God always gives us the power to, over time, overcome the sin in our lives. If you’ve been struggling with a certain sin for decades and you’ve wrestled with God in prayer and you’ve been persistent, and still can’t overcome, and you have a mental illness, there’s a big chance that your problem is a purely mental one and not a spiritual or moral issue.

However, I want to exercise caution here because some sins do take a lot of effort to overcome, and it can be a huge battle to get the victory, and it is true that if you haven’t done your part and really given your all to side yourself with Christ and overcome in His strength, that there are sins you won’t get the victory over until you commit to the warfare and fight hard for.

But let’s say you’re one of these very committed people. Maybe you even take things to extremes. You err on the side of going too far, rather than not far enough. And yet you still can’t overcome sin. Then for such a person there’s likely a purely mental reason behind your inability to get control over this sin.

This question, like many of the questions in this book, comes down to the nature of man again.

Upon examining the question of just what role our physical structure plays in and how it relates to our sanctification I discovered some interesting things.

This is the question of how much of our walk with God is purely mental and how much is moral? What is the role of purely mental functioning in our spiritual experience, and how does being finite in a fallen world play out in practical living today?

The bottom line is, that if one believes they can always discern right from wrong accurately, with any condition or situation in life that affects mental functioning, this person is really believing people are not finite beings.

If you believe the Bible teaches we are finite, then it follows that you’ll believe that our physical brain has limitations and is subject to illness and decay and malfunction.

It really just comes back to the question “Are human beings finite, possessing finite material brains, or are is their brain infinite and immaterial, able to always function correctly even when the physical structure is damaged?”

There’s some definite ways that our finite nature complicates our experience in this fallen world, especially in these last days when people’s brain function is weak and mental illnesses are at an all-time high.

Look, it’s true that a non-converted person can sometimes stop smoking, or do other behavioral modifications without Christ. The person can adopt a kind-hearted demeanor, who was once angry and hostile in demeanor, without actually changing in heart. How is this even possible? Conditioning and habit-forming is a real thing. This is all brain stuff without actual character change.

We’ve determined that our character is a part of our brain – it’s the higher functions that can understand right from wrong. This part can be damaged by man, for instance, when lobotomies were given to the mentally ill in the past, but it cannot be made holy by man. It takes God’s creative power to change character to be holy and oriented towards right-doing. No amount of science could ever do that.

It also takes God’s spirit living within the person. At conversion when we are changed in heart, it’s not merely a change of our character that happens, but the actual indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit living within us that enables us to do right and have holy motives. It’s not just us; it is God working in us – from within us – to do of His good will and pleasure.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not something the unconverted person has.

A person who is not converted, can actually change outward behavior if they white-knuckle themselves into behaving properly. But they aren’t filled with God’s Spirit actuating them and giving them holy motives. It is just an act; no real change has taken place.

Brain ability can work without character change, and the opposite is also true – one can have impaired or confused brain function – while still having enough brain function to know right from wrong and to choose God, and have a heart to know God – and be tripped up by purely mental problems that cause a lot of suffering and confusion, simultaneously.

It started to become clear to me that there are a lot of ways a person can malfunction mentally and have their mental functioning affect their behavior, and cause them to perform actions that we normally associate with being sinful, that really aren’t sin for them because they don’t have awareness, or they lack impulse control due to severe brain inflammation.

For instance, someone with dissociation symptoms who loses the ability to understand and rightly discern time, may not be able to plan, and may be chronically late to appointments, and it may not be a character issue at all.

Normally, in a healthy person, it’s a sin to commit to meeting someone at a set time, and to allow yourself to be late. It shows lack of respect to that person, it shows you don’t take your word seriously and that white lies are ok with you.

But if the person has a mental condition – such as dissociation or early stage dementia – that makes them unable to understand time or causes them to forget about the time of the meeting, then it’s not sin for them to be late.

Someone with autism may act cold and disconnected or even scowl all the time and not realize they are doing it. This would be a sin for someone who understands social cues, as it conveys disdain and lack of love, but it’s not a sin for someone who lacks social cognition.

Someone with Terrett’s syndrome may shout vulgar things, even though they know it’s wrong and don’t want to be doing it, and be unable to control their compulsions until they get on medication or supplements.

Someone with mild psychosis might know adultery and stealing are wrong, but they may not know cussing is wrong and may have blind spots in their moral perception.

Someone with mild psychosis or dissociative symptoms, or in the early stages of dementia might flirt with someone they aren’t married to and not realize they are flirting. They may think they are just being nice and those fine lines between nice and flirting they have lost the ability to discern.

And on and on and on.

Really this question brings up an important subject of just what happened to the world when Adam sinned. When Adam sinned, he introduced the capacity in this world for every type of malfunction and dysfunction and disease and decay in the natural world as well as dysfunction and perversion in the morals of man. While initially the people living on earth lived to 900 years and must have been very strong and physically and mentally healthy, when Adam ate from that fruit, the capacity for every type of malfunction was now possible in this world, and it’s just taken time for all the different manifestations of this to come about.

It’s no wonder then that we see malfunction of every type, from mild to severe.

The bottom line is this world doesn’t really work. It only worked when it was held-up in direct connection with the Creator and Designer who is omniscient and almighty. Now that there’s a degree of separation between this world and God, God can’t step in and hold everything together perfectly and stop all these dysfunctions. He will do so at the end of sin and evil and suffering though when He creates a new heavens and a new earth. But for now there’s moral and natural evil of all kinds and types.

But until then the universe needs to see all the different ways a world ruled by Satan and his immoral principles malfunctions. They need to see what evil does and what it entails in every part of the scientific world. It needs to unfold and God needs to finally win the war against Satan so He can end all of this for all time.

So, while we need to do everything we can to have the healthiest brains possible – and they have a moral duty to do what lies in their power to make their brain as healthy as possible – for many people they may still experience dysfunction and have this treasure in earthen vessels of autism and depression and various mental health conditions. This is going to be the case with many of us in these last days.

