THE LESS TRAVELED WAY

      "There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light. But by making the darkness conscious".  These are the words of the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung. The first and second, even the third sentence I could agree with. And I believe I could make a strong biblical argument as to their application in explaining our all to often self centered christian viewed reality. The fourth is simply a expression of mans effort to learn to justify his presence and his compromised position with this evil world system.

     Which by the way is a spiritual system, therefore of the mind. A power emanating from a evil source impacting the world we live in. Inculding our choice's, defining our very person hood as Adam men on the earth, all through our thought process. But there has been provided another choice for the struggling Christian, another way to think. But it is the thoughts of another, those of God toward His Son which we must first know, then must adopt!
    
      In the third sentence is a key word "imagining", which powers the Adam mans thoughts, shaping what he views as truth on his own terms.  We must ask are we Christians simply conforming to the world. Buying into Jung's analysis; by attempting to make that which God has claimed in His Word  life's very essence "His Spirit" and the saints spiritual insight of His will for us into something worldly more experiential, tangible. Thereby dragging the darkness of the world, the material, and the Adam nature, into a form of ritual and contemporary approved comfort we have come to recognize as Christianity. Just because it has become so familiar to us as it has developed over the years. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit [of the mind] and in truth" Jn. 4:24.

      If His Word is true it is not the souls work to become acclimated to our atonement then the making of a church, but the Spirit's, His Spirit, changing our soul/mind to His exclusive view. "Not I but Christ" Gal. 2:20. How can we become members of Christ Jesus while remaining in thought of ourselves as Adam men, flirting with the worlds thought? Reckoning Christianity to our own adjustments. No impossible! His life in us is Spiritual, available only by faith, unlike ours in natural thought, which is only carnal.

      We need no faith in the unseen to be Adam men enacting our own self esteem nor to conduct a ritualized Christianity. We are told by God in His Word a change must take place to acquire a awareness of what we have become in Christ "Not I but Christ". Few however truly embrace the radical thoughts of themselves, those which our Father has in His Mind, as He views His children. "Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" 1 Tim. 1:9.

      Our Christian narrative as presented at least in the majority of this current contemporary establishment atmosphere, is hopelessly compromised as adjusted to the Adam natural man. We so often conduct ourselves as if we do not believe the Word. If we did few perhaps would be in Church out of habit on Sunday, but would remain home in quite contemplation of the Word. "Meditate upon these things [His Word]: give yourself wholly to them, that it's profit may appear to all" 1 Tim. 4:15. Instead we are joined together often in a institutionalized tradition usually working for the worlds good or being entertained . Certainly dedicated to keeping the status quo. Yes doing good, being taught Christian values and morals. Yet all the while remaining in Adams venue, the old man's personality.

     Always considering our own comfort or experiential enjoyment. Or what amounts to the urging of obedience to mans soul imaginations of what a church should be. What much of it has become. Really amounting to a self-centered momentary, time taken out of a busy schedule cheer leading session, urging us to solider forward and do good things. Then after its back quickly to the things of the world. Yes I know we Love the Lord there. We worship Him there. And He is there. But are we in the inner man motivated by the realization of our heavenly inheritance to be there? Who we are in identification with, in the only Life which we may keep. "For the Lord shall be your confidence" Prov. 3:26.

     Knowing, doing and being.  All of the data we collect and present provides the context that allows us to know where we are in our Christian story. The problem is few will be driven to really know, most will just go along. Then we are not knowing, we may be doing, but not being. You my Christian friends are simply voluntary victims if functioning in the go along to get along mode. A change of thought must be sought in desperation! "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death" Phil. 3:10. If this verse does not in some way translate into a personal spiritual reality now on the earth then your just going along.

      Where are the rebels these days we should ask? Our past is drenched with the blood and misery suffered by those who dared to believe in the invisible God of the bible, and had unwavering allegiance to Him often unto death. I fear our time will come to make a stand, just as it has in many lands, even today. I also fear few will stand in the face of what evil is planning for us. Most will choose the illusion of comfort we have become so accustomed to while remaining in our old man personality, locked in traditions prison. That is as Jung suggests, making the darkness conscious; the individual imaging of and then accepting his self experienced narrative, what is contemporarily presented to him, as his christian reality. And not in subjectivity to God's objective reality only found by faith in a new heavenly creation, as we are guided by grace and commanded to do so in His Word. "Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows [including his thoughts of himself], that shall he reap" Gal. 6:7.