NINE
A New Focus
I have called Jesus our example. As a man, I think, He was a model of how we ought to be. He walked the same road we do; He was baptized like any one of us is. We believe our Lord, so when He said what He said in John 3:6, we assume that He referred to Himself and to His followers as those who were ‘born of the spirit’.
We assume that Jesus was neither all flesh, nor all spirit, but He said in John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
I ask a rather separatist question, then. Being the first fruits, was Jesus the first to be ‘born again’?
Formerly, our eyes have glazed over at the hard sayings of scripture. Now, we train upon the truth a steelier eye. We take a new focus on the things that once eluded us. Things like the relationship between spiritual and corporeal. To be born of the spirit; to be the children of God – we wish to know just how that works. Is being born of the spirit (being spirit), as Jesus said in John 3:6, the same thing as being a child of God? Let’s see what the early writers thought.
Let’s see Romans 8:14, “For as many as are led by the Spirit (mind) of God, they are the sons of God.”
That is a very straightforward statement. To be led by the spirit is to be born of the spirit. It isn’t hard to spot those born of the flesh: we’ve all been there. The focus of that type is on the flesh, and on what
affects the flesh. They go on and on about bodily functions, about materials that affect the body. In
their thinking, the final good is the physical good. Mentality and attitude in that type bear the brand
of the flesh.
Romans 8:5 gives us the distinction between those born of (led by) the flesh, and those born of (led by) the spirit: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.”
Please recall that we have adopted the word ‘mind’ as an edifying substitute for the word ‘spirit’. It’s a matter of focus. Throughout this study, the general focus has been that our cognitive abilities are spiritual.
We sort of have a mantra to that effect: our cognitive abilities are spiritual; spiritual and communication go hand in hand; there is no action without communication.
How does one tell another that he is not in the visible flesh, but in the invisible spirit - and get away with the absurdity of the claim? It’s a matter of focus. The spirit filled are still real flesh and blood people; they have simply shifted the focus (the center of their whole being) from the flesh to the mind.
Focus for a moment on Romans 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit (mind), if so be that the Spirit (mind) of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit (mind) of Christ, he is none of His.”
To have a new center of being; to have shifted the focus up, requires a changed inclination, a changed attitude. The things that once were important have been supplanted by newer, more vital issues.
See Romans 15:30, “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit (mind).”
The followers of Jesus were given a new focus. When they compared themselves to their predecessors, they saw that their focus had shifted up from the flesh. Their forefathers were the physical circumcision: that was their relationship to God. They lived by a formula that had them counting steps in the dark. That former connection in the flesh was replaced by one in the mind. They considered that the taking away of the caul from the mind was a spiritual circumcision.
Cut to Philippians 3:3, “We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit (mind), and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
Why no confidence in the flesh? It was a dead end; no more than signs and tokens. If larger preparations led one to an ability to live largely, those preparations could not be found in ritual motions of the body. No matter what the body did, the body died. Ritual washing and other physical gesticulations became mute when one was empowered to prepare the mind for a new world.
See Galatians 6:8, “He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit (mind) shall of the Spirit (mind) reap life everlasting.”
In fact, a new kind of ‘washing’ had dawned in baptism. It was the washing of regeneration. The thesaurus gives us some enlightening alternatives to the word ‘regeneration’. Try these on for size: ‘better’, ‘improve’, ‘uplift’, ‘replace’, ‘re-create’.
Baptism, it seems, is the crossover point from the purely ritual to the spiritual. See the words of Christ in Mark 11:30, “The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer Me.”
It’s mind over matter. Formerly, God’s loving-kindness toward men was ensured through compliance with a formula. Every early society had its rituals. God took a people to Himself and pointed their ritual inclinations away from the rest of the world. In doing so, man was given time to develop. When the early mind reached a critical alignment, it was given an example to follow. What was lost through Adam’s fall had to be renewed.
See the renewing of the Holy Ghost in Titus 3:4, “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared.”
A spiritual ear. What do we pick up on?
So we built on former successes! The top rung of a ladder is not there for itself. It is there that we might reach a higher place. There is a place of change, and man simply must climb off that top rung. A new beginning must necessarily leave the old in its dust.
The sons of mankind moved into a spiritual dispensation, begun by Christ communicating the mind of God into men. It is the dispensation of the communicated mind.
