What Goes Through the Mind

Making a cake is a process. The first thing that happens is that a desire for cake comes about. Television commercials know the weakness of sugar-lovers. They continually show the beautiful cake with a piece cut to show its inner beauty. Looking at the cake image will sometimes make the viewer's mouth water. They know that we are no more than Pavlov's dog, even less, because we salivate without even getting the reward.

Desire is then the first step in making a cake. The consumer must want that cake.  The tempting commercial is merely the cause for the desire; desire is the effect, or more accurately - the affect. When one is tempted to bake a cake to satisfy the desire, there is a thought process involved: Is the taste of the cake worth the effort? Is the pleasure in eating the cake worth the calorie intake. Will it turn out as good as it looks? You get the idea. Then when one concludes that making the cake is worth it all, then the person bakes the cake.

Producers know what people like. They provide recipes to make the eating experience pleasurable. If the recipe is followed to a tee, likely the cake will turn out excellent but after eating one piece, one questions: Was this pleasure worth the effort. Was this fattening cake worth the calories? Am I truly satisfied that the cake is as good as it looks? Oftentimes the cake does not meet all these expectations, and the person is dismayed: The cake wasn't worth the effort or it wasn't as tasty as it looked. Regret sets in. I have oftentimes given my neighbors the balance of  the cake because it wasn't as good as I thought it would be!

I want to focus on the thought process which provoked cake-baking. Basically, people talk themselves into doing things. They convince themselves that the effort is worth the pleasure. When pleasure comes up short, then they become sorry they fell to temptation. Sometimes they realize that they don't even like cake but they were tempted anyhow. If the cake falls flat, they are truly sorry. If the cake is scrumptious, the next time they see a commercial, they'll want cake!

Sin is not cake, but temptation to sin is much like temptation to the taste buds. In both cases, the desired outcome is to pleasure oneself: maybe the taste buds, but with sin - the flesh.

Man's flesh is the sensor for pleasure. It is much more than the dermal layers. It's the senses, and what the mind does with what is sensed. Because men do what they will, they are gods to themselves. The flesh is their idol, and pleasures are how their idol is appeased. When the flesh is pleasured, it's the self which enjoys it.

The flesh is our enemy! It is what made us destined to die. In fact, the body is the only part of us which will die in a real sense. The mind and soul may die eternally but never be quite dead. On the other hand, the mind and soul may live eternally, and when we die the first death, eventually we will have a new living body.

The flesh - our idol, ironically, is what murders it's own god! Jesus came to keep the flesh from killing us: even sacrificing itself to kill the soul! The promise of salvation, is that the flesh may die once, but through Jesus, it will never die again.

We are the gods. The flesh is our idol, and pleasure is our poison. Because we desire what will kill us, pleasuring the flesh is sinful, and leads to death.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What is our pleasure? We pleasure in killing ourselves. Our gods are suicidal, and that is foolish!

Psalm 69:5 O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee. 

You see, even smart people sin. They may be knowledgeable but they are spiritually stupid, and most sinners know that! Aaron called the Hebrews foolish sinners for dancing to the golden calf. David admitted to the foolishness of his sins. When people sin, they are all foolish. Indeed, since we all have sinned, we are all foolish, repentance is a brilliant idea, but comes after God is already dismayed!

Christians know that sin is foolishness. Most non-Christians don't care. They love their own god, and are apathetic to the will of God. Yet Christians still sin. What are we thinking? Why does God care that we sin?

Our "cake" may be any number of things but always it is pleasure. First off, there is righteous pleasure from God. The beauty of nature is pleasurable, and looking upon it's beauty is not wrong. However, if the naturist values it over God, then what God created is abused. Hence, unrighteous pleasure is placing pleasurable things above God. Some naturists worship the creation, and not the Creator. That is sin. Therefore, when I speak of pleasure, it is meant unrighteous pleasure.

Genesis 3:6 describes the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: "the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise." Hence, it had three temptations: tastiness, delightfulness, and wisdom. (By the way, the Epicureans Paul spoke to in Athens ate heartily of this tree.) God had already provided plenty of food (all the other trees), and even exceptional food (The Tree of Life). Adam and Eve rejected common and spiritual food for Epicurean food.

The pleasure the tree offered were things like power, lasciviousness, wealth, and the like. Wisdom was human knowledge prevailing over spiritual truth. Temptation is toward all these things. In fact, if one looks at the three temptation of Christ, they are included here.

God told his children, "don't eat of this tree or you will surely die." They ate and did die. God didn't say their mortal life would end immediately; He meant that they would eventually face physical death. However, sin leads to more than mortality but to spiritual death - what I called dying forever. Therefore, whenever the "cake" - whatever it may be, tempts us, we may be choosing death over life! What gain does the sinner have?

