How do we let the spirit rightly divide instead of our mind? What exactly does it mean? I pray for God to speak to me, to lead me, to open my eyes to His Word, I don't hear a voice from heaven (well once or twice) How do we put on the mind of Christ? What is the difference between natural reasoning and spiritual reasoning?
I'm not being snarky here either. I want deep, I want more.
For me, #1 is to pursue Christ above all else . . .which most do but spiritual truth comes with unabandonment on our part. It means, like the woman with an issue of blood, I don't care how many people claim their opinions on this or that, I know that if I press in I will be able to "touch" Christ and in doing so, it will heal "me". But, like the woman, laws need to be broken. For Israel to be freed from Egypt, the Egyptian belief system had to be broken. Before my anointed man can be freed "in me". My natural-thinking man has to be broken . . .it's all the same pattern.
#2, it's much like sleep. You can't enter into it, you have to let it come to you. One of the biggest obstacles that keeps sleep from coming is the activity in . .again . . .our minds. How do I enter into spiritual rest? How do you go to sleep at night? For me, lights are an issue, as is noise, I sleep with a box fan and anymore, as soon as that gets turned on, my eyes automatically start getting heavy. You can't sleep standing, so becoming "prostrate" . . .sound familiar? It's much like putting on the armor of God . . .having done all things necessary to stand firm . . .stand firm. Well . . .having done all things in preparation for rest, then let rest come. Having done all that is required to receive truth, then merely let truth come to you.
Another one is in Genesis . . .I believe a precedence is set in the first verses where it speaks about the Spirit hovering over the "face" of the "deep". For me, that's the outline, the frame work of how to read the Bible for spiritual truth. The deep "calls" to the deep. The Spirit calls to our spirit . . .as we read the written words inspired by the deep bringing revelation to the depths of the authors own lives, as we read what's on the surface, the spirit calls us to go deeper.
My mind can't see spiritual truths. It doesn't come by way of flesh and blood. So how do we get to the point where we can understand them? It starts by slowing the Bible reading down and just let your spirit ponder what you've read . . .hover over the "face" the "identity of the message . . .you see my face, but what's on my face is merely the surface of "me". To get to know the depths of "me", you're not going to "know" me unless you hover over the surface of the depths . . . If I'm not mistaken, the hovering there is to imply brooding . . .like a bird in a nest with her young.
Allow your mind to "entertain" the idea that God's got something he wants to lead you into that's beyond what you think you already understand about the verse . .especially when you're reading something that seems to have an anomaly in it. Something either stands out, or doesn't fit . . .like when God is speaking to Adam and Eve after they've admitted their guilt and God is instructing them of what they're now going to be experiencing outside of the garden. Adam's identity is now going to be through labor. Eve is now going to experience pain in childbirth . . .in the middle of all of that, God tells Eve she's going to "desire after Adam". For me, that's an anomaly. It just doesn't seem to go with the flow of what is transpiring.
Word definitions do help "assist" but again, this is not to "base" your relationship standards in God, but instead, reading Scripture is merely to affirm the base that God has already been building in you. Study to "show yourself" approved. . .
That might be another reason why this particular subject and thread is somewhat a passion of mine. Basing my belief on what I read is not . . .sigh . . .I'm gonna say it anyway . . .basing my belief on what I read in Scripture is not God's will. I don't think it is anyway, I'm sure I'm a minority in saying it, but the truth is, to me, my belief is to be based on what HE builds IN me. Christ is building the church, not us. My mind wants to make sense of everything, it wants to conform it to a simpler uniformity rather than the extravagant uniqueness that our individual relationships really are, and should be.
My mind has a David-mentality. It "wants" to build a house for God. But in reality, it can't because my mind is an emntiy, it's at war with the very things "I" want to be identified with. I want complete and total spiritual freedom in Christ. My mind doesn't even know what that is. But I claim it because my spirit cries for it. So I don't care what appears to make sense and doesn't make sense. My desire is to spend every day on an ascended plain where the spirit pours out on all flesh.
It's okay that my David doesn't build the ark, my David is a man of war. But through my David comes a Solomon. Everything about Solomon typifies rest. One of the biggest for me is the fact that it's about "three's". Saul was the first king of Israel, David the second, Solomon the third. Second dimension understanding has the desire to build the temple, but only the Third dimension can experience the raising of the temple . . .all the work was done "outside" the city. It was "assembled" within the city gates, but the actual building took place outside . . .the city is the realm of rest. it's in all of us. We just have to create the atmosphere . . .like sleep . . .once we've shut the lights off, turned the fan on, rolled the covers back . . .lay ourselves out prostrate in the darkness . . .we wait upon the Rest to take over our lives.
