Like everything, the way that we process scripture can be dramatically different depending on the perspective that we approach it from. Am I saying that the Word of God is subjective and up for wild interpretation? Heavens no—the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword and it is absolute truth. There is a right way and a wrong way to interpret it. The perspective that I am outlining here pierces between the dividing asunder of soul and spirit—that is, the difference between the mind and the spirit.
We have to remember that the mind is part of our flesh. We are born into this world and since the fall of Adam and Eve, sin nature, sickness, doubt, depression, and all of these attributes that do not come from God can enter into our flesh. When that fall happened, we willingly gave permission to satan to involve himself in our life. Make no mistake, satan cannot do anything to us without our cooperation and when we stepped outside of the Word of God and ate of the tree which God communicated to us not to, we gave a big green light to all the damaging things that God had separated from us to come on in. Once we did this, we no longer qualified as residents of heaven because God is pristine and so are His laws. If we break even one, then we are guilty of them all.
Early in the scripture, we see that God still fellowshipped and spoke with His children from the moment that they were set without the Garden of Eden. In Genesis chapter 4, that sin nature that we touched on previously rose up in Cain and he slew his brother Abel. In verse 9, God spoke with Cain candidly as if He was a human standing shoulder to shoulder with the boy. God did not stop talking to His children at any point, his children became further separated from Him because we yielded ourselves to satans little kingdom and became enslaved into his far imperfect set of laws. God has never left us, not since the very moment that we were conceptualized, but our mind, which is part of our flesh, was signed over to this world legally by our own decision.
We have a tenancy to believe that everything produced through our mind is truth because it feels true to us. But if this is the case, then we would all arrive at the same truth all of the time and we don’t—that is evident through the enormous number of religions, scientific “theories” and even something as simple as whether or not coffee is good for you—we all disagree is my point. The reality is, the mind is a filter for information which is subjective to what kind data you are taking in and the output of that process determines everything about you. So, if you live in the world, your mind will be filtering data from what your five senses are involved in and it becomes efficient at processing your specific environment while rejecting unfamiliar information.
Living in the world, your mind has become familiar with the “reality” which is that sickness is just something that we deal with. Some people are just poor. Christianity is just a religion like the thousands that have come and gone over centuries. If someone is mean to you, they deserve to be treated the same way. ”An eye for an eye”, right? You were raised in that system so your body is sick, you are poor, your Christian faith is not really helping you and you aren’t even really sure whether God is listening to you anymore. Furthermore, when you read the scripture, your mind says “God is a really rough character with the whole ‘eye for an eye’ business. I can never be what He expects me to be.”
That’s certainly depressing, isn’t it? Your mind is enslaved by the information that runs rampant in this world and then that same perspective is being used to interpret the Word of God. What is the problem with that? Well, what happens when you wear sunglasses into a dark theatre? You just saw yourself tripping over someone’s boot toe, losing all of your popcorn and I am willing to bet that your knee is actually hurting a little bit. I am sorry to do that to you, but it illustrates a great point.
You know that sunglasses are not appropriate in a dark theatre and even if the world raised you to believe that they were, something inside you would resist that thinking because that is ridiculous and does not make a lick of sense. So, why would you wear them? Don’t misunderstand—there would be some “science” that would surface to explain the benefits of wearing sunglasses in a dark theatre and there would also be some people who would follow right along and even defend that standpoint. In the end, however, it simply does not make sense to navigate through a pitch black environment with your eyesight hindered even more.
Well, if we understand this concept, then we can better recognize the same concept applied to the Word of God. Our existence in this world is finite but God’s existence is eternal—our pool of understanding through our mind alone is painfully miniscule as compared to the boundless and eternal understanding that our Father has and is. In the same way that we cannot expect an infant to comprehend Albert Einstein’s level of intellect, we cannot understand the wisdom of God. We need a lot of help… A LOT of help—a saving grace who does everything for us kind of help.
The scripture was divinely inspired and written by the Holy Spirit: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,” 2 Timothy 3:16. That means that our God, who knows all things, created everything, and can never be confused or confusing wrote the scripture. Forget Einstein trying to explain the theory of relativity to an infant, this is WAY bigger than that! Einstein would have had to simply take what he knew and place it into the infant, bypassing that little baby’s brain altogether in order to install Einstein’s robust knowledge into the child. That is what has to happen to us in order to gain meaningful knowledge of the scripture: God needs to give us His wisdom and knowledge in order for us to be able to absorb it.
So, if God gives to us that knowledge that I am talking about and stores it in our fleshly brain, what happens when we die? Well, it wouldn’t really benefit us in the next life, would it? What is the point? “That which is born of flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” John 3:6. God freely gives and He wants everyone to have His wisdom and knowledge in them but we need a place to keep it which will keep living after our body dies. That place is your heart—your own spirit—which is made perfect again as Adam and Eve were before the fall when we accept the payment that God paid to get us back. That payment is Jesus.
Remember that we chose to allow the imperfect into our flesh. Before Adam and Eve fell, their flesh was as perfect as the spirit in them. We had no sickness, depression, limitation—they/we were as perfect as we would ever be. Once we broke the perfect law of God, our spirit was no longer acceptable in the Kingdom of Heaven because it was no longer perfect. We are still abundantly adored by God, but He cannot waffle in His Word which does not allow for sin in His kingdom—it is impossible for Him to lie. What He can do, is pay the debt with so much excess that it can never be refuted. As a prisoner is bailed out of prison, so were we by the sacrifice of one perfect lamb, one perfect man, the Son of God Himself. All we have to do is say “Yes, I will accept this bail money! I will accept Jesus!”
