Bible Studies
THE HEAVENLY MIND
(Article by ISAAC K. LIKUJI, Monday 5, 2009)
The first discovery is that when GOD told Adam: … for in the day you shall eat of it you shall surely die, HE meant a special kind of death because from record, Adam lived 930 years after he ate the fruit. Of course the 930 years was not forever, but that later death was defined in the curse that was placed on mankind after sin. The ‘death’ that was pronounced only once, which was to take place ‘in the day you shall eat of it’ definitely took place the same day that Adam, and Mrs. Adam, sinned against GOD. GOD cannot lie, so that death happened just as HE declared. The day that man sinned, my sincere condolences, he died.
But how, who died, which Adam died on that day? You see my friend, even if you put an object a millionth of an inch from the nose of a blind man, he cannot see it! To the point that GOD will surrender HIS creation to ignorance it means lack of knowledge is a deadly infection. HE says men of standing go into captivity for lack of understanding. You are only farther away from shame and destruction as the knowledge you have acquired. You are only as stronger than your enemy as you surpass them in wisdom. And the saddest part is that this is the greatest weakness in man, the intensity of the darkness in him. If there is hell, it begins with ignorance!
The god of this world has one ministry to accomplish: make the world an empire of darkness, a kingdom of ignorance. The lie always comes to fight the truth, the knowledge you have, so that the resultant you will be nothing but a hog of deception. The TRUTH of the Gospel of JESUS is only hid to them that are perishing, those who don’t believe; and the reason they don’t believe is that the god of this world, satan, the devil, has blinded their minds. The day the light of the glorious gospel of CHRIST shined in you was just about the day you said bye to hell and satan.
And one of the fundamental truths that satan is reluctant to let you know about is that man is not just the physical form we see and identify to be man. Paul told the Thessalonians to make sure they work on their total selves, the spirit man, the soul and the body. There we have it. Earlier he explained to the Corinthians that Adam was a living soul; whereas CHRIST came in as a quickening SPIRIT. This brings us to the beginning. What is it that died in Adam when he sinned in the Garden? It was not the body, certainly not. It was not the soul. It was the spirit Adam. One of the statements GOD said in the beginning was: Let us make man in our own image. But we know that GOD is SPIRIT, and the spirit is not seen, therefore cannot be likened in physical form. In other words, man was made in the spirit-image of GOD. When man sinned, this is the real guy who died instantly! By the grace of GOD, this is the guy CHRIST came to quicken, to resurrect… to save for the start.
When we say one is ‘born again’, we mean their spirit being has been raised back to the life in CHRIST from the death they died in Adam. When one is born again, their body still remains the same. If you were fat, you don’t slim up after confession prayer. The scars you had will still be there; the tattoos and every other physical deformation remain. The bars you drank from, the girlfriends or boyfriends; the wives or husbands; the children. The charms, the cigarettes, the physical world still remain unchanged. But there is an immediate awakening in the spirit man.
The word ‘born’ in the slogan ‘born again’ was not used just figuratively. To be born again means to be born again. The new born baby, to survive the wiles of life, must grow and learn the principles of life. The way a beautiful physical baby is malnourished from lack of healthy food so also the spirit baby. Man does not live on bread alone. Bread does not feed the spirit man but the physical. All the onion and garlic; the butter and cream; the chocolate and hamburgers, all these nourish only the flesh. For the spirit to survive there has to be the food of the spirit: the WORD of GOD. All Scripture is given by inspiration of GOD, and is used to profit the spirit man first, then the whole man. For GOD’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through our knowledge of HIM who gave immortality to our mortal life. This spirit man can only live by EVERY word that comes out of the mouth of GOD.
The spirit and the flesh are contrary one to the other. What the one wants the other doesn’t. There is no harmony in the life of a person, until there has been real conformity to some standard. When the spirit grows stronger in the WORD diet, the body submits to the needs of the spirit. Such a living soul is said to be partaking of the divine nature of GOD, enjoying all the great and precious promises of GOD in CHRIST. On the contrary, if the flesh, the body, grows stronger than the spirit, dictating eating schedules and picnics, demanding fast foods and all manner of gluttony at the expense of a starving spirit, then the man, even if born again, is living a self-deception, he can never prove that good, and pleasing, and perfect will of GOD.
Therefore, says Paul, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to the LORD. It is the only measurable act of worship. Not only that, be transform by the renewing of your minds! Not even your thoughts were born again that day you declared your life to JESUS. You will have to subject your body and your soul, where your mind and emotions are, to a process of renewal. It is the cross we bear every day, fighting the flesh that the spirit may grow to the likeness of the fullness of CHRIST. And since you are just what you think, your thought faculty, it means you will need to align the soul with the spirit realm, not the flesh. In short, have the mind of CHRIST. To think like GOD, you have to be a god; to think like a thief, it makes you a thief; to think like a loser, you never have to win. To go to heaven, you must have a HEAVENLY MIND, the Mind of CHRIST. If you put off what you should do to transform your mind for heaven’s sake, and prefer merrying for mother earth, judge for yourself just how much of earth we shall find ‘up’ yonder!
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