The truth is, when the brain is working correctly we have power to respond to God and resist sin, but there are mental conditions that can hi-jack this natural process even in people who are conscienscious and have dedicated their lives to obeying and following God. We need to do everything we can to have the healthiest brain we possibly can, because even our moral capacity and ability to plan and execute (including planning and executing resisting sin and how to avoid temptations) are brain functions. We are like living machines, and if the machinery goes hay-wire we lose capacity and control. This is not to say this loss of control causes us to sin, but it will cause other problems, such as behaviors that would be sin for us if we did possess control, that are detrimental to society and need to be taken seriously.

It’s also a sin not to do everything in our power to have healthy brains. There is a moral duty in the Word of God – for those who can understand it – to live and eat healthfully.

I think there’s a lot of conscienscous Christians out there who are thinking they haven’t been able to overcome sin due to compulsions and things like this, and what they are dealing with isn’t actually sin, it’s a lack of capacity or agency due to inflammation hi-jacking the brain. And the answer is to get inflammation down – the answer is brain health and brain treatments – not more prayer in this case (prayer is always important but if they are already praying sincerely multiple times per day and seeking God they have that covered and this is no longer an issue of prayer). They may also need to be hospitalized for a time if the compulsions are dangerous to themselves or others.

This is not to excuse those who are having a hard time stopping an addiction or a sin and possess agency to stop. God cannot be fooled. God knows when we really can control something and when our brain is hi-jacked by mental illness and we’ve actually lost control. He knows this better than we do. Sometimes we think we can stop something but it’s actually an irresistible compulsion and we actually can’t stop until we get brain treatment and God knows this and we do not. If someone who really does have control and it’s just hard to do the right thing uses mental illness as an excuse, they will not fool God and God will hold them accountable.

It’s true that having a mental illness doesn’t automatically mean that a certain behavior is out of one’s control. Mental illness can hi-jack one region of the brain, causing certain behaviors to be outside of one’s control, while other behaviors are still within one’s control, and to figure out which is which needs to be done on a case-by-case basis.

For instance, someone may have compulsions to stab themselves with a kitchen knife and be unable to control this behavior, but not have compulsive suicidal urges involving other methods that cause death. They may be able to control themselves and not have compulsions to jump off a high building or jump out of a car, but be unable to control the compulsion to stab themselves with knives. So keeping them out of the kitchen and hospitalizing them for treatment may save their life.

What’s the Difference Between Neuroplasticity and Character Change?

I’ve been hiring scientific researchers and consulting with biomedical engineers to learn what treatments currently exist for psychotic disorders, particularly ones involving AI. I’m looking into developing technology if some of the ideas I have in mind aren’t already in the works. I need to know if they exist first, because if they already exist, then I will write about them and let people know they exist and where to go to for treatment, and there won’t be a need to create them myself.

The other day I spoke with a woman with a neuroscience degree from a prestigious college who has worked on some cutting edge projects in the field, including the new Computer-Brain Interfaces (BCIs) that allow people who have lost limbs, to have artificial limbs attached to their body that they can control using brain signals, to open the hand, move the fingers, and have a functioning, artificial arm, which is absolutely amazing! She has extensively studied neuroplasticity, the process the brain uses to learn new information and establish habits, or break harmful ones. She had many fascinating things to say, but unfortunately she is a huge proponent of meditation and mindfulness, a spiritual practice that originated with Buddhism and is now being embraced by a lot of atheists and secularists who see it as a secular practice, and have even convinced some Christian therapists of this. It’s rampant in the field of psychology and is the main line of treatment used by many therapists. Its reach spreads far and wide.

The Bible tells us we can’t take religious practices from other religions and use them in our worship to God, or use them in a secular way and be safe in doing this. The Bible calls it idolatry to do this.

Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.
You must not worship the LORD your God in their way.
Deuteronomy 12:3-4

Notice how the Christian is not only not to worship foreign gods, but we’re also not to worship the true God in the way that those who worship false gods worship their gods. This precludes adding foreign worship practices into the worship of the Bible God. In the original Hebrew the phrase is that not “with such things” shall you worship God.

One of the core, defining doctrines that separates Christians from the world, is that the Bible is our source of authority. We can’t pick and choose how we worship God. We can’t get creative outside of God’s revealed instruction and there are definite boundaries that truth stakes out. The bioengineer started pushing meditation very strongly in our conversation, believing she had been helped by it, and wanting that same progress for me. She claimed it’s not a spiritual practice and that it’s fine for all people of any religion or background to practice it as it’s perfectly neutral, so I explained to her that in her view it’s neutral but as a Christian the Word of God is our standard, and this makes Christianity very different from any other religion or belief system.

Things like holy yoga, which is claimed to be a Christian form of yoga where you channel the Holy Spirit and pray to the Bible God, rather than channel the higher self, and reiki where once again you commune with the Christian God while performing the healing rather than channeling the higher self or the universe, are becoming more and more prevalent. Mindfulness is another one of these dangerous spiritual exercises.

This engineer went on to say that she used to have a very strong anger problem, and that it took 20 years of meditation to change her brain pattern and groove out new neural circuits so she doesn’t react with anger. She had religiously worked on this over decades, utilizing her knowledge of neuroscience, and the spiritual practice of meditation to bring her brain to a state of calm so when someone cut her off in traffic, or some other rude and startling event occurred, she did not react in anger. She claimed as many others do that the fact there are scientific studies that show the benefits of mindfulness and meditation make it good and healthy and innocent.

I pointed out to her that any religion in the world has practices that would show up on brain scans as calming the mind, but that doesn’t mean all these various religious practices are now merely a health practice. You could quite literally find a Satanist who prays to Satan and scan his brain while reciting his prayers and it would probably show his brain was more sedated and calm. This doesn’t mean it’s a neutral thing to become a Satanist and that it’s perfectly harmless.

Her account really got me thinking about how what we do as Christians when we surrender our anger or jealousy to God, is not just neuroplasticity. Her description of painstaking years of grooving out new neural circuitry seemed lifeless and ineffective, and brought to mind Galatians 4:8-10 that calls all false religion as operating by weak and destitute principles.

“But now, having known God, but rather having been known by God, how do you turn again to the weak and destitute principles, to which you desire to be enslaved again anew?You observe days and months and seasons and years.I fear for you, lest perhaps I have toiled for you in vain.Galatians 4:8-10BLBAnd also Colossians 2 which goes over the same thing:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the principles of this world rather than on Christ.

