Resurrection 9 Why We Have to Think Spiritually

[HKHaugan]

The world hates you. Subtle though it be, it hates your mind, heart and spirit. That is the final truth about the ‘world.’ The reason will emerge here shortly. We want to make clear the world is not the earth. The world the Bible describes is a spiritual structure of thought, principle, spirit and behavior operating apart from God. The world is the summation of a God-made structure that has been taken over by sin and all that is not of God. The original world came through Jesus but sinful people made it work apart from Him to the degree that while “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him (Jn.1:10).” It is not the structure that is bad. It is sin that has distracted and distorted people’s use of God’s Creation.

The world is now run by a prince (Jn.12:31), the original sinner, who is anti-personal, anti-interpersonal and anti-God. He is the father of lies, the prince of darkness and the final deceiver. The devil’s spirit is sin, his power is fear and his manifestation is pride. His technique is temptation. He tempts every human being to take control and keep God at bay. He wants everyone to think they are number one and become legends in their own mind. His goal is the separation of every human being from God so that they are alone in self-centeredness, pride and fear. His arsenal is a cadre of spirits he sends to divide and reinforce all kinds of evil; fear, lust, pride, anger, sloth as he hides behind a multiplicity of idols to confuse and distort everything in God’s creation. He is the master of idolatry, separation and deceit. That’s what he is and does. The good news is that the devil, and everything about him, was defeated by Jesus on the Cross and the proof was Jesus’ Resurrection.

Jesus identifies and defines the separated world, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever (1Jn.2:15-17 NIV)”…and from the Message Bible, ”Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.”

While the devil’s plan was to take over the world God had other plans. “"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (Jn.3:16-17).” What Jesus says is not to love the fallen world but Him instead. Why? Paul says it clearly, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them (2Cor.5:18-19).”

What all this is saying is that for the mind to be recovered only a spiritual remedy will work. A relationship with Jesus is the only way God can get His mind around our mind for it to be healed, set free from sin and restored to the frequency it was designed to operate on. Since our mind was designed spiritually it takes trusting the Holy Spirit of God to realize its true capacity. Sin with its spirits of fear, pride, denial and arrogance cripple the ability of the mind to work to capacity. They take us on tangents that lure us to think apart from God, denying Him access that enables us to be fully human.

This is why Paul with his entire world learning behind him looked at the fallen world’s thinking and declared it to be rubbish when compared to knowing Christ Jesus as His Lord (Php.3:8). He reaffirms Christ’s spiritual thinking as the open door to handling how we approach access to all knowledge whether it be about visible or invisible reality “Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies (Php.4:8-9 The Message).”

More, more, more……..stay tuned……..