The Power of Suggestion

When it comes to our personal choices and lifestyles, I wonder how many of realize how much we are influenced by external forces – the forces of the companies who want to buy their products or subscribe to their service. They get us to line their pockets with our money, and in exchange they tell us how to live our lives.

They tell us what clothes to wear, what foods to eat, what kind of people we like (and don’t like), what kind of houses we should live in. They do all of this, not because they found it’s best for us, but because they can become richer by making us dependent on what they sell to us.

It’s not always those who want our monies alone that influence our thought, but also different schools of religious thought and morality.

When it comes to morality and sexuality, both public and religious influences combine to form us.

On the one hand, the media tells us our sexuality is an insatiable hole that constantly demands all we’ve got and all we are to satisfy it. So every aspect of our lives is filled to the hilt with sexual innuendos and resources to actualize those innuendos.

On the other hand, the religious and moral schools rightly perceive that all around we are over-saturated with different forms of sexual come-hithers, and reacts by telling us to reject any representation of the sexual caricatures, rather than the suggestions themselves. Let me explain.

For example, society constantly tells us that men and women can be nothing but sex waiting or looking to happen. They successfully convey these messages to us by suffusing every presentation of men and women together with sexual messages. Soon, before we know it, we are looking for sex to happen wherever and whenever men and women are together.

The sad part of this is that even the men and women themselves buy into this and either expect or prepare to war against it, even if it would have never happened any way.

In this way, society has told us how to view and or think about men and women.

Most Christian response to this societal manipulation is to separate men and women in an effort to prevent the inevitable collision that society tells us is imminent. The result is an alienation of half of the human race from the other.

But I propose a much better way. Change the source of your suggestion, to change the outcome. This is the very thing Romans 12:1 calls us to do when it says,

Don’t change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but let God change you inside with a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to understand and accept what God wants for you. You will be able to know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect. (ERV, emphasis mine)

Let God change you inside with a new way of thinking. This is the right and godly way to resist the suggestive influences of a society that does not reflect God’s values. We are not called to alienate others. Rather, we are called to learn a new way of relating to them. And the Bible offers us new suggestions on how to do that.

It tells us to love others as God, in Christ has loved us (Jn.15:12). So that when God looks at us, He chooses to see Christ and His righteousness in us rather our sinfulness and corruption. Likewise, when we relate to others, we must do it through Christ. Looking through His eyes is the only way to see others and this allows us to see them at their best rather than at their worst. It allows us to be willing to partner with God for their salvation (i.e., do nothing to hinder their salvation by omission or commission, but do everything to enhance it and bring them into the place to experience God’s love as we ourselves are invited to experience it in Christ).

We must recognize the power and influence of society on us and learn to daily allow God, through His Word, suggest to us who we are and how we are to live, rather than letting the world suggest to us who we are and how we are to live.

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.(Rom.12:10)

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. (Rom.13:8)

Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. (2 Cor. 13:11)

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. (Gal.5:13)

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, (Heb. 10:24)

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. (I Pet.1:22).

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. (I Jn. 3:23)

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (I Jn. 4:12)