Since you died with Christ to the principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

All false religions operate via the principles of selfishness the one that actuates Satan’s heart. God’s true religion operates via principles of love and truth. While you may be able to meditate your way to having a more calm personality, you can’t meditate your way to having a heart of love, and while Buddhist practices like this have an appearance of restraining the body and the passions, and you may actually be able to retrain the brain over decades of repetition not to lash out in anger, you have merely made yourself more subdued and changed your personality; you have not affected the character in the slightest.

Having a lobotomy will make someone more subdued and calm too, but it doesn’t mean they have the victory over their anger or that they have now changed to be actuated by more love than they were in the past. Their character has not changed. To have the principles of love in our heart requires a new nature, something that is a divine miracle of God, and involves the Holy Spirit coming to live in our bodies, and not a mere change in neural circuitry.

While I don’t believe we are spirit beings and that we are fully physical beings, so our character is located in our frontal lobe and associated regions, we don’t have the divine ability or spiritual right to change our own character; it’s done by God’s power alone and is heavily guarded by Him.

Think of it like a website that can only be accessed, edited and changed by the admin panel. No one else has the authority or right to do it. Furthermore, God doesn’t merely make neural circuitry changes to our frontal lobe to change our character (though I do believe He does that too); we don’t know all that is involved in the transformation from a heart of selfishness to one of love that God performs at conversion. What we do know is that He actually puts His Holy Spirit into our body to actuate us. We are filled with His Spirit at conversion. This is the purpose of our physical body, to be a temple for the Holy Spirit.

God changes our desires and motives, something neuroplasticity can’t do. While someone who has meditated every day for 50 years may appear very different from how they were before they meditated, and vast changes in personality and demeanor have been observed, these changes are superficial; they don’t reach the heart. If we don’t have a new heart, we will still be actuated by selfish motives.

I couldn’t help thinking how far along this hard-working woman would be if she had spent those decades surrendering her will and attitudes to God and letting God change her actual character. She’d be nearly ready for translation! And what a shame it is that those of us who have the truth about character transformation don’t work hard at it! Satan likes to give people like her the lie that she can work her way to love and self-control, and he likes to give us Christians the lie that all that’s important is conversion and the initial change that occurs at that time, that progress past that point doesn’t really matter and isn’t urgent or relevant, or that we don’t have to do our part and God will do everything for us. Thus our characters are often selfish and lacking in the Christian graces and it’s not ok.

Those of us who do have the power to change – who have the true religion and the way to full peace and love – aren’t engaging heartily in the process of sanctification. And those who don’t have the true religion and have a counterfeit, Satan has made more zealous and at times they come across as more peaceful and loving than Christians because we aren’t letting God change us. Then Satan presents to the world the argument that what you believe doesn’t matter, and doesn’t have an effect on one’s character, that no religion is better than another, and people often choose to believe it, because they haven’t seen truly sanctified Christians who are vastly different from people of other religions; they’ve only seen lukewarm Christians.

What would happen if we worked hard to fight those battles with self every day, to surrender them to God? What would happen if we were fully committed and fully involved? What if we hungered to see progress in character and this was our chief objective?

We’d see God’s divine power work us like the potter works clay, into a useful holy vessel. God never says no to this prayer! But He will make us ask, seek, and knock in order to make advancement. We will have to put in a full commitment to see results. But far too often we experience a miracle at conversion when we are given a new heart, but we often stop there or a little ways out, and don’t continue the battle of surrender. Thus we lose our first love and do not make additional progress either, backsliding into old sins.

There is a difference between neuroplasticity and a new character. And it is a profound difference. There is a difference between meditating to control anger, and surrendering your anger to God and being given a new heart, that not only won’t lash out at others, but has actually had the anger removed at its root, and replaced by a deep love for people that is shown by a happy inner zeal to engage in practical works of meeting real needs in the family, community, church, and world at large.

The difference is humanism vs. faith in God. In humanism you’re trusting that you can form these new habits and new grooves in the brain. You’re attributing divine power to yourself. Also since it’s a spiritual practice you come in contact with demons, who can influence you to appear calmer and in control, when really they are possessing you and controlling you unaware. In Christianity, you’re asking God to change your character, and you realize you can’t do a divine work on yourself, only He can. You’re surrendering the actual attitudes and desires that actuate you to God, so He can give you His righteous and benevolent desires, something that can only be done because Christ lived a perfect life on our behalf and won those victories for us, and died to pay our debt so we have a right to a heart change and new life in Him.

The meditating secularist has no right to a new heart. They are still under the penalty of death. They also have no power to generate a new heart within themselves; it takes the divine power of God to do that.

This is not to discredit neuroplasticity or habit formation, or medical treatments that retrain the brain and help someone with psychotic thoughts to think logically. You need to be thinking logically before you can even engage the will, the part of the brain involved in surrendering to God. So it’s crucial logic and moral perception are restored to a person through medical treatments, so that they can use their will to choose God and have their character changed by Him. God has blessed us with amazing medical treatments in our day and age when people are at their weakest and most sick and need them the most, and I believe He wants us to utilize medicine to be effective stewards of our body and health. This is a core Bible doctrine. But neuroplasticity is not the regeneration of the Spirit of God, and they are two distinct things.

There is no other righteousness but the righteousness found in Christ.

There’s an interesting problem that can arise in people with mental illness. Sometimes we’re surrendering our character and sinful attitudes to God, but we can’t stop doing a certain sin because it’s actually not a character problem, it’s a problem of neuro-inflammation. For instance, a person may have Tourette’s syndrome, and blurt out curse words, but be a Bible-believing Christian. They may endeavor to surrender their cursing to God, and see no results or improvement. Normally a person with a cursing problem stops when they surrender their vulgarity to God. They may struggle with it for a while, and the struggle may be intense, but they overcome, they get the victory over a period of weeks or months, in a reasonable amount of time, in accordance with God’s power working in them to will and to do of His good pleasure. Beholding God’s holiness as they read the Word of God stirs up in them a desire to be holy like God is holy, and to worship Him in reverence and awe. They feel rebuked by their crass, vulgar language, and see their sin for what it is. Then, taking hold of His help, they don’t continue to curse for years after becoming a Christian, they don’t settle into a life of cursing and vulgarity.

