Pattern to Life Through Christ & Heal (Pt. 1 of 2) | Christian Brain Retraining
In part one of this two-part blog series, we’re going to first explore what it means to pattern after Christ. Then part two will examine Jesus’ patterns and how you can embody those (and heal).
Your life is built on patterns—repeated behaviors, traits, actions, thoughts and emotions that color how you see and respond to the world. These ingrained habits and belief systems have some serious consequences. They can either bring life and freedom through Jesus or they can draw you into worldly stress and dis-ease.
Christ wants you to pattern your life after Him. He wants you to follow Him and mimic Him in every aspect of your being, not just when it makes sense to you or is convenient. In other words, He wants to bring you into full life, health and peace as you abide in Him as His disciple (follower, mimicker, student).
In ancient Israel, a rabbi’s disciples were hyper focused on learning everything they could from their teacher. In fact, their main objective was to constantly follow their rabbi, learning how he spoke, thought and acted so that they could mimic him as much as possible. It’s even said that disciples would follow their rabbi so closely that the dust of his sandals would be on their feet, too.
Disciples patterned their life after their rabbi! As your rabbi, Jesus has called you to be just like that! And He promises you health and life when you follow Him. (Proverbs 4:20-22, Proverbs 3:5-8, Malachi 4:2, Exodus 23:25, Exodus 15:26, Matt 10:8, James 5:16, Psalm 91:16)
What Do Patterns Have to Do with Healing?
Your brain is a pattern recognition organ. That means it seeks out patterns in order to function. Without patterns, you would have to consciously think about every single thing your brain is doing every nanosecond of the day—it would be impossible! Thank goodness God created your brain to run on patterns! The trouble comes when the patterns in your brain are not conditioned to follow Christ’s example.
In Genesis, the Bible describes the world as formless and void. The nothingness had not been ordered yet by God so by default, the nothingness was chaotic (dis-ordered). And then God right-ordered the chaos into sea, land and sky. Finally God filled the earth with life.
The chaos of the formless world is like a brain that hasn’t been ordered to Christ. Consequently, a chaotic brain leads to dis-order (sickness) in the body.
So how do you order the chaos of your mind? Brain retraining!
When you focus on Him through the tools of brain rewiring, He right-orders the chaos, putting dis-order and dis-ease into order and ease. While this right-orderedness begins in the brain, it flows out to the body.
As you heal, God fills you with life (the abundant life!). He teaches your mind new ways to perceive and respond to the world. Over time, your brain relearns and rebuilds new neural pathways patterned after Jesus.
God guides us to pattern Him in two main ways: 1) wisdom and 2) purifying your nous (more on that below).
1) Wisdom of Christ = Abundant Life
Wisdom is defined as “perceiving or discerning the patterns built into the created order (creation).”
Since Jesus is the pattern of creation, of life itself, wisdom (perceiving and discerning) is essential for following Jesus.
If you want order in your life and therefore health, then following the patterns God knit into the fabric of creation is key. Christ is the pattern, Christ is wisdom.
Have you ever found truth about God in creation around you and applied it in your life? That is you operating in the wisdom of Christ!
For example, I love the way plant life seeks light, growing upward towards their source of life. Trees often look like they are worshiping the light, always orienting themselves to have their daily “bread” of life. Everyday we should be seeking the Light for our daily bread (source of life).
2) Purifying Your Spiritual Receiver (Nous) = Abundant Life
You may not know this, but you have a spiritual receiver, an “organ” in your essence that receives spiritual realities. This is not a metaphor. It is a real thing called the nous in Greek.
Ancient people understood this organ existed, but as modern westerners, we’ve lost understanding of the nous and operate as if it doesn’t exist.
But you can learn again how to know wisdom, know Christ, know truth and discern properly as you train and exercise your nous.
How do you do this? Let’s explore more.
How to Purify your Nous
Your nous gets purified by the Holy Spirit from the darkness as you operate in the pure pattern of Christ (true love). In turn you get the abundant life Jesus came to bring you.
A good starting point is to look at the greatest commandment Jesus gave us. In Matthew 22:37-40, He tells us the pattern to follow:
Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
As you take steps to follow this one pattern, Jesus will purify your nous so you can discern His patterns even better. This allows Him to transform you through this love and wisdom, pulling out the old junk of broken love, insecurity, shame, guilt, anger, resentment and fear. In turn, He replaces the garbage with patterns of the Holy Spirit—perfect love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Again, brain retraining practice focused on following Christ’s pattern is an effective way for you to abide and receive life. He overtakes you, He is a force acting upon you and you can’t help but have the sickness weeded out.
Stay tuned to part two of this series that will dig into the actual patterns of Jesus and how you can embody these as your own.
If you want to learn more about using the science of brain retraining to pattern your life after Jesus (and heal!), then I invite you to join me for Gateway to Healing.
Gateway to Healing is a comprehensive brain retraining program that teaches you how to heal just like I did from over 90 symptoms of chronic illness. Please check it out here.
And if you’re ready to heal but you don’t know where to start, please reach out.