But as it is written:
"Eye has not
seen, nor ear heard,
nor have entered into
the heart of man the things
which God has
prepared for those who love Him"
but God has revealed
them to us through His Spirit.
For the spirit
searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
1 Corinthians 2: 9 --
10
(Isaiah 64: 4; 65:17)
In our
attempt to understand God we find ourselves deficient because absent is a lack
of an essential element; God is not us for He is a different being. Often Jesus makes statements that seem so
hard for us to understand because they are not that which we would do as
humans. Jesus in His rebuke to certain
cities where He did many mighty works and yet they did not repent Jesus then
gave a prayer to His father: "At
that time Jesus answered and said, ‘I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have
revealed them to babes’" (Matthew 11: 25). How are we to understand this seemingly difficult statement: "Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in Your site" (Matthew 11: 26)? Carnal man, and that is what we
all are, have one problem that has need to be resolved, and that problem is
that by the original sin caused by Adam our souls are corrupted and we do not
desire godly things. Jesus Christ
resolved that problem by His death that made payment to the debt owed to God
and that debt was the death of a sinless man.
God paid that debt owed to Himself by Himself. So often, we are so involved in our daily activities and the
culture of this world that continually tries to derail us from our faith. We cannot see the things of God nor are we
able to hear the things of God unless the Holy Spirit reveals them to us and
that revelation is only to those who love God.
As Paul so aptly reminds us, the spirit searches all things even those
deep things of God. Therefore, when the
Spirit speaks to us He is teaching us and leading us to exercise those deep
things of God: "For what man knows
the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God
except last Spirit of God. Now we have
received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we
might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (1
Corinthians 2:11 -- 12).
So many
people are so involved in the reality of experience claiming that reality, of a
person's experience of redemption, is proof of their godliness, it is not; redemption is the reality and it would have
no meaning for us unless it speaks the language of our conscious life. When a person is born-again, God does a work
that is hard for us to understand, and yet for those who are born again know
that this is a fact: God takes us right out of our self and our experiences and
identifies us with his Son Jesus Christ.
If all we are is left with is our experiences then those experiences have
not been produced by Redemption. How
will I know that I am being led by Redemption?
The proof is that we are led out of ourselves all the time and we no
longer pay any attention to our experiences as the ground of reality. The only reality is what is producing our
experiences and any other experiences other than that which is produced by Reality is not worth anything unless they are kept and we are kept at the source
and that source is Jesus Christ. When
we allow the culture of this world to be the source of our wisdom all is that
done is that we are damning up the Holy Spirit that is in us and then we begin
to produce subjective experiences. We
are never to give nourishment to any experience that does not have God as its
source and our faith in God as its result.
If we become subject to subjective experiences then those experiences
are anti-Christian, and it does not matter what visions you may have had. The question is simply this: if Jesus Christ
Lord of your experiences, or are you trying to lord it over Him? Are your experiences more dear to you then
your Lord? Jesus Christ must be Lord
over you, and you must not pay attention to any experience that is not of Jesus
Christ for if you do God will make a time that will make you impatient with
your own experience. We should have
this attitude that is ingrained in us and that is this; I do not care what I
experience; I am simply sure of Him.
This will take courage and being ruthless with yourself especially if
you are given to talking about the experiences you have had. If faith is not sure of its self then it is
not faith. The only faith that is true
faith is that which is sure of God and this is the only faith that there
is. Paul did not speak worldly wisdom
words that would tickle the ears of the hearers, words that are so eloquent
producing a euphoric reaction, no, he preached what the Holy Spirit teaches: "These things we also speak, not in
words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Corinthians 2:13). We are reminded once again that we are to
interpret Scripture with Scripture. The
foolishness of man is that he attempts to devise the world his way, and
develops a worldview that is in contradiction to the will of God. For if a man is not born again by Jesus
Christ and only remains as a natural man then: "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of
God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned. But he who is
spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For ‘who has known the mind of the LORD then
he may instruct Him?’ “But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:
14 -- 16). What Paul is telling us
here is that the natural man has no right to judge us in regards to our
faith. The question is are we actually
living rightly true faith of God or are we living by a faith that is rooted in
the subjective experience?
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin
my mother conceive me.
Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
and in they
hidden part You will make
me to know wisdom.
Psalm
51: 5 -- 6
May God washes whiter than snow
Richard L. Crumb
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