OPENING OF HEART – Chapter 1 -part 3
NEW HEART AND MIND
(1) “That YE PUT OFF concerning the former conversation (old way of expressing yourself) the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts…
(2) And be RENEWED in the spirit of your mind…
(3) And that YE PUT ON the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
(Eph. 4:22-24)
These should be well known passages of the Scripture which we will now consider in the light of the above facts concerning heart, will and mind. These three above verses will be kept and considered separately as it is important to see the “process” of our Salvation as to our heart, will and mind. (see also Col. 3:9,10)
Our old man, old nature, old creation consists of old heart, old will and old mind. All three have to be renewed, transformed, revived. In their old natural state, they live emotionally and intellectually, but spiritually they are dead. (1Tim. 5:6// Rev. 3:1) If we are born again (Jn. 3:3-8), the Life of God only revives and begins to rule our spirit, but does not rule our soul! This old, dead man ruling our soul has to be “put off” being corrupt according to his deceitful lusts and thus totally unusable and unacceptable to the Lord and for His desires, goals and intentions.
1. Verse 22 points to the renewal, recreation of our old heart and will.
2. Verse 23 points to the renewal, recreation of our old mind.
3. Verse 24 points to the “putting on” of the new heart, new will and new mind, which form our New Man.
Instead of submerging ourselves into a lot of theology, I prefer to give my living experiences and faith of how the Lord goes about this “process” with every believer.
1. Ephesians 4:22
The very first fact we have to notice in verse 22 and 24 is that WE have to “put off our old man” and “put on our new man”, God will not do it for us! God will only provide the power and guidance enabling us to make that decision in our heart and do it! If we just “wait on the Lord that He might do in us what He wants”, we are terribly deceived and are missing our Salvation. (see also 2Cor. 7:1// Phil. 2:12) God’s basic steps and guidance for us are as follows.
Firstly, the Lord starts knocking on the “door” of our HEART (Rev. 3:20) after we are “weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts”. (Is. 28:9) This is to say, that after we have finished our spiritual childhood (Heb. 5:13) and are ready to learn spiritual knowledge and understand it in our HEART (Mt. 13:15), the Lord knocks and waits whether we open our heart to Him, or not. The “door knob” is only on the inside and no one can open our heart, only us. He keeps knocking (maybe even through this book or through similar means) until we open our heart to Our Saviour, Who only lives in and rules our spirit. When we open our heart to Him, He may get in and slowly and progressively establish His rule in our heart and then in the whole soul.
Before He is allowed into our heart and rule there, we have no right to call Him “Our Lord”! He is Our Saviour, but WE keep ruling our soul and life and not Him! (Lk. 6:46) Ponder this truth in your heart.
Being in our heart, the Lord may then start to fellowship with us. Through that fellowship, He may begin to “know us” and we may begin to “know Him” (Mt. 7:23; 25: 11,12), and that, not just as Our SAVIOUR, but also as Our LORD with Power and Authority over our life!
Concerning fellowship, it is the same in our physical life where only close friends who fellowship personally can get to know each other well. No matter how much we read or hear about a person, we never know that person until we begin to meet personally and talk and share our hearts and minds. True? This is also the reason for dating before marriage. We are also supposed to “date” Our Saviour and Lord before our “marriage to Him”. He will not marry us unless we become wise virgins. And if we do not “date” Him, we will not know one another, not have His Life and we will remain foolish virgins. (Mt. 25:8-12// Jn. 5:40)
After entering our HEART, the Lord brings His Light, Truth and Life into it and slowly begins to show us, here a little and there a little (Is. 28:10), the pride, self-righteousness, unbelief, deceptions, bitterness, wickedness, stubbornness, unwillingness or other evil, filth, and undesirable features in our old heart. It is like opening the gate to our property, garden, vineyard, which we did not keep (S.Sol. 1:6) to a master-gardener. He would begin to change our “jungle” full of strange, dangerous, poisonous, creepy creatures and plants into a lovely garden full of beautiful flowers, shrubs, grass fields, ponds, waterfalls and spices. (S.Sol. 4:12-16) We alone could not do that but Our Master-Gardener will require our time and cooperation at every step.
