Genesis of Thought and Feelings ...

 

Have you ever considered how your thoughts work?  Or perhaps wondered where feelings come from?  Your body is largely water, it has a few trace minerals in it.  From a composition standpoint there is nothing in the periodic table that would lend itself to the process of original thinking or feeling.  Electrical impulses maybe, but that is mere mechanism.  Your house is full of wiring that powers the lights, the TV’s, and air conditioning.  Just having an electrical impulse down a carrier wire does not create thought, intelligence, and far from emotion.  These days A.I. is all the rage, trying to make a computer emulate the human brain.  As far as logic goes, we are too close for comfort.  But as far as ethics go, we are close enough to create Sky-Net and watch Terminators come to life.  But to make something as inanimate as a computer understand feelings is still beyond our capacity.  We can make a computer “pretend” to respond based on certain sets of stimuli, but to originate a feeling is again beyond our current capacities.  And in that sense the origination of thought is also barely understood.  What makes Beethoven, Beethoven (the musician)?  Why do his thoughts not lead him to become Picasso (the painter), instead of the musician?  Why does his version of creativity, or the origination of thought and desire, not lead him anywhere instead of in just a singular venue?  These are still mysteries we do not fully comprehend.

So then, if you are you, because of how your thoughts and feelings are uniquely composed and cataloged – but the “why” of who you are we still do not understand – then when Jesus says the “Kingdom of God” is within you, could He be talking about a literal phenomenon, not just a figurative?  Could the Kingdom of God be more than just what we believe, what we think, or what we feel?  Could it literally be the presence of God influencing all of the above?  After all, we do not know why a particular thought originates in our brain.  We believe most of them happen due to external stimulus, influenced by conditioning, habit, preference, and bio-chemical responses.  But perhaps there is one more very critical factor in the very genesis of our thoughts and feelings.  Take faith for example.  Does faith come from you, or does it move through you, like some combination of thoughts and feelings you do not fully understand yet cling to in spite of facts, logic, and common sense.  How is that possible?  Reality would dictate that faith is illogical, or self-deception.  But faith rewarded only becomes stronger, and with it trust in what cannot be seen.  So when thoughts and feelings of faith overwhelm you, is that truly some sort of self-delusion, or rather is it divinely inspired from the throne room of God Himself, alive in you, alive in the origination of thoughts and feelings in your brain?  More the latter if you ask me.

Does a Kingdom have to be something we can see, and touch?  Must it have limits defined by its physical presence, or could the Kingdom of God be truly limitless unbound by what we can merely see or touch, but as real as anything else we can experience?  Love is not something we see, but it is more real to us than anything else we experience.  An overabundance of love, is a life beyond all descriptions of happiness.  An undersupply of love, is a life of pain nothing else can bring comfort to.  So love is not bounded by a physical presence in the “real world”, but it remains something very real in our experience, existing perhaps in the same plain of existence where God also reigns.  Love drives behavior, it has been known to cause us to willingly self-sacrifice for the benefit of another.  Love is not about self-preservation, so in that sense it defies all logic as well.  And we say that God is Love, but how seldom do we connect the dots, of knowing God, by knowing what it is to love our spouses, love our children, love our friends and family, and even to learn to love our enemies.  Things greater than ourselves, greater even than what exists in the world of see and touch.  This is something Jesus wanted us to understand.  It begins with a story of faith.

Luke writes to us of this story in the 17^th chapter of his gospel letter, picking up in verse 11 saying … “And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. [verse 12] And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: [verse 13] And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  Think about this, Lepers, men and women with a terminal disease from which all cures have been lost.  The disease is a death sentence, a long slow living death.  Flesh rots until the whole of body is shut down painfully.  And the disease is horribly contagious forcing one who has it into isolation.  There will be no doctor’s visits.  There will be no pharmaceutical remedy to dull the pain.  There will be complete loneliness, physical pain, and a long slow march towards death.  Priests who were supposed to know how to heal this, and frankly any other condition or malady (remedies given to them by God), had long since forgotten how.  Or perhaps even more sad, had lost faith those remedies which rely upon the supernatural would work.  But are we any different? 

