<quote from Real Faith & Reason>
We’re looking at the way we think our thoughts. Now, we want to look in more detail than we did previously. We see two distinct types of reason. On the left side, we’re looking at reasoning based on assumptions. As discussed previously, the assumptions come out of the worldview and then return to the worldview to confirm the worldview using circular reasoning and confirmation bias.
In contrast, on the right side, divine revelation provides a firm foundation for rational thought. Truth sets the innermost human mind free. We have this truth and freedom when we acknowledge God’s revelation and submit to it. This revelation comes to us directly from God. No intermediary exists to interpret the revelation. God interprets reality and reveals it to us. God speaks to us through the Bible and every means of divine revelation mentioned in the Bible. And His revelation never conflicts with the Bible since God never disagrees with Himself. For those of us who are born again, Christ lives within, so the experience is greater and clearer. We still have a fleshly nature that’s involved in the circular process of the filter, the worldview, and the assumptions, but we’re learning to disregard that fleshly problem. We’re learning to discern the voice of Christ and to respond in willing submission to Him.
God also reveals reality to ungodly thinkers who refuse to acknowledge Him. Ungodly thinkers filter and dismiss much of this revelation, and they refuse to glorify God for any revelation they accept. They twist and warp any revelation they accept by rationalizing the revelation to fit the constraints of their worldviews. Atheists and Christians alike rationalize God’s revelation if they fail to acknowledge the voice of God when He’s speaking to them.
Between these two opposing ways of thinking, is the human will. At each moment, every thinker decides. We decide which of these two ways of thinking we’ll acknowledge. We decide which reasoning we’ll use. In every condition and during every moment, we decide constantly. Failure to decide is a decision to be double-minded. Double-minded thinkers follow the ungodly thinking on the left. And since human interpretation discounts or adds to revelation, human interpretation follows the circular reasoning on the left. Revelation, however, is direct and avoids fallacy, while human interference tries every trick to frustrate revelation.
As we’ve seen, we’re the ones who choose whom we’ll serve at each moment, and since no one can decide for us, we decide whether we’ll acknowledge God’s leading or lean on human understanding. In every case, we make this choice in all our ways and in everything we do, and there’s no time when we aren’t making this choice. Even when we think we aren’t making this choice, we’re choosing ungodly thinking. To more fully understand what’s happening, we notice what God says through Scripture:
“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15 New International Version)
But didn’t God choose us? Isn’t it true that God did choose us? Yes. God chose us. Even though many speculative theologies go well beyond what God says, He did choose us as these Scriptures plainly state:
“For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love He predestined [appointed ahead of time] us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.” (Ephesians 1:4-6 Berean Study Bible)
“For those God foreknew, He also predestined [based on foreknowledge] to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Romans 8:29 Berean Study Bible)
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will remain—so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.” (John 15:16 Berean Study Bible”
Here, we looked at only three verses, but God’s decision to call us is a major theme of Scripture. And yet, the fact that we must choose is also a major theme in Scripture. God chose certain individuals based on His foreknowledge. He knew what decisions we would make. As a builder chooses skilled workers based on the builder’s knowledge of those skilled workers and what they will do, God foreknew each of us and how He would use us.
Unfortunately, the theologies surrounding these Scripture have become intensified in the minds of many saints, and many have broken fellowship over speculative interpretations. We can see that both are true. We can see that God hasn’t asked us to explain away certain Scriptures that disagree with our favorite interpretations. For our purposes, we must realize that God has put it into our hands to decide to follow Him in every situation as the following Scriptures teach:
“I call heaven and earth to testify against you today! I’ve set life and death before you today: both blessings and curses. Choose life, that it may be well with you—you and your children.” (Deuteronomy 30:19 International Standard Version)
“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.” (Joel 3:14 New International Version)
“As they traveled along, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to His message. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations to be made. She came to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me!’ ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord replied, ‘you are worried and upset about many things. But only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, and it will not be taken away from her.’” (Luke 10:38-42 Berean Study Bible)
“choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25 New American Standard Bible)
“So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other.” (Genesis 13:11 English Standard Version)
“Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad the way leading to destruction, and many are those entering through it.” (Matthew 7:13-14 Berean Study Bible)
“But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed.” (James 1:14 Berean Study Bible)
“There is a way that seems right to a person, but eventually it ends in death.” (Proverbs 14:12 God’s Word Translation)
Since God is worthy of trust, knows all things, and can’t lie or be wrong, why would we follow our worldviews that consist of vapor? He can bypass our human interpretation processes. He can impart truth directly to us. We only need to submit and desire His righteousness. He even gives us the power to desire His will and to do His will if we ask Him for it. It doesn’t depend on us. So when we listen to Christ, He brings light to our spiritual eyes. Then our senses constantly improve. We’re ever more able to discern as we yield ourselves to His Spirit. But we aren’t the ones who are discerning between truth and fiction, between good and evil. Christ in us is discerning.
