Where is Christ?

[keithster]

Years ago, I took some Neuro Linguistic Programming. At the time, I was pretty soft in my faith and was looking for answers in a lot of places.

NLP is a fascinating, fascinating field. It's really based on how people perceive their world and how they store that perception in their minds. From there, you can do some amazing work helping people "fix" their problems.

One of the last sessions we had dealt with spirituality. A field like NLP attracts a fairly new age crowd, so it was an interesting experience. There were three woman in the class that I was certain were lesbian witches.

The spirituality work was pretty new age oriented, pretty wide open. But for me, it wasn't wasted. And I'll explain why in my next post.

Hate for these to get too long for one reading. I need a commercial just like on TV.

[keithster]

One of the things you can do with NLP is discover how a person represents other people in their minds. For example, a family member's image in your mind would have different characteristics than would a friend from grade school. And the characteristics are what tells you how feel about that person.

Check it out. Think of someone you love. Notice what the image or feelings in your mind and body are like. Now think of someone you barely know. Are the images or feelings different.

So, I started thinking, I wonder how people represent Christ in their mind and if that indicates something. So I started asking friends to describe Christ's image in their mind. My best friend told me that Christ was way up above him. I asked him why he was so far away. He got this strange look of sudden awareness and said that he was afraid that Jesus would ask him to do something he didn't want to do and that's why he kept him so far away. For my friend it was a good exercise to help him figure out some stumbling blocks to his faith.

I asked one of my pastors who said that Christ was standing right beside her. She had the faith to match, no doubt. I had an interesting time asking a lot of people.

[keithster]

Another aspect of the NLP workshop was a series of questions that helped people identify what was keeping them from having spirituality.

The questions were very well designed to help people get to the problems quickly. They did that.

So, I took the questions and focused them on Jesus. I took the internal representation of Christ. I put the whole works on paper and created a workshop. Bringing Christ Closer.

I ran the workshop once. I had 4 friends and someone I didn't know show up. For my friends, it was an interesting exercise and each admitted that it helped their faith some.

For this other woman, it was incredible to watch. When she came in, her image of Christ was like one of the great paintings. Flat. No movement. Lifeless. At a distance. When she was done, her image of Christ was a moving, living savior. Her change was amazing. Unfortunately, I couldn't find her later to see if it lasted. But it was interesting.

I never pursued it after that because I had a hard time deciding if what I was doing was really Biblical. But I do think it could be a great breakthrough tool.

[keithster]

So, now that I've got the background out of the way, I'm curious about something.

Do you think this sort of thing is okay Biblically, or is it treading into dangerous ground?

I still check in frequently to see where I'm keeping Christ. It helps me figure out if I'm not walking with him and why?

[Freezerwaffle]

My father in law is deep into NLP. Drives us totally bonkers with it. He goes on & on about what sounds like very new age mumbo jumbo. We feel like if he only had Christ in his life he wouldn't need this stuff. It hasn't changed how he relates to his family (not very well) & has only made us wish he'd "grasp for God" instead of grasping this stuff.

My hubby & I both feel it is a bad thing. FIL is so wound up in it, it's like a magnet. He eats, sleeps & breathes it. Kinda hard to find Jesus through that.

Sorry if I come across harsh. We're just sick to death of NLP & wish FIL would dump it all for God!

[PsalmReader]

I don't know if I can say if it's Biblical or not, but it certainly is interesting! I thought of people like you said, and it was strange to sense my demeanor (I guess that's the word to use) change with the thoughts. I do know that we have some amazing brains! God is awesome, and He created this complex thing that we carry around in our heads. I will think some more on how I picture and "feel" Jesus. Interesting stuff keithster!

[jamesglewisf]

I would say that the great thing about Christianity is it doesn't take some special kind of spirituality or mysticism to learn more about God. Instead He gave us a book. In that book He reveals Himself to us in a way that you can spend years studying it and never fully grasp the whole thing. Every time you sit down to read it, you can learn something new.

There is something called the wheel illustration. It is used to teach us how to live a balanced Christian life by learning 12 verses.

The center of the wheel is the hub. The hub of the wheel is called "Christ the Center." 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 2:20 are the verses.

The rim of the wheel is called "Obedience to Christ." Romans 12:1 and John 14:21 are the key verses.

The upward spoke is "Prayer" up to God. It's verses are John 15:7 and Phillipians 4:6,7.

The downward spoke is "The Word" in which we should be grounded. 2 Timothy 3:16,17 and Joshua 1:8.

