My wife and I had about three hours to spend together riding to Augusta, Georgia for a visit to the surgeon who had removed an ingrown toenail from my left big toe two weeks ago. As we began to talk in the early stages of that travel—we were discussing a couple that we had been counseling with—I made this general remark, “When we pray are we praying or are murmuring and complaining?” My wife reached for pen and notebook and asked me to repeat what I had said, so as I drove, I began to dictate from the heart what follows which I believe to be utterance inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Murmuring and complaining consists of whining to God that life is not at the moment like I want it. Prayer consists of seeking what God wants. David suddenly discovered everything good in his life had been taken from him when he was camped at Ziklag. (1st Samuel chapter 30) All his possessions, his wives, his children, were taken from him suddenly. He mourned and wept bitterly over their loss and that is not murmuring and complaining. That is grieving which is an emotional response to tragedy. Murmuring and complaining is a volitional decision to blame God for your circumstances either directly or impliedly.
When David’s emotional response was over—understand that we have no direct control over our emotions and a sudden change in circumstances can produce involuntary grief or fear or both—his rational response was to seek the will of God. Scripture says he “encouraged himself in the Lord.” In the Psalms that he wrote we repeatedly see this process of a statement of the circumstances, a grief or fear over them, and then an encouragement in the Lord found in the form of remembering God’s word followed by a statement of victory coming from his faith in God’s word that he has brought to the situation.
David after encouraging himself in the Lord, had the Ephod brought to him. The Ephod had sewn into it a breastplate into which was sewn the Urim that in some way indicated the will of God to the High Priest when His will was sought. David’s question to the Lord while singular was two fold: do I accept the situation for what it is and live with it as it is or do I pursue a solution as you direct? All that is embodied in the question, “Do I pursue?” In this situation David was told to pursue. He did and regained all that was lost. In other situations in scripture when David went through this process he was told not to pursue.
The issue is how does one look upon God? Do we look upon Him as a servant of our happiness or is He God of the Universe whom we serve? God knows our attitudes for scripture says that he looks after the heart and not the outward appearance. Attend church meetings, dance before the Lord, swoon, kneel, lift your hands, but from what heart is this being done? What is the real attitude?
Our real attitude will be found when the Moses in our life goes missing! When we can’t find food or water for our wants and needs and when circumstances suddenly change such that something in my life isn’t as I think it should be. The attitudes of the heart from which we make decisions and from which we pray are optional. We construct and shape our own hearts. We are held accountable and responsible for the character and shape of our heart. The condition of our heart will be based upon how we shape it. Is the architecture of our heart drawn from principles of scripture or is drawn from principles of personal preference—my wants, likes and dislikes?
With God’s help, and not without it, we can reconstruct our hearts such that our hearts are shaped like God’s heart. God loved David, not because he was a perfect man, but because he sought God’s heart. He wanted his heart to be like God’s heart. All of us in the way we are created have the decisional capacity to decide that our goal in life is to have a heart like God’s. After making that decision the quest for God’s heart will begin and continue and end with a prayer that says, “O’ Lord teach me to do your will, help me, unite my divided heart to fear Your name” like David prayed in Psalm 86.  ¶ Monday, May 02, 2005

  A FEW THINGS AGAINST YOU For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of servants; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that you may know the righteousness of the Lord. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:4-8)

Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; (2nd Peter 2:15)

But I have a few things against you, because you have there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, . . . (Revelation 2:14)


In Numbers beginning in chapter 22 and concluding in chapter 24 we have introduced to us the soothsayer Balaam. We are not told of the origin of Balaam’s relationship with God. However, Balaam apparently at various times had sought God and obtained information from God and direction for others. This is implied in the fact that Balak, king of Moab, sent messengers to Balaam requesting of Balaam that he curse the children of Israel because Balak feared that they would destroy his kingdom. King Balak was of the opinion from some source that whatever Balaam cursed was cursed and whatever he blessed was blessed. He was of the opinion that Balaam could make contact with the one true God and motivate and move and invoke Him to curse the great multitude of people that were Israel who outnumbered his nation. The Moabites worshipped Bael. Apparently Balak had no faith that his false God, Bael, had the power they sought, but understood that Balaam’s God did.