Secondly, the Lord works also in our WILL so that we would be WILLING to do HIS good pleasure also and not always our own. (Phil. 2:13) What is His good pleasure? To create in us a new, clean, pure heart (Ps. 51:10), as it were, a new garden, vineyard (S.Sol. 4:12-16) with a new spirit, and make us spiritually living… for why should we remain (spiritually) dead? The Lord has no pleasure in our death (separation from Him). (Ez. 18:30-32; 36:26,27// Ps. 24:3,4)
When we then ask, desire and allow His Spirit to take away that evil part from our heart, which He showed us, we are WORKING OUT OUR OWN SALVATION! (Phil. 2:12) In other words, we are COOPERATING with God in fear and trembling to create our new heart … little by little… through His Word, which causes us to fall back and be broken and taken and snared in our old heart. (Is. 28:13)
This is done in us as we are growing up into Christ, and this process continues until our heart is new, clean and pure. (Mt. 5:8// Eph. 4:15) This usually lasts our lifetime and, maybe, a few hundred more years into the Millennial Kingdom of Heaven on earth. (see page B4[7])
Our heart and will must first be sufficiently renewed in order that our mind could also follow its renewal process. The order of these verses is thus Divinely set and shows that the Lord does not start with our mind.
2. Ephesians 4:23
Whenever a filthy, evil, dead part was removed from our heart (through discipline and repentance) and a new, clean, pure and living part created, the ISSUE OF OUR LIFE IN THAT PART OF OUR HEART (Pr. 4:23) WAS ALSO REVIVED and it is now able to “see, hear and understand” God! This new and living part of our HEART and the new part of our WILL are now united and totally subjected to God and His Will. This is an important fact and, I also believe, it is absolutely necessary for any subsequent renewal work in our mind. The full impact of this fact will be seen later on as we discuss this issue and penetrate more into the mysteries of Salvation and the progressive re-creation of our old soul in Christ Jesus.
God then reaches into our mind and brings into it the same light from our renewed heart showing the areas of unrighteous thoughts, judgments, foolishness, darkness, stubbornness, and other evil. The mind is then enabled to depart from its darkness and evil, be cleansed and begin to think righteously, wisely and truthfully in that same area where our HEART and WILL have already been renewed. Thus our HEART and WILL are united supporting that same light in our MIND. There is no opposition, no disagreement, no discord within our own soul – in that area.
THE RENEWED ISSUE OF LIFE IN OUR HEART HAS BECOME THE BASIS OF NEW THINKING, REASONING AND COMPREHENSION IN OUR MIND. THE THREE ORGANS OF OUR SOUL ARE BECOMING UNITED INTO ONE – IN THAT RENEWED AREA.
The renewal of our mind is thus dependent on the renewal of our heart and will – in any particular area of our life, in any ISSUE OF OUR LIFE. It is a slow process as the Lord already indicated in His Word – here a little, there a little. He could not show us our whole old heart or mind and expect us to be able to give up all of our old life at once, which is impossible, but rather progressively. It is sufficiently hard and painful to give up a little here and a little there. You must have experienced on at least some occasions that your heart and mind “did not agree” on some important LIFE ISSUES, and your will had a hard time to make a decision. You were simply undecided. This also means that there was no unity in your soul. True?
MANY TIMES WE MAY AGREE WITH SOME TRUTH IN OUR MIND – BUT OUR HEART IS OPPOSED TO IT! THERE IS A CONFLICT WITHIN US AND THUS WE ARE UNABLE TO USE OR LIVE THAT TRUTH IN OUR LIFE! OUR “HOUSE” IS DIVIDED AND WE MAY NOT BE FULLY AWARE OF THIS FACT! (Mt. 12:25)
We may not be aware that our heart may not go along with our mind. Hence, in some crucial moments, we are not able to follow and live the truth, which our mind “accepted and agreed with” because OUR HEART IS NOT IN IT! This then results in a mental religion where we may agree with one another while we remain impotent to do or live what we agreed on.
Haven’t you ever noticed it in your own life? Haven’t you noticed that no matter how much religious knowledge you may have accumulated in your mind and agreed with, it did not help you in the time of need? No matter how many important notes you put into your notebook, in real daily life, were you ever able to execute your notes or did you fail every time? Why? Because your knowledge and notes were not “transferred” into your blood, which is your life (Deut. 12:23), they only remained in your memory, if at all.
Hence, the corresponding LIFE ISSUES IN YOUR HEART REMAINED UNTOUCHED, THUS, UNCHANGED!
Why are such things possible? Because the HEART has not been touched by the Spirit and no spiritual work, no spiritual change has occurred in it. Why? The Lord was not allowed access into your heart even though you might never admit or believe that. But your fruit always shows the reality as opposed to your wishes, dreams or persuasions.
