Pentecost 12a Belief, The Eye of the Mind

[HKHaugan]

Pentecost 12a Belief, The Eye of the Mind

“...Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason [belief] for the hope that is in you...(1Peter 3:15).”

This is the first in a three part series preparing us for the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday. It definitely won't cover everything. It's not intended to. The purpose is to get us to think and act with a deeper awareness of the gift we have been given, the Holy Spirit. You are a unique depository of His fruit and gifts. The Lord Jesus left the world so that the Holy Spirit would come to be our personal Counselor in every next moment. He is the One who gives us the ability to see and understand things that can't be seen. He gives us spiritual eyes to see meaning, discernment, purpose and power, the transforming power renewing the mind, the heart and the spirit with the mind, heart and Spirit of God. So let's begin.

I'm sure you've heard the expression “Seeing is believing?” Well, it's not true. From my spiritual perspective believing is seeing.

Let that soak in for a moment.

The reasoning we use to sort out our experience is what our mind believes. When we ask ourselves or someone else to be reasonable what are we really doing? We're asking that they pause and consider the basis for their response. Instead of reacting impetuously, will their response reflect what they believe may provide the best outcome? Scripture tells us to be quick to listen and slow to speak in order to perceive what is really taking place (James 1:19). When belief precedes an action, the action will reflect the belief. Every next moment is really dependent on individual belief. Individual belief is the work of the Holy Spirit building a mind that reasons spiritually.

If we perceive something, say an attitude, can we trust the conclusions we make about it? That is, are we reading that attitude accurately? What is the reasoning behind it? We have to remember that our sinful nature tends to work for safety out of fear and pride. We may have a correct assumption but it will still be processed to put us in control not only of how we think about it but also how we react to it. How do we really see it in our ‘mind’s eye?’ How do we reason, believe, it to be?
This is precisely why we begin with the basis for our reasoning. As we have already stated, the condition of our heart will affect how we make conclusions. If Jesus is Lord of our heart then we have a beginning as the quote from Peter has said. He is the spiritual beginning to inform our mind, our reason, for making the conclusions we do. We need to get an accurate read for our perception. Again, if our perception can be understood as our ‘first impression’, then what do we do with those ‘first impressions?’ What we believe in will determine that.

The only place we can begin to recover our ‘mind’s eye’, our reasoning, our belief, is to gaze at the ‘eye’ the Lord has given us to recover our perception, Scripture. It’s also called “Keeping your head in the right place.” In Scripture is God’s perception of Himself, His Creation, His people and His environment, visible and invisible. It is not until we see things from His perspective that our perception can be accurately led. What has to happen is rethinking everything scripturally because that’s the way God thinks. It's the way Jesus thought and what He believed. It’s our inner spiritual environment, what our mind believes, that determines the deeper issues lying behind everything we see, feel, hear, taste and touch. The Holy Spirit energizes the mind to think scripturally as Jesus thinks.

Let’s take a simple issue the present culture complicates, gender. If we start with the idea of our beginnings and leave God out of it what do we conclude? First, the obvious, we are physically male and female. But it gets sticky from that point on because we have to start with what we perceive first about ourselves and then others.. This is where secular culture steps in and tells us there is more to being male and female than we can see. Self-perception rules the day. When we start looking within we know that there is an invisible difference but just what is it? If there is no understanding of God then self-definition is a belief system.

This is when we scramble around for ideas and usually turn to some secular authority for a conclusion. Here we get a spectrum of opinions. Let’s take one and follow it through from a world point of view. There is an invisible male and a female nature. As human beings grow they absorb both from their parents and we find that there is a blend of the male and female in each of us. Men may have a feminine side and women a masculine side. If a man cries that’s his feminine side coming out. When a woman is assertive that is her male side coming out. This kind of thinking then becomes justification that we are born with two sides and if one side dominates that is what we are, thus opening the door to all kinds of gender and behavior confusion. It even affects the way we define and treat one another. Look at what the Supreme Court has done with this, oh my, and they are supposed to represent the best legal minds in the country. So much for the secular mind.

