THIRD QUARTER 2023
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #9
AUGUST 26, 2023
“LIVING WISELY”

 

 

Ephesians 5:1-20 is the primary focus of the lesson. The first two verses describe Paul’s overall message.

 

New King James Version - ¹Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. ²And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

 

New International Version - ¹Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave H  imself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

As children develop from infancy, they learn to walk, talk, eat, and learn what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior in their household. The actions and attitudes of the parents begin to rub off onto them. They also experience the general atmosphere, whether it is a loving and safe environment or a painful and abusive one.

 

As children imitate or follow the ways of their parents, so we are to love others as Jesus has loved us.

 

Recently science has been able to understand much more clearly the various parts of the brain and how they function and interact.

 

The Brain

 

Left Hemisphere	Right Hemisphere
Logic and reasoning	Various kinds of emotions
Verbal communication Speech Writing	Non-verbal communication Facial expressions Tone of voice
Analytical	Intuitive
Fact based	Feeling based
Task oriented	Relationship oriented

 

Ideally, both sides of the brain work together to help us learn, make decisions, interact with each other, and express ourselves clearly.

 

The right hemisphere is more relationship oriented. It has been discovered that our maturity development is based upon the kind of relationships we have in life with God and others.

 

Loving and safe relationships with God and others enable us to:

 

1. Belong and feel connected with those around us.
2. Experience love, joy, and peace even in the midst of difficult situations.
3. Have purpose and meaning in life as we are motivated by love to be a blessing to others through the unique gifts and talents we have to offer.

Unhealthy and unsafe relationships with God and others cause us to:

 

1. Feel insecure and alone.
2. Experience fear in the midst of all situations and relationships.
3. Be motivated by fear of failure, pain, rejection, loneliness, and lack of meaning. Since others have let us down, we learn that we can’t depend on others. This leads us to be focused on meeting our own needs. As a result, we seek fulfillment and satisfaction through activities that provide “fun” and “pleasure” as a substitute for the love, joy and peace that comes Jesus and being a blessing to others.

 

The Right Hemisphere

Part of the brain	Primary function	Healthy relationships	Unhealthy relationships
Thalamus	Attachment	Belonging	Feeling Alone
Amygdala	Intensifying of emotions	Joy	Fear
Cingulate Cortex	Regulating emotions	Restoring Joy and peace	Stuck in negative emotions
Prefrontal Cortex	Processing emotions	Serving others out of unique gifts and passions	Emptiness leads to seeking fulfillment in selfish ways.

 

 

A Developing Brain

 

When babies are born, the brain is wired to seek bonding with the primary caregivers. Their greatest need is nurture, care, and love in a warm, safe environment. Babies who are not hugged, held, and cared for don't grow. This has been demonstrated in orphanages where the adult-child ratio is very low. Even if these children are being well nourished, they often fail to thrive, simply because they lack loving, personal care.

 

In a loving environment the baby will begin to experience the emotions of joy and peace. When negative emotions are felt, the baby communicates by crying and looking to the mother for comfort and security.

 

As the mother holds and comforts the baby, the brain begins to develop pathways between the amygdala and cingulate cortex that will help the person later on to return to peace and joy after experiencing one of the primary negative emotions of fear, sadness, anger, disgust, shame, and hopeless despair.

 

If the baby does not receive the comfort and security that he or she needs, the brain develops fear and the recovery pathways do not get developed. Then when negative emotions are experienced later in life, a person can get stuck in the negative emotion, rather than being able to process the emotion in a healthy way and return to peace and joy.

 

Emotional Traumas

 

Emotional traumas can be defined in a general way as:

 

1. Type A – Not receiving what we truly need; the absence of good things.
2. Type B – Receiving what we don’t need; experiencing bad things in life.

While living in a broken world, everyone experiences some emotional traumas. If we are to continue to grow into maturity, we need to experience healing from these painful experiences. Without the healing, fear continues to be the dominate way of coping with life and all our relationships.

 

At the same time, we naturally want to experience joy. In place of healthy joy, based upon loving relationships, we will seek to find temporary relief through pleasure, entertainment, and unhealthy relationships. These actions lead the left hemisphere to communicate guilt and the right hemisphere to communicate shame. Guilt and shame will lead us to withdraw from others or hide what we are truly experiencing on the inside.

 

Since guilt and shame are painful to live with, we may pursue unhealthy ways to seek to respond to the pain.

 

1. We may criticize, condemn, and even hurt others to make someone “pay” for how we have been hurt.
2. We may numb the pain with pleasure or some kind of “pain killer.” This often leads to the cycle of addiction. Since addictive lifestyles will lead to more painful experiences, some will even seek relief through attempting suicide.
3. We might redefine the unhealthy actions as acceptable, so we don’t have to live with guilt and shame – Calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).

When we honestly seek healing, we can be open to God’s love and healing through understanding and experiencing God’s unconditional love for us.

 

He knows we are helpless to do anything good on our own, so Jesus took the initiative to assure us He loves us and died for us even when we were helpless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies (Romans 5:6-10).

 

He understands our problems and took the initiative to provide the solution in Romans 3:23, 24:

 

• problem – “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

 

• solution – “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

 

Understanding and experiencing God’s unconditional love can free us to:

 

1. Be honest with Him and confess the ways we have hurt ourselves and others.
2. Thank Him for forgiving us, for when we confess our sins, God is “faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
3. Repent by choosing to invite Jesus into our lives and let Him be our Savior from slavery to our sinful habits.
4. Choose to forgive those who have hurt us, instead of wanting them to pay for the hurt they have caused us. By seeing them through God’s perspective of love, we can look beyond their faults and see their need for His gracious love and forgiveness.

 

~Pastor Clinton Meharry