The left horizontal spoke is "Fellowship" with 1 John 1:3 and Hebrews 10:24, 15 as key verses.

The right horizontal spoke is "Witnessing" with Matthew 4:19 and Romans 1:16 as key verses.

It is important to have a balanced wheel. If you neglect one of the spokes, fail to make Christ the center of your life, or lack obedience, then you will not have a balanced Christian life. If you work on all of these elements, then you will know God as well as anyone can.

Colossians has a lot to say about the sufficiency of Christ. Paul wrote of the desire to “present every man complete in Christ” (1:28). It is in Christ that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden” (2:3). “In Him all the fullness Deity dwells in bodily form” (2:9). Paul sums up Christ’s sufficiency by stating that “in Him you have been made complete” (2:10). Christ is our all in all.

I don't think it is wrong to try to visualize where you are keeping Christ, but it is not a good substitute for living a balanced Christian life.

[jamesglewisf]

How do you walk spiritually? How do you live daily?Colossians 2:6-10
6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.
9 For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form,
10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;As you have received Jesus Christ the Lord (by faith), so walk in Him. We are to walk in faith. We should be firmly rooted and built up in our faith. We need a good foundation of Scripture (instruction).

Paul warns us not to be taken captive by philosophy, but to be taken captive by Christ. Why? Because in Him all of the fulness of the Deity dwells in bodily form. In Him we are made complete.

So, I'm always a little leery of taking some worldly philosophy and trying to use it to be more spiritual. If it is just an illustration to help teach a point, then even Jesus regularly used parables to explain spiritual issues in a simple way. If it is anything more than that, then I would steer clear of it.

[keithster]

Because I have some knowledge into a lot of worldly self-help areas (because I spent so many years searching), I have a tendency to take all of those "tools" and focus them on Christ. It's an interesting exercise, but it certainly doesn't replace prayer, Bible study, and fellowship.

The one thing about the internal representation of Christ is that to have a good healthy representation, you have to know Christ. The only way to do that is through the things I mentioned above.

[keithster]

It's true what you say about NLP being a religion. I got that way a little and my sister snapped me out of it. It's an incredible field, but tends to be dominated by very new age types.

[keithster]

I was thinking about this while out doing some shopping.

NLP can be as bad as Amway. Some folks are so taken with it that they want to Nelp everyone in sight. Even the cashier is not immune. In that regard, it's annoying as can be to those of us who don't want to worship at the Bandler/Grinder alter.

But, I found the tools to be incredibly useful. To me, it's not unlike the internet. The internet has pushed pornography to a new level, and in that regard it's evil.

But look at this forum. New friends. Great connections for some of us who don't get out much. Positive place to hang out.

And look what it's done for the Christian community. I can listen to great radio broadcasts any time of the day or night. I can read stuff from very good Christian teacher and leaders. Christian magazines are online.

There's good and bad with everything. While I'm not going to "worship" NLP, I'm not going to ignore it's potential either.

But, I'm not ready to offer my "Bringing Christ Closer" to people until I'm certain that I'm not wandering aimlessly into Satan's camp.

If you are interested in "experimenting" a bit, let me know and I'll give you more details. :)

[PsalmReader]

Originally posted by keithster
One of the things you can do with NLP is discover how a person represents other people in their minds. For example, a family member's image in your mind would have different characteristics than would a friend from grade school. And the characteristics are what tells you how feel about that person.

Check it out. Think of someone you love. Notice what the image or feelings in your mind and body are like. Now think of someone you barely know. Are the images or feelings different.

So, I started thinking, I wonder how people represent Christ in their mind and if that indicates something.

I was going more from these comments I guess. That we do have an image of Christ in our minds; one that we respond to based on how we see Him.

I got this little prayer from eprayer.com today. After reading this thread the other day, I thought it was really interesting.
Use the power of positive images in your mind to bring about good experiences. Lord, I will let my faith in You nourish my thoughts so that I can develop a healthy and joyful reality.

[keithster]

The prayer you posted started me thinking...

Some people you talk with have their past smack dab in front of them. They can't even see their future. Or sometimes the future looks dark and uninviting.

I was thinking about this in regards to having Christ more in my life in the future. I looked into the future to see how it would appear to me if Christ were there with me every step of the way.

When I sit back and imagine what that will be like, my future feels a whole lock warmer and secure than it did when I thought about it without Him.

I'm probably scaring a bunch of you. :) But I'm not about to go out and start the United NLP Church of Christ. LOL.

I think one of the NLP types did a paper on the teaching and healing techniques Christ used.