ELEVEN
Realization
This book puts forward the question: “What exactly is spiritual?” It is the seeker’s point of view that ‘spiritual’ and ‘cognitive’ are concepts that may be used interchangeably. Our premise is that a spiritual God (the God of knowledge) is realizing Himself into corporeal man by the process of replacing our minds with His.
See 1 Samuel 13:14, “The Lord hath sought Him a man after His own heart (mind).”
Our studies have shown us that some people evince that transition, as denoted in Judges 5:15, “There were great thoughts of heart (mind),” and also in Judges 5:16, “There were great searchings of heart (mind).”
Now, everyone thinks, everyone searches and ponders and meditates, but not everyone goes to that next level. Natural man thinks natural thoughts. Spiritual man has been given something that places him in a higher bracket. That ‘something’, I think, is available to all; it is out in the open for any to freely take. However, to take it, one must use it.
See 1 Kings 3:12, “I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart (mind).”
What God offers is starkly different from the comfortable traditions of the natural man, which are basically reactionary. It’s not like watching TV, or going to a party, or hanging at the beach; it is rather like a grand piano at the bottom of a long flight of stairs. One must not only go down and shoulder the burden, one must be willing to go higher with it: up to the top. In that sense, the gift of a wise and understanding mind is directional in nature.
There are two directions: going up and going down. Standing still is not the same as going down, but neither is it anything on a par with going up. We think of the natural mind as going down (declining), or standing still (static). We think of the spiritual mind as inclined or ascending.
Joshua 24:23, “Incline your heart (mind).”
One of the defining traits of the natural mind is a little thing almost everyone has heard of: ‘situation ethics’. The fickle mind, the double mind, chaff before the wind, torn and divided allegiance is the state of which I speak. Some people are constantly surprised at how others mistreat them; others know the signs and adjust their alliances accordingly. Yet, even among the double-minded, a man who stands behind his word is seen as a man of virtue, and a man who can be trusted.
So - how does a man arrive at the place where his word can be ‘taken to the bank’? It is highly likely
that he did not learn it from one who could not be trusted to honor his word. If, for instance, a man
learned it from his Dad, what the Dad communicated to his son was more than sterile information: it was his very nature that he imparted. Such a mind is learned from God. The more we are like God,
the more singular is our intent.
See 1 Chronicles 12:33, “They were not of double heart (mind).”
The natural mind can, in a certain light, seem to be singular. Some people exalt resistance to instruction. They think they know as much as the next man, so they are offended at the first indication of instruction. They simply do not wish to be ‘told’; they complain of those who try to ‘force’ thoughts, ideas, and opinions down their throats. These are of the ‘hardhearted’ type, and not likely to embrace a thought that does not already suit them. The opposite type are they with an inclination toward dialog: such would be one whose mind is malleable but not gullible, one whose mind is impressionable, approachable, yet analytical.
See 2 Kings 22:19, “Because thine heart (mind) was tender.”
This type is more predisposed to know not only the possibilities of the mind but also the limitations.
See 1 Kings 8:38, “Which shall know every man the plague of his own heart (mind).”
In the course of exercising the gift of the God-mind, knowledge increases and is known as understanding. Understanding increases and is known as wisdom. Inherent in this process is a thing
most of us come to appreciate. It is called experience. When I go to get a haircut, I look for the
professional with understanding over those who are still practicing. We all seek the best in our daily
lives. We look for an accomplished attorney rather than some kid with a freshly printed diploma. We
seek an experienced surgeon rather than some hack. In every case where it truly matters to us, we
seek the man with a well-developed mind, a man of experience, and of expertise.
See 1 Kings 10:24, “And all the earth sought to Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart (mind).”
God is not always instantly realized, as in the mind of Solomon. With most, it is a process that involves the length of our lives, not to mention disciplined study.
See 1 Kings 8:61, “Let your heart (mind) therefore be perfect with the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes, and to keep His commandments, as at this day.”
Of course, the natural mind is predisposed to view study as so much lugubrious labor: dull and boring to the point of tears. Such a mind will always find it more desirable to party, or hang with friends - anything! Seekers, however, do not find seeking dull; they are quite pleased with every new gem they discover.
1 Chronicles 16:10, “Glory ye in His Holy name: let the heart (mind) of them rejoice that seek the Lord.”
Down through the centuries, men have sacrificed to God: 1 Chronicles 29:9, “With perfect heart (mind) they offered willingly to the Lord.”
They brought to altars beasts for bloodshed. They brought to coffers coins for causes. They placed their presents at the pulpit. Compared with our template, these activities do not seem especially spiritual. Yet, it does not take an architect to see that something has, over time, been built up. We may wonder how killing an animal can lead to cognitive skills; the two seem less than complimentary. Yet, everyone must crawl before they can walk.
