The Suicide Trap

Humans were not created to die.  They were created to live forever.  Death is not a normal part of the human psychological make-up.  So anyone who wants to die or to kill himself is acting contrary to his God-given human nature.

Death entered the world through sin.  When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them dominion over the earth. They were to control every creature and every plant on the earth.  They were not, however, to control their fellow human beings.

But Adam and Eve disobeyed God and, in so doing, gave up their control over the earth to Satan.  This is the reason the world is full of tragedy, suffering, and death.  Satan is now in control of this world.  He is evil in his essence, and whenever he controls anything or anyone, evil is the only result.

Scripture calls Satan a "thief" and says that he comes for one purpose only: "to steal, kill, and destroy" (John 10:10).  It is no wonder, then, that Satan will prey on vulnerable people to get them to commit suicide.  Satan knows that God has a great destiny for each person, and Satan will do whatever he can to thwart that destiny. 

Suicide has become an epidemic.  Young people by the thousands are killing themselves.  Increasing numbers of older people are killing themselves.  Why? Because they have lost all hope. And why have they lost all hope? Because they have believed Satan's lie.

Satan speaks to the human mind in the form of thoughts.  This is the reason that Jesus warns us to monitor our thoughts to see if they agree with His thoughts about us as found in His Word.  If our thoughts do not agree with God's thoughts about us, then we must renounce our thoughts and choose to align our thinking with God's thinking.

For example, God says this about you in Jeremiah 29:11:  "My plans for you are for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."  Satan whispers this thought:  "You have no future. You are hopeless. Nothing will work out for you. You are a loser.  No one will ever love you. You may as well kill yourself."

Satan's words are the exact opposite of God's words. Whom will you believe?  Will you believe Satan whom the Bible calls "the father of lies" (John 8:44)?  Or will you believe God Whom the Bible describes as the only one "who cannot lie"(Titus 1:2)?

Logic demands that we believe the One Who cannot lie.

Is Satan lying to you today? Is he tempting you to kill yourself?  Please do not listen to his lies. Please believe that God loves you and that He created you for a very important purpose in this earth. You are not here by accident. You are here intentionally.  You have a song to sing that no one else can sing. You have a job to do that no one else can do.  You were created with a unique destiny that only you can fulfill.

Awaken to this truth and be set free.  Embrace God's love for you.  Run to His open arms and let Him heal you of the hurt that has driven you to the edge of suicide.  Turn around and behold your Savior and Lord, Jesus the Christ. 
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Copyright 2014 by MaryAnn Diorio, PhD, DMin, MFA.  All Rights Reserved.

Deception Destroys

Deception is an intriguing subject.  The very nature of deception prevents the deceived person from recognizing that he is a victim of deception. 

Deception is a liar. It causes one to believe that what is false is true.  Deception is Satan's chief weapon against humanity.  Deception is the counterfeit of Truth.

You will be free to the degree that you eliminate deception from your life.

How can you know if you are being deceived?  You can know that you are being deceived if what you believe is contrary to Holy Scripture.  God's Word, also known as the Bible, is absolute Truth.  It is the standard by which all philosophies, all ideologies, all belief systems, all scientific hypotheses, and all methodologies must be measured to determine if they are true or not.

It is a little know fact that Christopher Columbus learned that the earth is round by reading the Book of Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 22 where Scripture says that "God sits above the circle of the earth." God tells us in this verse that the earth is round.

You say you do not believe the Holy Scriptures?  Why not?  Has your way of living worked? Has it brought you permanent fulfillment, peace, and joy?  Be honest with yourself. 

I was once like you.  Lost and searching for meaning in life.  I found it in Jesus Christ. And so can you!

I encourage you to explore God's Word for yourself.  It is His manual for humanity. Just as you received a manual when you purchased your car or your washing machine, God has given us a manual to help us understand how we are made and how to live successfully in this world.

As always, if you have any questions, please write to me at maryann@maryanndiorio.com. Meanwhile, my prayer is that you will come to know how deeply Jesus Christ loves you!

Are You a Prisoner of These Lies?

Many lies are being perpetrated today in the name of tolerance.  Here are a few:

1) All belief systems lead to God.
2) A good God would not allow people to go to Hell.
3) As long as I am a good person, I will go to Heaven.

Please allow me to address each of these lies since believing one or all of them will result in your eternal damnation.

1) First, the lie that all belief systems lead to God.  All belief systems are not equal in the sense that all do not teach the truth.  What is the truth?  The truth is a Person named Jesus Christ.  He said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6).

To believe anything that contradicts that Christ is the Truth is to believe a lie.

Jesus taught that there is only one way for man to be saved, and that way is to accept Him as the Savior.  In the Gospel of John, chapter one, verse 12, the Word tells us that ". . . to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God."  One cannot enter God's family without accepting Jesus Christ, the Door to the family.

2) Second, the lie that a good God would not allow people to go to Hell.  The truth is that God does not send anyone to hell.  A person sends himself to hell.  Hell is the tormenting absence of God. When one moves away from God, one moves toward Hell.  The less of God one has in one's life, the more of Hell one has in one's life.  There will come a point at which the decision to remain estranged from God will be a permanent one. That point is called death. Thereafter, Hell will be a permanent state for the person who has chosen not to follow Christ while on this earth.

