Kingdom's Keys Fellowship
Where God's Kingdom Meets Man's Heart.
Resurrection 7 Resurrection and the Mind
When asked which was the greatest commandment, Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matt.22:37).” Mark and Luke add, “…and with all your strength.”
“Have you heard the latest about the movie star, the golfer, the preacher, the lawyer, the politician, what Sally said about Joe next door, what I saw on TV about that senator and his girlfriend, about what is really going on in DC, the nation and the world?” and on and on it goes and where it stops, nobody knows. Isn’t it interesting that we are so ready to let the media get their minds around our minds and we believe whatever comes across their screens and pages as fact? How we repeat almost verbatim the reportage, statements and conclusions reached by talking heads and so called experts?
We really don’t know first hand nor do they and even if they are on the scene they don’t have perfect perception and consequently make imperfect conclusions. What we have to recognize is the necessity to sift everything through our minds, also imperfect, and try to glean a core idea out of what we perceive. Note also the distance of the events and people involved. How can we possibly make accurate conclusions? All of this takes place in our minds, a process that is invisible and dependent on a further base for operation, belief. It is all about what we believe we are seeing, hearing and sensing. Everyone believes in something. Belief is the filter for our perception.
Whether a person is an atheist, an agnostic, a universalist or some religionist, they possess a belief system by which they analyze, judge and determine what is happening and how they will respond. In a sense the mind operates as the port-of-entry for our experience. The ’something’ is what we call a worldview. The question this raises immediately is, “How do we know what we believe in, our personal worldview, is the best way to think about and act on what we experience?”
Someone recently said to me, “I am free, free from what other people think, free of doctrine, free to think like I think, without restriction.” Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? What a freeing worldview. But just declaring you are free doesn’t make it so. Because of imperfection in every area of human perception, mind, heart and spirit, no one is free. Consequently, no decision or conclusion we make is perfect. We are really slaves to our imperfect conclusions.
Three truths call for facing what is really taking place in us. First, we are alone in mind, heart and spirit in a singular body. No one can get into any one else’s mind. Second, no one can grasp all the facets of their own minds. Third, no one can obtain the knowledge and insight necessary to achieve perfect comprehension. We are all limited, bound, restricted, by lack of complete knowledge, lack of complete wisdom and lack of perfect conclusions. This condition hungers for the very perfection it doesn’t have. To complicate this hazy picture we have the spiritual reality of sin and its self-deceptive allure that blurs all perception.
What is required is a return to the very thing that we ultimately rely on for making sense out of life and that is belief as the thinking structure the Creator intended. Belief is the way we order what we experience, how we think about and analyze what we take in. This is where the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the starting point for comprehension, analysis and decision-making. It tells us that thinking begins not as an intellectual process apart from God but as a spiritual filtering system that uses the Word of God and relies on His presence in the Spirit to guide us. Paul tells us that what we need is to stop thinking the way the ‘world’ thinks which is self-based apart from God. As he says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Ro.12:2).” He calls us to shift into an entirely different mode that is God-based.
The ‘world’ starts with the assumption we have the will and the mental tools to think toward perfection. But perfect belief is found only in Jesus whose Resurrection indicates His perfect will, belief, trust and faith. If we want to think perfectly it only starts when we allow the Spirit to guide us through the Word of God to His will. His Word allows the principles it sets to analyze, judge and decide what has to be done in every next moment. If we don’t get something right it is not because of the Spirit but because of our imperfection. The point is that faith is the way we get beyond our imperfections to God’s perfection. Faith is what determines whether or not we come close to getting what God wants. It is God’s will that is perfect. Suppose, just suppose, what it would be like that instead of letting the media and the world get their mind around us we do something entirely different. We let God get His mind around us. We let Him renew our mind "...with all our strength." You see, we really only have two choices, my will or God’s will. It is by faith in the presence of the risen Jesus that “…you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Ro.12:2).”
More on the mind and the work of the Spirit in it…stay tuned……..
