Several times I started blogs concerning the Grey Matter Religion as it pertains to our Faith in Yahusha Hamashia called Jesus Christ. I deleted it every time except for one time I only mentioned Grey Matter Religion. It's a struggle to place Grey Matter Religion in a context without condemning Religion. Religion and Faith is like the wheat and the tares. Religion being the tares, Faith being like the wheat. Tares resembles wheat when young. This is why the Bible says not to pull out the tares until harvest. Wheat will lower their heads while tares will stand tall empty headed. Yes I said Religion will stand tall empty headed. Faith in Yahusha will cause you to humble yourself before Him. It can also be physically lowering your Grey Matter functions before Him in prayer. This is the opposite of Heylel BenSahar the Cherub that became Satan. He was forced out of the Highest Heaven and no longer part of Yahuah Elohiym's Kingdom because of Pride, wanting to be God.
What gets in the way of True Faith is Grey Matter Religion and our own Grey Matter functions, or should I just say impairment of the Spirit having tendencies towards narcissistic Pride.
So what is Grey Matter and what is a Spiritual Injury? Grey Matter is crucial for processing information, controlling movement, and regulating emotions and other functions. "It is the primary site for most information processing in the brain. This includes learning, memory, decision-making, and emotion". It is our memories, decisions, and emotions that retain emotional or spiritual injuries of past relationships that have gone bad. Spiritual injury is letting Grey Matter dominate and not letting the Born Again Spirit take over. In other words spiritual injury is a weakened Spirit and run away emotions of Grey Matter.
Religious trauma syndrome is, I quote, "psychological and emotional distress stemming from harmful religious experiences where beliefs practices or community causes harm instead of providing spiritual nutrients. This can include spiritual abuse, controlling environments, fear-based teachings, and abuse within a religious context. This leads to symptoms such as shame, guilt, low self-worth, and difficulty with emotional regulation.
Several times as a teenager, I have seen children being shamed by adults in the church. Needless to say, these children did not return to church. Their lives then bounced around outside the church, in the darkness of the world. Now as a retired person, I still wonder what happened to some of them. The Internet provides information, but we can only imagine the stress they had like broken marriages. Now let us look at the Religious trauma syndrome quote step by step.
Psychological injury and Spiritual injury is similar. Both involves a conflict between one's beliefs and difficult life experiences, leading to distress, a loss of faith and feelings of betrayal. Traumatic events are what causes emotional distress. The traumatic event that removed me from a church was being targeted by the Pastor after I had brought up the fact that Yahuah Elohiym can use people from homes from a second marriage like King Solomon of Israel. The Pastor I believe was filled with misinformation from those who controlled the church. It was my grandparents that had a second marriage with her first husband still alive at the time. I was the grandson of the second marriage so I related to Yahuah Elohiym's promise. It was like being spiritually stoned for having a dream of entering the ministry. I never did enter the ministry. It looked like ministry was only for the privileged.
"Stemming from harmful religious experiences where beliefs practices or community causes harm instead of providing spiritual nutrients".
Stemming is an interesting word. We could say that beneficial experiences of faith was stopped, more like changed into something harmful. Something had changed the beliefs of the community from good to harmful. Spiritual nutritional value was replaced with hidden Satanic poison. This poison has added to good so you are not aware of it, but yet it can destroy your life in that community.
Fear-based teachings on the surface would lead you to believe that speaking about sin in your life and being left behind or facing a tribulation is fear based. If a bridge inspector said that a bridge over a powerful river is dangerous to travel on, it would not be taken as fear based information. The authorities would close the bridge and set up another route. Sin is dangerous, the powerful river below is Death. The route to take is Yahusha Hamashia. The only lifestyle that doesn't lead to death is being baptized in the Holy Spirit. It's like polyurethane on wood. Without the polyurethane, the wood will stain from unintended spills.
We must recognize what fear based teachings are as in Grey Matter Religion. Simply said, narcissists manipulating people into the mindset that you are not welcome if you don't comply. Things like the shaming of a pregnant teen, criticism of a family's struggles or physical appearance can lead to low self-worth, and difficulty with regulating emotions. Religious trauma syndrome is nothing but sin in the church. It's empty headed leadership acting according to their own emotions. End result is spiritual injury.
