Pastor Bob,
Thank
you for your response to me. I think I may have spotted the fundamental
difference
between you and I when it comes to how we each obtain understanding of
the things of God and His knowledge. I'll quote you from your post to
me:
__________________________________
One
of my axioms is: "What makes sense in my heart has to first make
sense in my head". Keep in mine God is not the author of confusion,
but the author of objective truth!
_________________________________
In
my experience with God I have found it to be just
the opposite from what you have stated, that God's ways and
instructions do not make sense in the head first, at all! That is where
faith has to stand in for understanding and only after obedience does
the understanding come.
Solomon says the same thing, that it's heart first and head understanding last:
Proverbs 3: 5. Trust
in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
6. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Paul
in the New Testament agrees with this order by stating that now in this
natural world we see through a glass, or mirror, when seeking
understanding about God's spiritual things. The meaning being that God's
wisdom is backwards or opposite from what is sensible to the natural
man (mirrors reverse everything). Even saying that the natural man sees
God's wisdom as foolishness unto him and what looks wise to the natural
man God calls foolish. 1 Corinthians 2:14, 13:12. Therefore things must
be spiritually discerned, not mentally sorted out. This applies to how
we obtain understanding on every subject as well as how we handle
everyday events. In this way everything must
come to us through our faith in God (Without faith it's impossible to
please Him...") not in our own
abilities to accomplish anything, including learning what is true.
A few examples of everyday events:
(John
2) Jesus is at a wedding that has run out of wine and Mary, Jesus'
mother tells the embarrassed servants, to "Do whatever He tells you..."
Natural mind is thinking, "Great, He must know someone with a wine
cellar around here!" But Jesus says to them "See those six big stone
jars? "Uh, yeah," the servants say. And Jesus says "Fill them to the
brim with water, then draw some out and take it to the host." "Uh,
'scuse me sir, but I don't think you understand, water we have, we need
wine. Who's this
guy again? Look, I need this job and if I take water to the host I'll
be punished or fired!" If the servants didn't say it they must have been
thinking it because it makes no
sense in your head. Now these men could have said to Jesus, "What makes
sense in my heart must first make sense in my head, and you are not
making any sense at all!" But something about Jesus must have stirred in
those caterer's hearts in spite of their heads because they did the
ridiculous. Jesus did not obtain water first and turn the water into
wine and then give it to the caterers to give out. He told THEM to fill
the jars with water and then draw some out and take it to the host. That
involves risk. Huge discrepancy in this between the head and the
heart! Had they relied on their head to sort this out and come to some
"objective truth" of the situation they probably would have quit their
jobs rather than do what Jesus instructed them to do. But something made
them over-ride their heads and trust Jesus with all their hearts,
leaning not to their own understanding and in the course of their
acting on what He had
instructed them to do, their obedience to a crazy "foolishness" kind of
instruction resulted in the miracle. Did any of it make any sense in
their head first? No.
(Matthew
17:24-27) The scene is Jesus and His disciples are at a house in
Capernaum when some men show up and want to collect a tax or
tribute from Jesus and His disciples. Jesus won't let Peter give it to
them out of their regular money supply (something about how the children
of God are free and don't owe these guys anything but they'll never
believe us if we try and explain it to them so lest we be an
offence unto them...) Jesus instructs Peter to go to the sea and cast a
hook and the first fish he catches will have money in its mouth to give
to them. Oh, man, this I gotta see! I'm guessing by this time Peter may
have seen how this Jesus has a way with fish when once after fishing
all night and catching nothing Jesus instructs Peter to try again even
though in Peter's head it's not the right time to catch fish and what
would you expect from a carpenter's son, anyway? You're going to tell me
how to fish? But he went anyway, saying "Nevertheless at thy word I
will let down the net" and he caught a boat-load of fish till it filled
another boat as well and the nets were breaking and the boats sinking.
(Luke 5) Then they left it all and followed Jesus. So now probably with
that memory in his heart, Peter says "C'mon guys, I'm goin' fishing and
your money's comin' right up." And Peter leads them
to the sea and casts a hook and the first fish Peter pulls up, and with
those tax guys wide-eyed looking on, (I can just see them bumping each
other's heads trying to see in that fish's mouth first) he looks in the
fish's mouth and pulls out enough money for their tax. Again, this never
would have happened if Peter would have waited for his head to agree
that this is how you come up with tax payments. I imagine Peter being a
little scared to look in the fish's mouth in case Jesus couldn't come
through like before and what if there's nothing there and he's going to
feel a little stupid - risk! Each experience where faith is needed
requires its own action of obedience to complete and is just as
challenging in its own right as the last one. Although experience does
work more confidence or hope and hope makes not ashamed. (There was a
great line in the very good movie "God's Not Dead" about how one's
beliefs are only as strong or
real as the risk involved for
maintaining them.) But imagine the grin on Peter's face as he hands
them their money and says, "You boys might want to wipe that off a
little and sorry for the smell but there you go!"