Balaam, in the eyes of the Moabites, was what scripture would call the House of God. That is, he was someone who in their eyes was God’s representative on the earth. They viewed Balaam as someone that they could contact who had relationship with God and could contact God in their behalf. He was to them the point of contact and a person through whom God conducted His activities and a person with whom and through whom God communicated. They were of the opinion God resided with Balaam. He was the temple or House of God. You will recall that when Jacob saw the angels or messengers from Heaven coming down to the earth and going back up on the ladder, he said God is here and said the place he had chosen to lay down to sleep was the House of God because the angels, God’s messengers, were going from there to Heaven and back. He named the place Bethel which means “house.” It was this impression that Balaam was the House of God that gave King Balak the opinion that whoever Balaam blessed would be blessed by God and whoever Balaam cursed would be cursed by God. (Numbers 22:6)

In effect, Balaam, in his day, held the same position in the eyes of the world around him that the church holds today. The world looks to the individuals that make up the church to be representative of God on the earth and to be the people through whom God conducts His activities, if He is active at all, and the source of information and direction from God, the people through whom God communicates with the other people of the earth. That was the position Balaam held and it is the position the church, meaning you and I hold. That is an awesome posture. It is awesome to be given that position, and it is awesome to fulfill it. As grave and solemn and awesome and frightening as that responsibility is, it nevertheless is the position God has given you and I individually as the church. Balaam did not fulfill that position although he was placed in it. It was his calling and his responsibility and he walked in that position selfishly with a heart independent and separate from the heart of God.

The scriptures cited above warn the church, that is, you and I, about walking in the nature of Balaam and in the book of Revelation the church at Pergamum is told that one of the things that the Lord had against the church was that among its members were those who held to the doctrines of Balaam. In the light of those scriptures it behooves us to come to an understanding of Balaam’s failure. Unfortunately the church appears to be 99.9% of the nature of Balaam. On the whole the Lord is no more pleased with the church today than He was with Balaam who was a type of the church. As we examine Balaam bear in mind throughout that Balaam stood in the same position in this world that God has placed us individually and collectively. His appearance in scripture is not an idle aimless statement of an historical episode in the trek of Israel toward the Promised Land. He is a type of the church. We know this because when God speaks through the prophet Micah to inform His people then and now of what is required the comparison is to Balaam. When Peter speaks out not many years after Jesus’ ascension and tells the church that it has gone astray, he stresses that the path the church has taken is the path of Balaam. When Jesus approximately sixty years after His ascension gives the Apostle John, The Revelation, His concerns with the gathering and organization of the believers at Pergamum is that many of their members hold the position of Balaam.

A casual reading of the account of Balaam in the book of Numbers leaves you wondering what the problem was. Balaam never did anything but speak the word and will of God. In fact, he prophesied of the coming of Jesus. (Numbers 24: 17) If you take a casual reading of the church today you will likewise despair at my remarks. People are being saved, miracles are being worked, great and inspiring books are written, great and inspiring sermons are preached and that is one approach to the church to look at those things and say all is wonderful. However, God looks at the heart. It was the heart of Balaam that displeased God. The church, which is not an organization, but you and I individually and collectively, has in many respects the heart of Balaam. Let’s examine Balaam’s heart as revealed in scripture not his works.

As we begin in chapter 22 one of the first things we see is that King Balak is the son of Zippor and that Balaam is the son of Beor. You will not find anything else in the Bible about Zippor and Beor except that they fathered Balak and Balaam. Fathering Balak and Balaam does not speak good of them. Throughout scripture you will see this description of people in terms of who their father was. Being a father is a very important role. God is very concerned with fatherhood. In Psalm 127 in the same breath that it is spoken “except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it,” it is written that children are like arrows in the hand of a mighty man. Our children are to be brought up as the House of the Lord, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and shot into the next generation to continue the work of the Lord.
Except a father have relationship with the Holy Ghost and build his children under the direction and government of God, his children will never become the House of God or Temple of the Holy Ghost as desired by God; although they may be positive members of society. Zippor and Beor failed to recognize this truth. Zippor fathered a worthless, worldly child in Balak and Beor fathered a selfish pretender. What is the issue?

The issue is that the church, that is you and I, are to sire and father children unto God. Through our connection to the vine we are to have the direction and communication of God flowing into and out of us into fruit, the fruit of the vine. Fruit is the natural consequence of being connected to the nourishing vine, of being connected to Jesus in a real and living way. Jesus said in John chapter 15 that He was the true vine and that God was the husbandman who insisted that the branches bear fruit. Jesus said that if we abide in Him, the vine, we will bring forth much fruit. He does not want wild grapes or errant, mangled, deformed fruit. (Isaiah 4:4; 5:2, 5) He wants fruit that is the result of the Father’s management of the branches which is a process of purging the branches of bad stems and uncleanliness. The goal of God in causing our union with Jesus is Godly seed or offspring. (Malachi 2:15) We see the anger of Jesus at spiritual fatherhood that does not produce godly offspring in Matthew 23:15. He chastises the scribes and Pharisees for turning their converts into a child of hell rather than a child of God. Well, they were very moral children and very adept at keeping the order of the church and doing the work the organization requested. Yet Jesus says they are the child of hell and says that the moral, church abiding, order keeping scribes and Pharisees have as their father the devil (John 8:43-44) and are passing that nature along in double portion to their offspring. Bear that in mind as we examine Balaam’s heart. His father, Beor, shaped his heart. Beor will be held accountable as will Balaam. We, individually and collectively, as the church will be held accountable not only for our own hearts, but also for the hearts of the children we bring into the family of God. The issue is not only are we of Balaam’s heart ourselves, but are we reproducing Balaam’s heart with our doctrines and traditions and our witness? The Scriptures are not honoring some ancient custom of how people are referenced when it describes someone as the son of someone else. Scripture is making a point to us of the role of fatherhood in God’s eyes for us to take serious heed of.

