Knowing the end from the beginning, God knew what mankind would do before He created them. This did not deter Him from choosing humans as His heirs. Therefore, from before the foundations of the world, He made a covenant with Himself (God the Father with God the Son) to rescue mankind from their disobedience. (Revelation 13:8; 1 Peter 1:19)
Through Jesus, we have the Way of reconciliation back to the original intent of relationship between God the Father and humanity. When we are rescued from the kingdom of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of His Beloved Son (Colossians 1:13-14), The Holy Spirit places us (baptizes us) into the Body of Christ.
As our Father, He then begins walking us through the process of maturation by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12:2) This “growing up” transitions a person from being governed by the mind of the soul to being governed by the mind of the spirit.
He patiently walks with us through daily life and in a myriad of ways we organically learn through experience that we should not primarily trust in our own understanding. Proverbs 3:5 describes this by saying, “lean not on your own understanding.” This is not to say that our understanding does not have relevance; however, our own intellect is not to be the rock that we ultimately stand upon in our decision making processes.
Life in the Spirit also has a way of challenging the self-sufficiency of the human soul. While we navigate responsibilities, relationships, careers and homes, He teaches us to hear His gentle and kind voice as He creatively offers His leadership and His provision for our every need.
The process by which we are transformed in our thinking is known as death and resurrection. Facing and walking through various life circumstances that engender suffering provides a fertile seed bed in which we may learn to govern our own souls. This “governing” occurs through our privilege of choice.
We always have a choice.
In the presence of suffering abides an internal tension between the mind of the soul and the mind of the spirit. Jesus – fully human and fully God – was not exempt from this internal tension. Scripture tells us that He cried out to His Father in the midst of His soul’s anguish (Luke 22:41-43;Hebrews 5:7). Yet, He chose His Father’s will instead of His own.
Hebrews 5:8 states that “although He was a Son, (Jesus) learned obedience from what He suffered.” I believe this is describing His life on earth as He “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man, (Luke 2:52)” resulting in Him “been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. (Hebrews 5:9)”
So we see that in Jesus’ life, lived out as “the Way” for us, that the choices we make in the midst of suffering are the catalyst for our transformative thinking and resulting maturity as children of God. Indeed, Hebrews 12:4-11 describes our Heavenly Father’s redemption of suffering in the lives of His children , in that “God disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness.”
Let’s further explore the eternal principle of death and resurrection. In John 12:24, Jesus is quoted as saying, “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” In this circumstance He is describing the death He is about to die and the eternal fruit that will result from His choice to lay down His life for us.
Yet, this eternal principle applies to us as well. As we daily choose to lay down our life – the “death” of being primarily led by our own intellect – our spiritual understanding is “resurrected” in choosing to be led by the Holy Spirit.
We are ever being transformed by the renewing of our mind – our thinking – resulting in the potential for “much fruit,” as we choose His leading in our spirit instead of our own independent intellect.
When the human spirit’s mind is alert, what is real to the person is what God says is real. When the soul’s mind is alert, what is real to him is what his intellectual thought processes tell him is real. And therein lies the tension.
The work of a son, in the midst of suffering and this tension described above, is to believe. (John 6:29) To believe in the One who was sent by the Father. In doing so, the orphan mindset of self-sufficiency begins to loosen, as more and more one listens in one’s spirit, where he/she is led by the Holy Spirit.
Why run this race with endurance? Why choose the narrow and difficult path? Why pursue the heart of The Father? Jesus is worth it.
James exhorts us to “allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:4) And though, “No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12: 11)
