Category Archives: Discernment and Thinking

Discernment and Thinking, Holiness as Responsible Sanctification, Purpose Driven Life for Yahweh, Uncategorized

Transferred out of darkness

“He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves” (Colossians 1:13) This is what your heavenly father did, and offers each one of us to accept — “He has rescued you — He has rescued us…”

There are two facts to consider in our text—that I am dead to sin and its reign over me and that I am alive to God, united to Him who strengthens me—that I can keep sin from reigning in my mortal body.

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones says:

“To realise this takes away from us that old sense of hopelessness which we have all known and felt because of the terrible power of sin….How does it work? It works in this way: I lose my sense of hopelessness because I can say to myself that not only am I no longer under the dominion of sin, but I am under the dominion of another power that nothing can frustrate. However weak I may be, it is the power of God that is working in me.”

The apostle Paul emphasised that God, the Father had translated us out of the kingdom of darkness when we came to unify with Christ through His Holy Spirit.

Once this important truth assimilates with other supporting scriptures, we begin to experience a new freedom, an exciting victory over the darkness that surrounds us in this world. Once we see this, we will trust God to deliver us from temptation and call on Him to engage the enemy for us.

We are to walk in newness of life, allowing God to renew our mind. Grasp the significance of being transferred spiritually out of old patterns of being selfish, colluding with the lusts of the flesh, to one based on love for God and mercy for others. New habits of obedience to Christ align with scripture reforming new thinking patterns.

Studies have proven that our brain creates new neurological maps when we change our habits concerning goal setting. For this reason, our primary purpose as Christians must be to “count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus”. (Romans 6:11)

“What is the significance of being alive unto God? How does it help us in our pursuit of holiness? For one thing, it means we are united with Christ in all His power. It is certainly true we cannot live a holy life in our own strength. Christianity is not a do-it-yourself thing.” 1

Paul prayed with absolute trust: “that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being” and noted that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:16, 20)

1 Bridges, J. (1978). The pursuit of holiness (p. 69). Colorado Springs: Navpress.

 

Discernment and Thinking, Uncategorized, Your Identity in Christ

The divine maxim of fathers and sons

“…that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him”. (John 5:23)

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God had impressed me to write about his Sovereign design of the father/son, about inter-relating in loving unity, which I had seen so clearly in the Gospel with the divine Father and Son. It was a very emotional subject because my son had just spent a week visiting from British Columbia. I often think about being closer to my son, through joint business for example.

Nathan and I did a lot of travel together. He slugged my cameras as I explored ruins doing art photography. He also directed my itinerary. During this time of travel Nathan was moving out of his youth into manhood. I also wanted him to experience history, art, and culture.

We traveled to the many ancient ruins of Italy and France once a quarter for one or more weeks, to photograph ruins and primary historical sites. I also found myself studying the photographic potential of the abstractions of modern architecture and oddities in urban and city settings. Old ruins in ancient settings interested me the most.

There is a theological connection with ruins. As a biblical teacher/writer I am very keen about naming the Old Covenant as a period of ruined hope, now focusing on the beauty of the distinctiveness of the New Covenant as taught by Jesus Christ.

In my traveling heyday, I was a much more complicated man. Now I de-access materialism, craving more time with my children and grandchildren. My daughter Christin has commented lovingly and frequently in our best moments, “Dad, you’ve changed” during which time I proudly see my little girl all grown up.

God was working in several ways to lead me. I was simultaneously led by the Spirit in another parallel project. Going over 40 years of photography, I thought “What could a ruin represent as a shadow-type of my life?” Perhaps, metaphoric milestones, representations of a progression or regression of my spiritual life-view over time could give me distinctive wisdom.

Now 62, looking over subjects I photographed. I reassessed my values, the scope of my personal growth, noting blind spots, revelations, foolish hindrances to vision, deafness to God’s voice, avoiding mindfulness in any present reality, and the glorious truths, as well as the dark side of my life’s journey.

Unearthing our distant past is hard work Similar to the ruins of Rome or Pompeii or Greece, my photographic images, in my mind’s eye, could never model a ruin to testify to my past terrifying ruin — the dissolution of familial love in my childhood family as the eldest of five siblings. My mother called on me as a boy, saying fraught with fear, I can hear her now: “you are now the man of the family.”

This would present to me a very serious loss to my psyche, my father, whom mother distanced us from.