The prophet Micah tells us not only to consider Balaam, but to also consider Balak and his counsel. Balak is a type of the world that wants to use religion for its own purposes. The false religions bind people and manipulate them into being a society of people that please the goals and whim of the power behind the religion. The spirit of the world would like to rule God rather than be ruled by Him and when it recognizes that it cannot it produces a shadow or shade of God to be worshipped—a sound alike, look alike God with a very different voice and a very different image. The spirit of the world wants magic instead of God’s power. Magic can be worked without being under authority and government. Magic can be worked for your own purposes instead of for the purpose of carrying out the purpose of God. The spirit of the world wants to be able to go beyond its limitations of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing and what it can reason from what those senses tell it without consecration to God. The spirit of the world wants supernatural power, but the spirit of the world is selfish; it wants its own way and will proceed with all available power, including God’s if it has access to it, to achieve its own way. The spirit of the world wants to have available to it for its own use the power of God. The spirit of the world will attempt to manipulate God to make His power available to it with cleverly devised outward appearances and endeavors, including superficial, empty worship, sacrifice, and words. God is not mocked and God will not give His Glory to another. Working the works of God is a matter of faith in the Lord Jesus and faith will not operate out of an impure conscience.

A well known Bible teacher told me of an episode in his ministry where he was asked to go to the home of a man whose wife was dying of cancer and pray for her healing. When he entered the woman’s bedroom the anger of the Lord was kindled in him. He asked the husband to step into another room with him. There he asked the husband if he worshipped God in his house. The man began to say, “No, let me tell you what I believe about that.” My friend cut him off and asked, “Do you give your money to God, do you give tithes and offerings?” The man began again, “No, let me tell you what I believe about that.” My friend cut him off again and told him that he would not pray for his wife, that God would not let him and that she would die during the night which is what happened. Many Christians hide a desire to be people pleasers behind the word “love.” Many would criticize this Bible teacher. I applaud him for honoring the specific will of God for that situation that was revealed to him. I applaud him for the decisions he had made in his life long before that situation arose that built him into the House of God, one who could talk to God and be heard and who could hear God when God talked to him.

I went on an evangelical mission trip to a foreign country. Before I left I was told of this preacher/politician that I was supposed to get to know when we arrived. Anger arose in me and I knew instantly that God had no purpose in me having anything to do with him. There was a spirit of the world working amongst us that was creating a desire to be pleasing to the people of this nation that we would be ministering to, to ingratiate ourselves to them. After we arrived, during a meeting with a hundred or more of the local pastors, I was suddenly called on to pray out loud for this pastor who was running for public office. A tremendous grief and anger arose in me. It was known that I was a judge, an elected official myself, by this man. Judges are held in very high esteem in this country. I was being used to placate him, appease him, and make him feel important. Unlike my friend, the Bible teacher, I proceeded to try to accommodate our leader who had called on me. I had never nor have I since been under a prayer anointing like I was on this trip; however, I have never in my life spoken more foolishly and more ineptly publicly or privately as when I tried to pray for this man. The more I tried to measure up to the task the harder it was to find words. I should have excused myself from the task regardless of the appearance it might have given. We were not there to appease, placate and gain favor with the locals. That attitude feeds our pride. We were there to serve God as He directed.

I have a friend who is a missionary evangelist in a particular foreign country. I have been in that country with him and have heard him in pastor’s conferences speak to pastors who are under the influence of the spirit of the world. He makes no attempt to ingratiate himself to or placate or humor them, but speaks forcefully and directly. His ministry is blessed. The Lord meets all of the financial requirements and then some and the invitations to bring the Spirit of the Lord to the people of the country are far more than what he can accept. His ministry would be struggling if he struggled with a desire to appease and be held in esteem by important people or the masses rather than please the Lord and be held in high esteem by the Lord for his allegiance to the principals of God and his willingness and obedience.

One of my favorite scriptures is found in II Kings chapter 3 beginning in verse 11. Jehoshaphat the king of Judah and Ahab the wicked king of Israel approach Elisha for instruction from the Lord and Elisha says to Ahab, "What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother," and when Ahab insists he says, “As the Lord of hosts lives, whom I serve, were it not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would neither look at you, nor see you.” Can you imagine speaking to a king like that? Elisha walked in a double portion of the anointing that was on Elijah, his mentor. Many want a double portion so they can appear great to the world around them. Elisha wanted to be able to be a great servant of the Lord and didn’t care what other prophets, people or kings thought of him or desired. Therefore he received the double portion.