Once we accept Jesus, the spirit that was imperfect and unacceptable in the Kingdom of Heaven because of the fall is made perfect—washed clean. The debt is paid in full and overflowing, so your spirit is immediately made acceptable in the Kingdom of Heaven. If you died the moment you accepted Jesus, you would be welcomed with open arms into His gates no matter what you did in your flesh. Your spirit is the only part of you that goes on to the next eternity, whether it is with God or separated from God. All that you have done in your flesh stays behind, all that matters is whether or not you have allowed God to perfect your spirit in you through His gift of Jesus or not. If you do, buckle up because your life is on track to change in a big, amazing way!
Once you accept Jesus as your savior and perfector, you have your processor for the Word of God tuned up and ready to receive and you have a place to store what you learn. God is a spirit and He speaks to your spirit “you” directly. Your spirit “you”, or as Paul calls it your “new man”, Colossians 3:10, is able to absorb, comprehend and hold onto the information that God speaks to you. In the Christian community, you will hear this downloading of information referred to as “revelation knowledge”. God does indeed place knowledge inside of you, bypassing your brain and flesh and then the Holy Spirit takes that information and interprets it into your brain’s language so that your flesh can be edified by the Word of God.
The Holy Spirit is essential to living the Christian life. Jesus said to His disciples that it is expedient that He go away because if he did not go, then the “Comforter” would not come, John 16:7. The “Comforter” is the Holy Spirit that Jesus sent to us when He went on to be with His Father. The Holy Spirit is also referred to as the teacher and interpreter and He is the facilitator for all revelation knowledge. We know all things in our Spirit because we are connected to God through the spirit: “you have an unction from the Holy One and you know all things” 1 John 2:20. The Holy Spirit is the one who pulls that knowledge out and simplifies it into information that your brain can process.
So, how do you keep your brain from getting in the way of that? Because it IS your brain that gets in the way—the cares of this world and the distractions racing through the brain choke the Word the same way that the chaos in big cities make you have to yell to someone sitting right beside you. God is soft spoken, “meek and lowly in heart” Matthew 11:29, and He will speak to you all the time but it is up to you to focus and listen. You have to bring that conversation into a quiet place, that is why He says “seek and ye shall find” Luke 11:9. He does not say that because He is running from you all the time, He says that because that is what it takes to be able to hear him in this world.
That “still small voice” is not coming through your physical ears, it is a sense of understanding that comes from within you. It takes some time to develop the ears of our spirit so if we are not truly wanting to hear God speaking to us, then like anything else that we are doing, we will not dedicate to it. If we do not dedicate to it, then we will get distracted and we will not accomplish what we set out to do—we will not be able to hear the voice of our Father. The voice of our Father comes straight from heaven sometimes, but the greater majority of the time, His voice comes through the Word that was already established between the covers of the Holy Bible.
All of God’s Words are meant to be processed through your spirit which we refer to as our heart. When someone says to you “take it to heart”, they are wanting you to let something affect you and become meaningful. They are asking you to process whatever “it” is deeply. It is the difference between reading “thank you” at the end of every single email that you receive versus reading the very same words, “thank you”, on a hand written note from a friend whom you lifted up in a time of need. The earlier is processed with your mind—just the end of an email. The latter is a genuine expression of appreciation which you process with your heart and it is meaningful to you.
What if we read the words that God gave to us with the same processor that skims over a work email? That sent a shiver up your spine, didn’t it? Well, don’t think that the shiver came from God, He is not condemning you, He is overjoyed that you are reading this and seeking Him! Nevertheless though, it caught your attention—the Word of God, the scripture, is meant to be read with your heart. The words on those pages were written by the Holy Spirit, God-breathed. In order to be able to process those words the way that God intended is through your spirit, so take them to heart!
Let’s wrap this up with an example. Everyone knows the story about Adam and Eve and that story is usually told to us in some form like this:
Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden which was paradise. One day, a demon possessed snake tricked them to eat of the fruit from the one tree God said not to and then they got thrown out of the garden and now we have to go to work and pay taxes. The end.
Ok, well first of all the words on the page do say that they lived in a Garden of Eden and that they did eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It also says that they were put out of the garden and, I mean, it is true that the United States tax code has issues... When we read this story with our heart though, we read deeply into the words because we are not just reading, we are seeking knowledge. By doing this, we notice things like God stayed with Adam and Eve after they were removed from the garden. He clothed them and He continued to fellowship with them. Then we remember the words “I will never leave thee or forsake thee”, Hebrews 13:5, that God spoke to us in the gospels. Wow, He meant it—from the very beginning, He never left us and He never forsook us.
No doubt some “well, but what about…” statements came up as you read that last sentence. You feel like there are some contradictions to that and you may even be ready to battle over it. What does the scripture say about God? He cannot lie: Psalms 89:35 says “and in my holiness, I cannot lie.” So that means when God says “I will never leave you nor forsake you”, it is not Him who is confused, it is you and that realization is the beginning of wisdom.
Receive Jesus as your Lord and savior, be baptized with the Holy Spirit and then seek and you shall find. You will hear the voice of God and He cannot wait for that day!
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