But these lepers had faith in the impossible, as it existed in the person of Jesus Christ.  So they stayed away as much as they could and found Jesus as He begins to enter the next town or village on His route.  They cry out, hoping against hope, believing in someone they do not understand why, being overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings they simply cannot reconcile with any form of logic.  Luke continues in verse 14 saying … “And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”  First, when Jesus asks them to go to the priests as was part of the custom for cleansing that had been lost, but Jesus was not going to let go – they were not clean yet.  They started walking away from Jesus, still losing body parts, still being infectious, still suffering from a terminal disease.  There was no reason to go see the priests.  The disease was still with them.  Yet they went.  Without question.  It is what they were told.  Perhaps they would be healed when they got there.  It did not matter.  They were told to go, and go they went.  And along the journey while they were walking, their bodies were fully restored.  All the missing parts re-appeared as if re-created by our Creator God Himself, as it truly was.  Full strength returned, perhaps even better than it had ever been.  I am certain it overwhelmed them all. 

We don’t know if these ten lepers were a mix of Jews and Samaritans, or a mix of young and old, or a mix of men and women.  We only know about one.  One leper disobeyed what he was told by Jesus.  But he disobeyed because he could not help himself.  Perhaps he was the one who was healed of the most serious case of the leprosy among the ten.  Those who are forgiven the most, tend to be the most grateful.  But this one leper just could not follow what he was told.  While the other nine did as instructed.  Luke continues in verse 15 saying … “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, [verse 16] And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.”  The one man who returned was a Samaritan.  Luke points this out, because while the Jews looked down upon Samaritans, it was the Samaritan whose heart was broken by this healing and just had to return to Jesus, glorifying God, falling at the feet of Christ, and thanking Him with tears and a heart shattered by the love of God.

Luke continues in verse 17 saying … “And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? [verse 18] There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. [verse 19] And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.”  This is not a condemnation of Jesus of the other nine.  They remained healed.  They are actually continuing to do what Jesus had asked them to do, to present themselves to the priests, to the Pharisees, as a testimony to them that healing was back in Israel.  Even if the Pharisees had lost faith that terminal illnesses could be cured, Jesus had not, nor had these men, who were now living testimonies to the healing power of Jesus Christ and His Father God.  But Jesus asks about the other nine, and draws attention to the fact that this man is a stranger (a Samaritan), to draw contrast to how the “more devout” children of Abraham responded to an encounter with God.  The Samaritan just had to come back and thank Jesus.  How many of us are more like the other nine?  We may do as we are told, because our hearts do not drive us back in great joy and worship.  We worship when it is time to.  We sing when it is time to.  Pray when it is time.  Our brains have us conditioned to do what we are supposed to, when we are supposed to.  But the heart of this man drove him to do what he did despite instructions to the contrary.  He just had to thank God first.  He would still go the priests, but He needed more Jesus first.  How few of us think this way, or feel this way, and how sad that is.

Luke continues in verse 20 saying … “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: [verse 21] Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”  The priests got the message and were none too happy about it.  It was rather humiliating to have ten lepers show up who were no longer lepers because of an encounter with Jesus who still knew they could be healed.  To rub salt in the wound, these lepers were also fully restored something only Jesus could do, that is, only the Creator could do.  So the Pharisees were determined to bust Jesus on something.  If He were God, He would know when heaven was supposed to come back to this world.  So the priests wanted a specific answer from Jesus, when would they be saved, when would Israel be saved.  Note the emphasis on “when”, not on “how”.

But think about the answer of Jesus.  Heaven does NOT come because you watch for it.  In just a few verses later, Jesus will discuss how the time of Noah, and the time of Lot, were also very analogous to the return of God to our earth, and the re-installation of heaven for us all.  But that day will NOT ever be seen without understanding “how” salvation works.  For salvation to work, the Kingdom of God must live within you.  The thoughts of your brain need influence, they need the direction of the Holy Spirit, they need God to interact with them.  Your feelings need not be based solely on bio-chemical reactions, but instead be fully influenced by Jesus Christ through the mechanism of the Kingdom of God within you.  How else will you ever come to know empathy for the downtrodden instead of apathy?  How else will you ever learn what it is to love others so passionately that you would gladly self-sacrifice without a moments hesitation or regret?  Not just feelings of worship highs, but deep feelings aligned with the Kingdom of God that make a difference in the lives of others, that have tangible benefits for others in the here and the now.

We need the power of God’s force to influence our very weak minds, to create thoughts where none might have existed to do what love would drive us to do.  Faith, despite all logic.  Trust, despite a complete lack of what we can see or touch.  Thoughts, aligned with feelings, aligned completely with a boundless Kingdom of God founded in a love we will never fully understand.  While we may never understand how our thoughts are created or why; the genesis of our thoughts can be better understood in the light of the Kingdom of God within us.  Our lives can be made better.  Our freedom can be granted to us by the power of Jesus, made free, made whole, saved beyond what we could have imagined.  Despite the impossibility of it all, yet it remains real.  The “when” of God’s return cannot ever be fully appreciated until the “how” of our salvation is understood.  Genesis was not only a book about creation, it is a living process instilled within you by a willing heart and mind, to accept the salvation you need, and by allowing it we come to want more and more.