But the Christian with Tourette’s shows a different pattern. They don’t actually curse to be crass or to demean someone. Their motive isn’t selfish. They curse randomly or when under stress. They feel bad about it, and surrender it year-after-year to God but never stop. It’s now been 10 years and they haven’t stopped. Or a person may have a compulsive hair-pulling problem, and surrender it constantly to God, yet see no improvement; no self-control gained over years and years of praying. In fact, under stress the problem worsens. But then the person is treated with medication, and suddenly the hair-pulling stops and they didn’t even have to try to stop. They didn’t even have to exert effort. Or perhaps they exert a normal amount of effort expected to kick such a habit, and with the help of the medication, they are able to stop.

This can be confusing to many. But it really is true – especially with SMIs (severe mental illnesses) that some problems we have are just brain problems. A more obvious example of this is a man who was an upstanding Christian his whole life, and then begins compulsively sexually assaulting nurses at the rest home, because he’s fallen into late stage dementia and his brain is atrophying and malfunctioning. Cases like this make this fact more clear, that some problems are just brain problems.And sometimes people with these compulsions or rages can think they are lost and will go to hell because they aren’t seeing improvements in these “sins”. When it really is just a case of needing to reduce inflammation in the brain, and then they regain control. It’s actually not a character problem.

I think it’s important to understand that we are finite beings who sin. We are not infinite beings, outside of all physicality and time and space who sin. Ellen White tells us God actually cannot sin, because He’s infinite and cannot be tempted. His infinite nature makes this impossible.Christ actually had to become a man in order to be tempted and be capable of sin, and then He had to choose not to sin and to overcome sin on our behalf, so He could pass on His victory to us and give us the moral strength to resist sin.

The Bible also tells us that Christ will always give us the victory over sin. It’s true that we may have to really battle to surrender self, and it’s a daily battle, but Christ has pledged for the one who wrestles with Him as Jacob did they will have the victory over their sins and they will make continual progress upward along the path that leads to heaven and shines brighter and brighter until it reaches the full shine of the noonday sun. This is the path of the Christian and this is what a converted Christian’s life will look like.

But Jesus has not promised to always heal our brain. It’s possible to be a Christian and have Tourette’s or OCD. It’s possible to be a Christian and have dementia and all the complications and symptoms that brings. We have not been promised perfect health or a healing of our mental illness, though in many cases God does choose to improve or heal us, there are some He chooses not to.

And if we get things confused and think our OCD is sin, we can mistakenly think Jesus isn’t giving us the victory over sin and we aren’t right with Him, when really we are. And so if there’s a way we can come to see the truth, we can be spared a lot of psychological pain in fearing we’re lost.

The key I think is that God is always faithful to do what He promised to do. But sometimes we think He promised things He never promised and we confuse His promises, and that can lead to false conclusions.

One thing that really helps is look at your life as a whole. Let’s say you have a compulsion you can’t stop like hair pulling. Look at the rest of your life. Are you getting the victory in other areas? Is your love and gratitude towards God growing? Do you find you’re becoming more humble, more effective at serving and helping others because of your increased humility and increased ability to give people what they really need and not the things you’d like to do or give? Look at all these kinds of things, and if you do have self-control and love in many other areas, there’s a big possibility your compulsive cursing is due to neuro-inflammation and not character. And it needs to be treated for what it is before you’ll be able to stop.

But sometimes people in these states of compulsivity are very out-of-control in an all-around kind of way. They are explosive, they can’t focus to do work or school, they are jumping off the walls or easily stressed. They may hallucinate or have personality changes. They may not have access to their emotions or be able to understand their own motives or desires. They may feel mentally scattered or lose memories. This means they probably have severe inflammation through their whole body and they need treatment before you can even see what kind of a person they choose to be with their will. Their whole system is hi-jacked and overridden by the inflammation.

You can look to who they were before they became this inflamed to get a better picture of who this person is, and after they are effectively treated you will also see the real them emerge too.

The Bible tells us we have a high priest who was made in ever way like we are. In His humanity Jesus experience physical infirmity, including things like cognitive impairment after a long night praying and no sleep, brain fog, mental exhaustion. He understands mental malfunction…He understands the limits of our finite nature because He was born in a human body and experienced what it was like to be human. He suffered, was thirsty, experienced mental anguish. And the Infinite One who took on flesh can help us with all of our physical malfunctions, and our need for wisdom as we confront health issues.

We are finite beings, so this means we’re subject to and limited by our finite physical nature. If our body malfunctions, we can’t override that malfunction. A good example of this is a paralyzed leg. While God has given human beings the ability to walk, and we normally have that ability, there are conditions that can take that ability away from us. Paralysis in a leg can make it impossible for us to walk. This reveals our finite nature.In the same way, brain malfunctions can limit our agency too. Excess inflammation in certain regions of the brain can hi-jack our normal functioning and hi-jack our agency and lead to compulsive acts that are actually outside of our control. Damage from stroke or dementia can do this too.

God holds us responsible for the things within our control, not the things outside of our control, and as long as we are fighting a serious battle on our knees to surrender our heart and actions and life to God, He has promised us by His very blood that we will come out the victor.

However, while you may not be held responsible for having a compulsive behavior that hi-jacks your agency that you actually can’t control, you definitely will be held responsible for not seeking out supplements and medical treatment to lower the inflammation in your brain and regain control, if you have access and know about treatments that can help.

So while the battle may not be one of mental surrender at that point, because you’ve done your part to surrender to God and this is an inflammation issue – the battle becomes one of will you obey God in the area of health and do treatments that could help you, or will you just accept the compulsions (which in some people can be dangerous) and be unfaithful to your Christian trust in the area of health.

God definitely holds us responsible when we have access to treatments that can help us and we don’t pursue them, especially when these compulsions can make us a danger to ourselves and others, and health is a sacred duty, since Christ died for our bodies and we belong to God.

If I Still Experience Feelings of Anger or Gay Attraction, or Other Wrong Desires, Does This Mean My Character Hasn’t Changed and I’m Not Right With God?