Ruins depict the unknowableness of place and time. In a photo, it hides a different and disconnected past as hidden as my own (psychologists call this repression). It is looking back, a seeking for something, perhaps a reconstruction of a time that once was real. Freud wrote of ruins:

Imagine that an explorer arrives in a little-known region where his interest is aroused by an expanse of ruins…when they have been deciphered and translated, yield undreamed-of information about the events of the remote past, to commemorate which the monuments were built.

Ruins persist in the disorder of time, now to return as a metaphor for my very own past. My childhood family fell into ruination. Like the photographed ruins of Mars Hill during my trip to Athens, Greece, a time and place which resisted repression, thanks to the Apostle Paul’s preaching of the Gospel, ruins helped reactivate the repressed foes of my psyche with the help of the Holy Spirit leading.

Two writing projects coincided. It became clear to me that while dealing with my metaphoric journey, the present truth about Father and Son became powerfully activated. Nathan had recently told his friend in my presence about our last Italian dinner together after traveling to Rome, then Florence, and finally in Venice together. I listened. My mind was now very present in the conversation, and this past recalled the moment, though it was God working with my quest to understand more about my soul. Love, via the Spirit of God, flowed into my heart as I looked at Nathan before me, now twice the age of that evening’s memorable meal together. It was a kind of the last supper with him as our trip came to a close.

The reality of that unity with my son brought me resounding echoes of joy. Jesus prayed for His disciples before the cross. “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11)

The assessment of my photography of ruins coincided with recalling my son’s visit, bringing me to a revelation of the divine nature of father/son unity: “one as we are one.” I began to understand the relationship that Jesus would have me enjoy with the heavenly Father, unity, and the oneness that time with Nathan echoed.

Discernment and Thinking, Forgiveness Frees Us To Love

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

On the 7th-day Sabbath when Jesus entered into the synagogue, he acted on the opportunity he had there, of doing some good toward the people whom he came to redeem. It was providential that He would practice what He preached confirming legal truth with a miracle of grace: “it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:12)

The patient’s hand was withered, disabling him from doing craftsmen’s work to earn a living. Today at a civic level we understand the value of assisting a man with charity when truly in need.

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Those present were unkind, downright merciless to the disabled man, likewise to Christ the Great Physician. The design: if Christ cured him now on the sabbath day, they would accuse him as a Sabbath breaker. This is about as unreasonable as to oppose a medic, physician or surgeon while helping some accident victim – or anybody in physical misery, where you can offer them healing in the body.

By a word, Christ asked the man to stand forth (v. 3). How much of an effect did this have on the audience I wonder? Perhaps now the spectators seeing the state of the man, will be moved with compassion avoiding shamefacedness while calling his cure a crime. Appealing to their own consciences, one might allow God’s Spirit to move. All witnessing could reckon with the truth of the matter.

The law of Christ speaks itself, resounding the New Covenant by echoing the divine principles given through Moses, by the Rock that followed Him. The lawmaker spoke. Jesus asked a question that would penetrate to the motive of  their selfish disapproval to the core, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.” (Mark 3:4) The contrast is clear in the question implying: “is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, as I design to do, or to do evil, as you design to do? What is better, to save a life or to kill a man?”

Our main takeaway is that we need to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to our heart via our conscience to see and acknowledge the designs of mercy that the Father puts in place for His spiritually or physically disabled children who turn to trust Him and acknowledge the Son of God’s ongoing work on earth. And He has common grace for all men including the many refugees in crisis today.

Discernment and Thinking, Holy Spirit, Wisdom & Knowledge

Only the Holy Spirt teaches the Wisdom of God

“no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor 2:11-13 ESV)

We will be looking at scripture written by the apostle Paul. I had the privilege of tracking his journey in Greece. I spent two days in Corinth photographing the old ruins of the ancient city. I met other Christians on a similar journey at the inn where I was staying. One thing all Christians have in common is the ability to perceive that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. They also understand that they have come into a universal family of God that joins them via His Spirit and the Bible.

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The gospel—God’s wisdom—is foolishness to those that do not have the Holy Spirit. “Where is the one who is wise?” and further  “Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor 1: 20 ESV)

Here the apostle Paul is simply saying that without the Holy Spirit a man cannot perceive wisdom or guidance for the scriptures:

“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe…but we preach Christ crucified…to those who are called…Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men”. (1 Cor 1: 21-25 ESV)

The gospel message, by its very simplicity, appears foolish to those who think themselves wise by human standards. Paul was a brilliant scholar. He could have overwhelmed his audiences with arguments, statistics, and brilliant ideas. Though he may have risen in intellectual assent on the stage, he would not be motivating saving faith.

