with everything that springs therefrom?  What springs from the belief that you are just a son of man?  Well lots of wickedness does, I suppose.  And just one manifestation of that is the specific belief that you are worthless.  It’s just another run-of-the-mill lie of the adversary, like so many more, but this one happens to be specific in that you are worth less than other people.  Maybe I should say that.  Because it’s different from the lie of grandiosity, for example, where you’re better than other people.  More important, superior, of greater value.  This is the lie that you’re of lesser value.  And probably opposed to narcissism in that you think you’re wrong all the time as opposed to right all the time.  They’re really both lies, and they’re tied together.  Both have in them comparison.  They both share the lie that people are superior one to another.  We’re really not.  We may be in a worldly sense, better than each other at this and that, more valued by the world and society.  But the truth is we’re equally valuable, in the sight of our Father in Heaven, who sees things aright always.  That is the truth.  Jew and gentile, black and white, bond and free, male and female.  All are alike unto God. 

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Yea, the lie that you are just a “son of man” probably is not the depression lie, specifically.  The lie that you are just a “son of man” is probably a lot of things, it’s kind of everything.  They all fall under that.  And that we should worship Satan.  Lots probably falls under that, maybe everything.  The lie of depression is one half of the “you are to be compared with others” lie, whatever that is.  “You are better than others” and “you are not as good as others” are two sides of the same coin.  The “you are to be compared with others” coin.  Or the “you are whatever you are to the world” coin.  The “you are worthwhile if the world sees you as worthwhile” coin.  Boy is that a dangerous trap.  Then if you’re popular you’re worthwhile and if you’re unpopular you’re worth-less.  And that’s where we are.  The world tempts us to be that way.  That is what we see.  It’s the world of the physical senses, of science.  Everything that’s not spiritual.  That whole half of reality, makes it seem like our worth is determined by how others see us, and how we fare in this world – by the “management of the creature.”  And by the appearance of things, some of us are successful and worthwhile, and others of us are definitely not.  Eesh!  So it takes faith to believe otherwise, since it takes faith to see anything besides what we see (with our physical senses).  It takes faith.  And we all have faith, to some degree, right?  We may not all believe in God, or assent to it, or know it, or know very much.  But faith is the motivating force (what’s the phrase from the lectures on faith again?), it’s the spring of action or whatever in all intelligent beings.  (Does that mean the beasts don’t act on faith?  Hmm…)  Anyway we all have faith to some degree, right?  I question it because the Lord says “as all have not faith…”  But He also says “o ye of little faith” or whatever to Peter, who had just walked on the water.