Basic Truths I Wish I Knew 50 Years Ago!

Since the fourth cen­tu­ry A.D., the­olo­gians have ar­gued over whether man is com­posed of body, soul and spir­it (tri­choto­my), or whether he is on­ly body and soul (di­choto­my). In the process, they have to­tal­ly over­looked a more ba­sic fac­tor: the three brains in man.

God de­signed man to think with the trans­mis­sion of electro-​chemical neu­ro­trans­mit­ters. These neu­ro­trans­mit­ters have been dis­cov­ered by re­search sci­en­tists to be in our head brain, our heart brain and in our gut brain. The in­ter­ac­tion of these three brains ex­plains how the Christian life re­al­ly works and gives deep­er mean­ing to the foun­da­tion­al mes­sages of Scripture.

For ex­am­ple, Jesus de­clared that the first and great­est com­mand­ment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). This com­mand in­volves all three brains, and in the right or­der: 1) Our head brain is the home of our soul (mind will and emo­tions), and it is the weak­est brain be­cause it is so eas­i­ly in­flu­enced; 2) Our heart brain is a stronger brain and con­trols our head brain; 3) Our gut brain is the strongest and in­structs our heart brain. [The Greek word for the mind of our head brain is nous. The Greek word for the mind of our gut brain is di­anoia.] God re­quires us to love Him with all three brains, be­gin­ning with our heart brain!

An even more crit­i­cal ex­am­ple is the lev­els of our faith. Jesus iden­ti­fied three lev­els of faith. They cor­re­spond to our three brains: The first lev­el is “no faith.” It is based on an in­tel­lec­tu­al ac­cep­tance of ideas: “You be­lieve that there is one God [with your head brain]; you do well: the dev­ils al­so be­lieve and trem­ble” (James 2:19). The sec­ond lev­el of faith is “lit­tle faith.” It is the faith of our heart brain and is need­ed for sal­va­tion, but it has no depth and can be dam­aged with com­pet­ing af­fec­tions (James 4:1-5). The third and most im­por­tant lev­el is “great faith” in our gut brain. This is a faith for which we will die. It is the lev­el of faith that is nec­es­sary for sal­va­tion.

This fact is con­firmed by the sym­bol­ism of bap­tism fol­low­ing our be­lief in Christ. We iden­ti­fy with Christ’s death, bur­ial and res­ur­rec­tion. It is a tragedy that many have “prayed to re­ceive Christ” with their head brain and noth­ing hap­pened! They are not re­al­ly saved! When we are ready to die for Jesus, we are ready to re­ceive Him as our Savior!

A third ex­am­ple is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing gen­uine love. There are al­so three lev­els of love that cor­re­spond to our three brains: Head love is sen­su­al or self­ish love; heart love is based on mu­tu­al ben­e­fits (Phileo love). Deep-​rooted gut brain love (agape love) is a love for which we will lay down our lives. It has no ex­pec­ta­tions and on­ly de­sires to give. This is the on­ly love that will hold a mar­riage to­geth­er (Ephesians 5:25).

An un­der­stand­ing of our three brains and how they re­late to each oth­er in lov­ing God, hav­ing faith for sal­va­tion, get­ting gen­uine love, and in many oth­er ar­eas of life, is just one of the many ba­sic truths that I wish I would have known 50 years ago. However, now that I know them, I want to share them with every mem­ber of the Body of Christ.

Seven Universal Principles Taught in the Basic Seminar

Just as there are laws that gov­ern our uni­verse, there are laws that gov­ern our hu­man re­la­tion­ships. These laws are uni­ver­sal and non-​optional. They tran­scend all cul­tures, na­tion­al­i­ties, re­li­gions and po­lit­i­cal sys­tems. If we live in har­mo­ny with them, we will have peace, health and pros­per­i­ty. If we vi­o­late them, we will have bro­ken re­la­tion­ships, and the sev­en dead­ly and de­struc­tive stress­es of anger, guilt, lust, bit­ter­ness, greed, fear and en­vy.
1. The Principle of Design – Produces Self-​Acceptance
God cre­at­ed us to glo­ri­fy Him. He gave us ten “un­change­ables” to ful­fill His pur­pos­es in us and to demon­strate His pow­er through our “weak­ness­es.” Physical “de­fects” are His “marks of own­er­ship” to re­mind us every day that we be­long to Him.
2. The Principle of Authority – Produces Personal Greatness
All au­thor­i­ty comes from God. He del­e­gates some to par­ents, gov­ern­ment lead­ers, church of­fi­cials and em­ploy­ers. By re­spect­ing their au­thor­i­ty and serv­ing them, we ac­com­plish great works. “But he who is great­est among you shall be your ser­vant” (Matthew 23:11).
3. The Principle of Responsibility – Produces a Clear Conscience
When we take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for every one of our thoughts, words, at­ti­tudes and ac­tions, we are able to go to each one whom we have of­fend­ed and ask for for­give­ness. This hum­bling ac­tion cause oth­ers to re­spect us and builds strong re­la­tion­ships. It re­moves all guilt.
4. The Principle of Forgiveness – Produces Freedom from Bitterness
If we get bit­ter to­ward those who of­fend us, we will dam­age our health and our en­e­mies will con­trol our thoughts and emo­tions. If we do good to them, we free God to pun­ish them and bless us. “Vengeance is mine; I will re­pay says the Lord . . . over­come evil with good” (Romans 12:20).
5. The Principle of Ownership – Produces Genuine Love
We have rights and ex­pec­ta­tions. When peo­ple vi­o­late them, we get an­gry. But if we give God the own­er­ship of all our mon­ey, time, pos­ses­sions and ex­pec­ta­tions, and al­so give freely to oth­ers, we turn anger in­to love: “For where your trea­sure is there will your heart be al­so” (Matthew 6:21).
6. The Principle of Freedom – Produces Moral Purity
Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but the pow­er to do what we ought. By en­graft­ing God’s Word in us, “sin shall not have do­min­ion over [us]” (Romans 6:14). “If you con­tin­ue in My word . . . you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
7. The Principle of Life Purpose – Produces True Success
True suc­cess is ful­fill­ing the pur­pos­es for which God cre­at­ed us! He called us out of Satan’s king­dom of dark­ness in­to His king­dom of light. We are called to ad­vance His king­dom to cities and na­tions. The pow­er of our mes­sage is the liv­ing Word of God in us.