Faith that depends on clever arguments and debate will eventually be undermined if another logical argument or more influential teacher comes along. Faith grounded in the power of the Holy Spirit, however, cannot be undermined. The simple message of Jesus Christ, who had been crucified for the world’s sins is a simple, direct message that moves men’s hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit (2:4).

Preachers and teachers of the Word of God do not depend on using wise and persuasive writing or preaching to change people’s hearts. That happens only by the work of the Holy Spirit. The power of a person’s conversion occurs not because of any teacher or the preacher but through the Holy Spirit when the hearer allows Christ into His mind via the Holy Spirit by opening up ones’ heart to God’s transforming power.

A simple message dependent upon the Holy Spirit’s power for its effectiveness is what helps people see their own sinfulness, rebellion and stubbornness when standing against or ignoring the guidance of God via the Holy Spirit about His Son’s death on the cross to engage a process of reconciliation.

There are many brands of human wisdom in the world which distract from the core message to simply trust the power of God for our salvation. The Gospel message of Christ is not like teaching philosophy, not dependent on models of behaviour or demographic scores of what nationality or US state is the happiest, social media algorithms, marketing metrics, scientific theory or debating speculative notions, for these never saved anyone. The kind of wisdom that belongs to this world offers nothing. It only offers  “a regression to an idolatrous concept of God, and a transformation of the love of God into a relationship fitting an alienated character structure”. Thus, the teacher of God’s wisdom, unlike worldly wisdom is not taught in order to impress anyone.

Because of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, believers can grasp this secret wisdom of God, referring to God’s offer of salvation to all people made available through Jesus’ death on the cross. This plan was “secret” because only through God’s wisdom and the insight given by his Spirit can people begin to comprehend it. Attempting to understand this plan with human wisdom and through philosophical discussions will take people nowhere. Only God, through the Holy Spirit, can reveal it (2:10).

“And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:13-14)

You may ask who is the Holy Spirit? God is three persons in one—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God became a man in Jesus so that Jesus could die for our sins. Jesus rose from the dead to offer salvation to all people through spiritual renewal and rebirth. When Jesus ascended into heaven, his physical presence left the earth, but he promised to send the Holy Spirit so that his spiritual presence would still be among mankind (see Luke 24:49). The Holy Spirit first became available to the disciples after the Resurrection on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2).

Only the Spirit can reveal to believers God’s profound nature and wonderful plan, especially that formerly hidden mystery that is now revealed—salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Just as a person cannot penetrate another person’s thought processes, so “no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit” (2 Cor 2:11) The only way to know God is to know his Holy Spirit, to have him in one’s life. The only way to obtain the Holy Spirit is to accept, by faith, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The Holy Spirit is a distinct person, yet one in essence and function with God the Father.

 

 

Decision Making and Guidance, Discernment and Thinking, Spirit Led Leadership Today

The importance of who we marry

“…swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” (Genesis 24:1-9 ESV)

The story of Isaac and Rebekah
This is the story of a man seeking a bride for his son after his beloved mother Sarah had died. The story begins when Isaac’s father Abraham instructs his trusted servant to find a wife for his son, not from the inhabitants of Canaan where they lived, but from his native land, from people he knew were living closer to his God. This was so important to Abraham that he had his servant swear on it.

Abraham had been promised major blessings by God if he led his children also to walk with God and serve Him. This blessing was to be for all his children for all future generations. Bottom line, Abraham must “command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD”. He must also position future generations to follow the Lord.

“Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” (Genesis 18: 18-19 ESV)

Abraham wants to make sure that he is arranging success for his son Isaac according to the promise of the Lord – and this includes future generations. We can see two important tactics that can lead to better futures for our children:

1. Protecting their Social Life That they are not allowed to mix socially with or marry those who do not follow the Lord – who have entirely the opposite interests and friends, and
2. Marry in the Lord The apostle Paul’s advice to marry “only in the Lord”— is counsel that should govern the conduct of all Christians (see 1 Cor. 7:39) and it not to be fluffed off when faced with social decisions. Parents are to govern the social connections of the children, especially regarding marriage.

