ABILITY OF OUR SOUL
Our unrenewed, uncrucified, natural soul has abilities that we may not be ready to believe or imagine. They all are DANGEROUS to our Christian life, progress and destiny. Here are some facts.
Few believers know, understand and also experience in their own life that God is endeavouring by His Spirit to form them into the “Image of His Son”, which is His Will and Purpose. (Rom. 8:29) But multitudes of believers including many ministers may not know or be aware of the fact that THEIR NATURAL SOULS ARE FORMING GOD INTO THEIR OWN IMAGE! THUS THE PROCESS OF THEIR SALVATION IS BEING HINDERED AND THIS BECOMES THEIR PERSONAL WEIGHT! (HEB. 12:1)HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?
The Lord has given us a powerful mind. Furthermore, He has also given us another powerful tool – IMAGINATION! Without it man could not go very far in whatever direction he would like to go. We all are creative beings created in the Image of God, Who is the Creator. But whatever we desire to create, we must first imagine or “create” in our own head! An Engineer has to first “see-create-design his structure” in his head, in his imagination before he picks up his pencil and starts drawing and analyzing. A Doctor has to “see-design his operation process” in his head before he picks up his scalpel. A Composer must first “see-hear-create his symphony” in his head and imagination before he even starts writing the notes. True? If you do not believe it, ask these professionals.
This unusual ability of our soul is very easily transferred into the field of religion, the field of our religious beliefs, understanding, convictions, imaginations. Once these are formed in our head and soul, all our actions are based on them and follow them. They may conform to many parts of the Scripture, but at the same time be very far from many other passages of the Scripture and from their interdependent spiritual meaning. The longer we run in this new “rut”, the more difficult it is to get out of it and ponder a “new” truth, which may not be new at all, but it is the spiritual and entire truth of the Word as a whole.
We repeat that our “natural man (soul) receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned“. (1Cor. 2:14)
Therefore, our natural soul rejects any spiritual “new“ truth as unacceptable to its logic and understanding and its “sound mind“ because our natural soul cannot SEE it!
The Lord desires to show that when we are attending educational institutions (seminaries, theological faculties, etc.), we automatically receive, absorb and form our “intellectual rut” based on, what we might call, a “traditional knowledge”. When, for example, my professor believes that no born-again believer may ever lose his Salvation and presents his “logical proofs” from the Scripture then I am prone to receive it without much pondering or searching other parts of the Scripture or without any other effort on my part to seek the Truth. Why? I imagine that my professor, being older than I and more educated, is more experienced and thus he must know better than I do, otherwise, he would not be a professor at that prestigious institution. Also, what he presents looks totally logical, so, I accept it automatically! My future life and possibly my destiny and the way to it are affected at that very moment. And the future and destiny of many other believers to whom I may be preaching at a later time will also be affected at that very moment! Why?
I will come out of that educational institution with “my own baggage” and I will not be aware of it! I will then keep transferring that same “baggage” to other believers, maybe millions of them, and not be aware of it. Even if some other believer would show me clearly in the Scripture that a born-again believer MAY indeed lose his Salvation, I would NOT BE ABLE TO BELIEVE IT! The truth is that this very example is happening far too often in the life of the Church.
The above example is concerned primarily with the believers whose soul is inclined to reason and walk by logic. It is extremely logical that a believer born by the Spirit of God and sealed with His Spirit could not possibly break that seal and lose that Salvation. Is that true? It is true. YET, IT IS NOT TRUE in the eyes of God. But their natural soul cannot accept it and believe it because it cannot imagine it and thus understand it! What they cannot imagine, see or understand, they cannot believe. But this is Christianity put upside down! Furthermore, their pride will not allow them any flexibility in seeking the Truth! When such believers are shown the passages in the Bible where the loss of Salvation is clearly taught, they do not know what to do with them! They might try to explain them away to suite their “baggage” or they do not respond to you! They have no power to admit that this might be true, that they may not be infallible. They have no willingness to search any truth beyond their “baggage” or to ask the Lord to open their understanding of the Bible. Man CANNOT open the spiritual understanding of any other man because it takes the Lord Himself to do it. (Lk. 24:45)
We may not realize and register in our natural mind a simple truth that we were all born deceived, dead in spirit and with a darkened mind, heart and will. This spiritually darkened natural mind and heart may still excel in very many areas of our physical, mental, intellectual and emotional life, (engineering, medicine, philosophy, art, music, theology, etc.) BUT the realm of the spirit with its truths and realities is totally closed to them.
OUR NATURAL MIND AND HEART HAVE NO ABILITY AND NO CAPACITY TO PENETRATE, SEE AND COMPREHEND THE VAST REALM OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM AVAILABLE TO OUR BORN-AGAIN AND RENEWED SPIRIT.
It takes the Light and Life of Christ in our spirit to first penetrate our natural darkened soul, to enlighten it and thus enable it to start apprehending that spiritual knowledge and wisdom. And WE MUST BE WILLING to receive His Light and Life into our soul. The TRAGEDY of too many born-again believers is that this Light and Life of Christ is being “imprisoned” in their spirit by the flesh of their soul, which soul remains darkened, ignorant, deceived and natural! Such believers cannot grow up, make spiritual progress or mature spiritually even for the rest of their Christian life. It is very easy for them to mistake their theological, biblical, religious knowledge for the Light and Truth revealed by the Lord. Do you see this? No natural man can see this fact.
Before we continue on this topic of the natural and spiritual, of the baby stage or of the mature stage and what it means in the spirit, we must see and realize what the fact of MATURING actually is.
TRUE MATURING OF BELIEVERS IS THEIR GETTING MORE HOLY, MORE GRACIOUS, MORE UNDERSTANDING, MORE WISE, MORE LOVING, MORE SEEING, MORE FORGIVING, MORE COMPASSIONATE, MORE MEEK, MORE TEMPERATE, MORE DILIGENT, MORE WILLING, MORE PERFECT, ETC… HAVING GREATER AND PURER LOVE AND FAITH AND STRONGER SPIRIT.
MATURING MEANS GETTING THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF ALL THE SPIRITS WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE BELIEVER HIMSELF, OF THEIR PURPOSES AND WAYS IN WHICH THEY OPERATE TO ACHIEVE THEIR OWN WILL AND GOALS. THIS INCLUDES THE SPIRIT OF GOD AND ALSO THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS AND EVIL.
MATURING IS GETTING THE ABILITY TO SEE THE SPIRITUAL WORLD AND TO UNDERSTAND HOW IT FUNCTIONS AND WHY. THIS BRINGS THE ABILITY TO JUDGE RIGHTEOUSLY AND NOT BY WHAT THE BELIEVER CAN SEE WITH HIS EYES OR HEAR WITH HIS EARS OR UNDERSTAND WITH HIS MIND. PHYSICAL SENSES AND MENTAL ABILITIES CANNOT INTERPRET AND JUDGE RIGHTEOUSLY THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, SPIRITUAL FACTS OR SPIRITUAL PROBLEMS. (Is. 11:1-3b-5// Jn. 7:24 etc.)
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To be continued next week in chapter 3 – part 4
brother Hanola
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