Website owner:  James Miller

False values and true values

   Q. What are the values of this world?

   A. Love and pursuit of the following:  Pleasure, Power, Position, 
       Wealth, Fame, Worldly Success, etc..  Things that will 
       elevate you above people around you, make you better than 
       they.  Things of a selfish nature, things giving pleasure or 
       benefit to self.  These are "false values". 


   Q. What are the "true values"?

   A. Love and pursuit of the following:

        - Meekness (a sweet and gentle disposition)

        - Kindness, thoughtfulness and compassion for our neighbor 
            (love for our neighbor) 

        - Forgiveness

        - Humility 

        - Morality (chastity; repudiation of indecency, lust, and 
            immorality --love of the clean and wholesome) 

        - Honesty

        - Justice

        - Patience

        - Wisdom

        - Fear of God (fear of the consequences of straying from 
            his holy principles;  reverence for him and his 
            principles) 

        - Love of God

        - Faith

        - Temperance

        - Peaceableness




   The values of this world are false values.  When we pursue them 
   we find them to be mirages.  On attainment they are found to be 
   empty.  They don't give true happiness and satisfaction.  True 
   happiness and satisfaction comes from within.  It comes from 
   having the "true values" --- the ones God has commanded us to 
   follow.  When a man abandons these "true values" the result is 
   unhappiness, confusion, frustration and emotional problems. 

   Our values determine how we look at other people --- how we 
   appraise them and judge them.  Do we look at how successful a 
   person is?  How much ability, wealth or education he has?  Or 
   do we look at how honest, moral, kind and good he is?  What 
   impresses us?  What do we value?  What do we count as merit and 
   how heavily do we weigh  it?  Do we rank the person with 
   Ability higher than the one with Goodness?  If we do our values 
   are far askew.  For in God's eyes Ability counts as "0" and 
   Goodness counts as "100".  And as we see other people so we see 
   ourselves;  the way we appraise and judge them, we also appraise 
   and judge ourselves.  Which all determines how much esteem we 
   have for ourselves.  If we count Ability or Success very 
   heavily and count Goodness very little (or not at all) we are 
   apt to become very critical of ourselves, start noticing all 
   our weaknesses and inabilities, and develop an Inferiority 
   Complex.  Thus our wrong priorities and values can cause us to 
   put ourselves down, give us a poor opinion of ourselves.  By 
   accepting the values that the world imposes on us, by accepting 
   its false values, we open ourselves up to a possible 
   Inferiority Complex.  Indeed the Inferiority Complex is caused 
   by wrong values --- instead of looking at what we can change 
   (our own heart and character) we become hung up on things we 
   can't change (i.e. abilities). 


   Oct 1977