 

Secret Missions [part two] ...

Peter recites to John Mark in his gospel chapter seven two stories of where Jesus was attempting to reveal the Father’s love in secret, attempting to avoid publicity in His mission.  In our previous study, we examined the first incident which was designed to test the faith of a mother, and reveal the character of the companions of Christ.  In examining the second story here, Peter is significantly more detailed about the mechanics of the healing, than in the other miracles Christ performed.  Peter goes into the details.  The question is why?  Ultimately the publicity of the mission of the Messiah cannot be controlled or subdued.  Whether by excited recipients who simply cannot keep silent about what Christ has done for them (oh, that we had such people in our day), or by demons who work in concert to drive the people to make Him king whether He wants it or not; the missions of Christ are widely known, and widely publicized.  So Peter does not seem to need to correlate secrecy with how this sick man was healed, yet he spends time talking about both.  Perhaps it is the details themselves that warrant deeper attention.

The story begins in no special way picking up in verse 31 saying … “And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.”  Jesus is traveling again.  He moves another significant distance.  Was this perhaps to avoid publicity by moving away from a region that seemed inundated with stories of Him, or was this perhaps to find the one who would be brought to Him in so desperate a need.  It is hard to say.  The story continues in verse 32 saying … “And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.”  Here is where a few details appear.  First, the person afflicted has more than one health problem.  He is deaf, and subsequently has a speech impediment.  Now, most people that cannot hear, also have a strange, or impacted way of speaking.  But the attention Peter pays to this condition, and the subsequent healing Christ does specifically for this man’s ability to talk, tells us this was not just a simple cause and effect from the deafness.  It was something more.

Next, the request of the people to heal this man, included the clause “put His hand upon him”.  The people in this story either have not heard of Christ healing simply by dragging His garments over someone, like the woman who started this trend some time ago across the Sea of Galilee.  Or they are unfamiliar with Christ simply speaking the words of assurance like He did to the last mother, who found her daughter healed even though the daughter never was actually in the presence of Christ.  These people bent on helping this man, wanted a personal touch by Christ.  Perhaps this was the most common way people were aware of Jesus’ healing powers, and they were simply requesting He do it for their friend.  No matter, Jesus did not refuse them.

The story continues in verse 33 saying … “And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; [verse 34] And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. [verse 35] And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”  More interesting correlations arise in these verses.  You will note first, Jesus takes the impacted man away from the multitude.  Jesus wants a more private, perhaps a more personal interaction with this man.  Jesus is not looking for publicity; He is searching for more privacy.  If He had wanted the crowds to see it, He could have made a spectacle of this man’s healing, but He did not.  Next, the touch requested is granted in probably a more personal way, than Jews who had been told they must obsess about ceremonial cleanings would like.  Jesus did not reach out and shake hands with this sick man, He put His fingers right into the guy’s ears.  Further, He spit on His own fingers, and then He touched the man’s very tongue, where most of the taste buds, and sensitivity is in your mouth I might add.

If we correlate what is happening here with the Gospel of John regarding the lame man, we might reach a conclusion, that Christ is literally creating flesh, and organs, where they are missing either partially or in whole.  This particular healing is not about lowering a fever, or putting strength into existing organs and tissue, I believe it is about creating some, where they did not exist before.  Remembering that we are created from dirt, and are composed of mostly water, Christ our Creator, may be doing what He did back in Eden, albeit on a much more limited scale.  In this instance, our Creator is restoring something that has been messed up or is partially missing.  Not only does Jesus take these very personal touching actions with the impacted sick man, He then follows all of this with a prayer to His Father.  He looks up to heaven before speaking Himself.  This is to acknowledge that His Father is the source of all love, and all restorative power.  Then before speaking Peter says that Jesus sighed.  Perhaps Jesus too is frustrated that sin, and Satan have so corrupted our world, and our bodies, that this man suffers from more from what has been done.  Perhaps Jesus too, would have us ALL restored, both physically and spiritually, but no one in the crowd is asking for spiritual restoration, which arguably is more important. 

