We take words for granted. They are so much a part of our everyday interactions with people that we rarely, if ever, consciously realize just how many words we use on any given day. It is truly a wonder that the myriad sounds we make and call "language" are able to accurately communicate so much information from one person to another.
And yet, language can also prove to be a barrier to accurate communication. To the degree that the concepts behind the words are misunderstood between someone communicating and those who are receiving the communication, the accuracy of the message is proportionally diminished.
For example, if I start telling you a story about a dog, you might picture a cute little chihuahua, especially if, for some reason, you are very familiar with a chihuahua. You may have a chihuahua, someone close to you may have a chihuahua, or you may have heard a story (recently or often repeated) about a chihuahua. The more familiar you are with a chihuahua, the more likely it is that a chihuahua will be the first dog that comes to your mind as you hear my story. But as the story goes on, you would realize that I am, in fact, not telling a story about a chihuahua. If, in the story, I told you that the dog almost bowls me over every time I come home, and that it takes up most of the space when it climbs up onto my bed, and that its low growl and deep bark scares visitors that come to my house, you would most likely form a different picture of the dog in your head as the story goes on. Either that or you would hold on to the idea of the chihuahua and the story would make less and less sense. The funny thing is that if you were to hang on to the idea of the chihuahua, your brain would almost imperceptibly begin changing other details of the story in order for the image in your head to make sense. You might picture me in a kneeling position when I come home. You might picture that my bed is very small. You might think that every visitor who comes to my house just has an irrational fear of dogs. This would continue to happen until something in my story is unable to be reconciled to the concept of a chihuahua, whether it be an obvious part of the context or the outright admission that I am talking about a German Shepherd.
Any discomfort that comes from the realization that the dog is not a chihuahua is just one example of cognitive dissonance. It is the discomfort that is felt when a person's ideas and beliefs come into conflict with reality. Generally speaking, the higher the perceived cost is to someone to bring one's faulty ideas and beliefs into alignment with reality, the more likely it is that that person will come up with more and more ways to avoid doing just that.
Satan knows this and he is pretty skillful at using this against us. One of Satan's best tactics is to flood the earth with lies about essential spiritual concepts. If he can get you to think that a certain word means a certain thing, then every use of that word will be an inaccurate representation of what God originally intended. Our understanding will not reach God’s understanding, and we will be left in darkness. Satan knows that if he can introduce words to us and frame them in such a way that our definitions of those words differ from God’s definitions, not only will we be misled until we come to an understanding of God’s definitions, but we will also resist changing our incorrect definitions, even when there is more than sufficient reason to do so.
In my religious upbringing, there were certain words that I associated with certain meanings. Repentance, anointing, sealing, fathers, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, God, Jehovah, authority, keys, sustain, worship, salvation; I could go on and on. And as I encountered these words on a pretty regular basis, I thought I had a pretty good idea of their meaning. The teachings of my religious institution, that had helped form my definitions of these words, only reinforced the idea that my definitions were correct. As I studied the scriptures more and more deeply, however, I realized that, given my understanding of the definitions of these words, I couldn't make sense of certain passages of scripture and have all of scripture reconcile to itself. The story that God was trying to tell me would not make sense in some places. Knowing that God is a God of truth and that He wants us to learn and understand things about Him and His purposes, I came to the conclusion that there were some concepts that I had to revisit in my mind and reconcile to His word. I had been hearing those words used in the context of the narrative of my religious institution, but I hadn't inquired of the Lord. It turns out that He attaches very specific, and often hard-to-understand, meanings and concepts to the words that He uses. His specificity is purposeful. They are hard-to-understand because they deal in matters of the Spirit and humans are pathetically not well-versed in things of the Spirit. When we repent and depend on Him to teach us, He baptizes us with fire and we begin a potentially unending association with the things of the Spirit from that point on. He begins to reveal the meanings of the words the way He intended them and all things begin to make much more sense. You stop inventing ways to force the reconciliation of ideas in your mind. That burden becomes light, indeed.
Another thing that helped me realize that I had to revisit some spiritual concepts that I thought I understood was the fact that my religious institution’s definitions were changing. I have watched those changes unfold right before my eyes. I listened to messages from the leaders that completely redefined words that I had been taught previously. Key concepts and principles were affected by these definition changes and, without an understanding of the implications of these changes, one would never even realize that it was any kind of a big deal at all. I intend to make dedicated blog posts regarding several of these definition changes in the future.
To a greater extent than most realize, this tactic of redefining words lays the foundation by which the devil can convince us that “all is well in Zion.” He can convince us that good is evil and that evil is good when our ideas are not rooted in truth. Pay close attention to what people say and be able to discern when someone is trying to influence the definitions that you have for words. Those influences may be sent by God to direct your mind to new truth or they may be sent by the devil to lead you away from truth. Don’t assume that the source is from God. Go directly to God with all of the ideas that are presented to you, and make sure that it doesn’t compete with His definitions. The devil is in the definitions. He likes it there because he knows that it is a place of great influence. It takes a conscious, deliberate effort on each person’s part to kick him out.