Whenever our fruit is not good, we try to defend ourselves and find the causes for our mistakes or shortcomings OUTSIDE OF US, in what we do or do not do, thus derailing the attention from the main problem. The main problem is usually INSIDE OF US. It is not what we do or do not do, but what WE ARE INSIDE. Our efforts may be commendable, our ways always clean in our own eyes, but our spirits (of our mind, heart and will) are continually “judged-assessed” by the Lord! The Lord keeps weighing, judging our spirits in which we walk and do our deeds. He judges the SOURCE of our deeds and not the deeds themselves! (Pr. 16:2) Hence, conflicts within us cause conflicts outside of us.
Yet another fact to remember and believe is as follows. We may be singing beautiful hymns, hands raised toward Heaven, tears streaming down our cheeks, emotions filling our soul. There is nothing wrong with that – yet – that does not mean or prove that any spiritual change has been done in our heart, will or mind! It may just be an emotional religion. How do I know? I went through these things for years myself, together with many brethren who were in the same congregations. Yet, our pride, arrogance, stubbornness, foolishness, fears, envy, darkness and other undesirable things in our hearts remained unaffected and unchanged!
Again, I experienced it myself. Right after our blessed service, the Lord tested some of the souls that sang and praised Him loudly – and they failed. They could not even shake my hand, look into my eyes, greet me or speak freely with me, their spirit could not meet me face to face. (see also page 13[8]) Why? What spirits had their grip on them?
True Salvation involves a true overcoming of our own selves and it is always accompanied by at least some degree of suffering and pain and death!
TO CHANGE OUR MIND IS NOT PAINFUL, TO CHANGE OUR HEART IS! TO HEAR TRUTH ABOUT OUR OLD SELF IS ALWAYS PAINFUL! THAT’S WHY CHRISTIANS DO NOT DESIRE TO HEAR OR SEEK THE TRUTH ABOUT THEMSELVES. THEY FEAR THEY WOULD NOT LIKE IT… AND THEY ARE RIGHT!
TO SPEAK TRUTH FROM THE OLD HEART IS EXTREMELY PAINFUL, ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE! YOU HAVE TO GET REALLY ANGRY TO START SPEAKING TRUTH FROM YOUR OLD HEART! THE POWER OF YOUR “ANGER” MUST OUTWEIGH THE POWER OF YOUR HYPOCRISY IN ORDER FOR YOU TO SPEAK LIKE THAT. IS THAT TRUE?
Christians always seek love, happiness, peace, prosperity, health, fame and approval from others, and that, under all circumstances… just as pagans do. I know that there is the Word of God in 3John 2. But there may be very, very few believers, who understand this Word in their heart as the Spirit means it, and not just logically.
Firstly, the health and prosperity is meant in – spirit, soul and body – IN THAT ORDER! (1Thess. 5:23) Many believers and ministers (even famous ones) love to take the order backwards. But if my body prospers, it is because my soul prospers first, and my soul prospers when my spirit prospers first. Any carnal Christian may feel that his soul or body prospers, but the Lord knows that it is but a “sweet deception” because true prosperity starts in the spirit.
Secondly, prosperity with God is something very different than prosperity with men. Outside of the Spirit, believers are extremists, they either believe that a “good” Christian must be “always poor and always suffering”, or he must be “always healthy and lacking nothing good”. But both beliefs are from the flesh. The Lord’s truth is that no righteous person was ever forsaken, poor and begging bread (Ps. 37:25). On the other hand, believers must not be covetous, but content with such things as they have, as the Lord granted to them. (Heb. 13:5) They also have to learn in whatever state they are, therewith to be content. (Phil. 4:11) These Words of Our Lord should be the true frame for the picture of our prosperity.
Thirdly, true prosperity from God is conditional on our obedience and service to Him. It is true that…“He does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous,” (Job 36:7) But He also shows them that in their work and their transgressions they have exceeded. And then…
“He opens their ear to discipline and commands that they return from iniquity. IF THEY OBEY AND SERVE HIM, they shall spend their days in prosperity…” (Job 36:8-14, see also Jer. 22: 21, 22 and judge yourselves).
This way of the Spirit may thus be a far cry from the fleshly attempts of many ministers to define the prosperity of their flocks and possibly deceive them thereby.
(To be continued next week in part 4)
brother Hanola
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