He then speaks in front of the man, a sort of command, the word “Ephphatha” which is immediately interpreted as “be opened”.  The command is not directly to the man to speak and hear properly.  It is instead to the impacted organs to be capable of perfect hearing, and perfect speech.  The organs are no longer to be an impediment to the man’s ability to hear and speak.  And the man immediately tested his new abilities and spoke plainly.  Sometimes we miss the subtlety of God providing us gifts, and then watching what we do with them.  The organs were restored, they were re-created by Christ, but the man was not commanded to pray, or give thanks, or say “I love you” to his family.  In point of fact, he could have used foul language, and swore at his enemies, now knowing they would understand him perfectly.  Our senses are a gift to us from our creator.  How we choose to employ them is not commanded by Christ, but is witnessed by Christ.  How we use our senses reveals our hearts, to have our hearts restored and re-created by Christ is the bigger accomplishment, and the one we are each in most need of.

Then Peter resumes the recollection, for the need for secrecy, as the story continues in verse 36 saying … “And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it;” Christ tells the friends of the man, and man himself, not to publicize what He has done for them.  The first directive, the first commandment given to this grateful man, is to keep silent about who healed him, and how He did it.  The recreation of missing tissue, above all other types of healing, reveals Jesus as our Creator.  This revelation was too controversial in Israel.  People who might otherwise listen to the life-giving words of Jesus, would tune Him out, if the Creator title were associated with His name and ministry.  The people needed not to know everything plainly yet, because they were not ready to know it yet.  Even the disciples of Christ were not completely ready yet.  Knowing Jesus was our creator was just too much.  But the one thing Jesus asked of them, was the one thing they completely disobeyed Him about.

Christ had a larger goal of ministry in mind, that these men, in their gratitude, were messing up.  Jesus does not curse them for this.  Jesus does not take back His healing.  He knew beforehand that this man would not keep his mouth shut, yet He heals him anyway.  Would you have done it.?  This is part of the mystery of our salvation.  We are created by God, uniquely, even though He ultimately knows whether we will decide for Him, or against Him.  We are given free will to choose, even when the choice is a bad one.  Jesus did not restrict His love from this man, even though the man would mess up the plans of Jesus.  Jesus does not restrict giving us gifts, from our senses, to the money in our wallets, even though we often choose to mess up what we do with them.  The love of our Lord is consistent, even though ours is not. 

It is a mistake to think that the gifts our Lord gives to us are an indication of us being saved.  He gives to those who are saved, and those who are unsaved.  He loves both camps of people.  He does not love one more than the other, loving both perpetrator and victim equally.  His heart breaks because of the pain the perpetrator causes himself and his victim, and His heart breaks for what pain the sin of the perpetrator has caused to the victim, for what the victim must now go through.  We will never know the depth of pain we cause our God, who has perfect love for us, by what we choose to do, and how we choose not to love others when we could.   But perhaps, we could lift the sigh of our Lord, if we were to seek spiritual restoration, and re-creation, by asking for this kind of healing for ourselves.  Perhaps we could make His heart leap for joy, as we submit to Him, our actions, our desires, and the core of who we are to be remade by Him as He sees fit.  No matter what healing God does for our bodies, it is the healing of our souls that He most wants us to publicize.

People will inevitably seek Jesus for healing, for primarily selfish reasons where it comes to our bodies.  We want full functionality, and long life, where our physical bodies are concerned.  But to crave perfection, to crave a life with a complete lack of sin, these are the cravings that change the world, and reflect salvation rooted in Christ.  Publicizing what Jesus can do for the spiritually sick, is what it is all about.  The selfish do not run to Christ to fix that, they only run to Him for other reasons.  But if we would dare to offer the core of who we are, and what we want, to Jesus, we would find a restoration that is far more important than the state of our bodies, and one that lasts far longer.  The people could not understand this deeper mission of Christ, they saw only its physical manifestations as the story concludes in verse 37 saying … “And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”

People, then and now, are “beyond measure astonished” to find out that our Lord is also our Creator.  Those who would replace Genesis with a more scientific origin, are in addition, removing the creating power from Jesus.  They strip Jesus of His ability to re-create, as they strip Him of His original creation.  Where science appears to conflict with the Bible, it is science that remains incomplete in our understanding.  Because compared with the miraculous transformation of the human heart, there is no scientific, or evolutionary counterpart that can sufficiently explain the phenomenon.  To be saved by Jesus Christ, is an experience that cannot be denigrated by equations and probabilities.  To have the core of who we are, altered to be in harmony with Him, and with His laws of love, is a singular experience, and the one He was trying to reveal to the people in His age, and in ours.