Spiritual injury can be prevented. This is why you need Spiritual Armor on. Let's look at the Helmet of Salvation and it's effect on your Grey Matter.
Finally, be strong in Yahusha and in the might of His strength, put on the full Armor of Elohiym, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
In other words, it is the strength of Yahusha against the schemes of Satan. We are commanded to spiritually armor up.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Our struggle is not with the grey matter of church leadership. Our struggle is the unseen world of spiritual darkness. It is theses dark forces that have enslaved grey matter, using it as a weapon against others.
Therefore, take up the full armor of Elohiym, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In addition to all, having taken up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, also receive the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of Elohiym, praying at all times with all prayer and petition in the Spirit.... Ephesians 6:10-18
It is the Helmet of Salvation that we will focus on. First we must look at salvation in the light of a helmet prepared for warfare.
Salvation is having been saved by Grace through Faith. This is not of ourselves, it is the gift of Elohiym, not of works. Nobody can boast that it is of them that have Salvation. We are His workmanship, created in Yahusha Hamashia for good works. Elohiym prepared Salvation beforehand so that we would walk in it.
I quote, "A military helmet protects a soldier's head by reducing the risk of ballistic impacts from bullets and shrapnel, blunt force trauma, and environmental hazards. Modern helmets use advanced materials like Kevlar and Ultra-High-Molecular-Weight Polyethylene to absorb and disperse energy, while also incorporating features for comfort, stability, and the mounting of accessories like cameras and night vision devices," end quote.
The foot soldier cannot boast about his helmet because it was provided to him by the government. We cannot boast about salvation because it was provided by Yahusha Hamashia called Jesus Christ. Salvation protects us from in your face trauma and spiritual hazards. It is Yahusha that absorbs and disperse wicked spiritual energy designed to kill us spiritually. Salvation offers comfort, stability and yet we let in past memories under our helmet of Salvation. It's against regulations to modify your helmet of Salvation. What is interesting is that our helmet offers spiritual night vision. We can see through the darkness and schemes of Evil if trained properly.
What do you do with previous spiritual wounds that doesn't heal?
When I research information for blogs, Google AI always pops up. Other times I type in Bible verse and Google will provide the Scripture location. This time I was curious on what Google AI would say. This quote wasn't the first on it's list but it is on the top of my list.
I quote, "Separate God from the abuse: For many, healing involves differentiating between the actions of abusive people or institutions and their personal relationship with a higher power".
That's it unedited. We should not blame Yahuah Elohiym because of Grey Matter Religion. Sometimes we need to differentiate the emotions or voices in our head. Is it Auditory hallucinations, past memories or Demonic oppression? Demonic voices and mental illness are often associated with fear, condemnation, and negative thoughts, according to some interpretations. Drug-induced psychosis can cause Auditory hallucinations that could be harmful to yourself or others. Simply said, bad information cause Spiritual wounds that doesn't heal.
2 Corinthians 2:1-11
But I determined this for my own sake, that I would not come to you again in sorrow. For if I cause you sorrow, who then makes me glad but the one whom I made sorrowful? And this is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy would be the joy of you all.
The Apostle Paul makes a good point. If you purposely cause others to grieve, how are they going to cheer you up. We should not foolishly keep talking about past jury. We should be confident of having a good visit, not expecting a downer.
For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears; not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have abundantly for you.
There are times sorrowful things happen like a death in the family or injuries and you say it out of love and compassion.
But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in some degree—in order not to say too much—to all of you. Sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority, so that on the contrary you should rather graciously forgive and comfort him, lest such a one be swallowed up by excessive sorrow.
Did you catch that? Forgiveness and comfort is what we can do to treat the wounds of Spiritual injury and sorrow.
Therefore I encourage you to reaffirm your love for him. For to this end also I wrote, so that I might know your proven character, whether you are obedient in all things. But one whom you graciously forgive anything, I graciously forgive also. For indeed what I have graciously forgiven, if I have graciously forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.
Spiritual injury can be caused by being taken advantage of and it keeps the wounds open because of memory. Also it's the schemes that people act out for their own pride and benefits.
What good is it if you have schemed your way to be the grand manipulator if you have killed the church you now control? Satan wanted to be God but his schemes caused one third of the angels to face the Lake of Fire.
