Stumbling vs. Practicing: Why God Judges Intention, Not Action | Path to Paradise Ep. 30

Okay, so I grew up, as you probably know if you've read or heard any of my stuff, in sort of a triangle between home, school, and church.

And they were all very similar.

They were all very legalistic.

My parents were the least legalistic, which is probably the only thing that saved me.

But I grew up with this notion of sin, and involved in that is heaven and hell and condemnation and guilt and shame, and I grew up with all of that in bucketfuls.

It took me decades of my life to get past that.

For people who aren't in church or religion, and by the way, I run from religion.

I believe most religion is about power, control, and money.

Trying to live my life spiritually is one of the most important things in my life, and it's a daily reset, okay? But for people who've not grown up in that religious kind of connotation, it's more the issue of right and wrong, okay? And you can define that however you want to.

Right meaning if you believe that there's something after this life, as I do, that right leads you to that better next life.

It could also be right leads you to a happier this life because the very notion of wrong has sort of built into it bad results.

Okay.

Wrong leads.

Actions lead to painful, bad results a lot of the time, okay? But it could also mean living right means I'll have less health problems, less stress, doing right at my work, I believe your employer would say.

You're going to get promotions.

You're going to make more money.

We're going to value you more and more as an employee if you are making right work decisions in line with the mission of the company.

Or if you're in business for yourself, like I have been for most of my life, right thinking and actions leads to a more successful business.

I don't think there's many people that would argue that.

So whichever way you want to think about it, we're talking about right versus wrong.

And what are the repercussions of both of those in your life? And what are the obstacles? to being able to choose and live right, as opposed to what would be not just sin, but in psychology would be called cognitive dissonance, which means that you're violating your own belief system by the way you're living.

And that's an inherent conflict, increases stress, and from that comes mental and emotional problems and all kinds of other things.

And we're not really going to go into this today, but I did want to say right at the first so that you don't miss it, that built into this right and wrong, you have to find what is right and what is wrong.

So you cannot divorce this from the truth.

You have to find the truth.