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Lies & Truth in Christ: A Psychological Spin on the Gospel
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
- Kevin Spacey – The Usual Suspects
Long before I was a Christian or a mental health therapist, there was something about that line spoken by
Kevin Spacey that made an impression on me. It wouldn’t be for another 15 years that I would be able to
understand exactly why.
What I am about to explain to you is simply stated the single most important thing any human could ever
know about themselves. It is also what Satan wants to keep hidden from everyone and unfortunately, he
has been exceedingly efficient in accomplishing this objective. In my experience, the vast majority of
people in the world are walking around living and behaving in accordance with lies about themselves they
are not aware of.
So what are the lies and where do they come from?
In order to answer this question I will first ask one. Do you know anyone alive who has not struggled in
some way or experienced anger or one of its many forms (sarcasm being one) at some point in their
lives? The answer is obviously no; but if you happen to know someone I would love to meet them! When
you understand that neurologically anger is a self-protective defense response to perceived threat each
and every time without exception, you might then ask the question “well then what am I afraid of?” Often I
get clients and people who try to explain their fear away but I have yet to find anyone, if they provide
enough information truthfully about their life, with whom I cannot root out their core fears. The reason this
piece of the puzzle remains hidden from many is that the vast majority of the “threat” is not physical in our
lives but rather EMOTIONAL.
To understand the emotional threat, one must first understand how god designed us from a
developmental perspective. When a human is born, their capacity to understand abstract concepts is
limited and develops as they mature. A person’s capacity to understand that an event that occurs to them
is not reflective of their person is limited and dependent on prefrontal cortical brain development; which
isn’t fully achieved until early adolescence. It is common place for most if not all people, particularly
during preadolescence until the ego is strong enough, to assign a personal meaning to the events that
happen to them. For example, an 8 year old child who is hit by their parents feels that their parents must
hit them because they are bad. The child will not be able to abstractly understand that their parents hit
them because they (their parents) were angry, out of control and/or stressed and it had nothing to do with
them. So in an effort to equalize parts of the brain and make sense of the experience, they will choose a
negative belief about themselves such as “I deserve to be hurt” or “I am a bad person.” They then take
that negative belief and tattoo it onto their hearts and walk around with it buried beneath a veil of behavior
they use to protect themselves from experiencing the feelings that come with that thought.
Office: 7500 W. Mississippi Ave. – Suite A-115 Lakewood, CO 80226
Remittance: P.O. Box 261329 Lakewood, CO 80226
Phone: 303/949/2726
www.allabouttrauma.com
We all have them. I have yet to meet someone who does not. Thoughts like “I am not good enough”, “I
am unworthy” or “I am a failure.” These are the lies we tell ourselves, mostly in unconscious ways, that
the enemy tries to get us to truly believe. The enemy has his greatest victory when someone believes
these lies so deeply, that they end their own life. If we look behind each and every time when we have
become angry or frustrated, and we ask ourselves what we are afraid of at that moment, what we find is
these negative thoughts coming to the surface. Our anger and frustration is meant to protect us from
feeling the feelings (i.e. emotional threat) associated with these negative thoughts. Satan relies on the
fact that most people have no idea this is occurring in their minds and hearts and so is able to keep them
in chains.
SO what is the TRUTH and what do we do about it
Actually, in comparison to God, these negative thoughts are true. He makes it very clear in scripture that
we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. However, in Christ, these negative thoughts become
lies. Jesus bore the sins that we could not and it is only through him that we can free ourselves from
bondage..
So here is what you do:
1) Accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior if you have not already, so that you can begin to see
yourself in the true light God sees you, because of his only son’s sacrifice.
2) Think about the top 3 worst things that ever happened to you. Most often these occur earlier in our
lives before late adolescence.
3) Now ask this question for each one: “When that happened to me or I witnessed that – What did/does it
mean about me?
4) Then answer these questions with an “I” statement such as I am stupid or I am not good enough etc.
(for a list of negative cognitions see my website www.allabouttrauma.com).
5) Recognize these negative thoughts as LIES in Christ Jesus.
6) Thank the lord each day for his sacrifice and begin to implant within you the truth about yourself
repetitively. Put it on your mirror so it is the first thing you read in the morning and the last thing you see
before bed. Understand the world you live in will reinforce these lies as well at the behest of the enemy.
You cannot tell yourself the truth enough. You cannot tell your children enough. For as Christ himself
noted in John 14:6 (NIV)
“I am the truth, the way and the life. No one gets to the father except through me”
Office: 7500 W. Mississippi Ave. – Suite A-115 Lakewood, CO 80226
Remittance: P.O. Box 261329 Lakewood, CO 80226
Phone: 303/949/2726
www.allabouttrauma.com
Office: 7500 W. Mississippi Ave. – Suite A-115 Lakewood, CO 80226
Remittance: P.O. Box 261329 Lakewood, CO 80226
Phone: 303/949/2726
www.allabouttrauma.com