The church cannot save a person or a nation when it itself is flirting with the same spirit of the world that rules the people they are trying to minister God to. If you are placating and appeasing and catering to people you are forsaking the will of the God you say you represent in the process and in actuality the people you are saying you want to bring into God’s kingdom will have no respect for you; although they may respect your God and His power. They will try to use you for their own purposes and evangelize you further to the spirit of the world. The world may persecute you if you stand with God, but I would rather have the persecution of the world than the punishment of God which is a withdrawal of His blessing, protection and presence in my life while I am still on earth and who knows the detail of what would be in store for me when I leave this earth because of my heart. Make no mistake: The world will not listen to you about a God that your own actions show you don’t respect. Make no mistake: If you don’t show respect for God, but are instead a respecter of persons, God will withdraw from you His presence, His protection and His blessing.

Sadly, especially in this country, we have the means to provide our own blessing and protection to a large degree and are adept at providing a false sense of the presence of God in our worship services which seems to satisfy the people’s miniscule need for the sense of the presence of God because the level of their self-satisfaction is so high . . . that is until cancer or some other threat appears on the horizon like the people of Israel appeared on Balak’s and Moab’s horizon; then there is a clamor for someone who can get God to remove the threat. It is also true that the unfortunate history of many church organizations is that they see their position among the people threatened by the truth of God and they look far and wide for a Bible teacher or Bishop or such to curse any group that appears on their horizon that represents the truth of God. They have the same spirit as the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jesus’ day. Our churches have formed idols. Just as the Jewish people in Jesus’ day, they have formed a God using scripture that does not represent the one true God of the scriptures. It represents the whims and fancies of people and is based on the doctrines and traditions of men fashioned from the Bible. The Jewish people of Jesus’ day believed in God, but they limited Him and rendered His word of no effect by their traditions. This is true of the church organizations of today with their competing and variant doctrines. The prophet Micah told the Jewish people and tells us to take heed of the counsel of Balak and to know in comparison the righteousness of God.

As we proceed in chapter 22 we see that Balaam enjoys his position in the eyes of the world around him. He is a people pleaser. While he has respect for the wrath of God, He has no respect for the will of God. In verse 5 and 7 of chapter 22 Balak sends important people in his kingdom to contact Balaam with “the rewards of divination in their hand.” Note that no one has to tell Balak about Balaam. Balak knows him and knows where he lives. He knows also what motivates Balaam. He sends important people with reward. Implied in that is Balaam’s reputation with Balak. Balaam has built that reputation. He has built it by pleasing people, by using the matters of God to establish himself. He has accepted the rewards of divination in the past. Bear in mind that reward is whatever you value. It does not have to be monetary. Being held in high esteem and catered to by the important people was a part of the reward Balaam coveted. The second time Balak sends messengers to Balaam in verses 15-17, he is again moved by Balaam’s reputation and sends to him “princes” with promises of promotion to position of honor.

The Lord appears to Balaam and Balaam tells God that Balak wants the people to be cursed. God’s response to Balaam was very clear: “Thou shall not curse the people for they are blessed” (Numbers 22:12). Throughout the scriptures that follow it appears that Balaam does not violate, in any direct way, the word of the Lord. However, it is very obvious that Balaam wants to get permission from God to curse Israel. Isaiah chapter 1 verse 19 states, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” We can be obedient for all kinds of selfish, personal motives not the least of which is a motive to not incur the anger of God. However, in Isaiah we see that God is not just looking for obedience, He is looking for a willing heart, one that has adopted the heart of God on the issue in question. The moment that Balaam saw that God had blessed these people his heart should have become one with God’s. He should himself have desired to bless Israel. He should have found any further attempt from Balak a huge affront. He should have spoken to this carnal, Bael worshipping, worldly king as Elisha spoke to Ahab. Great anger should have arisen in Balaam. “How dare you ask me to curse these people.” Great alarm should have risen in him as it did in the witch of Endor when Samuel appeared to her and she realized she was messing with God’s business. But no, all Balaam has his mind on is the rewards of divination. The second time the pot is enriched. It is princes, not just important people, that are sent to him and there is the promise of a promotion to a place honor among the Moabites. Furthermore, he is told that the great Balak will grant any wish he has. Balaam’s behavior is as one who is afraid of God, but not one who fears God. He won’t directly cross the will of God, but he continues to try to maneuver God to his position so he can get the rewards of divination. He keeps hoping God will change His mind because of his many petitions and the religious manner in which they are conducted with sacrifices and a sacred number of alters. (The number 7 is recognized as a sacred number with special significance to God in scripture.) When we fear God we have respect for who He is and voluntarily follow Him without special motivation. We immediately divorce ourselves from a false position. Of course, if the truth be fully known, I suspect that Balaam knew before he ever approached God what God’s response would be.

