Transformational processes of formation of new beliefs and new identity of the believer personality

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Transformational processes of formation of new beliefs and new identity of the believer personality

Dana R. Morey

Annotation

The article deals with the transformational processes of forming new beliefs and a new identity of the believer personality through faith in Christ. It is noted that a believer person finds those secret things of a spiritual, moral and existential nature that influence the formation of his outlook and behavioral norms, in the Bible. The meaning of the secret and covert revelation of God in which the angels sought to so glance is revealed, but its mystery was revealed after Christ's resurrection from the dead.

Keywords: Christ, Bible, worldview, transformational processes, persuasion, new identity, new creation, believer personality, God's revelation, angels.

Анотація

У статті розглядаються трансформаційні процеси формування нових переконань і нової ідентичності особистості віруючої людини через віру в Христа. Зазначається, що в Біблії віруюча особистість знаходить ті таємні речі духовно-морального та буттєвого характеру, які впливають на формування її світогляду та поведінкових нормативів. Розкривається сенс потаємного і прихованого одкровення Божого, в яке так жадали заглянути Ангели, але таємниця якого була розкрита після того, як Христос воскрес із мертвих.

Ключові слова: Христос, Біблія, світогляд, трансформаційні процеси, переконання, нова ідентичність, нове створіння, віруюча особистість, Боже одкровення, ангели.

The Bible is the best selling book in human history. Its moral, spiritual and even political impact has been profound and unmistakable. How did that come to be?

There is no question that the Bible has been the most influential book in human history as well as the best and biggest seller. While we may appreciate the profound impact the Bible has had on the moral, spiritual and even political development of the West, few of us appreciate the process whereby this came to be so.

In this first of series of articles on the impact of the Bible on civilization I would like to talk about the historical process which led to the mass spread of the Bible.

We all know that when a person comes to faith in Christ, many incredible things happen. The greatest of them all is what the bible describes as a mystery that was hidden for ages. A mystery that Angels longed to look into but only after Christ was raised from the dead was the mystery revealed.

God Almighty, the same One who said “Let there be light” and there was light, the One who created the universe with His word and measures that universe with the span of His hand. The Glorious Creator who dwells in unapproachable light.

This God would take lost and sinful men, women and children. People who the bible describes as “Dead in trespasses and sin” and would suffer and die on a Roman cross to pay the price for their sin. And in the greatest exchange in the history of the world, He would take their sin and exchange it for His Righteousness.

But the most amazing part of it all, the mystery that was beyond the wildest imagination of the Angelic hosts was what Paul declared in Col 1: 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory [1].

God has given us a new identity. Christ in you. “Christ in you”. This thought was scandalous. Would God really join Himself to humans and in doing so would produce a NEW creation? 2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; all things have become new. [1] It is not like a new suit or a new haircut. That word new is the Greek work Kaine. It means something unprecedented: Something that never before existed [2].

Paul uses the strongest possible language to help us understand what has happened to us. Gal 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me

This new creation has been given unprecedented power and authority to work and speak for God Himself. In 1 John 4:17 the word of God says something else incredible, “As Christ Jesus is in the world, so are we.” God has even given His church the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is so big Paul had to pray constantly that we would understand it. Paul's prayer to open Ephesians is incredible.

Eph. 1:16-17 - I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you wisdom to see clearly and really understand who Christ is and all that he has done for you [3].

Eph. 3:20 Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. NLT

What Jesus has done for us is so amazing, it is so beyond our natural ability to understand it that Paul prays that God would give us wisdom to clearly see and really understand; he prays that our hearts would be flooded with light to see who Christ is and all that he has done for us.

He calls this power to help us, mighty power, incomparably great power, a power that can accomplish infinitely more than we could ever dare ask or think. We are not the same people that we once were. We don't have the same limitations; in fact, we “can do all things through Christ who strengthens us“.

Growing in Christ is the task for every believer. How does God give us these new beliefs and new identity? How does God teach us to understand what Jesus has done for us and in us? When you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you become a member of God's family as a child of God. You can call God your Father! Any good father wants to spend time with his children-sometimes with all of them together, but often with each one alone. That is the way that a person gets to know another person well-by spending time along with that individual. Paul tells us it is by the transforming of our minds. Rom 12:2 I urge you therefore brethren by the mercies of God no longer be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.

God transforms us by changing how we think and what we believe.

