Right after birth, the new born baby soon learns that crying will get it what it wants. Since it cannot talk, crying is also the baby’s only way to communicate that it is wet, or hungry, or something is wrong. When over-sensitive parents overreact to every little peep from their precious possession, they soon learn that that was a mistake. Babies learn that crying gets attention.
Crying and throwing fits of temper is the infant’s way of manipulating parents. The baby has no vocabulary, but somehow it knows that crying gets results — The knowledge of good and evil is inherent in every human being because it is received at physical birth.
Letting the baby cry is not harmful, it is helpful! When the baby cries, this is God’s way of increasing lung capacity and cleansing the baby’s lungs, eyes, ears, nose, and throat.
You must understand that babies have a sin nature just like the parent. We are born with it. We receive it from the male genetically — through our father. Getting ones way is human nature. The baby, before it even has vocabulary with which to think, knows how to get its way by crying. As stated, crying is also the baby’s only defense when something is wrong. So, parents need to be tuned in to the “sounds of crying.” Parents must quickly learn to distinguish between hunger sounds, hurting sounds, and spoiled baby sounds.
Getting our way comes from the lust patterns of the soul, via our human nature — the sin nature. This pattern of controlling others is getting one’s way and it begins in infancy. Lust patterns are there, present in each of us at birth.
If you have ever worked in retail, you know that dealing with the public is like dealing with spoiled brats except these brats are adults. They are resentful of high prices. They covet what they cannot afford. They steal because they must have it now — instant gratification. They don’t bother to pick up clothes that they caused to fall to the floor. This is resentment and rebellion.
Our sin nature is constantly on display, all we have to do is learn to recognize its characteristics. We use charge cards and loans to satisfy our instant gratification lust.
The first thing we must do is stop denial. We must stop denying our denial. We must stop denying our nature and start allowing God to deal with it His way. The starting point for a relationship with God is always humility. You cannot be saved if you do not humble yourself by admitting you have a sin-problem that only Jesus Christ can solve.
Just like every other human who has lived or ever will live, humans are sinners with sin problems that literally control us. As a believer you must learn God’s Truth — Bible Doctrine. Until you know Truth you cannot know untruth. God by His Holy Spirit through Bible Doctrine resident in our souls teaches us how to recognize our inherent nature and most importantly He gives us the power to overcome ourselves minute by minute day by day. We will struggle all our lives with the self.
Instant gratification is the “I must have it now” syndrome. Credit card debt in the billions by Americans is proof enough that we can’t wait to have something. We hock our future income by making partners in our paychecks. We must keep up with our peers. We must show-off our new clothes; our new car; our new hair style; our new jewelry — the list is endless (and a hundred years from now, NO ONE will care). We are all on an ego trip to one degree or another, showing off our spoiled brat instant gratification lust patterns to those we want to impress with our wonderful selves and how successful we have become by credit. Credit is a form of slavery. It is self-deception and hypocritical.
When we accept Jesus Christ as Savior we begin a journey away from the world and self, toward God. The world is on a journey away from God. At salvation, God reverses our course. The world, the flesh and the devil are the believer’s and the unbeliever’s worst nightmare. Secularism — the anti-God world attitude is the devil’s counterfeit world-system. When it is the only world you know it is extremely difficult to see through it to the other side of this life — to true reality.
The world you and I grew up in is the world of instant gratification. It is the world of self. Self minus God equals deception and eventual disaster. Our society is minus God by choice. We each personally choose to follow the world, the Flesh (our sensational self), and the devil, or we choose Christ and deliverance.
What is and has been your choice — instant gratification or eternal reconciliation through Jesus Christ?
Happy Studying!