The Need for Glorification

People used to have trouble differentiating between gay attraction and the sin of homosexual actions. If you make this mistake then if you have the attraction you will internalize it and see yourself as being impure, unholy, sinful, and unable to be a Christian or go to heaven. Tragically this has lead some people to commit suicide due to hopelessness. This is actually faulty logic and it’s not Biblical truth! 

What does the Bible tells us about inclination, does it tell us inclination is sin?

Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceive, it gives birth to sin; and sin when, it is full grown, gives birth to death.
James 1:14-15

Notice that in this verse the evil desire isn’t sin, and neither is being enticed or tempted. Another word for how the Bible is using “desire” in this passage is inclination. It’s not a sin to have an inclination in your flesh for something evil. It only becomes a sin if that desire or inclination is conceived, meaning you cherish it, think about it, dwell on it, willfully embrace it either in thought or action. This is when it’s sinful.

Let’s look at the commandment of coveting. It’s the only commandment that exists wholly in the thoughts and desires of a person. Coveting often leads to actions that violate the other commandments. For instance, when Satan coveted God’s throne it lead to His rebellion and to self-worship which breaks the first commandment. People who covet sometimes steal. But while the other commandments always have a mental component to them (for instance it’s a sin to lust after a woman and it’s also a sin to commit physically adultery, it’s a sin to hate one’s parents, and it’s also a sin to act out that hate by saying hateful things to them), coveting itself is the only commandment that involves only the thoughts and desires of the inward heart.

Notice that coveting is a sin and is listed under the 10 commandments. But the desire in the passage in James 1:14-15 is not coveting, it’s not cherishing sin in the heart. It’s an inclination only. Temptation is not sin. We’re all tempted because we all have fallen natures and depraved inclinations, every one of us, but temptation is not sin. Rather it’s the ‘conceiving’ in the passage in James that is the same as coveting. Merely having an inclination towards something sinful is not sinning, but actively coveting and conceiving is where things become sin.

Jesus Himself, possessing a fallen nature like our own and being made in all points like as we are, yet without sin, was tempted daily by the devil and the people around Him. If spotless Jesus could be tempted and have inclinations in His fallen nature and these weren’t sin for Him, then they aren’t sin for us either. It’s only if these inclinations are willfully cherished and thought about or acted upon that it becomes sin.

 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James 4:1-3

In the above verse Jesus explains that our desires battle within us. There is a fight we must engage in, and that we can only be successful to resist sin by the power of Christ. It’s a battle of faith, not human strength without God. Without Christ sin rules us and we act out our evil inclinations. Instead of resisting the inclinations and the active temptations of Satan, those without Christ through history have engaged in the worst sins. They kill people in order to steal the possessions they want from them. They fight and quarrel because they are jealous of others and can’t have what they have, and there is no peace between human interactions. They don’t desire the good things God wants to give them. Instead when they pray they pray for selfish and evil things that God cannot say yes to.

While some people sin in more extreme ways and others less so, and some can white knuckle their behavior and speech to outwardly control themselves, and some are not as inclined genetically and epigenetically to sin the darker sins and thus sin in more socially acceptable ways, all who are apart from Christ and slaves to Satan indulge in their evil inclinations because without Christ we have no power to do differently.

However, the good news is while we sin early in life and come into slavery of Satan and sin, God offers us redemption and a way out early in life. His Spirit begins convicting and speaking to our hearts as soon as we are able to understand right and wrong and the concept of God and the gospel.

We don’t have to remain in our sins and we can choose to resist our sinful inclinations in the strength Christ provides. God holds out to all of us the invitation He extended to Cain, the strength and power to rule over sin through Christ, rather than allowing it to rule over us and be its slave.

Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
Genesis 4:6-7

But is it possible for someone to have a fallen desire or inclination, not one they are cherishing or indulging in, just one that occurs naturally, and be a saved Christian? Yes, this is absolutely possible. Christ had such inclinations, as He was fully human as well as fully divine.

Two Reasons for Wrong Inclinations in the Converted Christian

There are two factors to consider here:
*Character
*Nature

While closely related to one another, these two things are not the same. It is true that our character is a part of our nature. But there are other things that are part of our nature that have nothing to do with character. For instance, having a physical form is a part of our inherent nature as human beings, but it’s not our character, so there are attributes and parts of us that pertain to our nature only and not our character.

It goes without saying that the unconverted person will have evil inclinations arising from their fallen character.

But can a converted Christian have wrong inclinations arising from their sinful character also? And can an unconverted person have evil inclinations that arise solely from biochemistry, or is every violent inclination or inclination to steal or commit adultery etc. a moral issue and arises from the uncoverted heart?

These wrong inclinations can be from us not having a perfect character. Think about this scenario…Let’s say you were converted 4 months ago. It was a genuine conversion and you’ve been following the Lord since that time. You had Bible studies to understand God and His truth, you saw clearly you’d been a slave to sin, living a lifestyle of separation from God, and you repented and turned from your sinful lifestyle. You were baptized, representing dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ. Christ gave you a new heart with new desires. You are now in awe of God and His love. You enjoy reading the Bible and attending church and worshipping Him, whereas before you worshipped self and had a fallen delight in it that wasn’t healthy, or good or right. You are a changed person.

But does this mean you’ve arrived at moral perfection in your character? No. You have a new nature now but you still have part of your sin nature in you. The work isn’t done yet. In fact the process of sanctification has just begun.

This will mean that you may have a character that is doubting or jealous or vindictive or complacent with sin – you’ll have a character that has some evil traits, and you’re not fully virtuous. However, it’s not actually a sin for you to have a character that is too vindictive in nature, or too doubting or jealous, etc. It’s only a sin if you indulge in vindictive desires and actively think those thoughts and cherish those desires. If you let yourself desire revenge on someone, this is a sin. But your character not being perfect isn’t actually a sin. However, with an imperfect character that has some evil in it, you’re going to sin sometimes and think thoughts of revenge. This is no excuse to indulge in vengeful thoughts and be complacent about them, rather you have a real battle to fight. God does need to change this character in order to take the sin out of you completely. You need a High Priest who when you sin will forgive you as you go through the process of sanctification. You also do need to fight an upward battle on your knees and make head-way in resisting these thoughts. When you surrender these thoughts and resist them, God changes your character through that submission. Every victory in resisting temptation not only keeps you from sinning, it changes you to be more like Christ. This is how you make head-way, and you want to be ascending the ladder of character progression, not descending it.