“Have you heard the latest about the movie star, the golfer, the preacher, the lawyer, the politician, what Sally said about Joe next door, what I saw on TV about that senator and his girlfriend, about what is really going on in DC, the nation and the world?” and on and on it goes and where it stops, nobody knows. Isn’t it interesting that we are so ready to let the media get their minds around our minds and we believe whatever comes across their screens and pages as fact? How we repeat almost verbatim the reportage, statements and conclusions reached by talking heads and so called experts?
We really don’t know first hand nor do they and even if they are on the scene they don’t have perfect perception and consequently make imperfect conclusions. What we have to recognize is the necessity to sift everything through our minds, also imperfect, and try to glean a core idea out of what we perceive. Note also the distance of the events and people involved. How can we possibly make accurate conclusions? All of this takes place in our minds, a process that is invisible and dependent on a further base for operation, belief. It is all about what we believe we are seeing, hearing and sensing. Everyone believes in something. Belief is the filter for our perception.
Whether a person is an atheist, an agnostic, a universalist or some religionist, they possess a belief system by which they analyze, judge and determine what is happening and how they will respond. In a sense the mind operates as the port-of-entry for our experience. The ’something’ is what we call a worldview. The question this raises immediately is, “How do we know what we believe in, our personal worldview, is the best way to think about and act on what we experience?”
Someone recently said to me, “I am free, free from what other people think, free of doctrine, free to think like I think, without restriction.” Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? What a freeing worldview. But just declaring you are free doesn’t make it so. Because of imperfection in every area of human perception, mind, heart and spirit, no one is free. Consequently, no decision or conclusion we make is perfect. We are really slaves to our imperfect conclusions.
Three truths call for facing what is really taking place in us. First, we are alone in mind, heart and spirit in a singular body. No one can get into any one else’s mind. Second, no one can grasp all the facets of their own minds. Third, no one can obtain the knowledge and insight necessary to achieve perfect comprehension. We are all limited, bound, restricted, by lack of complete knowledge, lack of complete wisdom and lack of perfect conclusions. This condition hungers for the very perfection it doesn’t have. To complicate this hazy picture we have the spiritual reality of sin and its self-deceptive allure that blurs all perception.
What is required is a return to the very thing that we ultimately rely on for making sense out of life and that is belief as the thinking structure the Creator intended. Belief is the way we order what we experience, how we think about and analyze what we take in. This is where the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the starting point for comprehension, analysis and decision-making. It tells us that thinking begins not as an intellectual process apart from God but as a spiritual filtering system that uses the Word of God and relies on His presence in the Spirit to guide us. Paul tells us that what we need is to stop thinking the way the ‘world’ thinks which is self-based apart from God. As he says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Ro.12:2).” He calls us to shift into an entirely different mode that is God-based.
The ‘world’ starts with the assumption we have the will and the mental tools to think toward perfection. But perfect belief is found only in Jesus whose Resurrection indicates His perfect will, belief, trust and faith. If we want to think perfectly it only starts when we allow the Spirit to guide us through the Word of God to His will. His Word allows the principles it sets to analyze, judge and decide what has to be done in every next moment. If we don’t get something right it is not because of the Spirit but because of our imperfection. The point is that faith is the way we get beyond our imperfections to God’s perfection. Faith is what determines whether or not we come close to getting what God wants. It is God’s will that is perfect. Suppose, just suppose, what it would be like that instead of letting the media and the world get their mind around us we do something entirely different. We let God get His mind around us. We let Him renew our mind "...with all our strength." You see, we really only have two choices, my will or God’s will. It is by faith in the presence of the risen Jesus that “…you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Ro.12:2).”
More on the mind and the work of the Spirit in it…stay tuned……..
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Comment by jacque Wright on April 26, 2010 at 6:33pm
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Thank you Whitey for your inspirational writings. God is so good to give you such insights to share with us and we are so fortunate to be the recipients of your wisdom. Your writings really help me and I'm sure many others; stay on course in our daily lives. Thank you again,
Jacque
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