When the Holy Spirit speaks, faith is required.

When your emotions are raging, you have to become self-aware and you have to regulate them.

I am not saying to ignore emotions.

We have to pay attention to them because while they sometimes might not be the voice of God or the voice of God is not coming through our emotions, emotions can be huge indicators of what is happening inside of us.

I think this is really harmful advice.

This is the problem with believing in the devil and the power that he has.

If we can be deceived, what makes you think you can manage that deceiving?

If you could manage it, you wouldn't be deceived in the first place.

You either have to believe that our emotions are truly out of our control because the devil has power in corrupting them.

He can completely rule your life if your life is based on your emotions.

Or you believe that they are natural and organic processes that we can get better at managing.

You can't have this both ways.

But I would argue that many Christians are the ones who don't manage their emotions, are the ones that are least mindful, are the ones that are most adverse to good cognitive behavioral therapies, etc. because of that belief.

Oh, no, I can't trust myself.

I can't trust my emotions.

The devil can be higher than all of that.

The only thing I've got is God.

So they stuff the emotions down or they call an emotion that needs to be dealt with the devil.

It's not the devil.

It's anxiety.

It's not the devil.

It's depression.

It's not the devil.

It's confusion.

It's not the devil.

It's childhood trauma.

Calling it the devil and putting it in this box prevents you from dealing with it, prevents you from understanding it, being aware of it and managing it appropriately.

Christianity is so horrendous for our mental health.

And it's because if you believe it to any degree, its inherent baggage of the devil or demons or evil or whatever you're more comfortable with, depending on how far in the progressive scale you are, interrupts your ability to believe in your autonomy to handle what's really going on inside yourself.

But Brandon, I'm a Christian, but I also believe in science and mental health and neurochemistry, and I can still maintain my faith in God.

Great.

You're further along than most, and you're also doing it despite the Bible, not because of it.

All of those things, even if Christians have adopted them as their own, were not important or real to God.

All sickness, all mental health was an unclean spirit, was the devil, was the consequence of sin in your life, was a punishment or was a deceit.

There's no recognition of this soft in-between understanding our biology and our evolutionary purposes and dealing with those things outside of the realm of the spiritual.

It was all spiritual.

So I am so glad that Christianity has advanced in some respects and in some groups and in some denominations for some people to allow them to start having the proper tools to deal with this despite their current belief system.

But it is just that.

It is a foregoance of really adhering and believing in the fullness of what the Bible speaks.

But again, I'm so glad for it.

I don't want people to be trapped by their trauma and their emotions and their feelings.

Let's let him continue on with point six, though.

So how do I know where it's the voice of God and it's the voice of me?

My voice requires no faith.

God's voice requires faith.

And so when it requires faith, it's the Holy Spirit.

Ugh, gross.

It got worse.

God will never, ever communicate anything to you that doesn't require you to take it on faith.

It sounds like God is only saying insane, unproven, non-repeatable, non-understandable things to you.

Faith is a crutch for when things don't make sense or don't add up.

He is essentially telling you right now, you have to be stupid and gullible, and that is when you will hear from God, when you can't reason your way through it.

But if it's something that you have to manage your emotions through, that's not God.

What?