If you really want to see where the world is going with gender issues, a recent article about Facebook's policy on gender (Daily Beast article, 2/15/14, in Google) has reached the level of acute absurdity. It's boardroom 'experts' have arrived at 51, yes fifty-one, definitions of gender. Facebook has given Babel's Tower 51 new man-made bricks in its attempt to replace God's simple male/female designation. The bottom line is what Facebook's boardroom is pushing---every individual has the right to determine their own gender. Self-perception leads to self-definition which leads to self-expression with a mind used for self-justification which results in self-alienation and self-isolation. It's a moral free-fall free-for-all that isolates every individual into a self-defining prison of aloneness, the devil's dream-scheme for us all, hell in a nutshell. It's socio-political tool is political correctness. If you apply this sedcular reasoning to the legal supervision of public bathroom use according to Facebook authority, then there should be 51 bathrooms and at least one other for those whose self-definition is not covered! “God made man simple but man complicated it (Eccl.7:29).”

We have even complicated the way we think about God. Sin does that. We have a tendency to impose our ideas on Him (fancily called 'anthropomorphism'). We define Him instead of letting Him define us. For instance, if we are created in the image of God it is logical that since we are male and female He must be both as well. Not only that, He creates people who are heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual and 'Facebookized' polysexuals.

This changes and undermines our relational perception. In fact how we talk about God is changed. He is no longer a ‘He’ but also a ‘She’ and an ‘It.’ This means there are ultimately no limits to the way people define and justify anything. There are no moral limits. Everything is relative to how any individual conceives it. Now we refer to people not as ‘mankind’ but as ‘human kind’ because someone male, female or polysexual may be offended. Ouch! Political correctness born in the manger of the Tower of Babel. Every individual able to define God for themselves and ultimately themselves as a god. Can we see the devil’s hand in all of this getting us to concentrate on differences and change our perception to separate us from God and one another? Aloneness with its icy fear is a frozen tundra for the heart. It's hell's doorway and just inside, the devil's gleeful invitation, “Come on in, the fire's fine.” O Holy Spirit forgive us for our blatant misuse of the gift of reason.

The Bible clears all of this up in Genesis. If you read it carefully you will see He created Adam and Eve, male and female. The God who has no beginning created a beginning. Male and female were spiritual ideas He created. He is not male and female. They were created by a spiritual God to be physically male and female. But even more importantly God created the idea and the physical containers He calls male and female to reproduce themselves. His purpose was to create a physical universe as an environment for spiritual images of Himself, little 'I am's', who would perceive and share His spiritual reality of love, relationship and cause their reproduction. He desired images of Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, (mind, heart and spirit) to be experienced in the physical. He is a God of love and relationship balanced by the Holy Spirit.

Let's repeat a very important truth here. His nature is not male and female but Holy, spiritual, personal, relational, loving, all-perceiving, all-seeing and all-knowing. Jesus is His exact image, the way He is in mind, heart, Spirit and the way He lives. He is above and beyond His Creation yet intimately involved in every detail of it. When He became a man in Jesus it was to restore our mind to believe like He did, to perceive spiritually and to bring physical reality back into order through it.

It was the devil who works hard to separate our minds and hearts from God and one another. When the devil tempted Adam and Eve the chose to think apart from God. It was then they experienced ‘perception-separation’ from God and one another. They perceived through the lenses of sin, pride, blame and fear. This is when self-perception replaced spiritual perception and self-definition emerged. Thus began man and woman's descending trek down the road of lonely speculation about who and what they were. Their reasoning became our reasoning. Reason apart from God's reason; lonely self-justifying belief.

Man's new definition: ‘Humankind?’ What does Gen. 5:2 say? “Male and female He created them and He called them, ‘Man.’” It is man's sinful nature that interpreted 'man' and 'mankind' as offensive terms. Put them in proper context. Mankind is male and female; a physical and spiritual creation; equal relationally and socially but different in function. Man and woman are first spiritual and their minds can only find definition and purpose in the ‘eye of God’s mind,’ Holy Scripture.

Now perhaps, we can see why Paul tells Timothy “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry (2Tim.4:1-5 NIV).”

We have a higher mission that involves not wallowing in self-assertion but believing the Lord Jesus and letting Him direct the traffic in our lives. This is when true reasoning begins. That means in our every next moment because every next moment was created by Him for us. As disciples of Jesus the way we think about God, ourselves, others and the world around us, starts with thinking spiritually, scripturally and patiently. It's allowing the Holy Spirit to do His work in us.