Transformed is the key word here. The Greek word is metamorphoo. This is where we get our word for Metamorphosis. This is not a little change. This is not just stopping our sinning. This word is describing a complete and total transformation. identity personality believer christ

Metamorphosis is what happens when a caterpillar closes itself up in a cocoon and mesomorphs into a butterfly. It actually becomes a different kind of creation. It is changed at a fundamental level. Butterflies transform from crawling in the dirt on their bellies to growing wings and taking to flight.

Contrary to every other religion in the world, we are not merely changed on the outside by learning rules and then trying to follow them. Striving and working and beating ourselves up won't change us. We are changed as truth enters into our minds and we believe that truth. God's spirit, through our faith changes us from the inside out.

Neuroscientists; Brain Scientists have begun to learn a lot about the function of the mind. First, the brain has what is called Neuroplasticity. Neuro means brain and Plasticity means changeable. That means that our brain is not fixed but changeable. [7, p. 7]

This understanding is a relatively new discovery in Science, because scientists previously believed that once the brain was wired it was permanent. Now Science is catching up to Gods word and they have discovered that the brain can dramatically change. And in fact, our brains are changing all the time with every thought that we think.

When we think, we create an electromagnetic field in our heads. And every thought that we have is actually made up of proteins called neopeptides. As we have a thought, our brain is literally forming structures of proteins called dendrites. They look like little branches.

With every thought we are literally programing our minds. We make it desire one thing and resist another by what we feed it. Do you know what your brain wants? It wants more. More or whatever you have been feeding it.

You feed your brain with: whatever you think about, what you look at, what you listen to, what you read, what you do, where you go, what you say. You are creating today, the person that you will be tomorrow.

But here is another amazing thing that God has done and scientists have just recently discovered. If, when a thought comes to our minds, we dismiss that thought, if we reject it, if we cast down that thought, if we refuse to dwell on it, that structure of neopeptides will disassemble, reabsorb into your body and the thought will be gone.

What happens as you allow actively reject a lie is the physical flow of electromagnetic energy, rather than forming the structures in your brain will exit you body through the mouth as hot air. The minute the thought enters your brain it becomes an electromagnetic flow. If you reject it immediately, it becomes heat energy; it becomes hot air and dissipates.

On the other hand, this same principle is true in everything that we learn and allow God to build into our lives. We need to hear it again and again, dwelling on it, meditating on it and as we do, it becomes a stable part of us. The word will literally become flesh.

God is going to change the world though a transformed people who know who they are: People who have new beliefs and have put on the new identity of a new creation in Chris Jesus. The mystery that has been hidden for ages but now revealed to the nations is this, Christ in you the hope of Glory.

We are all guilty of making disparaging remarks about our leaders more often than not out of our ignorance or jaundiced view of their activities. May God help us to work at giving honor to whom honor is due as a practical demonstration of holiness.

God is doing this by a process of transforming our minds. And what God is transforming is our beliefs.

So what is a belief? A belief is an idea that we think is true. Let's say that the idea is that man has walked on the moon. Do you believe that or not? In order to believe it or not believe it, you have to have other thoughts about it. You need evidence or reasons to believe it. So why do you believe a man walked on the moon? Maybe because you were told that man walked on the moon. Maybe you have seen pictures of man walking on the moon. You may have seen the video of a man walking on the moon. This evidence may cause you to say, Yes, I believe man walked on the moon.

Think of that idea as the top of a table. Right now it's just an idea. But as you receive evidence for the idea, you are building legs that support the idea, much like the legs of a table support the table.

• The more evidence, the stronger the support for the idea.

• The stronger the evidence, the stronger the belief.

• If you have very little evidence, you have a very weak belief.

• If you have a lot of evidence you have a very strong belief.

Beliefs are the driving force in everything we do!

This subject is incredibly important because the way we live, the things that we do are a result of what we believe and what we don't' believe. The bible tells us that Pro. 23:7 “As a man thinks within his heart, (Remember we believe in our heart) so is he [3].

Our beliefs govern our lives, emotions, health, skills and everyday experiences. what you believe is determining your destiny. If we believe we can succeed our beliefs can give us the resolve to take an action, and if we believe we will fail, our beliefs can destroy our drive and courage. Our beliefs will determine our lives.

George Dantzig was a mathematics graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. He walked into class late, an unfortunate habit he had developed and noticed two math problems written on the blackboard, deciding it was homework, he quickly wrote them down. That night as he began to work on them, he discovered they were the most difficult problems the professor had ever assigned.

For several days in a row he worked into the night trying to solve them. Finally, he had a breakthrough and solved both problems. The next morning he headed off to class and turned in his homework, laying it on top of a huge pile of papers on the professor's desk.