The Bible teaches that Christian children need some guidance by their fathers to find a godly woman or man suitable to develop a future life with, where their children will also be taught to follow the Lord as fist priority. Future generations and their children will also be taught to follow the Lord as fist priority. Husbands and wives must collaborate to lead the family for Christ.

What if they children do not follow this counsel? Perhaps the children rebelled, or there was not Christian leadership agreement in their home when growing up. If they have married outside of the Lord, the hope now would be that both the husband and the wife (the children once married) both find and renew a relationship with the Lord and His Word. God’s love is patient and cannot be exhausted. “The Lord…is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 NIV)

Abraham’s concern for God’s promise for Isaac and his children  All children born into Christian homes have a higher purpose when they are born. The narrative moves to God allowing Sarah to become pregnant after being without child into her old age.

“Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.” (Genesis 21:1-3 NIV)

Often, no explanation is given as to why God commands certain ways of living, but there is a principle that we reap what we sow. The seeds that we sow or allow to be sown into our children’s’ lives will eventually be harvested. In fact reaping is a farming law: we reap the same that we sow, more than we sow, later than we sow. If our children are exposed to others who drink unto drunkenness, share pornography (a pandemic among teenagers), have friends who commit adultery, or who disdain Christianity, it follows that this is the crop that you will see harvested in your own children’s lives. I can’t emphasize this biblical principle more: Whatever we sow we’ll reap, what we sow, more than we sow, later than we sow. We have the privilege to water and plant and God causes the increase (1 Cor 3:6-9).  And if we don’t water and plant good seed, nothing good grows.

Abraham’s desire that Isaac inter-marry with a woman who was not native to Canaan where he lived appears to be a further expression of the notion of the two lines of blessing and curse seen in Genesis 9:25–27: “Cursed be Canaan!” but “Blessed be the LORD the God…” Truly the downside of not following Jesus Christ as Lord is the final curse of eternal death. The blessing is eternal life as Jesus promised: ““I am telling you the truth: those who hear my words and believe in him who sent me, have eternal life. They will not be judged, but have already passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24 GNT) The inhabitants of Canaan were considered to be under a divine curse for their sinful lives (see Genesis 15:16). The seed of Abraham was to be kept separate from the seed of Canaan.

The servant in search for Isaac’s bride The account of the servants success was accomplished because he achieved finding Rebekah as a wife for Isaac prayerfully by faith. The lesson here is that if our intent is to follow God’s will and marry in the faith of Jesus Christ God will lead the way until it is achieved to His glory. The servant of Abraham had success by faith and praised God for finding Rebekah for Isaac. “Before I finished praying in my heart, Rebekah came out…”

“When I came to the spring today, I said, ‘LORD, God of my master Abraham, if you will, please grant success to the journey on which I have come. See, I am standing beside this spring. If a young woman comes out to draw water and I say to her, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar,” and if she says to me, “Drink, and I’ll draw water for your camels too,” let her be the one the LORD has chosen for my master’s son.’ “Before I finished praying in my heart, Rebekah came out, with her jar on her shoulder. She went down to the spring and drew water, and I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’” (Genesis 24:42-45 ESV)

God understands everything to do with love and how it is only able to be nurtured in full in the context of loving God first. (see The Manifesto of God’s Love)

Discernment and Thinking, Uncategorized

God Knows our Mind

glen001-sm  By Glen R. Jackman

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 ESV)

God understands our thoughts and discerns the motives of our mind, which is clear from the above verse: “discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”. The NLT version uses the word “exposes” for discerning while the NIV uses the word “judges”. The reality is that God knows our thoughts and as our creator assesses the construction of our attitudes framing all our thinking which is the cause and effect of our actions – our deeds. This is a truth that the great prophet Jeremiah pointed out when the majority of the Israelite’s due to wayward leadership, had wandered away from God, and would soon go into captivity under His judgement: “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:10 NIV) The link between Yahweh assessing the mind is directly related to our outward actions towards God and man: “according to…their deeds”.