You see, Balaam’s heart will not let him accept God’s position and he continues to seek God in hopes of winning God to the position of Balak. God appears to Balaam and tells him that if the men ask him to go with them that Balaam is to go. The next morning Balaam leaves with the princes of Moab and God’s anger is kindled because he went. (Numbers 22:19-22) At first reading you may want to question the righteousness of God in telling Balaam he could go and then being angry when he did. Perhaps God’s anger can be explained with this analogy. A man and a woman are married. It is known to the man that his wife’s heart is not with him and that she desires an adulterous affair with another man. She seeks his permission to leave the house and he knows that when she goes her heart will leave with her and her heart and body be given to a stranger to their marriage. Does the man have his wife’s heart if he demands she stay? When he tells her to go, is he condoning the adultery? Or is he merely acknowledging the state and position of her heart? When she follows her sinful desire and leaves, is he not justified in his jealousy in spite of the fact that he told her she could go? Balaam’s lover is Balak, and he desires the rewards of his bed that he offers to Balaam. God does not have Balaam’s heart, yet as prophet of God they are in a marital relationship. The church, that is, You and I, is in a marital relationship with the Lord Jesus. He permits much that He does not condone. He is as displeased with us today as He was with the church at Pergamum.

As Balaam proceeds along his way, an angel of the Lord stands in the path of Balaam. Balaam cannot see the angel; however, the donkey upon which he is riding has her eyes opened by the Lord and she sees the angel withstanding them. The donkey turns aside into a field and Balaam beats his donkey. The angel of the Lord stands in the path that is in the vineyards. This path has a wall on either side of it and the donkey when she sees the angel crushes Balaam’s foot against the wall and Balaam beats her again. The angel stands in a narrow place where the donkey cannot get by and the donkey falls to the ground and Balaam beats his donkey some more. This is the case with rebellious people: they cannot see the matters of God because they are blind and they beat the donkeys in their life, those who have carried them, who have helped them along life’s path, who can see the matters of God whose counsel they have trusted who are trying to get them to see. Those with the heart of Balaam see the prophets in their life as dumb donkeys who are hindering them in their pursuits, and they verbally beat them in their carnal ignorance until the people who have helped them along life’s way are no longer willing to carry them. At this desperate point in life the Lord hopefully will open the ears of those with the heart of Balaam where they can hear their spiritual counselors just as He opened up the ears of Balaam so he could hear his donkey speak to him. Balaam’s donkey says to him, “What have I done unto you?” Balaam’s response is, “You have ridiculed and provoked me,” to which the donkey replies, “Am I not your donkey? Upon which you have ridden all your life long until this day? Was I ever accustomed to do so to you?” Balaam’s response is an honest “No.” Then the Lord opens Balaam’s eyes so that he can see the angel and the angel says to Balaam, “I went out to withstand you because your way is perverse before me.” There is a partial repentance on Balaam’s part. He acknowledges that he didn’t know that he was being withstood and says, “If it displeases you, I will return.” Had not the angel just told him that his way was perverse? What is this question “If it displeases you . . . ?” Again, Balaam is in hopes that he will be permitted to continue because he is motivated by the rewards of divination he has been offered. Although his way is perverse the angel again permits him to continue with the instruction that he is to speak only what the Lord tells him to speak. So Balaam continues with the princes of Balak. (Numbers 22:21-33)

In a nutshell the principal is that when we are blind because of stubborn pursuit of causes not sanctioned by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit we verbally beat those in our life close to us who can see the wisdom of God and are trying to warn us about the path we are on. My wife and I have discovered over the course of our marriage that it was God who gave us each to the other because neither of us would always have the wisdom we needed. When I find that my ears are shut to my wife and I consider her stupid and someone who just doesn’t understand as she is trying to tell me something about what I am doing, I ultimately discover, often after I have been injured in some way, that the problem was not my wife’s stupidity because she had the wisdom of God. My problem was that I had the heart of Balaam.

In chapter 23, knowing that his way is perverse and knowing that the Lord does not desire to curse Israel, Balaam tells Balak to build seven altars and prepare seven oxen and seven rams for sacrifice. Balaam then leaves Balak and goes to a high place to seek the Lord. Balaam is in hopes that if he follows an accepted religious practice with the seven altars and his ascent to a high place to seek the Lord that the Lord will change His mind and curse Israel and Balaam will be able to obtain his rewards. Balaam is attempting to manipulate the Lord God Almighty with a very insulting routine. Instead of discovering a capitulating Lord, Balaam discovers that he is given a word of prophecy and instead of cursing Israel, he opens his mouth to Balak and blesses Israel. Balak is very distraught so he takes Balaam up to the top of the mountain Peor.