It was Six weeks later, on a Sunday morning when George woke up to a pounding on his door. Standing there was his math professor. Shouting “George, George, You solved them!

“Yeah, Wasn't I supposed to?” “No!” said his professor. He then told him that those two problems weren't homework; they were two famous math problems that the world's finest mathematicians couldn't solve. George solved them both in just three days.

He later said that if he had known that they were famous unsolved problems, he wouldn't have even tried. But he believed that he was supposed to solve them, and so he did. [4, p. 292]

That is why God has given us as a mission, the mandate of renewing our minds. Who we have become in Christ is so magnificent we need a whole new thought structure.

Here is the big secret about beliefs. We believe something because we think it is true. But the fact that we believe something or don't believe it has nothing to do with whether or not it is true. People believe all kinds of silly things and false things and dangerous things. They believe them not because they are true but because the threshold of evidence has been met. There is enough support for the idea for us to believe it.

We have beliefs about ourselves; God, others, the world, how things work, what is possible and impossible and they are determining our lives. And some of them are holding us back and keeping us from fulfilling our dreams and even our callings.

Our beliefs are either reinforcing that we are a new creation or they are arguing against it. Our beliefs are either built on the truths of God or the lies of the world.

This is all of our challenge. We all come to Christ already full of beliefs of all kinds of things. Most of our beliefs are not things that we chose to believe. Not things we scrutinized, studied and ultimately accepted as fact. Actually, most of our beliefs we just picked up going through life.

• Someone we trust such as our parents or teachers told us it was so and because we held them as authorities in our lives, when they said it, we accepted their word as sufficient evidence.

• We also form beliefs based on our experiences. Some event happens to us and we form a belief around that thing that happened.

• Traditions are another way we form beliefs. We do something a certain way for a long time and we believe that that is the only right way to do it.

Yale professor and best selling author Bernie Siegel did research on people with multiple personality disorders. Peoples beliefs that they were a different person resulted in unquestioned commands to their nervous systems that made significant and measurable changes in their biochemistry. Their bodies would literally transform before the researchers eyes and begin to reflect a new identity.

They documented studies of instant change in eye color, personality. Physical marks would appear and disappear. Even diabetes and high blood pressure would come and go with different personalities.

We all live by faith. The only difference is in what do we believe. Our beliefs determine what we do and don't do. "Beliefs ever determine the function of our bodies. It is estimated that from 75%-98% of all disease both mental and physical come from our thought life"[5].

If we want to change a behavior permanently, we have to change our beliefs.

It is believers that know who they are in Christ and what He has done for us, in us and will do through us that will captivate the hearts of people and bring about the Kingdom.

I believe that this is a KEY: If we are ever to walk in the fullness of who we are in Christ, and if we are ever to walk in the supernatural power of God, we need to have beliefs in who we are in Christ that are bigger, more powerful, carry more weight than anything that we can gain from our senses.

If we are going to live with the supernatural power of God, the process that we need to be brought through is a process where we learn to believe God's truths more than we believe old lies and more than we believe any facts. We need to adopt beliefs that are based purely on what God says is true without any regard to what we may have experienced in the past or what may be the facts in this physical world.

Think of your beliefs like trees and the branches are made up of thoughts. Some of those trees are taller than others. Some have branches that spread out and cover more areas of your life than others. There is a tree a US national park they warmly refer to as grandfather. It is 315.5 meters tall and between 1500 and 2,000 years old. It towers above even the other giant redwoods. It's the biggest tree in the world and its shade can cover an entire forest [6].

We have some beliefs like that. They are of such magnitude that they affect virtually every area of our lives. Not all beliefs are as powerful. Some beliefs have greater power and influence in our lives than others.

For example, I believe it's foolish to run into a burning building. It is a pretty strong belief. But I have a bigger, more powerful belief that says I will lay down my life for those I love. So, if someone I love is in that building, I believe it is worth risking my life to run in and save him or her. Greater beliefs override lesser beliefs.

I have learned that there are a few huge beliefs, that once any Christian really make them their own beliefs, these will equip them to operate in faith and power in any situation that comes their way.

One of the greatest tests of holiness is the way we react in circumstances that restrain our freedom to be what we want to be or expect to be. Situations like when we are under authority, when we are mistreated or misunderstood. Indeed, our consciousness of God in our circumstances not only gives us the power and motivation to endure patiently but to be a sweet smelling fragrance for His glory. Joseph continues to be a shining beacon of a man whose consciousness of God motivated him to be his best in whatever circumstance he found himself. They are based on 2 themes. What we believe about God and what we believe about ourselves. These two themes will have a greater impact on how we live our lives than anything else that we believe.