3) Third, the lie that as long as I am a good person, I will go to Heaven.  Getting to Heaven has nothing to do with what we do, but it has everything to do with what Jesus Christ has done. No matter how many good works we do, they will not get us into Heaven.  Why?  Because our good works mean nothing in relation to our sin.  Our good works can never erase the sin nature from our hearts. Only God can do that, and He did it through Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ took our place and paid the price for our sin.  He became our scapegoat because of His infinite love for us.  He knew we could never earn salvation on our own, so He earned it for us.  All we have to do is believe and receive that salvation.

The time is short before the return of Jesus Christ to judge the earth.  Please take to heart what I have written.  Please research it for yourself.  Most of all, please ask God to reveal His truth to you so that you may have eyes to see and ears to hear.

If you have any questions, please write to me at maryann@maryanndiorio.com.  My prayer is that you will know the truth that will set you free (John 8:32).

What Is Controlling Your Life?

Your life is controlled by your thinking, not by your circumstances. Most of us have made the mistake of believing that our circumstances control us and that we are helpless victims of fate. But this is a lie. If we continue to believe this lie, we will never be free of emotional pain.

The truth is that your life is controlled by the space between your ears. In other words, your life is controlled by how you think and what you believe.

The mind is the control center of our lives.  Scripture says, "As a man thinks, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7 TLB). 

What are you thinking on a regular basis?

A friend of mine once told me this powerful story about her little son.  When he was three years old, she found him staring out the window.  She said, "Matt, what are you thinking about?"  In the wisdom of children, he replied, "I'm thinking about what I'm thinking about."

Profound advice that we should all take to heart.  How often do we think about what we are thinking about?  How often do we analyze what we are thinking to determine if it aligns with God's Word or not?  If it does not align with God's Word, then it is a lie.  And if it is a lie, we must renounce it and replace it with the truth.

We will remain in bondage spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and physically to the degree that we believe a lie.  By the same token, we will be free spiritually, emotionally, psychologically,  and physically to the degree that we know and believe the truth. 

The Truth is found in the Holy Bible.  The Truth is Jesus Christ.  He said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:6).  He who finds and follows Jesus finds and follows Life.

If you are hurting today in any way--spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, or physically--turn to Jesus Christ and accept Him into your life.  When you do, you will be accepting freedom in all of its aspects.

Jesus considered you valuable enough  to die for you in order to set you free. But that freedom will never be yours unless you willingly accept His free gift of salvation.  Do so now. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

If you have questions or would like more information, please write to me at maryann@maryanndiorio.com. 

Are You Thinking Straight?

Emotional problems result from believing lies. Since we were designed to function according to truth, any deviation from truth will cause us to malfunction, whether emotionally, physically, or spiritually.

So, the big question becomes What is truth? Truth is defined as "the actual state of a matter" (Dictionary.com).  But herein lies the problem: Who determines what the actual state of a matter is?

For me, the actual state of a matter may be one thing; for you, it may be another.

What this means is that my truth may not be your truth, and vice versa. This way of thinking is called relativism and is a lie.

In our culture, man has taken it upon himself to determine the actual state of a matter. For example, it is common for people to say things like, "Abortion is not an option for me, but it may be an option for you".  Many have determined that the actual state of the matter about abortion is that it is a viable option for terminating a pregnancy. Some have determined that the actual state of the matter about abortion is that abortion at any stage is murder.

The nature of Truth is that it applies to everyone everywhere, equally and indiscriminately.  This means that Truth is absolute, just as gravity is absolute. No matter who you are, if you jump off a roof, you will go down.

Most people don't like the truth that Truth is absolute. In fact, they rebel against it.  But what they don't understand is that by rebelling against absolute Truth, they are hurting themselves. That hurt may not show up right away, but it will always show up eventually.

Man was designed by God to function according to the laws of Truth.  When man deviates from those laws and goes his own way, he will always suffer. There's no escaping this truth.

We need to understand that emotional problems result from rebelling against Truth and insisting upon creating our own truth. Any thinking pattern that deviates from God's thinking pattern will end up hurting us.

God's thinking pattern is found in His Word, the Holy Bible.  If we want to learn how God thinks, then we must read His Word. As we change our thinking to align with God's thinking, we will be moving closer to the Truth and closer to emotional health.

How to Identify the Lies You Are Believing

In this week's post, I am assuming that you have already accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord and that you are a believer.  If you have not yet accepted Christ, I urge you to read last week's post entitled "Lies and How They Hinder You".

Today we're going to discuss how to identify the lies that you are believing and that are keeping you in bondage.  Here is a basic rule of thumb in identifying lies:  Any thought you have that contradicts what God says about you is a lie.

So how can you know what thoughts contradict what God says about you?  Great question! A question to which there is an easy answer. But first let me tell you a story.

When a person trains to become a bank teller, she has to learn to recognize counterfeit money.  But, amazingly, she never handles counterfeit money to learn what it feels like. She handles only real money.  And she handles real money so often and so well that if a counterfeit bill should pass through her fingers, she would instantly recognize it as counterfeit. Why?  Because she knows what real money feels like, and she can immediately recognize when false money is in her hands. 

The same is true with us. If we handle God's Word (the Truth) often enough and well enough, we will instantly  recognize the counterfeit (the Lie) that Satan sends our way. 

So the first step in identifying the lies you are believing is to study the Bible.  Read it. Memorize verses. Meditate on the Word. Saturate yourself with it as much as you can so that when Satan throws a lie at you, you will instantly recognize it as a counterfeit.

If you have not formed the habit of reading the Bible every day, start today.  Begin with the Gospel of John in the New Testament.  Read slowly and apply what you read to your personal life.  As you do, you will be handling the Truth and you will be getting to know it well.

Next week, we'll explore what it means to want to get well.