Early religious practice does not seem particularly aligned with knowledge, understanding, or wisdom; but it does represent the ‘baby steps’ of conformity. Through all of its fundamental ceremony, early religion did sharpen the mind through regular practice. In every life circumstance, including trials and temptations, the mind returned to a single clarion issue: one’s relationship to God. Though not always thought of, foundations are vital to any building project.
See 1 Chronicles 29:17, “I know also, my God, that Thou triest the heart (mind), and hast pleasure in uprightness.”
In an early illustration, I likened the realization of God in corporeal man to a large fish materializing in a fish bowl. I mentioned that one of the important preliminary preparations in that process would necessarily be the modification of the environment inside the fishbowl. The fish could not just ‘pop in’. Since I am calling our heads fish bowls, it is our minds that must be prepared to accommodate the insertion.
See 1 Chronicles 29:18, “O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart (mind) of Thy people, and prepare their heart (mind) unto Thee.”
That preparation of the mind is shown as crucial in contrasting verses such as 2 Chronicles 12:14, “And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart (mind) to seek the Lord.”
‘Preparation’, ‘understanding’, and ‘covenant’ are, for the seeker’s purpose, related terms. ‘Blend’, ‘cognizance’, and ‘bond’ are alternate words found in the thesaurus. Our thoughts, by these terms, are directed toward the intent of ‘oneness’. Realization is a process. To think of this process, we must consider the individual’s connectedness, and our concern is for which direction the mind takes. There are people who do many good works - but that is the limiting factor: they are just works.
See 2 Chronicles 25:2, “And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart (mind).”
On the other hand, any of us who are, as we say, ‘wayward’ may draw close again to God and win new approval.
Take a look at 2 Chronicles 19:3, “Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart (mind) to seek God.”
In all of this, the mind either faces God or turns away. A seeker must, by his very nature, face God. The seeker, in receiving the communicated nature of God, seeks more of the same communication.
2 Chronicles 30:18-19, “The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart (mind) to seek God.”
God pardons and assists for it is the work of a spiritual God unto spiritual ends.
See 2 Chronicles 30:12, “The hand (the work) of God . . . to give them one heart (one mind) . . . by the word (the communication) of the Lord.”
Throughout the process that leads to one mind, the individual mind may be seen in its various stages.
2 Chronicles 17:6, “And his heart (mind) was lifted up in the ways of the Lord.”
2 Chronicles 29:31, “As many as were of a free heart (mind).”
As stated earlier, preparation is a blending of spiritual and corporeal, a practice aimed at achieving a bond. We are they that recognize and embrace those communications; we seek. We march inexorably toward that bonding of flesh and mind.
See 2 Chronicles 31:21, “To seek his God, he did it with all his heart (mind), and prospered.”
To prepare one’s mind to seek leads one to actually seek, and the word does say, ‘seek and you will find’. You must understand that the seeker does not receive idly. The seeker receives in order to practice; the seeker fully expects to exercise what he is given, fully expects the exercise to give abundance.
See Ezra 7:10, “For Ezra had prepared his heart (mind) to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.”
What came first, the chicken or the egg? What came first, the grape or the seed? The second question answers the first. (What came first, the question or the answer?) Just as the grape enlarges around the seed, so the sons of mankind develop around the given mind. Man did not invent it but is an extension of it. God gave the God-mind to man. God prepared mankind to seek it. First and foremost, the God-mind is a spiritual work in a corporeal plane bent on lifting the corporeal to spiritual heights.
If we ask, will God listen? Of course, He will: it is His work.
See Psalms 10:17, “Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble: Thou wilt prepare their heart (mind), Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear.”
The process. To what may we compare it? It is like an engine of perpetual motion that continuously feeds upon, and builds upon its own increase.
See Psalms 22:26, “The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the Lord that seek Him: Your heart (God’s mind) shall live for ever.”
I’ll say it once more: a spiritual God is working a spiritual work in a corporeal plane for His own spiritual ends.
Read Proverbs 16:1 closely, “The preparations of the heart (the mind) in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.”
Most of us are familiar with the A. S. K. verse: Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.”
The A. S. K. verse presents three distinct, though related, concepts. The central concept is ‘seek’. When one seeks, one is in actuality ‘looking’ for something. The word ‘looking’ denotes direction, and in that regard, we are reminded of The Great Reflection. If you have forgotten, The Great Reflection is the interface between God and man, man, of course, being the reflection (or, the corporeal extension) of his spiritual creator. Face does indeed answer to face.