Why So Many Teens Join a Cult

When a teenag­er open­ly or se­cret­ly pulls away from the au­thor­i­ty of his par­ents and choos­es to obey his peers, a false phi­los­o­phy, a false teacher, a sen­su­al rock star or an icon­ic celebri­ty he or she is in a cult. When a teen leaves his fam­i­ly to live with a cult, par­ents are des­per­ate and try to “res­cue” a trapped son or daugh­ter with rea­son­ing, promis­es or pro­fes­sion­al “de­pro­gram­ing,” but all of these ef­forts are fu­tile be­cause peo­ple do not un­der­stand how a cult mem­ber is made.
1. Cults thrive on a pas­sive mind.
A pas­sive mind is open and re­spon­sive to every thought that comes to it. It does not check the source of the thought or dis­cern its truth or er­ror. Eve had a pas­sive mind when Satan be­gan talk­ing with her. Secular ed­u­ca­tion trains stu­dents to have pas­sive minds. Educators re­ject ab­solute moral stan­dards and teach­es stu­dents to ques­tion what they have been taught by their au­thor­i­ties: “Has God said?” God com­mands us to “take every thought cap­tive” for God’s eval­u­a­tion (II Corinthians 10:5).
2. Cults ap­peal to the lusts of the flesh.
The strong de­sires of our sin na­ture are “re-​examined” by cult lead­ers and pro­mot­ed as “nor­mal, not to be re­ject­ed by us but are ben­e­fi­cial.” Cult mem­bers are urged to “en­joy the plea­sures of sin [which on­ly last] for a [short] sea­son” (Hebrews 11:25). The im­me­di­ate and long-​lasting con­se­quences of im­moral acts are not con­sid­ered. Potential cult mem­bers are urged to “Eat, drink and en­joy sex now and to live for to­day.”
3. Cults ac­ti­vate the fear of re­jec­tion.
One of the strongest dri­ves of a per­son is the in­born de­sire to be ac­cept­ed and the fear of be­ing re­ject­ed. It is used as a weapon by cults to gain fol­low­ers and to keep them loy­al to the cult. Teens who feel re­ject­ed by their par­ents or fam­i­ly or who no longer de­sire fam­i­ly ap­proval, are to­tal­ly vul­ner­a­ble to the open ac­cep­tance of a cult.
4. Cults in­still lies in the gut brain of fol­low­ers.
This is the key to the pow­er of a cult. They do not just in­struct the head brain or the heart brain, they plant their false teach­ings in the gut brains of all their fol­low­ers. It is in the gut brain that we have deep-​rooted love and deep-​rooted faith for which we will lay down our lives. Ideas that are taught to our head brain can be changed with new in­for­ma­tion, but ideas that are firm­ly root­ed in our gut brain will not be changed re­gard­less of the wis­dom and log­ic of new in­for­ma­tion. It is use­less to ar­gue with cult mem­bers be­cause they are firm­ly com­mit­ted to their false philoso­phies and are will­ing to die for them.
5. Cults use guilt to dead­en the con­sciences of their fol­low­ers.
God has writ­ten His moral law in the heart of every per­son. When we vi­o­late His law, our con­science will con­demn us (Romans 2:15). Guilt is a pow­er­ful force and must be dealt with. We can ei­ther re­pent or we can jus­ti­fy our sin­ful ac­tions which will sep­a­rate us from God. God will then “give [us] over to a repro­bate mind [head brain] to do [all kinds of evil things]” (Romans 1:28). The on­ly way to free­dom is for a cult mem­ber to get dai­ly Rhemas from read­ing the Bible, mem­o­rize them, and quote them to God every night while go­ing to sleep. During the night they will go down to his gut brain and cleanse it from false teach­ings. Then the vers­es will in­struct his heart brain with wis­dom (Psalms 16:7). His heart brain will con­trol his head brain.