There Balaam once again attempts to manipulate the Lord with altars and sacrifices. However, he again meets the opposite mind of the Lord and finally accepts the fact that is the Lord’s will to bless Israel. It is written that at this time he doesn’t seek enchantments, but instead he sets his face toward the wilderness and lifts up his eyes at which time the Lord gives him a vision of Israel and the spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he describes himself as a man “whose eyes are open” and who “heard the words of God” and who “saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open.” At this moment in time he gives up any hope of the rewards of divination and prophecies the future of Israel and the coming of the Lord Jesus. (Chapter 24)

When Balaam sought the rewards of divination he gave up the rewards of the Lord. His desire was to use the gift and calling of God upon his life to obtain earthly treasures. One might wonder at the fact that the Lord worked with him and utilized him to prophecy success to Israel and the coming of His Son to the world. Scripture tells us that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. Balaam was called to be a prophet of God and because of that received the gifts of God necessary to fulfill that calling. However, Balaam prostituted what God had given him. He offered it to the world for reward.
While Balaam feared the power and punishment of God, he had no respect for the heart of God nor was his heart with God. His treasure was not to please God, it was to please himself and obtain in this lifetime rewards for divination from the world.

In the New Testament, Jesus tells us that where our treasures are that is where our heart is. (Matthew 6:21) Jesus’ instruction for us is for us to store up treasures in Heaven by following Him. (Luke 18:22) In Luke 12:21 we are told to be rich toward God rather than lay up treasures for ourselves on the earth. James, in chapter 5 verses 2 and 3, warns us, “Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days.”

No doubt Balaam will come before God seeking reward on the day of judgment because of the quality and depth and wealth of his prophecy over Israel found in chapter 24 of Numbers. He will have none. He will find himself among that number to whom Jesus says, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.” This is because we are judged according to the heart with which we do things. Had Balaam immediately told Balak when he understood the will of the Lord, “Depart from me. I will not curse Israel,” he would have found himself in the same trance that he found himself in chapter 24 and he would have blessed Israel and prophesied of Jesus out of a heart that was one with God instead of blessing Israel out of a heart that wanted to curse Israel and obtain the rewards of this world. On the day of judgment he would be in line to receive Heavenly reward and blessing for having done the will of God out of a willing heart and he would have during his lifetime eaten the good of the land. (Isaiah 1:19)

The Lord speaks to us through the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 17:9-10, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it? I the Lord search the mind and try the heart, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” We cannot hide the nature of our heart from God. In Psalm 44:21 it is written, “Would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart.” David understood that his heart was deceitful and wicked and that God knew the secrets of his heart. David desired to have a heart that was one with God. Therefore, he prayed in Psalms 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” and in Psalms 86:11, “Teach me thy way, O Lord, that I may walk in thy truth; unite my heart to fear thy name.” We as individuals who are called to be a part of the church of the firstborn (Hebrews 12:23) must earnestly pray as David did in Psalms 139 and Psalms 86 and make the decision to forsake the rewards of this world, especially reputation, and be pleasers of the Lord rather than pleasers of people.

Bob Highsmith
aspiritualhouse@yahoo.com  ¶ Friday, March 18, 2005

  FELLOWSHIP WITH JESUS   ¶ Friday, February 11, 2005

  FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER 1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life -
2 the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us -
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
4 And we are writing this that our joy may be complete.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth;
7 but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1st John 1-10)

The Spirit that God has placed in us in addition to providing us with personality has provided us with something that the English language gives the name intuition. Intuition is defined as “immediate knowing or learning of something without the conscience use of reasoning.” (Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language) We are told in Proverbs that the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. (Proverbs 20:27) Intuitively in our spirits we perceive what is the light of the Lord. Our minds may accept religion, which I will define as intellectual perceptions of God, that is a perception of God formulated out of our reasonings, but the spirit of man will continually look for the true light, the essence of God, the reality of God.

The quest of the spirit of man to know God is as present in the unborn again Christian as the born again. Unfortunately the unborn again spirit is offered, for the most part, religion which it intuitively rejects as not being true. Anything that is false that purports to be God is religion. Granted, people’s minds may accept religion temporarily because they have no other alternative. I met an Indian man one time who was a bishop in the Anglican church and had translated the Bible into seven different Indian dialects. He began as a Hindu, became a Muslim in his search for the true God. He stated that within himself as an unborn again man, he knew he had not found God. (The details of his life that brought him to the one true God are not pertinent here.) It appears also that some, when they sense the power of control that religion gives them, will rise in leadership and never come into the light because the light requires of them humility and submission to the distribution of leadership set by the Holy Ghost. We see this in the scribes and the Pharisees in the New Testament and with the kings in the Old Testament. We see in Jeremiah 5:30-31 the Lord saying that the prophets prophesy falsely and the kings rule by this means of false prophesy and that numerous members of the public desired to have it that way. No where will you find religion more succinctly defined and its horror more vivid than in Jeremiah 5:30-31. The persecution that light suffers comes from religion not wanting to give up its control and rule.