Matthew 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

We've all seen movies or read books where people trade their souls to Satan for personal gain. Any profit is temporal whereas abstention is eternal. It's an unequal trade. Whatever the profit, or outcome, the loss is greater. Dying forever is not pleasure. Scripture calls it torment.

With that assurance of a penalty, people still sin. Every time that we are tempted, we make a decision. That is our free will, given to us by God to make us somewhat better than robots would be!

In order to sin, mankind must convince the will. What goes on in the mind that convinces it that the forthcoming pleasure, profit, or wisdom is worth death?

• What if there is no God; I will miss out on this pleasure.
• I don't care what God thinks. I want this!
• Even if I sin, this sins not too bad. If God is good he'll overlook it.
• I may get punished by God but not too severely.
• I'll ask for forgiveness later.
• Before I die, I'll change.
• I'll just put God out of my mind and enjoy the moment.

There may be other thought processes. All these thoughts are falling for deception. Let's get one thing clear - Satan is not speaking to you; it is self-talk. You seek to do what is right in your own eyes, caring little for what Satan nor God says or thinks! You are thinking that way because of genetics which theologians call "original sin". In other words, we think these thoughts because we are the seed of Adam. Because Adam sinned, all have sinned with the one exception of Jesus!

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned...

I'm sorry men - Adam gets the blame. I have wrote on why elsewhere.  With our thought processes, we all think like Adam thought. Perhaps he used one of these excuses for sin. We know one: Eve didn't die, so I won't either. Little did Adam know that at that moment Eve gave up immortality, both physical and spiritual. The spiritual immortality was regained later by the grace of God.

All these thought processes take merely an instant, and then when the decision is made to sin, our minds contemplate its pleasure. The contemplation of sin is another deception. In fact, contemplation is as wrong as the consummation of sin -  we sin within our hearts! (Matthew 5:28).

Most often, we never ever get to the actual sin but dwell on what we have not done. That is lust, and it too is sinful. It seems that people, even Christians, just can't get around sin. We do get credit for trying, unlike most other life-tasks! In fact, it is the willingness to not sin which is righteousness. In effect, it's not the sin which is damning but the desire to sin!

Most trade off this strong desire for eternal death, repetitively using these same lame excuses. Let's take the above bullets one at a time:

• If we question whether there is really a God. we deny God. That is blasphemy and is the unpardonable sin.
• If we don't care what God thinks, we place ourselves over God. We become the other god of whom God is jealous. If we don't care what God thinks, we don't care what is punishment is? The gain in our own minds, is worth the loss. Sinners care little that they disappoint God. It's not the sin of which he cares, but the unwillingness to honor Him. If we're to honor our parents, we are to honor majestically our Father in heaven!
• God never overlooks sin! All sins need to be repented of. Will we go to hell if we don't repent? If we're Christians, the only sin that does that is apostasy - blasphemy. However, true Christians should not want to disappoint God. If sin continues without repentance, it soon turns out that the master may be Satan, and not God. In that case, the sinner becomes reprobate - damned because the sinner doesn't think about God's will.
• Thinking the punishment will not be severe trivializes God's commands. All sin is severe to God, and even one sin is enough to damn us unless we're born-again. Any sin disappoints God, and sinning is irreverence. It implies that God is not serious about sin. Of course, as Christians we have liberty to sin, but if we are Christians that liberty is dampened by love for God.
• Asking for forgiveness later is silliness. One cannot be forgiven unless there is sorrow for wronging God. We all do that foolish thing. It's a sleight of hand inbred in us by Satan. We must repent when we are convicted by God, and if he convicts prior to the sin, sinning is ignoring God. It's akin to sneaking around your parents' rules, thinking that forgiveness is easier to get than permission!
• Before I die, I'll change. With sin, our hearts become calloused. God calls us to repentance. If we reject Him often enough, he shakes the symbolic dust off His feet, and leaves us on our own. We must come to God when He calls. God's timing is not our timing. Who says that our hearts will be contrite on the death bed? That is presumptuous. 
• Putting God out of mind is intentionally servitude to one's own will. If God is relegated to a backseat in our life, He may not be there when we need him. It's as if declaring: there is no God if he is never welcomed into our world.

Sin is serious business. We all do it, even Christians. When we accept the propitiation of Jesus's blood, all our past sins are forgiven (Romans 3:25). However, avoidance of temptation comes first as we enter not unto it. (Matthew 2:41). That was Eve's mistake. She stood under the wrong tree. We are not to go there! We must repent of all present and future sins.

 

However, if we sin, there is forgiveness for the asking. God is gracious, but it must be asked for with sincerity and contrition. Going one step further, we are not to continue in sin:

Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

If we continue in sin - failing to walk with Jesus, we are not on the narrow way. Only God knows His leniency, and it's not our place to test God. How many sins can I commit and get away with it? Don't go there. It's unsafe!