“The command of Jehovah is pure, enlightening the eyes.” (Psalm 19:1b Young’s Literal Translation)
As we progress, yielding leads to greater yielding and spiritual maturity. And this maturity is Christ in us more fully formed as we die more completely to our fleshly natures. As we mature, spiritual discernment gets more accurate. We exercise our senses by using those spiritual senses. As a result, our discernment improves.
“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:14 English Standard Version)
We must be able to distinguish good from evil.
The human mind is evil:
“The human mind is the most deceitful of all things. It is incurable. No one can understand how deceitful it is.” (Jeremiah 17:9 God’s Word Translation)
God is good:
“’Why do you call Me good?’ Jesus replied, ‘No one is good except God alone.’” (Mark 10:18 Berean Study Bible)
Neither of the two methods of thinking shows an instant result. Instead, both are incremental processes that are constantly going on within us, and in these internal processes, each of us makes choices, and those choices direct thoughts, words, and actions. So each of us either descends into darkness or rises into light and glory one step at a time. Those who want truth will rise to the fullness of light and glory if they’re faithful. They’ll succeed even if darkness deceived them in the past. God, Who is absolutely just and Who knows our hearts, will see to it.
As we continue to grow in Christ and die to self, our senses become keener as we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit in obedience. When we vigorously exercise our senses by using them, our sarx minds lose ground as Christ is built up in us. As we mature, His presence in us gives us increased ability to tell the difference between our minds and God’s mind, between evil and good.
As we’ve already discovered, the natural human mind is evil, and God’s mind is good.
Jesus told a parable in Matthew 25:13-30 about a master who gave stewards gold to invest for profit. In Scripture, gold typifies deity. When we acknowledged Christ, we were born again and immediately had Christ in us, the hope of glory. By grace, which is through faith, God had put a seed of Christ into us, but He expects an increase of this gold.
God speaks much about edification in Scripture. And the word “edification” means to build up. Specifically, God is telling us about building up Christ in us. Through Scripture, God explains many of His methods for building up Christ in us and warns against the things that undo this work. Not only that, but God speaks through Scripture of refining gold, which represents the ways that God removes the impurity from the gold, demolishing the strongholds of Satan in our minds. This process of making increase of the gold and refining the gold is the process of coming to spiritual maturity.
In this journey, spiritual senses direct our walk, and they direct us to meet regularly with other Christians and to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through Scripture. Equally important, they expose the false teacher, correct the false belief, and steer us away from sinful thoughts, words, and acts.
Though seldom considered, humility is part of maturity since humility allows us to submit ourselves to God-set authority. Through humility, we can take correction, and we can better judge who’s sent by God and who’s speaking by the Holy Spirit. To say it another way, we can better see the body of Christ, the spiritual gifts, ministries, offices, and orders that make up the body of Christ.
God reveals the meaning of what we observe and experience. He explains and interprets observation and experience beyond human limits of observation, and all who walk in the Spirit have this continuing experience. The only alternative is allowing our fallen, deceitful, wicked human minds to filter, explain, and interpret observation and experience beyond the human limits of observation. However, that alternative will result in error since the human mind is deceitful and desperately wicked and can only interpret by making up stuff.
Since knowledge of reality is partial for the present, we only know in part. However, partial knowledge isn’t the same as not having any knowledge with certainty. We have partial but unquestionable knowledge. For instance, we know Christ absolutely but not completely as we’ll know Him one day. We recognize the body of Christ now. Even though we see as if looking in a mirror, our vision improves as we yield to the Spirit of Truth. So we have some absolute knowledge, and God’s revelation is our only accurate knowledge. However, revelation is still incomplete because of human weakness.
</end quote>
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