TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
THE DOCTRINE OF
MENTAL ATTITUDE SINS
Part 1
July 9, 2017
BEFORE we begin, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, take a moment to name your sins to God the Father. This will allow you to be filled with the power of The Holy Spirit as you read this booklet (EPH 5:18 & 1JO 1:9). IF YOU HAVE never believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have that opportunity right now. Simply tell God the Father that you are believing on His Son Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you make that decision, you are now a believer and will always be a child of God! When you die, you will spend eternity with Him forever in heaven! (JOH 3:16 & ACT 16:31).
Many believers have mental problems because they have rejected the Plan of God and are controlled by what they observe in the cosmic system [Satan’s world]. Mental attitude sins stop the believer from taking advantage of the equal privilege and equal opportunity that God has given to execute the Spiritual Life. Mental attitude is so essential because that is where proper motivation is developed.
A very important thing to note is that most of our sinning is done with our mental attitude – in our thoughts! These mental attitude sins include arrogance, pride, jealousy, hard-heartedness, bitterness, vindictiveness, excessive ambition and excessive competition and sinful thoughts such as fear, guilt, worry, anger, judging, and hatred.
The book of Deuteronomy consists of three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses. DEU 28:34 is a statement to those believers who are negative toward God’s Word: You shall be driven mad [Shigaon] by the sight of what you see. The Hebrew noun shigaon, which means a deceived mental attitude, was originally used by Moses to describe the Exodus generation. Shigaon took over the lives of the Exodus Generation believers. DEU 28:28 uses shigaon in a warning to those believers who are negative toward doctrine: The Lord will smite you with madness [shigaon] and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart… Moses was aware of the inside pressure of stress in the souls of the Israelites. He knew that this stress worked in conjunction with their old sin natures to destroy the Spiritual Life of these believers. And the Israelites had the greatest Bible teaching ever to exist in the Old Testament. Moses observed this destruction and warned future generations of Israel.
Now let’s look at some Mental Attitude Sins in detail: arrogance; pride; jealousy; implacability; bitterness; vindictiveness; excessive ambition/competition; fear; guilt; worry; anger; judging; hatred and murder.
Arrogance is the complete opposite of grace; it is total blindness to God’s Grace. Arrogance is synonymous with vanity, which is empty pride in regard to one’s self, attainments, or possessions, coupled with an excessive desire to be noticed; a lust for attention; lust for approval; or praise from others. Arrogance deceives its victim according to JER 49:16: “As for the terror of you, The arrogance of your heart has deceived you, O you who live in the clefts of the rock, Who occupy the height of the hill. Though you make your nest as high as an eagle’s, I will bring you down from there,” declares the Lord. PRO 11:2, teaches that: When arrogance comes, then comes dishonor. PRO 16:18 says: Arrogance goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.
The next Mental Attitude Sin is Pride, which is considered to be the worst sin. Pride involves inordinate self-esteem, conceit and a pre-occupation with self and rejection of authority. Arrogance, pride, and conceit are the original sins of the greatest genius creature of all time. We call him Satan or the devil but his original name was son of the morning – Heylel. Satan was the first creature to enter into this Sin of Pride, motivating him to rebel against God and His Authority. Pride is also the original sin committed by the fallen angels in the pre-historic Angelic Conflict, motivating them to rebel along with Satan.
Pride motivated the woman in the garden to sin. Remember, in the garden the woman became bored with Adam. She was looking for more and Satan, who was the most brilliant creature of all, noticed this. In the conversation that took place between them, Satan convinced the woman that God was unfair and the reason that He said “Don’t eat from the tree” was because He was afraid she’d become as smart as He was. FAT CHANCE!! So the woman was persuaded by Satan that eating from the tree was the answer to improving her position and would give her perfect happiness. NOT!!!
Arrogance promotes an abnormal satisfaction for self along with a total dissatisfaction with others. There are some people who spend their entire lives comparing themselves with others. They do not have perfect happiness, nor are they content.
Look at what God’s Word teaches us about pride and arrogance: The respect for the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way, and the perverted mouth, I hate. ( PRO 8:13 ) Then in PRO 16:5: Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; assuredly, he will not be unpunished.
Jealousy is another Mental Attitude Sin and a very serious one. This is because jealousy causes a self-destructive mental attitude involving a system of thinking from the cosmic system. So basically, when you’re jealous, you’re thinking like Satan!!! Jealousy, which includes pride and arrogance, is the strongest of all the mental attitude sins. JAM 3:14 offers an important warning about jealousy: But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your right lobes, do not be arrogant and lie against the truth. Jealousy is older than the human race, existing in eternity past when Satan, the son of the morning, became jealous of God. Jealousy surfaced in the human race when Cain became jealous of his brother, Abel. This motivated Cain to murder Abel.
SONG 8:6b describes jealous this way: Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; Its flashes are flashes of fire, The very flame of the Lord. The Hebrew word Sheol originally meant (in post-biblical Hebrew) the deep parts of the sea. But both Sheol and the Greek word hades are used to refer to anything that is underground and large. They are used for the vast place of the departed dead of the human race and the abode of certain fallen angels. Both Sheol and hades are mistranslated “hell” which adds to the confusion. Hades was used from classical times for the underworld and the realm of the dead. Sheol is sometimes used for the grave, as in 1SA 2:6: “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.”
Jealous is also mentioned in PRO 6:34: For jealousy enrages a man, and he will not spare in the day of vengeance. Look at PRO 27: 3‑4: But the provocation of a fool is heavier than both of them. Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood, But who can stand before jealousy? JAM 3:16 teaches us a very interesting thing about jealousy: For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. PRO 14:30 says it all: A tranquil heart is life to the body, but jealousy is rottenness to the bones.
PRO 27:3 teaches that jealousy is so strong that carrying a log across your shoulders while carrying a boulder under your arms is nothing compared to the burden of putting up with a fool: A stone is heavy and the sand weighty, But the provocation of a fool is heavier than both of them. The “stone” in this passage is overt jealousy and anger; the “sand” is subtle jealousy.
{to be continued}