The scriptures above provide guidelines for any of us who are putting forth effort to share the light of Heaven and the Lord Jesus Christ and for any of us who are pursuing light. The first point is found in the first three verses. Those who are putting forth effort to share the light should limit themselves to sharing what they themselves have personally heard and seen out of their own fellowship with our Heavenly Father. Those pursuing light are looking for people who can share out of their own actual experience of God. It just doesn’t ring true to the spirit of man when someone is sharing light that comes from a third party’s fellowship with the Father. Second-hand, hearsay light can never be presented authoritatively. Nor does it ring true to the spirit of man when the presentation is out of the reasoning of the mind. John says that what he and his fellow disciples were sharing is what they had seen with their own eyes and that which they had heard with their own ears. Their sharing seemed an invitation and created a desire to have fellowship with John and those who were with him because “our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ.” Teaching, preaching, prophesying, etc. should always come forth from the teacher, preacher or prophet’s personal fellowship with the Father and send forth to the intuition of their listeners an invitation to enter into the same fellowship. People are hungry deep within themselves to know God. They are not interested in intellectual doctrines and mental reasonings about God. They want to know Him.

The second point in these scriptures is that if we are walking in any way in the darkness of the world, then we are not in the requisite fellowship with the Father that is necessary to qualify us to be teachers, preachers and prophets. The Scripture says that if we put forth the idea that we are fellowshipping with the Father when we are walking in darkness we are putting forth a lie. Although our listeners may not intuitively know that we are in darkness, our words will not intuitively be received as being the light of Heaven when we are walking in darkness. The Spirit of man is a sensitive instrument of Heaven and perceives that something is not right.

These scriptures recognize that we all are going to have our moments when we cease fellowship with the Father and invoke fellowship with darkness. We are pointed to the truth that if we confess our sin that He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us. The Father wants us sharing light and pursuing light. One of the most dangerous and deceptive aspects of sin is that it takes us out of fellowship with the Father and removes from us the desire to share light and receive light. If we train ourselves to be aware of the intuition of our spirits we will be quick to seek forgiveness and slow to enter into sin.

The authority and power of Jesus’ words did not come from knowledge of Scripture although knowledge of Scripture was essential and foundational and He did possess when on earth perfect knowledge of Scripture. The authority and power of Jesus’ words came from His continuous, honest, humble fellowship with His Heavenly Father. In Matthew 7:28-29 it is said that the “people were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” Jesus revealed the secret of that authority in John 8:26 when He said, “He that sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him” (not what someone else had heard), and in verse 38 where He says, “I speak that which I have seen with My Father.”

In light of these Scriptures it would behoove us to spend large amounts of quality time in fellowship with our Heavenly Father in order that our words and our life might bear the authority of true light. Paul prayed that the church would have the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation. (Ephesians 1:17) (That spirit does not manifest itself during prime time television, during parties, during reading secular books, magazines, newspapers etc., during country and western, pop, or rock concerts, or radio broadcasts.) It manifests during Bible reading and meditation and prayer. It also would behoove us in light of these Scriptures to seek out and listen to those who our intuition tell us are spending large amounts of quality time in fellowship with our Heavenly Father in order that we might receive preaching, teaching and prophesy that is from the heart of God and not the mind of man.

Bob Highsmith
www.aspiritualhouse.blogspot.com
www.jeremiah419.blogspot.com

  ¶ Wednesday, January 26, 2005

  THE MIND OF CHRIST Our mind and our emotions are very important to us. With our emotions we experience love, anger, hurt. Our minds register everything that the physical senses receive. We gather information by sight and by hearing and we make decisions based upon the information we gather. Our life consists of the operation and utilization of our minds and emotions. Our existence is found in them. You might say that we live in our emotions and our thoughts. For some that life is better than for others. Some have minds and emotions that are better able to cope with the physical world around them than others. Some are better able to use their minds and emotions to carve out for themselves a better place amongst humanity than others. However the issue with the mind and emotions is not in comparison or competitiveness with other human beings. The issue with the mind and emotions is spiritual.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had the mind and emotions of God Almighty. Their feelings were identical with their Heavenly Father because their thoughts were identical with their Heavenly Father and the emotions are produced from thought. However, they were free, as we are, at any point in time to reason for themselves. When Satan appeared in the Garden they made the choice to reason for themselves, a cataclysmic mistake. God says that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and ever since the experience in the Garden of Eden individuals have been thinking for themselves and living an existence far below that which is in the thought of God for them. The Bible is much easier to understand if approached from the standpoint that the Old Testament demonstrates the conflict between man’s thoughts and God’s thoughts with real life episodes. The Bible is a continuum from Adam and Eve to the birth of Jesus of God moving mankind toward His thoughts and bringing judgment to stubbornness and rebellion. This continuum concludes with God becoming incarnate in the person of Jesus to demonstrate the power of being of one mind with God and to provide mankind with a supernatural means of becoming of one mind with God. Man does not in himself have that ability as the Old Testament demonstrates.

