Elephant Thinking

Yesterday I was reminded of how people train elephants and how sometimes people seem to have elephant thinking.  What I mean by this is, most people and animals are trained by repetition doing the same things over and over which is also the way people are brainwashed.  If you take a child or many young animals and teach them the same thing over and over they will eventually learn it and conform to it.  Think about how you learned your name, you heard it over and over from everyone that talked to you until you learned it.  In some cases, if you are consistent, you can train young kids and young animals to do most anything.  Most people or animals will conform to the situation they are in if they are there long enough.

This reminds me of what Jesus talked about in Matthew 18:5-6, “Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”  There are many people now, and all down through the ages, which have committed this sin and whether they know it or not judgment is coming.  If this is you, repent and confess and ask the Lord to forgive you.  Many today are teaching that evil is good and good is evil, to their shame but God is not mocked and they will reap what they sow if they don’t repent.

Now let’s get back to the elephant, the way many of them are taught to stay where the trainer wants them, is to chain them up by one leg to something they cannot break free of when they are very young, then when they get much older and stronger they are so used to being chained by one leg that they don’t even try to get away even though they could without much problem.  That is like being brainwashed, believing something so strongly that you don’t try to change even if you could.  That is what happens in false religions, or what we call cults.

Christianity is much different than this because people are transformed.  When you are brainwashed, the only thing that changes is the way a person thinks about things, but when you are transformed the whole person is changed from the inside out, not from the outside in like brainwashing does.  If your heart is hardened and unresponsive then you haven’t been changed at all, you have just been brainwashed and you are in a worse condition at that time than you were before you were brainwashed.  

Think about the elephant, if he wasn’t brainwashed he would tear himself lose and escape back into the jungle and be free, but he doesn’t believe he can, so he doesn’t even try.  Christianity is not being bound but it is being set free.  Jesus came to set the captive free, praise His holy name!  So why do so many believers act like they are still bound?  Hello people we have been set free, start acting like it.  

Remember Lazarus when Jesus called him to come forth out of the grave and he did, then Jesus said to lose him because he was still bound with his grave cloths.  Jesus didn’t raise him from death to keep him bound, no; Jesus brought him forth so that he would be set free.  Jesus has done the same thing for every believer; He has set us free from sin and brought us from darkness into His marvelous light.  His purpose is that we would be transformed by the renewing of our minds, not just brainwashed, but transformed into new creations in the image of Him.  He doesn’t want us to be conformed to the world anymore and He has given us the Holy Spirit to help us so we have no excuse.  

So what will it be, obedience or rebelliousness?  The choice is yours.  Something to think about, may the Lord bless you and yours and I hope you have a super day.