the Pernicious Lie

Hey everybody,
A quick post that I meant to write a few weeks ago.
lately I have been getting together with some friends in a small group on tuesday nights. It has been great, encouraging and challenging. we started getting together and catching up on our weeks then discussing a passage from the Bible. lately we have started a video series called "the Truth Project"
It looks at truth from different angles, from a Christian perspective. anyways the last week we watched it, it looked at "who is man?" and discussed the pernicious lie. the pernicious lie is a fundamental lie about who man is
its hard to replicate what was said as each episode is a packed hour of discussion/points, but here is a little tidbit

the question is who is man? there are 3 facets to look at: his essence, his moral state and his need.
the christian perspective (or truth) is that his essence is being in the image of God, both flesh and spirit.
the lie is that he is material, has no purpose, a goo man
the truth about his moral state is that he is fallen.
the lie about his moral state is that he is good, Maslow says we have no instinct for evil (say what?)
the truth about our need is that we need redemption
the lie is that our need is self-actuallization, basically that it is all about us.

now the biggest thing here that stand out is saying that we are basically good or basically evil. well we are not basically good, we are selfish. when we look out only for our interests, we take from others, we don't respect others, we are evil. but the world thinks self-actuallization is what we need. if we only focus on ourselves, the bad part, the selfish part comes through. whereas if our need is redemption, we let God work through us and the hope is that the good outwieghs the bad.
some people say we are good on our own and don't need God. then what influences the terrible things we see? Hitler and the Jews, countries nuclear bombing each other, rapists etc (you can think of more examples i'm sure). why do these things happen? because we think we are completely right to do what we want, often for selfish reasons. sure bad things have happened in the name of religion, no doubt. people can take the part of a religion that benefits them and miss the redemption, the God part, they take scriptures out of context to benefit whatever they think is right.

there is the question of why is there evil? if we are inherently good (as the world would suggest, humanist etc) then how can there be evil. of course there must be some distinction for something being evil, otherwise why does it bother us? how can you feel about about something being bad if everything is right for the person doing the action. there has to be something that governs what is good and what is bad. if are are truely here to self-actualize, as Abraham Maslow suggests, then why are we bothered by evil or bad things. as long as we are self-actualizing, we wouldn't care what happens in Africa or that sort of thing would we?

Did you know in the UK the leading cause for women and 2nd leading cause for men to end up in hospital is suicide attempts? kinda sad, but if we ignore God, we focus on ourselves, and the selfishness can be a dangerous path. we need redemption, and Jesus offers that. we are in the image of God and also ahve a sinful nature. our sinful nature can push out the truth.

I am going to leave it there, hopefully it has provoked some thought, and comment if you want to. We are watching the 4th episode tonight, which is on who is God.

thanks for reading as always,

Adam