COCKEYED?

 

What do you call it when someone tries to focus on two separate and unrelated things at the same time? Syncretic? Double-minded? Indecisive? Undisciplined? Confused? Silly? Absurd? Idiotic? It depends. It depends on the context.

Cockeyed is properly defined, in the slang, as “foolish, ridiculous, absurd, askew or crooked”, as in “not aligned properly”.

It is, in actuality, a physical medical condition called strabismus, in which the eyes do not point in the same direction. It can also be referred to as a tropia or squint. And, although people may tease about it, it is anything but funny.

Strabismus can be caused by a defect in muscles or the part of the brain that controls eye movement. It is especially common in children who have brain tumors, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, hydrocephalus, other disorders that affect the brain

Diseases that cause partial or total blindness can cause strabismus. So can extreme farsightedness, cataracts, eye injury, or having much better vision in one eye than the other.

In adults, strabismus is usually caused by diabetes, head trauma, stroke, brain tumor, other diseases affecting nerves that control eye muscles.

Now that we have the description and definition, let’s look at a particular application of the word, cockeyed, in the slang.

What would you call it if a theologian, preacher, pastor or anyone calling themselves a Christian, would deliberately redefine doctrines and teachings in the Bible from their commonly accepted and customary meanings, definitions and descriptions? (Before we answer that, let’s dig a little deeper).

For example, the Bible says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident:

sexual immorality, (i.e., loveless, cheap sex),

impurity, (i.e., a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage),

sensuality, (i.e., frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness),

idolatry, (trinket gods, ugly parodies of community),

enmity, (paranoid loneliness),

strife, (cutthroat competition),

jealousy, (all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants),

fits of anger, (a brutal temper),

rivalries, (an impotence to love or be loved),

dissensions, (divided homes and divided lives),

divisions, (small-minded and lopsided pursuits),

envy, (the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival),

drunkenness, (uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions),

orgies, (ugly parodies of community, and things like these).

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who continue to do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (see Galatians 5:16-21).

(This was written by Paul the Apostle to the churches in southern Galatia, and perhaps northern Galatia, founded by Paul during his missionary journey – in other words, it was written to Christians.)

So, let’s say someone, claiming to be a Christian were to believe that, despite what the Bible clearly teaches, they believe that sex outside of marriage is okay because we are weak and fallible and God must understand. So we confess our sin, or not, but continue to have sex outside of marriage – and using our own logic and reasoning, teach others likewise. What is that?

Or, consider the so-called churches that are ‘gay affirming’.

1 Corinthians 6:9 says, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality.”

Or any of the other things, the sins? It’s cockeyed! You think you will go to heaven, but, #1, you are not a Christian, according to the Biblical definition; or if somehow you are a Christian, then you will have “lost your salvation” (another can of manmade theological worms) and you certainly “will not inherit the kingdom of God”, i.e., you are not going to heaven. Your thinking and reasoning is cockeyed: “foolish, ridiculous, absurd, askew or crooked”, as in “not aligned properly”.

Look friends, I know that some who read this will say things like, “you are the one who is cockeyed”, but that is just lame.

Or perhaps you will say “I just can’t stop it. I cannot help it. I have tried over and over, only to fail. I guess I was just born this way”. To which I say, “I understand”.

I do understand! Listen. The Bible does say that sin can separate you from God? I have often heard this phrase, that my ‘sins’ separate me from God, and that sin even hinders or negates my prayers or that God won’t even hear me.

Those who say that sin separates us from God, usually quote verses like Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”

Or, New Testament verses like Galatians 5:4 “You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”

Then, when I commit a sin, this phrase comes to my mind, and I begin to worry and doubt and fear that I have created a separation between me and my Eternal Hope.

I try to “not sin”, then I sin, anyway. And, the cycle of worry and doubt and fear starts over again.

I have met Christians who have serious challenges with alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, kleptomania, homosexuality, and other habits of thought, behavioral habits or addictions, and most will either say “the harder I try, the worse it gets” or “I am better, but…” or, they find themselves having to live in the torment. I had found myself in this dilemma, once in my life.

Then there are the few who say they have been delivered from this torment and have been set completely free. How do they do that?

I have read all the well-intended commentaries and the so-called Bible scholars on this matter, and you get answers that differ depending on denominational views.

WHAT A QUANDARY.

The Apostle Paul gives us a word of hope in Romans, chapter 7, speaking about the conflict of the two natures that dwell within us.

Romans 7:14-25, tells us,

“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 

For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.  But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind I am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin.”

But, there is good news because there is deliverance from this bondage. It is not easy and it is never quick. But, there is deliverance. Jesus meant it when He says, “It is the one who endures to the end who will be saved”!!

Please click the link below to continue…

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young

THERE IS DELIVERANCE FROM THIS BONDAGE