God Searches our hearts
As we seek to follow the Lord in holiness, we need to comprehend that He is indeed aware of our every thought. Jesus while on earth, indicated that he knew the thoughts of men before they even spoke: “Jesus knowing their thoughts said, ‘Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?’” (Matthew 9:4 NAS) He reiterated this ability as our Lord in heaven – he searches our hearts in relation to our deeds: “I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.” (Revelation 2:23 NASV)

This revelation of God’s unity with us in mind as our creator who has set guidelines for our thinking, was expanded by our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount: “but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart”. (Matthew 5:28 NASV) Jesus was expanding the principles of the New Covenant based on the axiom of love. He would further pray that His disciples live out this maximal importance of unity of thinking based on the Law of Love with the effect that others would believe in the Gospel mission of redemption. He prayed: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”. (John 17:21 ESV)

Paul would echo this in his writing. He advocated that we would have our minds lined up with God’s mind to reflect His views on life and His Sovereign governance: “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” and that God would give us “the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had”, with the primary intention “that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 2:5; Romans 15:5-6 NASV )

Understanding God’s Mind as a Master Database
With our ability to search rapidly for any theory or information that man has ever developed or philosophies conceived, it is easy for us to fathom a God who can know what we are thinking and/or search our minds which He made. Moreover He wants to bring our mind into harmony with His will via our unity of mind with Him to the extent that the Spirit Himself prays for us to achieve this. “He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27 NASV) King David contemplated this unity of mind when he wrote his beautiful Psalm about God’s all-knowing watch care: “You have searched me, LORD, and you know me” (Psalm 139:1 NIV) This ability to knowingly search our mind is prophesied also by Jeremiah. God said to him: “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind” (Jeremiah 17:10 NIV)

Some may think that they can side-step God’s two royal laws as His mandate to live according to love by both loving the Lord first and your neighbour as yourself (cf. Matthew 22:39) without saying “Lord who is my neighbour?” Of the Pharisees He said, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. ‘What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight’” (Luke 15:15 NIV). His all-knowingness was confessed to the Lord when the disciples prayed for mission guidance “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen” (Acts 1:24 NIV)

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Michelangelo, The Last Judgement, Sistine Chapel Ceiling

Benedict Spinoza was a Jewish philosopher who understood the reason why and how God knows our every thought. When you study his Ethics he evidently viewed our lesser mind as inset in God’s Sovereign Mind which governs our thoughts by inspiring or by judiciously knowing them. He points out that our thoughts are inadequate compared to His own, which any Christian will admit is true. What he developed was the truth that our minds are operative and functional as tandem to and housed in God’s primary Mind: “whatsoever takes place in the object constituting the idea of the human mind, the knowledge thereof is necessarily in God, in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind.” This does not mean that God condones sinful thinking. He rather patiently allows it until the second advent of Jesus Christ.

When we contemplate the importance of thinking holy thoughts as we are resident minds within His overseeing mind, as One with Him, we are deeply humbled as we also realize that our thoughts, if not monitored, self-controlled and carefully submitted to the Holy Spirit’s leading, can be corrupted by this world’s influence in which we live, even as little as having a judgemental attitude toward an erring brother. As Christians, we must understand Christ’s priestly prayer to His Father on our behalf, to be united in mind with Him as He is united in Mind with the Father.

Spinoza though not a professing Christian gets this right: “whatsoever takes place in the object constituting the idea of the human mind, the knowledge thereof is necessarily in God, in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind”. Considering that we are made in His image, his deduction about man’s thinking is profound: “the essence of man is constituted by certain modifications of the attributes of God”.

We can also fathom why God is vindicated when we abuse our rights and misuse our minds to think ungodly thoughts. Many today are tempted by think of the lusts of the flesh as this is rampant in our culture. Spinoza using careful deductive reasoning comes to the realization that we are, in my own words, hosted minds within God’s Mind. To abuse this honour would be dangerously parasitic. We have looked at scripture which supports this view that God with responsibility only to His own glory must finally judge men and women who live wildly without concern for His allowance of our operative mind as secondary to His Mind, and concomitant life within and secondary to His source of life – via the Spirit, and connected to His being as the great I am:

Everyone must surely admit, that nothing can be or be conceived without God. All men agree that God is the one and only cause of all things, both of their essence and of their existence; that is, God is not only the cause of things in respect to their being made (secundum fieri), but also in respect to their being (secundum esse).

God will vindicate His holiness and magnify His glory at the final judgement ushered in when Christ comes in the clouds in His full glory with all His holy angels to separate the godly from the ungodly: “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” (Revelation 22:11 KJV)