(1
Kings 17) God's prophet prayed that it wouldn't rain and it stopped
raining and God sustains him by hiding him near a brook for water to
drink with ravens bringing food morning and night. Then the brook dries
up from no rain so God sends him to a widow woman and says He has
commanded her to feed him now. Only problem is when he follows the
directions and finds her and introduces himself to her, she apparently
either didn't get the memo or else he found the wrong widow because this
one is nearly as destitute as he is and says she is about to fix the
last food she has for herself and her son and then wait to die of
starvation. Better check those directions again. (I can just see Elijah
looking up to heaven and saying, "Lord, this widow says she never heard
of you, or doesn't seem to know about your command to feed me, am I at
the right place or what?") No, Elijah didn't lean to his own
understanding but he tells the widow
woman to take the one meal she has left and feed him with it first. I
don't know what that instruction sounded like to her but I don't think
that would sound right to me in my head at first. Good thing she
listened to her heart and not her head because by obeying this risky
instruction, her meals never ran out until the first day that the
drought ended.
(Genesis
22) Abraham may also have had trouble with his head when God told him
to take his ONLY son Isaac... (wait, what ever happened to Ishmael? How
can this be God talking when He doesn't even remember that Abraham has
another son besides this one? "Objective truth" doesn't seem to
apply. Sounds confusing, but God is not the author of confusion... Oh
well, as soon as it makes sense in our head, that's when we'll go ahead
and obey it?)
No, as soon as
God is understood to be the boss, confusion is eliminated. If God says
Abraham's only son is Isaac then who are we to argue? God tells Abraham
to take Isaac and offer him for a burnt offering. Yet as you know, this
same Isaac is the one through whom all the promises must come. If that
is not a confusing situation, I must not understand the meaning of the
word confusing. If Abraham were to wait until this sounded right in his
head as well as his heart he might still be waiting.
In
learning wisdom, doctrine, knowledge from God the same principles
apply. We yield ourselves to His leading through "meditating" and
"waiting" on Him and His word, leaning not to our own understanding or
"reason" but believing that God is and that He is a rewarder of us when
we diligently seek Him. In other words there is a difference between
"study" which we can do ourselves and biblical "meditating" which we
cannot do without God's participation and our yielding to Him as
described below by Mark Virkler: here Study vs. Meditation
Meditation (God's use of every part of both hemispheres of my brain as He fills and flows out through my heart by His Spirit)
- Is endorsed 18 times in the KJV Bible.
- Is God in action within the individual.
- Is God granting revelation through the heart and mind which has been yielded to Him.
- Results in wisdom from above - pure, peaceable, gentle (Jas. 3:17).
Meditation applies the following biblical principles:
- Gal. 2:20 - I let Christ live through me.
- Rom. 12:1 - I am yielding my outer faculties to the indwelling Spirit (i. e., to "flow" - Jn. 7:38).
- Is. 11:2 When reasoning together with God, I receive a spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge.
- Jn. 5:19,20,30 - I'm living as Jesus did, out of divine initiative, doing what I see and hear my Father doing.
Study (My use of one part of one hemisphere of my brain)
- Is nowhere endorsed in Scripture (II Tim. 2:15 is a mis-translation in the KJV Bible).
- Is self in action (Humanism - a false god).
- Is self using reason (Rationalism - a false god).
- Results in wisdom from below - earthly, natural, demonic (Jas. 3:15). For example, reason caused Peter to be at odds with the purposes of God (Jn. 18:10,11).
Study violates the following biblical principles:
- Gal. 2:20 - I resurrect self, which no longer lives.
- Rom. 12:1 - I am using my faculties rather than presenting them to God to use.
- Is. 1:18 - I'm reasoning, rather than reasoning together with God.
- Gen. 3:5 - I've fallen prey to the temptation of the Garden of Eden that "I can know good and evil."
Mark Virkler's site is here: Communion
with God Ministries: Free Christian Books, Hearing God's Voice, Dream
Interpretation, Parenting, Five-Fold Ministry, Counseling, Wealth, etc.
 | |||||||
Communion with God Ministries: Free Christian Books, H... Christian ministry with an online store where you
can shop for books, teaching CDs/DVDs, and download free material about
Holy Spirit baptism and power, hearin... | |||||||
His logo says: "Not studies about God, but encounters with God"
That is the big difference!
| |||||||
Communion with
God Ministries: Free Christian Books, H... Christian
ministry with an online store where you can shop for books, teaching
CDs/DVDs, and download free material about Holy Spirit baptism and
power, hearin... | |||||||
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