The first of these beliefs is this. God is Awesome.

The church needs to rediscover the great and awesomeness of God. There is no other God. He is the one and only. He is eternal, immortal, all-powerful. He is the creator, the King, the Master. He always was and will always be. He had no beginning and He will have no end. He makes the rules. This is His world. We belong to Him.

The second belief goes hand and hand with the first. Not only is God awesome and worthy to be obeyed and worshipped, but also God is good. He really is good.

This is very important because you would be amazed at how many Christians aren't really sure if God is good. Some tragedy happened and they blamed God. They lost a parent or a child and someone convinced them God did it. I do a lot of one on one ministry and I can't count the number of good Christian people who do all the right things and say all the right things but deep in their hearts they feel God let them down or didn't come through for them. Now, they are afraid to trust Him.

And there are just as many believers that haven't really given their full trust to Jesus because they just aren't sure that He will protect them. . They aren't sure that he really is good and really will take care of them. I can't overstate how important this belief is. We won't follow a God that we can't trust. But, what great acts of faith we would perform if only we trusted Him.

The third belief is this: I am a new creation. In 2 Cor. 5:17 the word of God declares: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away and all things have been made new. God lives in me and who I used to be has been washed away.

Psychologists believe that the strongest force in the human personality is to act consistent with how we define ourselves. Our identity, what we believe about ourselves affects everything that we do.

The fourth belief is this: God has a purpose for my life. God's word promises in Jeremiah 29:11 I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord plans for good and not for evil. To give you a future and a hope.

This means that my life matters. My life has meaning. I have a reason to be. I have a special and unique calling

One of the most exciting developments of our day is GPS (global positioning satellite) technology. These amazing GPS devices have the capacity to navigate someone, with audible instructions, from wherever they are in the world to within a few feet of anywhere else on the globe they desire to be. One of the wonderful things about GPS devices is that they are full of grace and mercy. If the driver misses a turn, the GPS doesn't begin to scream, “You stupid idiot. I told you to turn. You missed it! Find your own way home. I quit!” It simply says in a calm voice, “Recalculating,” and then begins to plot another course that will correct the mistake.

The fifth believe is: I can do anything God calls me to do. God's word promises in Phil. 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

That means no matter what my purpose is, no matter what God gives me to do, I can do it. I can do anything God sets before me. This is how I live my life.

The sixth belief is: I lack nothing: Phil. 4:19 promises; My God shall supply all of my needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. This means that whatever I need, God will supply. I am not lacking in anything. The only thing we lack is resourcefulness.

I'm smart enough. I am tall enough. I am young enough and I am old enough. I am strong enough and wealthy enough. I have everything I need. I have all things pertaining to life and godliness. I lack nothing.

And finally, the seventh belief is: I always win in the end: In Romans 8:28 God promises: God will work all things together for my good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

This means that no matter what goes wrong, no matter what happens, God is going to turn it around for my good. That means I can rejoice in everything. I ALWAYS win. We always triumph in Christ Jesus.

It is unfortunate that most of the atrocities in our national life are perpetuated by and through those who bear the marks of Christ. Holiness is not the religious air about us but the practical adherence to real issues like the call to submit to instituted authority.

Now imagine a congregation of people who know and understand that the God we serve is Awesome and completely without limits. He is good and loving and always takes care of us. He has now made us a new creation capable of moving mountains, healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead.

And these people know they have a purpose. They know that they can accomplish it because they can do all things through Christ. They know they have the resources that they need because God will supply all of their needs according to His riches. And when something goes wrong, this awesome God that is always good will take that thing, turn it so that it works together for their good.

Bibliography

1. The Bible. - English Standard Version. - mode of view: http://biblehub.com/esv

2. Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Edited by Walter A. Elwell. - by Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan USA, 1996. - mode of view: http://www.biblestudytools.com

3. The Bible. -The Living Bible Version. - mode of view: http://biblehub.com

4. Albers, Donald J. and Constance Reid. “An Interview of George B. Dantzig: The Father of Linear Programming.” College Mathematics Journal. Volume 17, Number 4; 1986. - Р. 293-314.

5. Leaf Caroline. You are What you Think: 75-98% of Mental and Physical Illnesses Come from our Thought Life! // written by Dr. Caroline Leaf. - Mode of view: http://drleaf.com/blog/

6. Giant Sequoias. - Mode of view: https://www.nps.gov/seki

7. Norman Doidge. M.D. The Brain That Changes Itself Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. - 224 p.

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