Taming the beast

Taming the beast

A man decides that he wants to have a lion as a pet. He gets a young cub. As an animal lover he does not want to restrict the lion’s freedom unduly. He wants him enjoy something of a normal lion’s life. The cub is even allowed to roam a nearby wooded area. No real effort is put into domestication and the man relies on the fact that he has been a consistent source of food to define his relationship with the lion.

Is this a dangerous adventure? How likely is it that the lion’s natural instincts to hunt will come to the fore at some point?

Untamed, unfettered and unobserved we see the potential for a tragedy unfolding.

The situation is very similar with respect to what we have been calling “the voice inside your head” – the prompter. Untamed, unfettered and unobserved the voice inside your head is a whole load of trouble.

You will recall that the voice in your head is not YOU. Making that distinction is essential. The voice in your head is a false sense of SELF that pretends to be YOU. Many persons never truly make the distinction and most of us confuse the two from time to time.

Today we want to spend some time getting to know the voice in your head better so that you can set about taming it, fettering it and observing it.

It is important to note that the voice in your head has been around from the very outset. Reflect on the very first act of disobedience recorded in the Scriptures.

Gen 2: 15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

That is the earliest recorded action of the voice in your head. An examination of the case gives us important insights into just what the voice in your head is about.

The voice in your head is about SELF. Self is to be promoted. That is the ultimate goal. The nature of the promotion changes with circumstances but marketing SELF is the mission of the voice in your head.

In this case, the issue is that SELF is being cast in a role that limits its options. It is being fettered. It is being controlled by outside influences. Why should that be? - it wonders. Why must I be bridled?

The voice in your head objects to imposed restrictions. It points to what you are missing. It also highlights your subordination to something outside of SELF. It sees this as a blatant plan to undermine and fetter SELF. The voice in your head will have none of it. It wants to have its own way … to chart its own course…to march to its own beat. Is it surprising then that so many of us have a hard time doing what we are told to do or in obeying rules?

The actions of the serpent also highlight one of the key strategies of the voice in your head. The serpent sought to create suspicion about the motives of others with respect to SELF. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The message is that ‘God does not have YOUR best interest at heart.’ God wants to have something that makes Him better than YOU.

This wedge of SUSPICION is at the root of much of our inter-personal difficulties. Yet it is a constant message from the voice in your head. It constantly doubts whether others have SELF’s best interest at heart. The voice in your head thinks that since it is always looking out for its own interest, why should others be any different?

This philosophy makes achieving TRUST very difficult. If trust is consistently questioned and pushed aside then the need to keep SELF apart increases and is entirely logical. If I can’t trust you then I had better stay clear of you. In earlier presentations, we pointed out that separation was a key strategy of the voice in your head. SELF gains strength by being different. “I am not like that!”

Differentiation is at the core of effective marketing. One brand seeks to establish that it is different from other brands. It is not surprising then that the voice in your head seeks avenues to make SELF different from others as part of its promotional strategy. Being different and separation go hand in hand.

Left untamed, unfettered and unobserved this tendency to separation and the inclination to be suspicious of others actually fuels discord and enmity. This is another instance of the dysfunctional nature of the voice in your head. We need to see that its natural inclination is to move us away from connectedness with God.

Mark 12: 30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

God says: Love your neighbour. The voice in your head says: “Be suspicious of others. Don’t trust them. They are not like you. They want the best for themselves. They don’t have YOUR best interest at heart.” If that is true then what room is there for the love of others that God demands?

1 John 4: 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

Like an untamed, unfettered and unobserved wild beast, the voice in your head is a bag of trouble when untutored, unchecked and left unattended.

Gen 6: 5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

Proverbs 6: 13 He winks with his eyes, He shuffles his feet, He points with his fingers; 14 Perversity is in his heart, He devises evil continually, He sows discord. 15 Therefore his calamity shall come suddenly; Suddenly he shall be broken without remedy.

The natural instinct of the lion is to hunt and to dominate. We see here that the natural inclination of the voice in your head is NOT to draw us closer to God. It is naturally inclined to lead us to dysfunctional behaviour. We must train it. We must chain it and we must watch it. That is the essence of Romans 12:2

Rom 12: 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

So back to our objective of taming the beast:

The voice in your head prompts you to be suspicious of others. In fact, it is the voice in your head that needs to be viewed with suspicion.

1 John 4: 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

You have to screen every single prompt that comes from the voice inside your head.Ask: Is this prompt in accordance with the Word of God? Anything that runs counter to the Will of God must be identified, exposed and denied.