So, even a Christian who is right with God, since their character isn’t perfect will have inclinations that they sometimes act on towards evil things. It’s not a sin for them to have the inclination; it’s only a sin when they act on the inclination. It’s their imperfect character that causes them to have desires for revenge, etc.

But it’s also possible to have desires that aren’t character-based. If a person is forcibly drugged against their will with drugs that cause inflammation in the brain and violent behavior, they will experience desires to act out violence. Depending on how high the dose of drugs that was given to them, they may be unable to control themselves and they may assault someone or lash out at someone. Drugs can hi-jack the brain and the agency of a person and make them so compulsive they actually cannot control themselves, or so confused and psychotic and out-of-control that they do violent things without understanding what it is they are doing.

But let’s just say the person is drugged to a point where they can control their outward actions, but they have inflammation in the brain. This inflammation creates violent inclinations, inclinations that may not have been there to this great extent before being drugged. A naturally balanced and peaceable and agreeable personality can turn into someone who battles violent desires all day long. As we discussed in chapter 1, every part of a human being is physical. This means that even our thoughts and our inclinations and desires are chemicals in our body reacting on our physical brain. These neurochemicals can be altered and thrown out of balance by drugs, abuse, poor diet, stress – things within our control that maybe we aren’t doing right like choosing to eat a poor diet that lacks vital nutrients, and things outside of our control that aren’t our fault such as a death in the family or a parent abusing us growing up. The neurons themselves can also be damaged by inflammation or things like physical abuse.

When our neurochemicals are thrown out of balance, and say histamine goes way too high which is very common in abuse cases and in chronic infections from viruses and molds, this causes desires for violence. A brain undergoing inflammation and violence from the histamines zapping the physical brain, actually creates violent desires and inclinations in the person. This is a big reason why violent abuse of a parent to their kid often sets the kid up for temptation to do the same thing that they may face for many years. While there’s often a genetic susceptibility to violence, the epigenetic influence is stronger. When a parent physically abuses their kid, this puts the kid’s body into an inflamed state. They are now more tempted through life to bully other kids and act out violently due to the chronic increased inflammation.

Mrs. White explains this phenomenon when she says that a mother who tries to abort her child and fails, and the baby ends up being born, will create a feverish state of her system because her desire to murder her child and the act of trying to do it causes physical changes to her body (the mind reacts on the physical body), that the fetus in the womb is influenced by. High histamines, and other sources of inflammation rush into the blood stream where they are sent to the baby. The baby is then born with a predisposition to violence in its physical nature. This makes life much harder for the child, however this predisposition is not sin. It’s just an increase of temptation but the child is innocent.

This is an extreme example, but Mrs. White also speaks about less extreme examples, and the need for pregnant mothers to find hope and faith in Christ. By a strong daily devotional life in the Word and resisting depressing or anxious thoughts, a mother can bring her body into balance because the mind affects the body, and this will give the child a balanced disposition too since the mother’s blood and inflammatory levels and nutrients all affect the baby’s developing brain and body and chemistry.

However, even if you’ve been born in an inflamed state (as Mrs. White is clear to indicate many people in the last days are), it’s not hopeless. I’m one of those people who was born with anxiety, OCD, depression, and even some mild psychotic symptoms (my mom was actually very balanced mentally so my inflammation came from other things like heavy metals in utero), and had them all through life, with them worsening at different times when I was exposed to molds and toxins, but I was still able to reduce these symptoms in adulthood with health treatments. There are many treatments available now in Functional Medicine for even the most severe mental symptoms, and doctors and practitioners trained in the principles of Functional Medicine treat the whole body and bring it into balance and this is how they balance the mind and the thoughts and the mood.

After all, when we speak of brain biochemistry and neurochemicals like histamine or serotonin, these things don’t just exist in the brain. They run through the entire nervous system and body. So when one’s histamine is too high or serotonin is too low it affects the whole nervous system and the whole body, along with the brain. This is why you’ve probably never met someone who had just depression or just anxiety without also having chronic fatigue or aches and pains or tingling and numbness or some kind of physical symptoms along with the mental ones.

It’s also possible for someone who has never been abused to develop violent inclinations due to other things like chronic illness. I was exposed to toxic black mold for several years, and later penicillamine mold, and at first I developed suicidal temptations, but over time I even developed violent inclinations. This is not an uncommon symptom people with mold exposure face. After I got my histamines down and under control the violent tendencies went away, which is the same story many others with mold illness report too.

So…while it’s possible for the inclination towards jealousy or anger or violence (etc.) to exist because a person isn’t perfect and still has evil in their character and hasn’t been fully sanctified yet, it’s also possible to experience these inclinations as purely physical, neurochemical feelings and impulses that are not rooted in character.

If an experiment could be done on a perfect angel where they were injected with a substance that raises histamines to a very high level, they would also experience these feelings of desiring violence and jealousy, etc. What you wouldn’t see though, is you would not see them act on the desire. They would not fantasize in their minds about getting revenge on someone. They would not actively lash out and harm someone, unless they went completely mad and lost agency, and then it is possible even in a perfect being for someone to do that. Because beings are finite creatures. Angels and human beings rely on our good health and a working mind in order to make decisions and have free will and agency and good judgment. God who is outside of space and time and beyond all created reality and is not finite, does not rely on a physical brain in order to make decisions and have agency. All members of the Godhead – Father, Son and Spirit – are omnipresent and immaterial. The Father and Son also have physical bodies, and the Son now has a human body after He became a man and redeemed us. But the divine body of the Father (and the human body of the Son), does not limit their omnipresence or the fact their divinity is beyond and outside of space and time and matter.

Complex and important subjects, I know. The nature of God and the finite nature of created beings is really important to understand when it comes to this subject. Even perfect angels – or Enoch when he reached perfection on this earth – are still limited by their physical bodies and were their physical bodies to malfunction and break down to the point where they could not understand right and wrong in their brain, they would err and make mistakes in judgment and be potentially dangerous.