 

Freedom to Choose ...

To end the pain, and see truth, one must make a choice to do so. Life does not require it. It is deeply personal and it cannot be forced by circumstances, peer pressure, or even supernatural forces. It is the singular choice we make in our lifetimes. Every other choice we make stems from this one, whether for our benefit, or our ultimate destruction. We are in fact, free to choose only whom we will serve. In our addicted and pathetic state of slavery to evil, it requires God’s grace to even have the freedom to make this rudimentary choice. But this is the choice we are offered freely. And we are free to choose our end as a result.

The outcomes are sure, but the selection is up to us. To choose our Creator God and His plan for our Salvation from evil, is to destine our lives towards success. To not make this selection, to delay or quibble, to remain in a state of contemplation on the topic and avoid commitment – is to prolong the condition we are in today, and keep pain as an active part of our daily lives. Our own nature of self interest will someday cause us to implode. The core of how we function is based on a premise to cause us immeasurable pain throughout our lives. It is the recognition of our condition that leads us to the need of a Savior. When you do not see the pain you cause yourself, refuse to recognize it, or blame it on others or even God – you remain bound to its power over you, and a slave doomed to feel its effects again and again.

Love is a choice. Love cannot be forced. This is why God offers us His plan and never commands us or forces us to choose it. It is logical to choose love. It is smart to choose relief over pain. It seems ultimately what the best choice is, but it remains a choice many walk away from. Satan is about control. He is the opposite of God in every respect. Where God offers you love, Satan would impose his will over even your basic decision to choose. This is the nature of the evil kingdom, where slavery, addiction, and power over the weak are things of praise. Obviously none of these facts would do well in a marketing brochure, so in order to deceive the masses, evil presents the alternative choice to God, as merely self-control, self-domination.

Evil would have us believe that should we choose to avoid a choice for God, we are free to run our own lives, free to do anything we want without guilt or condemnation. Evil would have us believe that we cannot be free while serving God or others, we can only be free when serving ourselves. And this alternative choice has been very popular for a long time. It fits well with our nature. It appeals to our ego and natural self interest. It is what we WANT to hear, and what we WANT to believe, whether it is true or not. But facts on the ground reveal its fallacy. The pain we continue to inflict on ourselves and others while we remain under the illusion of control is a real-world testament to the fallacy of freedom absent God. To deal with this fact, Satan simply blames God for it. Rather than let you take any responsibility for your own actions, decision, and behaviors which have caused you inordinate pain, Satan blames God for allowing you to do all these things. And very often we buy into his arguments hook, line, and sinker.

The truth and the facts, when examined without the rose colored glasses of self interest on, show that indeed we are our own worst enemy. Acting selfishly is the primary cause of pain in our lives, and our condition of addiction requires something outside of ourselves if we are ever to break this cycle. In short we need a Savior to save us from ourselves, from our natures, from our thinking, from our behaviors. This is what each of us desperately needs, and as each of us is different, a unique individual, so the work of saving us must be personalized to fit our unique needs. This is exactly what God has offered us in His gift of love.

But some Christians have taken God’s gentle offer of love, and tried to turn it into a mandate of enforcement over “the guilty”. While Christ Himself did not condemn our guilty world while here on earth, some of His purported followers spend their entire existence doing just that. They reason that sin must be called by its proper name. They reason that attention must be drawn to the law of God so that evil doers can see the error of their ways. Yet they do not look in the mirror. They do not see the evil that lies within them, nor that they are doing the very work Satan does – accuser of the brethren. It is not a question as to whether the world is guilty of sin and evil, it is. Neither is it a question as to whether we are guilty of it, we are. Guilt has never been the question. Our pain alone should tell us that. What to do when you are guilty is the question, how to save the guilty is the question, ending the pain of the guilty is the question. Redemption itself is the goal for all who feel the sting of self inflicted pain.

For a choice to be true it must be free. This is the peril of our existence, that we are truly free to walk away from the offer of our Salvation. God actually does allow us to reject Him. He does not recommend it, His love fights hard to lure us back, He does everything He can to try to show us why choosing Him is our best decision. But at the end of the day, God unlike Satan, does not compel anyone to do anything, or make any choice. His followers would do well to learn this lesson and stop imitating Satan and calling it the work of divinity. We are indeed free to choose. Life or death, it is our choice, and therefore someday our responsibility and no one else’s.