“For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds,…” 2Cor 10:4 Amp
“Lest you be self-opinionated (wise in your own conceits), I do not want you to miss this hidden truth and mystery, brethren: a hardening (insensibility) has [temporarily] befallen a part of Israel [to last] until the full number of the ingathering of the Gentiles has come in,…” Rom 11:25 Amp
“Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].” Rom 12:2 Amp
“There has befallen them the thing spoken of in the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and, The sow is washed only to wallow again in the mire.” 2Pet2:22 Amp
Dog vomit…. It does not pose a very attractive picture. Nor does the believer, who becomes stuck in his old patterns of thinking, resistant to the very word of God to free him by the power of the Holy Spirit – to renew his thinking.
Understand in this day many believers remain stuck – even immovable by their own preference for indulging fleshly, soulish thinking. Once having developed an opinion on a matter – it remains to them as “Gospel Truth.” Yet on the contrary, it is full of dark perspective and has not been renewed by the light of God as it is brought captive to the obedience of Christ and is corrected.
Not one believer can claim to have never been stuck in this way. We all have. And it is the grace of God that brings a wreaking ball of His power to expose and sift our fleshly thinking, that it can been transformed into kingdom thinking.
The wreaking ball of God frees us from returning as a dog to his vomit!
Think of Job. He had developed some dark, fear-based thinking about God. God addressed these patterns of fleshly thinking that kept Job captive as He confronted Job: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”(Job 38:2)
Thus…wreaking ball breaks inaccurate thoughts about God…
Jobs thinking is flooded with the light of truth and he declares: “[You said to me] Who is this that darkens and obscures counsel [by words] without knowledge? Therefore [I now see] I have [rashly] uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” (Job 42:3)
The plain fact was, as good as Job was, as blameless as he was, he had areas of his thinking that were stuck and needed to be unstuck. They needed to be renewed. They needed the weapon of God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds.
Only God could do it for him, and only God can do it for us! You and I can not run a self-diagnostic to indicate such harmful thinking. You and I cannot self-diagnose or self-treat. But the Holy Spirit is very faithful to put His finger on problem areas! He guides us into all Truth, and He takes what is of Christ (His Truth) and He reveals, discloses, and transmits it to us! (Jn 16:13-14)
This means the Holy Spirit is not only showing us truth as information, but He is actually importing truth into our very spirit! The problem occurs when I am not open, teachable, or humble before God for such a learning experience and such a transformation. Enter then, the wreaking ball!
How many believers have you witnessed as being stuck. Maybe it concerns their doctrine – things that make them uncomfortable and they fear they will lose control. Maybe it is their own pet-perspective, some cherished myth about God not based on truth. Whatever it is, you will be able to recognize it because this error will be revealed through their speaking. It will reveal the very local of the initial corruption, because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. (Lk 6:45). As a man thinks in his heart, so he is. (Prov 23:7) It is with your heart you first believed (Rom 10:10), and this is true for righteousness as well as retaining error.
It is the corrupted heart that is hardened or insensible to God’s call. It is the hardened heart that persists in thinking that is adversarial to God’s truth.
Where your thinking and believing in your heart are not overturned by truth and the word of God, you will persist in error. Corruption will openly lodge in your heart, and your spirit will immediately reflect such a state. The dog turns back to his vomit. The sow has been washed only to wallow again.
This is the reason victory seems illusive in a believer’s life. This is why breakthrough seems unavailable. But the shortcoming is not on God’s side, it is on ours. We have failed to have error overturned by truth. We have resisted and protected our own putrid thinking. Ultimately, we have regarded our own thoughts as superior to God’s truth: we have moved in idolatry maybe without even realizing it.
Are you a believer that has professed Christ for many years and yet, while you have read and studied the word of God, it has not been given freedom to know and study you? It has not been able to overturn favorite, protected ways of thinking? It has not been allowed to be light that pierces the darkness? Dog vomit.
Do you find yourself repeating the same confrontations, with the same arguments, and you are in the very same position you were years ago? Playing out the same exact struggles? No change? Dog vomit.
Beloved it does not need to be so. God is ready to disclose and unveil your personal error in thinking. But it requires your letting go, willingness to be found out, sacred tables to be overturned.
We must come before Him as a little child (humble, lowly, loving, and forgiving). We must repent ( change, turn about our thinking), or we can never enter the kingdom of God.
This year, make a change. Get off the Merry-Go-Round. Dis-engage the do-loop. Stop singing: “She’ll Be Comin Round the Mountain.” Trust Him enough to become like this little child. You have nothing to lose but the chains and bondage of dog vomit thinking.
Shalom
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