7305	Forums / Main Forum / The Manipulated Mind	on: June 25, 2007, 10:44:36 AM
The Controlling paradigm starts in families as sibling rivalry. Children are born with a personalities which are consistent with how they react to certain situations. Theres the controller, the follower, the reactor, and the quiet one. We learn to fall back on what is most secure to us by our habitual reactions as we become adults. Each person when confronted with adversity reacts differently. We are sinners by birth and so the power of sin resides in how we learn to react and how we are naturally bent according to our weaknesses and strengths within our personalities. We all have besetting sins. What it comes down to is how much we mortify our flesh so that we learn to trust in Christ instead of falling into a pattern of behavior in the weakness that is present in us according to our particular bent in facing adversity. There is a proper way to think, a biblical way, or a world view of thinking Gods thoughts after Him. So that in order for us to gain ground over our besetting sins we must start with the mind , the area of our corruption of thought. The bible calls this process of change , transformation by the renewing of the mind. Or exposing our minds to new life, the divine light of the word, or the revelation of the truth of scripture as opposed to our practical atheistic thoughts. Within each person there is a soil in the mind to exaggerate self and to hate God. We naturally think that we are good enough to think responsibly in ourselves. We think that we can overcome bad behavior by our rational process alone. A person who has a controlling personality is most susceptible to be over confident of his being responsible by his behavior. He fails to see that its not a standard of action that he must master, but the standard goes deeper into his very thoughts. And from his birth he devises ways to plot and schemes so that he can be in control of his environment and the people that he enter acts with. His pride is in his ability to behave in a moral way so that he gets other people to follow his methods because he is bent toward achieving social status in this manner. Its is the natural way that he is programed to think and it is the weakness that he falls back on as a result of that corrupted manner. He is like Scarlet after going through much adversity , but instead of grasping onto the dirt  as Scarlet , he grasp titely onto his seven steps to achieve. Man in his corrupted state goes head long into the state of sin, which is to gain self gratification through religious effort. Man is born religious ,who s mind creates little gods. It is a process of corrupted affections that cause each controller to be darkened in how he views himself and how he views God. He loves his self righteousness more than he loves Gods grace so that the end of his religiosity is taking glory from God by being given the credit for his achievement and morals. The answer to one who is given to this corruption is to see that every thought is under the scrutiny of Gods law, not just the responsible behavior . That God has already weighed our thoughts and found them wanting. And because we are naturally going to scheme our way to be self righteous by wearing our responsible behavior on our sleeves as a model for everyone to follow we are going to need to see that we are without hope because we cannot meet the standard of good behavior because we cannot stop our tendency to think of ourselves as in control of our view of ourselves by being responsible because we are broken in our thinking so that our responsible behavior is our achelles  heel. We cant keep from making a god out of our controlling our moral behavior. What controllers need to acknowledge is that God gives them all of the gifts to be able. Even tho they are corrupted God by His grace , enables them to do and act according to His revealed will. And even tho in their thoughts they never measure up, yet God knows that they are dust and He remembers that they are frail. Therefore they are not able to have self confidence in order to be responsible, but they put all their confidence in God, giving Him the glory for every achievement. When they begin to feel a sense of self gratification because of their moral ability, then they need to start transforming their minds to see that they are unable in themselves to do good, praise God for not only the gifts but also teaching them the process, enabling them to have the power to obey, and giving them the rewards for something that God alone does through them. In repeating this process, they will learn to glory in God and be less confident in their control.