Hello, my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Have you ever wished you could look into someone’s mind and know what they are thinking? Or have you ever imagined being able to know the mind of God and what HE is thinking at any moment? Would you believe that’s what we’re going to look at today as we continue with Paul, who is writing his first challenging letter to his Christian friends in the Greek city of Corinth in 54ad.
Paul dictates and I presume Timothy is scribing Paul’s words on the parchments: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love Him‘, [Is. 64:4] these are the things God has revealed to us by His Holy Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” (1 Cor. 2:9,10) Paul is combining a powerful Old Testament truth, written by Isaiah the prophet, 600 years before Jesus was born, with the powerful truths Jesus taught, and Paul himself has been taught, by and about the Holy Spirit of God.
Please grasp this great promise of God: neither you nor I nor any person of any generation, in any place in the world, can even begin to imagine the majesty and greatness of God, or the full scope of God’s truth, or the wonder and indescribable reality of the place of God’s presence with the angels and all who’ve gone before us, Paradise or Heaven. Nor can we imagine all God has in HIS mind for us His people, purchased by the blood of His Son Jesus.
However, the Holy Spirit of God knows it all and part of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of every authentic redeemed follower of Jesus is to enlighten us, teach us, help us understand these great things of God, known ONLY to the Holy Spirit. That really excites me, what about you? It means that YES, with the help of the Holy Spirit you and I can understand God in all His majesty; we can understand God’s truth; we can understand the mystery of the transformation of any life that God can accomplish. We can even begin to understand eternity in heaven with God!
I wonder if Paul was rubbing his chin in deep reflection as he dictated this next paragraph: “For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” (1 Cor. 2:11) This is one of those deep statements which speaks of God, “Elohim”, the Trinity of God. (Gen. 1:26) I know this concept of the Trinity is nearly impossible to understand or explain in everyday human terms, but here, do you see Paul is challenging us to look in the mirror for a fresh perspective? As you and I stand before the mirror looking at ourselves, we see our body, and probably none of us are totally pleased with what we see, but it’s our human body, nonetheless.
The body you see in the mirror is uniquely you. No other person, among 8 Billion of us, looks EXACTLY like you, even if you have what they call an ‘identical twin’. But you are much more than simply your amazing, unique body. Look into your eyes, in the mirror, remember the story of your life, smile, frown… all those things help us understand we each have a SOUL. It’s the combination of your intellect, your mind; and your emotions, your heart; and your will, your ability to reason and make choices; and your personality… all combined to be your unique SOUL.
But, of course, you are one more very important thing Paul is talking about here… your spirit. Did you see Paul said: “For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them?” Our thoughts, of course, are part of our SOUL, because thoughts are intellect and emotions. Spirit is that part of us which is spiritual. Our spirit has the capacity to discern moral right and wrong. Our spirit understands there is a God and there is an evil world, and most people desire some relationship with God.
We are born with a sinful nature spirit, with a natural tendency to lead our soul and body in wrong thinking, wrong desires, and wrong choices. When we trust Jesus Christ for our salvation, we receive from God a new, holy, spiritual nature, and the Holy Spirit of God indwells us nurturing, guiding, teaching our new spiritual nature.
Our new nature is able to discern when any sin is seeking fertile ground in us, and our new spirit will guide us to resist temptation and pursue holy living, as we seek to honor God with our life. As our spirit understands the deepest things about our soul, so the Holy Spirit of God fully understands both God the Father and God the Son, and the Holy Spirit living in us will lead us to know, and seek to honor, our Savior Jesus Christ and God our heavenly Father.
Paul next challenges us to understand that the work of the Holy Spirit in us should be radically different from the influence of the world in us. Paul dictates: “What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught us by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Holy Spirit does not accept the things which come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor. 2:12-14)
Oh my, these are powerful statements, aren’t they? Let’s take a look at the first today, and we’ll get the rest tomorrow. Do you see Paul making it clear that God gives us the Holy Spirit to live within us ‘so that we may understand what God has freely given us.’ Deliverance from our sin bondage and sin condemnation is something God gives us without any purchase price that we can pay, without any prescribed ladder of effort we can climb. Jesus paid the full price for our deliverance with His sinless life, His atonement death and His resurrection from the dead, and He now reigns ready to rescue anyone by His unlimited power! (Heb. 7:25)
While we can’t buy our salvation, the way we live our lives shows to God and the world what value we place on our deliverance! And as God’s people, filled with the Holy Spirit of God, live out what the Spirit of God is teaching us about the incredible miracle we are experiencing, as God is transforming us into His Spirit filled people, our lives should be a stark contrast to what is normal in our city.
Now we must pause again and let these powerful truths simmer in our minds and hearts. Tomorrow we’ll dig into that next phrase Paul wrote which explains WHY most people simply don’t get it, they just don’t understand Christians!
Will you join me tomorrow… but as I close, I found a great old song about the Holy Spirit working in us. It’s sung acapella style with great harmonies, evidently during the COVID enforced, distancing season:
Today’s Scripture is 1 Cor. 2:9-12.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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