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. Also we want to make clear the world we’re talking about is not the earth. When God created everything He said it was good. It was what happened after that that changed everything. So when the New Testament talks about ‘the world’ it’s describing a spiritual structure of thought, principle, spirit and behavior operating apart from God. John Stott, in a question session, was asked ‘What is the world?’ Without hesitation he replied, “The world is secular society.”

What he was saying was that the world is now the summation of a God-made structure that has been corrupted by sin and all that is not of God. The original world came through Jesus but sin in people twisted it to work apart from Him to the degree that when He came “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 a predatory atmosphere of self-centered exploitation. This is why and how ‘the world’ hates you. It has become a place where those who were made to love one another now use one another.

This atmospheric world has its prince (Jn.12:31), the original sinner, who is anti-personal and anti-God. He is the father of lies, the ruler of darkness, in which he hides, and the final deceiver---the devil. He is the source of hate and he really does hate you which is proven by his subtle efforts to get us to be like him, self-centered, prideful, angry, greedy, manipulative and existing only for self.

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 think they can be in control and take control and keep God at bay. He wants everyone to think they are number one and 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, to name a few, as he hides behind a multiplicity of idols, philosophies and religions 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. His critical mass is evil. His ultimate spiritual holocaust is death.

But, good news! Into this ‘world’ Jesus came, drew the devil into the open, exposing him and his strategies, for all to see. The really good news is that the devil, and everything about him, all his weaponry, scheming, evil spirits, demons and his grand slam death, was defeated by Jesus on the Cross. The proof was Jesus’ Resurrection, death defeated, the devil’s weapons and rule neutralized. Jesus did this with the sword of His mouth, the Word, Holy Scripture.

In it Jesus identifies, defines and empowers everyone who believes in Him with the ability to overcome 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).”

Not only are we able through faith in Jesus to survive in the world, we are able to change the world as His change agents. As we move within the world we are equipped by the same power that raised Him from the dead, the Holy Spirit. He can reconcile the world to Jesus through us. That part of the world in which we live is our territory to penetrate and deliver this good news and the new reality that He, Jesus, who is in us is greater than he, the devil, who is in the world.

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 spiritual 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).”