Another feature to note about the voice in your head is its ability to send messages that just seem to be right for you. It just seems the natural thing to think, say or do.

2 Tim 4: 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

In order to tame the voice in your head you have to be alert to your vulnerabilities. Try to remember that it will seek to take advantage of you when you are tired, or upset or excited. Be especially conscious when you are unsettled or off balance in any way. It is in that state that carefully crafted messages get through your defences. The thought so completely sums up how you feel at that moment that you identify with it. You fail to see that it is in sync with the feeling of the impostor SELF and not reflective of who YOU are at your core.

So far, in the effort to tame the voice in your head we have looked at shoring up your defences – essentially the chain it and watch it components of your strategy. However, you put yourself at a major disadvantage unless you devote attention to the train it component.

Prov 22: 6 Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.

The voice in your head begins to be shaped very early in life. Some people say from in the womb. It is important that it gets a clear picture of the kind of messages that is expected of it from the very outset. This does not come naturally as its natural inclination is to produce dysfunctional messages.

There is an awesome responsibility on adults and parents to train the voices in the head of children from the earliest stages such that they produce messages that promote connectedness with God as against conformity with the world.

It is important to note that the voice in your head seems to take its cues more readily from what it observes as against what it is told. No need to wonder why Junior is so protective of his toy car and so unwilling to share it. He has seen how Daddy goes ballistic when he spills his drink in Daddy’s car. Mom also appears to be a different person when he forgets that he is not to drink on the couch. The message is clear - THINGS are very important. You have to defend things against people. In fact, things are more important than people.

Junior’s voice in his head quickly learns that it is to send messages that defend things against people. Junior identifies with the messages because Mom and Dad have shown him that that is the way he should be. Loads and loads of the messages that the voice in your head sends to you today were actually coded in your early years.

So what now? Can training of the voice in your head still take place in our adult state?

The renewing of the mind is in fact largely about stripping away messages that have been implanted into our minds by our life long experiences. Untrained, unrestricted and unobserved the voice in your head draws its own conclusions from each encounter from all that is happening around it and decides on the messages that it will send.

Rom 7: 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

As with so many passages, the personal implication of this one jumps out at you when you examine it in the context of the voice in your head and its battle to take over the core YOU. When the voice in your head is identified as the thing in me (that is, in my flesh) then the struggle is more clearly seen.

20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

This is where the distinction between the voice in your head and YOU is essential to a better understanding.

Now if I (MY FALSE SELF) do what I (CORE ME) will not to do, it is no longer I (CORE ME) who do it, but sin that dwells in me (=MY FALSE SELF represented by the voice in my head).

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1 Pet 5: 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

That roaring lion is not roaring in the wild but is actually the quiet voice in your head. Its aim is to devour the inward man: 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. It is consumed with warring against the law of your mind.

What can we do? Is there a way out? How do we know which voice to believe?

Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Matt 19: 23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved? 26 But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
John 14: 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

You can have no life outside of Jesus. You must be in Christ to have life. The taming of the voice in your head is only possible when you are in Christ.

A review of all the conversions in the New Testament and supporting passages point to the following process for putting on Christ:

We must hear the good news of Jesus, His atoning sacrifice for our sins and His resurrection.
Rom 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

You must also believe the good news.
Heb 11: 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Faith is not enough. We are called to act on our belief and to make a decision to no longer let sin reign in our lives but to seek to live in obedience to God. This is the very important act of repentance. You must commit to taming the voice in your head.

Luke 13: 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

You then have to confess Jesus as Lord of your life. This is a public declaration of your belief that Jesus is the Son of the Living God:

Rom 10: 8-10 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Another major step is that you must be baptized for the removal of our sins. This is a step that is either left out completely or is comprised in attempts to make salvation more convenient.

Gal 3:26 For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ.

At that point you have put on Christ and you are in Christ. Now you are empowered to experience the renewal of your mind and live a transformed life. Now the taming of the beast in your head can take place in earnest.

The domestication of any wild animal requires discipline, patience, diligence and persistence. Taming the voice in your head requires discipline, patience, diligence and persistence. You must use the Bible as the training manual. Today God speaks through His Word. In order not to be confused by the voices in your head compare what they are saying with what the Bible says.

The process of stripping away wrong messages and replacing them with appropriate messages has to be ongoing. There is no letting up. You have to be persistent.

You also need to be patient. Natural inclinations have a way of coming out occasionally even when they have been suppressed. Understand that and do not get frustrated. Instead, increase your commitment to further training and be more vigilant in your screening.

As you undertake this task of taming the voice in your head be encouraged by 2 passages:

Phil 4: 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Matt 21: 21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. 22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”