“… you are the slaves of him whom you obey, whether that be to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness (right doing and right standing with God)?” Rom 6:16 Amp
A Slave to Lower Thinking?
As God was preparing Moses to be His Ambassador in Exodus 4, God changed Moses’ rod from a rod into a serpent. And then God had Moses take it by the tail and it is changed back into a rod.
God told Moses to put His hand into his bosom, and what was a normal hand suddenly was leprous and as white as snow. And then God changed it back and the hand was restored as before.
These instances were not simply a change in perception or thinking. God did not cause Moses to just believe his rod was a snake, or his hand was leprous… he got to experience the reality of those situations, and the reality of God’s authority…
Christ is the True Reality
When Nebuchadnezzar was changed from being the king into a wild creature that ate grass, had feathers and long nails, this was not just a change in his thinking – it was a change in his reality. He became a beast of the field whose thinking and understanding were likewise crippled, until God intervened again.
To live like a beast of the field for seven years I want you to see that Nebuchadnezzar’s thinking was not responsible for his growing feathers and long nails. And as there were outward manifestations of physiological change, I believe we should expect that there were internal changes that made it possible for him to live in such a state – such as a stomach equipped to digest grass.
To try and explain away what Nebuchadnezzar experienced for seven years as some kind of psychotic state in which he simply believed he was a beast, places the reality of the situation into the realm of the soul (your perception or thoughts about it) and not the spirit (where full truth resides). It refutes the reality of the changes he underwent.
Evidence of Last Days Crisis
In 2Tim 3:1-5 a state of deterioration is described in those who profess to be believers in God. It demonstrates a conscious resistance to the power of God’s Word, and consequently that resistance manifests itself as a form of religiousness that is counterfeit to real Christianity.
These people are completely lovers of self and self-conscious. This is their true focus. Conversely, true believers are Christ conscious – they continually lose sight of themselves and their lower lives, and focus on Christ.
They are without natural affection and thus they operate in loose morals and conduct. A true believer is gifted with God’s love operating within his heart and bringing him to a level of moral excellence operating within his soul.
The description continues within verse four to describe the perverseness these people operate at — constantly in the realm of their soul which as they have given it the pre-eminence – their soul, in its state of depravity, rules over them. All they are about is self: their needs, their desires, etc.
Verse five talks about them having a form a religion, but they deny and are stranger to the power of true Christianity.
What has happened?
Everyone gets to set the watermark of God’s control and involvement in their lives. Where we simply allow God to clean the outside of our cup of life, but give no access to Him for bringing change about within us, where we adopt a religious form externally with no abiding life of His inside — we set ourselves on the road to being counterfeiters of true belief in Christ.
The danger begins when we fail to allow our thinking to be transformed by the word of God. Though once maybe having received God’s life, we are now trying to progress only according to our thinking – our soul which once was washed when we were saved, has become corroded for lack of cleaning and renewal by the word of God.
This is the purpose and function of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit! Where salvation brings the residence of God through the Holy Spirit into my spirit, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit brings the enduement of power of the Holy Spirit over and throughout the functioning of the soul! Over my real self! Now there is power like never before, to choose to love, to die to myself and loose my lower life, and to be the witness in power that God calls each of us to be who have received Christ.
Salvation begins at the door of the spirit, but the victory of Christlikeness and walking in Him begins when I receive His enduement of power, His clothing, His life, His armor, His light … as covering over my real self!
From Nebuchadnezzar to Crisis of Belief
The progression to a corrupted state as 2Tim 3:1-5 describes, begins with resisting truth. We try and explain away something like the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar as simply his deranged thinking. We absolutely fail to acknowledge God’s right or power to take someone through this process.
We dismiss Moses’ examples of the rod, or leprosy as colorful stories. We completely fail to realize that belief resides in our heart, and that while we may read the word and even understand it – UNTIL WE GIVE THE WORD ACCESS AND A PLACE OF UNIQUIVICAL RULE IN OUR HEARTS AND SUBMIT TO IT AS TRUTH WE ARE SIMPLY TRYING TO CONTROL THINGS AT THE LEVEL OF OUR MIND.
As you continuously surrender to your own thinking, believing it to be true, you become a slave to your own thinking and its limitations. You then do not possess truth, but a carefully crafted and restricted perversion which cannot yield life or transmit life to others.
So what is the remedy? Realize what you have been doing. See the great distance between where you are and the fullness God has provided for. Repent of rebellion in your heart and idolatry – for you have been trying to be your own God. Submit to God – resist all of Satan’s tactics and lies, and he will flee. Come to the Lord humbly, believing what His word says, and receive the Promise of the Father (Lk 24:49, and Acts 1:4- Acts 2:39), receive the Holy Spirit’s power upon and be filled throughout your souls and begin the journey of walking in the Spirit like you have never known.
Then, as you receive the truth without compromise, your experience of God’s Spirit operating on and through you will increase. He will make you what He wants you to become – in Him!
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