Perfect Enoch if he were too high in histamine could have had violent intrusive thoughts (ones he didn’t choose to indulge in or think by will), or violent inclinations. This causes suffering when it happens, even in cases where the person doesn’t identify with the thoughts, doesn’t indulge them or embrace them. Even for someone who is in right standing with God, there’s suffering there. For a man with gay inclinations, there’s suffering there every time they see an attractive man and their brain is inclined to want to be with that person, even if they resist the thoughts to think about that person in a sexual way. The fact their body’s physical desires are oriented towards men causes suffering too.

This is why we need glorification. Both sanctification and glorification are needed to bring complete happiness and end suffering.

Thankfully now it is widespread knowledge that gay attraction is not sin, there’s just something mentally/physiologically malfunctioning in the individual, from abuse or from ill health. The results of sin break down all of creation and bring in disease, malfunction, and physical death. But this is not due to the sin of the individual. Just as we all die, even those of us who are right with Christ and have accepted Him, so we can all have physical malfunction of different sorts, such as mental illness and gay attraction.

In those with OCD who have violent or sexual images intrude into their minds, many of them similarly believe what people with same sex attraction used to believe, that they are impure and unholy and filthy and sinning just by having the thoughts – they associate the condition with their moral state and conclude they are willfully sinning and can’t possibly be right with God. The conclusion some come to is that they need to commit suicide as they can’t live with or stand their sinfulness any longer and they also can’t control their thoughts to be pure and good. They feel very evil and very dirty. Once again this is faulty logic and it’s not Biblical. 

Note to those going through this:
If you are having similar fears, please take a step back and understand that God is good. You may not understand exactly what is going on right now or be able to piece together the theology correctly for a variety of reasons, perhaps a thought disorder or just generalized confusion, or no one has shown you what the Bible says about these topics. Do not hurt yourself; you don’t need to and it will just create a tragedy. Satan deceived 1/3rd of the angels into being lost when there was no reason they ever needed to die. Satan told them God was unjust and evil, and even at one point told them they couldn’t come back to God when they actually still could have. It’s Satan that is tempting you with this hopeless picture when in reality God is good and there is hope.. The truth will set you free and give you hope. If you’re having trouble understanding and knowing what that truth is that gives hope, you don’t have to find it right now. You will eventually learn it. Know that the truth will set you free, explain everything, and offer hope to you. God wants an eternally good end for you like the heavenly angels have, not a tragedy like the demons Satan deceived have.

Secondly, make sure you reach out and get help. Physically, mentally, and spiritually. You need a good support team. You may need a doctor, a nutritionist, to practice logic or do CBT with a therapist and on your own, a prayer team or Bible study group. People who love and care about you and who can help you reality check and piece this together and help you see you don’t need to kill yourself. Suicide is never the answer; it’s just tragedy.

There are a number of conditions that can cause someone to ask this same question and come to this same faulty conclusion if they aren’t grounded in God’s Word and in truth (also thought distortions such as cognitive distortions and delusions can make it hard or impossible for them to come to the right conclusions and reason correctly). A schizophrenic may wonder why their hallucinations are so evil and conclude they can’t possibly be right with God if their mind could generate such grotesque and evil images.

The truth is these are all conditions. And what is needed is not a new heart, forgiveness, or sanctification. The person will already have a new heart if they have repented of their sins, believed and followed Christ, and are directing their thoughts to Him as much as lies within their control. What the person actually needs is glorification. They need a new body that doesn’t have this condition. A pure body, that is not filled with toxins and operating via faulty biochemistry, not a pure heart as they already have a pure heart.

The need for glorification is a big one. People tend to forget that we can’t have total fulfillment and joy in this world as long as we are in our earthly bodies. Satan often tempts people with worldly plans and aspirations, promising fulfillment in this world. Along with the fact that selfish ambition and selfish pleasure is a sin and can never satisfy for that reason (it brings us great guilt which destroys happiness), we also forget basic things like the fact that our brains aren’t even capable of taking in and understanding the wonder in the world the way they were created to, and the world itself is degraded from its original beauty. Our dopamine receptors aren’t capable of generating and processing pleasure the way Adam and Eve originally were. The truth is, due to our earthly bodies affected by sin, we are missing out in every way in this life. Not only in spiritual matters like lacking peace if we engage in unrepentant sin, but also physically we can’t experience the pleasure or biochemical joy that Adam’s perfect brain before sin could experience. Or the inclinations and intrusive thoughts we experience create very real suffering for us every day even though we’re right with God.

Those of us with biochemical depression may feel strong feelings of shame and a feeling of hatred for our bodies. We may resist the temptation to hate our bodies and choose to love them because of the Bible truth that Jesus died for us and our bodies are not our own and we are bought with a price. Yet we may still experience feelings of hate, and disgust, and shame. Not because of any sins we’ve done – we may be right with God – but just due to biochemical imbalances. Histamine toxicity can bring on these strong feelings of being dirty and shameful. Supplements to lower histamine and seeing Functional Medicine doctors can reduce or alleviate this suffering. And we should seek to reduce suffering whenever possible. But the fact remains we will suffer in this world in some ways due to our earthly bodies until Jesus comes.

Those with OCD are troubled by the images, even after they come to realize they can have this condition and still be right with God. They don’t want to see those images pop into their minds. It’s hard to live that way day-after-day. Men with gay attraction don’t want to feel visceral physical attractions to men that they come across in life, and be tempted by this desire all through their lives. It feels wrong. It’s a burden. But there are things that can feel very wrong and yet the person is still innocent and hasn’t sinned. Feelings do not determine right or wrong, as we’ve discussed earlier, God’s law does. If one has not violated God’s law they have not sinned, even if they feel what feel like impure biochemical feelings and urges and experiences.

