Just suppose for a moment that the Creator had a grand plan for how humans would acquire spiritual knowledge of His existence, and of His desire to be in personal relationship with each human being on earth…
Somebody (Adam/Eve) messed that up for us, when they couldn’t just do the one simple thing the Creator said they must do. The resulting consequence was that while the Creator would still work to reveal Himself and His grace to mankind, now it would happen outside the ideal conditions that would have made it so easy. Don’t think “garden” here… think “obedience.”
Now consider that along the way, through the hundreds of years of disobedience by the human race, that the disobedience took humanity so far away from knowing God, that there was really only one thing God could do to remedy this horrible situation. God determined He would come Himself (Jesus) and do whatever was necessary to restore the relationship between Himself and humanity.
What one man messed up for all of us, One Man/God restored completely, for ALL OF US.
Romans 5:19 – For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
When an individual person today, believes in this plan, and that Jesus came to be the Savior of humanity, God’s own Holy Spirit comes to reside within them, and teach them what God always intended them to know about Him. Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Because our minds today don’t work the way Adam’s mind did in perfection before the disobedience. In the act of disobedience the original mental/spiritual connection between God and mankind was dissolved, this being just one of the ways that Adam died, even as God had told Adam he would.
However, when we come to Jesus in faith, and we are “in” Him in salvation, God’s Holy Spirit begins to re-establish this mental/spiritual connection with us. The problem is, our minds have grown so dark, so crowded with our own petty lives, that there isn’t room enough for God to give us all He wants to give us, all at one time. So what is it that allows for God to pour Himself back into us? Obedience.
The apostle Paul says that we should take every single thought in our brains and hold it captive to the obedience of Jesus. (2 Corinthians 10:5) By doing this, we make room for God to pour more of Himself into our lives, which is what Paul meant by saying, “For who has known the Lord’s mind, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 2:16
To have the mind of Christ, think funnel, like the image above. God, through the Holy Spirit, desires to give us so much more than we can receive. Through the simple act of obedience, more of the clutter is removed from our life, and more of God’s Spirit can come into our life. Most of the time, the receptacle (our hearts and minds) is too full of other things, for much of God’s Spirit to come in. What is the answer?
Think funnel. God is the pitcher full of grace, and knowledge of Him. Our mind/heart is the size of the tiny end of the funnel. How much of God can we get, if this is all clogged up, by disobedience, rebellion, stubbornness, and hard-heartedness?
Solution: Clean up the think-process, and turn in obedience to God’s Spirit. Philippians 4:8 – Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable–if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise–dwell on these things.
This simple act of obedience, will open the funnel of God’s love and grace into your life in wonderful and exciting ways! Don’t wait. Do it now.
Go ahead, unclog the funnel.
Funnel
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