See Psalms 27:8, “When Thou saidst, Seek ye My face; my heart (my mind) said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”
It is real: the more we behold the face of God, the more we look just like Him.
Psalms 105:3, “Glory ye in His holy name: let the heart (the mind) of them rejoice that seek the Lord.”
Despite the weight of the argument, there is still an ingrained disposition to place all results in a far and distant future rather than in the here and now. Allow me to refute that with a timeline from Daniel 10:12, “Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart (mind) to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for (because of) thy words.”
Both the preparation of the mind in man, and the answer of the tongue come from an invisible spiritual God. That is not to say we are puppets. We have a major role to play. Just as we are given muscles and must, therefore, exercise them to grow, the gift of the God-mind must be exercised. That exercise is growth, is health, is life.
See Proverbs 15:28, “The heart (mind) of the righteous studieth to (toward an) answer.”
It is a spiritual work unto a spiritual end. Our studied opinion: spiritual is mental is spiritual. Ask yourselves this question: what does our spiritual God promise more than anything else? The answer to that one is ‘Life’.
See Psalms 69:32, “The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart (mind) shall live that seek God.”
Chapter thirty of Jeremiah paints a vivid picture of the return of God’s chosen people from captivity, where their lords and nobles were foreigners, where no one had their good in mind, but only their usefulness. The chapter puts forth God’s claim that it was He that deliberately brought the evil upon His people because they had displeased Him. It also presents the reader with a picture of God’s desire toward His people: that He will make a full end to other nations but not to Israel.
It shows clearly that His intent is to heal and restore. Why? Because the people were thoroughly
humbled, and throughout their distress, their minds returned to God. The picture is of a spiritual
connection that God responds to. Just as in the day of Moses, the day of David, the day of Solomon,
God’s intent is to establish and build upon the personal relationship of those who, by the exercise of what they have been given, willingly seek His face. It is a vivid picture of both the corporeal Israel and the spiritual Israel’s spiritual progress.
See Jeremiah 30:21, “And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto Me: for who is this (what kind or what type of individual was it) that (purposefully) engaged his heart (mind) to approach unto Me? saith the Lord.”
Who will that governor be? None other than a seeker of the spiritual - and not a seeker who seeks ineffectively. The seeker that seeks the spiritual must seek it spiritually, must use all his spiritual tools.
See Jeremiah 29:13, “Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart (mind).”
It is no accidental role we play in the process of our spiritualization but a role we deliberately choose and embrace. Any seeker may use the willing words found in Ecclesiastes 1:13, “I gave (dedicated) my heart (mind) to seek and search.”
The seeker may adopt the spiritual determination of the preacher in Ecclesiastes 7:25, “I applied mine heart (mind) to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things.”
When God speaks of the nobles of a restored Israel, what would be His definition of the term? Mankind’s definition of a noble is based in the arbitrary: nobles rise to wield power over others; bloodline and ancestry are the determining factors. God sees nobility in a wholly different light.
See spiritual nobility in Acts 17:11, “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word (spiritual communication) with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
We must, as a body of seekers, mind the things of the mind. In the communication of nobility, we lift our brothers and sisters along with ourselves. In so doing, the one body approaches the one mind.
Philippians 3:16, “Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.”
That is the seeker building upon the gift of the God-mind, minding mind matters, becoming better, heading higher, leaning toward life.
Consider the fate of the non-seeker in Philippians 3:19, “Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.”
I do not express mind over matter, but I clearly iterate that it is a matter of the mind. Our mind is central to this study of things spiritual. It is important that the seeker make the connection between things spiritual and the mind.
Philippians 2:5, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
With the mind of Christ in our heads, we speak like Christ; we reason like Christ. We are little mini-Christs, becoming more and more of what He is: the way for others, light, truth, and life. We are the cluster of grapes forming on the vine.
Philippians 4:2, “Be of the same mind in the Lord.”
In the formation of the cluster of grapes on the vine, we see a process that we may compare to the formation of the God-mind in the individual and the development of the one mind. An opposite process, like a domino effect, occurs in those who mind earthly things. First, a blind eye is turned to the spiritual: the mind is set to reject the invisible. Second, the culmination of that self-imposed ignorance creates an ever-widening gap between that individual and God for the simple reason that they chose familiar darkness over illumination.
See Ephesians 4:18, “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart (mind).”
The seeker truly walks a fine line. He is different from the worldly-minded, and yet, it is the seal of the seeker, and his content, that is God’s communication to the world of baser men. The seeker by his nature and by the exhortation of scripture is called to ‘mind’ higher matters, and yet, unless he deliberately plants himself among those he has risen above, he has no purpose, no meaning, no justification.
We see this clearly in Romans 12:16, “Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.”
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