These are types of suffering that our glorified bodies will take away. In this world we can be holy in heart if we repent and obey and follow Christ. This will alleviate the suffering of sin and guilt, the actual state of being in the wrong and carrying one’s guilt. Then our glorified bodies given to us at the end of time will alleviate the suffering of things like feelings of guilt and shame, hallucinations, uncontrollable compulsions, and other mental illness symptoms, along with all physical symptoms as well. We will enjoy the benefits of eternal youth, a brain that can delve far and wide into Christ’s character of mercy and justice, and His eternal law and understand these deep truths with a far greater understanding than we are now capable of, and without any cognitive distortions or errors in thought processing that many of us experience today.

How Do I Tell if I’m Sinning or If I’m Just Having Mental Symptoms?

A question I routinely ask is “How do I tell the difference between things I’m thinking or doing that are sinful and that I need to surrender to God and work to overcome, and things that are a symptom of my illness and not sins?”, and I’d also been asking myself the similar question of how to help other people to know the difference too. I’ve noticed that when focusing on oneself, it can be in some ways similar to focusing on one’s art. If you’ve ever created art in any form and really cared about doing it well, I’m sure you’ve had the experience of losing your judgment in the process, seeing the trees and not the forest and inaccurately concluding the art was bad when it was good (or vice versa), or making changes to the art that you thought would make it better, but clearly made it worse. You lost your artistic judgment and it wasn’t until months later looking over the art again, when you’re not intently focused on all the little details, and you’re able to take a step back and look at it as a whole, that you’re able to see the art for what it really is and make a better judgment call about it

I can’t read or write music and so to produce songs I work with talented arrangers who transcribe the melody lines I sing to them, and then write intricate arrangements for the songs. This way of doing things has a key advantage. Because I’m not focusing on all the little details and I’m not engaged directly in the arrangements, I can keep a big-picture view of the song and see whether the arrangements are conveying the right emotion and message, something that I’m not able to do when I’m the one directly involved in doing all the detailed work.

I’ve been able to turn down arrangements that weren’t working and lead the arrangers in another artistic direction, and together we’ve created some wonderful arrangements. I give them a lot of artistic freedom within the clear goal and direction for the song. I don’t micromanage them and that is really key to creating a harmonious collaboration as well as ensuring they produce their best work. Micromanaging will stifle them while isn’t right, and hurt the end product, which isn’t wise.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed this phenomenon is true sometimes when it comes to understanding one’s mental condition, and drawing a line of distinction between sins and flaws that need to be solved from a moral perspective, and symptoms that aren’t a moral issue and need to be managed or treated with medical protocols. Sometimes we can hyper-focus in on us and our unique situation, until we can’t really see the underlying principles clearly. And when that happens studying the condition in a general sense and looking at the different ways it manifests in people and getting the big picture on the illness can help bring us out of that confusing rut we can get into when we just focus on our specific case.

I was surprised how crystal clear things became when I joined a Facebook group of neurodivergent women who are Christians. Seeing all their individual posts, I was able to zoom out and look at the big picture and it was just very clear what kinds of things someone who is a neurodivergent person and who is sincerely striving to follow God would do and what that might look like. And the opposite, how someone might live their life who was not sincere about wanting to follow God and who was neurodivergent. There was of course variation in what each of these paths looked like among individuals, and much that I still don’t know about neurodivergence or the person themselves (things known only to God), but there were clear common themes too.

Those who have a sincere love for Jesus and want to follow Him gave His Word the proper authority it really has. They have respect for His Word. They also have respect for His commandments and a desire to be conformed to His character so they can live out His commandments.

I could see cases where someone mistakenly thought it was a sin to not go to bed on time, and categorized it as a character flaw, when it seemed clear to me they had a chronic case of insomnia which had been going on for years. Or maybe they thought forgetting to do something was a sin, when really they had had a memory lapse and actually couldn’t remember to do something they had promised to do.

I thought about God’s perspective. God knows we’re not omniscient. He knows we don’t know everything there is to know about autism. He knows there’s going to be much confusion in these people’s lives. Times when they won’t understand something. He’s not asking us to understand everything. He’s asking us to love Him and to give His Word and the Commandments the proper weight they really hold.

And it was just really clear who was doing that and who wasn’t doing that. Like people who aren’t neurodivergent, the same conflict was going on with the law of God. The same question is being asked: “Will you repent and turn from your sin, make Christ your Lord and take the Bible as your authority and be renewed by the Holy Spirit to walk in holiness, or will you take self as your authority, cling to some of your sins, and see the Bible’s authority as not being completely binding in your life?”

Just as I’ve seen in other Christian groups among those who do not have neurodivergence, there were people who clearly fell into two camps – and they would usually tell you which camp they were in. They would usually either defend the Bible as the highest authority, or doubt some of its claims. They would either strongly desire to live out the Commandments and make decided effort to do so, or they would find arguments to rationalize why they didn’t need to keep some of them.

To give you an idea of what this looks like, well some people were making the argument that it was ok to live with one’s boyfriend when not married to him. They clearly didn’t see this commandment as important. They didn’t see the act of living together without a marriage commitment as unloving, disrespectful, and hurtful – what the Bible depicts it as. They spent a lot of time and energy on forming arguments to rationalize this action as ok. They wanted to stay in that unbiblical relationship; they didn’t want to make changes to align their lives with God’s Word.

Across the board no matter which group I’m in whether it’s the bipolar group, the neurodivergent group, or just Christian women’s groups where most members do not have mental illnesses, there’s always two different groups of people on either side of the issue.

And while many of the issues neurodivergent people experience may be confusing…things like was it a sin for me to overshare or could I really not tell I was oversharing when I did so? The overarching trend of their lives is not confusing.

When people live a holy life it is not by accident. You can’t accidentally live a life that aligns with the Bible and glorifies God. So when you see someone who let’s say they left their boyfriend they’d been living with when they became converted, they changed their diet to be healthy from eating food that was destroying their health, they stopped lying to their friends when it was difficult to tell the truth and have made huge strides in speaking and living the truth, adopted the complete teachings of the Bible, accepting it as their authority – such a person can’t arrive at this place by a few feeble efforts. If they get to this place it took commitment on their part. It took a decided choice to follow Christ.

And so while their life may have confusing things about it, you can distinguish the overarching general trend of their life, and you can see how it differs from someone with their same condition and many of the same symptoms who has decided to make self their authority and not follow Jesus.