See Galatians 3:2, 3 & 5, “Received ye the Spirit (mind) by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit (mind), are ye now made perfect by the flesh? He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit (mind), and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”
Man was made a living soul by a communication from God. The Holy Ghost was then, for the most part, lost. However, man still had access to the spirit; the mind of God. Man had to begin an ascent from the very clay of his corporeal nature. I speak of an evolution of the spiritual that dragged physical man along behind. Man began as natural: that is on a par with the animals. As natural, man could progress but so far. Then came the point of crossover. When Christ is referred to as the last Adam, it is said that He was ‘made’, or turned into, a ‘quickening spirit’. But Jesus was a flesh and blood man, protests the mind. How could He be an invisibility? My, how the old mind clings! Time to check out the thesaurus.
Enlivening psyche, or mind.
A communicator of the living mind. See 1 Corinthians 15:45-47, “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.”
The second man, by extension, must include all of us who are changed into the image of Christ. Those of us who have the communicated mind of God: the Holy Ghost. Are we, then, Lords from heaven also?
Communication is key. Spiritual issues are passed back and forth like currency. It is the norm that a father will share his substance with his child. An allowance, if you will. Fathers give such to their young, without regard to their level of understanding, degree of righteousness, or spiritual inclination. Back in the day, the allowance might have been in sheep or goats, granted; the point of the communication is that the children follow in the steps of the father. The family business, and
the nature and skills of the father, like a mantle, would pass to the children.
See the good gift in Luke 11:13, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”
So God, through Jesus (the word), communicates the mind of God, the Holy Ghost, into man. It races forward like a spiritual chain letter. Everyone who gets a letter passes it on. Everyone that is ministered to becomes a minister. We are all emissaries of the mind of God.
A sick person depends on others for help. A well person is at liberty. If you took the blood of Christ, made a vaccine with it and inoculated the next person in line; then, made a vaccine from that person’s blood and repeated the process, by the time everyone was inoculated, not only would everyone share immunity, they would share the same substance. If the mind of God is our immunization, we share the mind of God and are fit to live in self-governance.
Roll up your sleeve for an injection of 2 Corinthians 3:8 & 17, “How shall not the ministration of the spirit (mind) be rather glorious? Now the Lord is that Spirit (mind): and where the (Holy) Spirit (mind) of the Lord is, there is liberty (immunity and self-government).”
A single mind indwells, but not just the mechanics of thought. A real personality comes with the Holy Mind of God. A Christ-like personality is ours, and an active personality that doesn’t simply wait to be called on. It also functions independently of our faculty of choice. Our new mind does things we can only guess about.
See Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit (mind) also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit (mind) itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
The very nature of that new mind, like the indication of a finger ring beneath a glove, can be plainly seen in us. Manifestations of the invisible are detectable in the corporeal plain and are therefore proof of spirituality.
See the detectable invisibility in 1 Corinthians 12:4, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.”
It is the same mind, but not the same in every man.
See also 1 Corinthians 12:7, 8 & 11, “The manifestation of the Spirit (mind) is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit (mind) the word of wisdom (communication); to another the word of knowledge (communication) by the same Spirit (mind); To another faith by the same Spirit (mind); to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit (mind); To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy (communication); to another discerning of spirits (minds); to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit (mind), dividing to every man severally as He will.”
Two questions come to my (mind) regarding faith. Why doesn’t everyone have faith, and how is faith
communicated?
Can a shift up; a new focus, help us see the invisible? Some people call our ‘point of activation’ an epiphany. But, ‘epiphany’ is a word that casts a shadow on itself. Such words fall into the hands of the contrary, and through their usage receive an improper connotation. But, the mind in man may be activated. Even the worldly share in that. A new focus may have, as part of its overall package, a new direction. To see the invisible, one opens the eyes where others look not.
Look at Matthew 3:16, “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.”
Did Jesus speak from that new focus?
He said in John 4:24, “God is a Spirit (mind): and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit (mind) and in truth.”
Does a mind require mental?
Does spirit demand spiritual?
The world says that ‘seeing is believing’. That is a concept that may be worked two ways. The one way would be to prepare for seeing: to strive and practice. You begin with a thought that there may be something you don’t see on the far horizon. Do you disclaim its existence? No. You get binoculars. Lo! And behold, there it is. The other way would be to reject every unseen thing out of hand.
There is the seeing eye, and there is the unseeing eye. The former is accompanied by the mind and thus may see things the unseeing eye cannot.
See the difference in John 14:17, “Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you.”
To see and to know can be the same. The world wants to hunt for floating lights and spooky noises. That is just looking for physical manifestations. We seekers believe that to know the invisible is to see the invisible. The world wants the eye alone to see a proof: that is self-defeating. Once an invisibility is known (seen with the mind), it is no longer invisible.
In the end, the world seeks only self-justification.
We practice a different skill.
See Jeremiah 22:16, “He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know Me? saith the Lord.”
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