The obstacle in our lives to relationship with God is our mind. We want to have our own mind. We want to reason things out and solve problems and obtain the glory that accompanies successful solution. The introduction of the supernatural power of God into a problem meets with fierce opposition from the mind of man. Man would rather search for years for a cure for cancer that the ultimate glory for cancer’s eradication might be in him than humble himself to the word of God and receive supernatural healing. Man would rather plot and scheme and plan for the key to financial success than to pray and be led by God into the Father’s prosperity.

Scripture says for us to renew our minds to the word of God. It is obvious that the purpose of this directive is so we will think like God. Scripture says to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus—that mind was obedient to every word spoken by the Heavenly Father; that mind gave up the right to think for itself with the decision to live by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. Scripture tells us that we have the mind of Christ. And we do; the mind of Christ has been given to us and is waiting to be acquired by us. To receive the mind of Christ we must give up our own mind. The mind of Christ is not an attached option that we consider among our many other options. The mind of Christ is to be our only mind. Otherwise we are in the same predicament Adam and Eve placed themselves in and mankind has been in ever since where we exalt ourselves above God and consider Him as simply an alternative that might work or that we might want to employ, but where we remain enthroned on the seat of decision. To have the mind of Christ is to be like Him. It is the only way to be a follower of God. Jesus said of Himself He could do nothing and He said that what satisfied Him was to do the will of His Father. His statement was, “Not My will but Yours be done.” He could have exercised His mind, if He wanted, to merely consider God and conclude for himself whether He wanted to follow God or not in every situation He faced, just as we do. However, Jesus chose to adopt a mind that ruled that option out. Jesus chose to not have a mind of His own except for the single decision to adopt the mind of God. To have the mind of Christ is to do the same thing. To have the mind of Christ is to proceed only on the basis that “God has said” and on no other basis. That is the glory of man to make that decision. Jesus confronts us. He confronts our minds. He stands there as a stumbling block and a rock of offense. Religion tries to devise some type of mixed mind where we adhere to Jesus in some aspects but not in all. In scripture we see that God despises that kind of thing. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everything had the mind of Christ. A baker would still bake, but he would bake as God told him. Everything he did would be right. The banker would still bank, but he would bank as God told him and everything he did would be right. None of the problems which we have on the earth today would exist. There would be no poverty, there would be no disease, there would be no war. There would be no haves and have-nots and no competitiveness among people for all would be receiving from the Lord an ample portion and everything would be in order for the good of the universe and the good of mankind and the good of Heaven. The existence of evil in the world is because man insists upon providing for his existence through his own logic and thoughts that are selfish and glory seeking and lower than God’s thoughts.

The history of the world since Adam is a history of the conflict of man with God. All of scripture can be analyzed in the light of God seeking to have man conform to His thought and man refusing to conform to God’s thought. For instance, God had said plainly and simply you shall not make for yourself any graven image. Joshua and company, for the most part, had followed the mind of God and entered into a land flowing with milk and honey and God had given them the land as their own. Not many generations thereafter, in Judges chapter 17, we find a man named Micah who had a mother who had saved for him silver for him to make graven images. He took the silver to a founder and had the silver made into graven images, his imagined concept of God. He made an ephod and a teraphim and consecrated one of his sons to be the priest of his graven images. Scripture makes the simple statement in verse 6, “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” A Levite comes wandering through and Micah becomes elated that he might have a Levite to be a priest to him of his graven images. The Levite decides to dwell with Micah and be a priest of his images of God. Micah, who is perceiving God according to his own thoughts and not according to the word of God, says in verse 13, “Now know I that the Lord will do me good seeing I have a Levite to be my priest.” It isn’t long before a wandering band of the tribe of Dan comes by and sees the images and the Levite priest. They are greater in number than Micah and offer the priest a new job to be their priest using Micah’s images. The Levite, seeing his own selfish interest in being a priest to a larger number, consents and the images and the priest go with the Danites. This situation is very similar to the denominations we have today which represent various images people have formed of God, and of pulpit committees and pastors leaving flocks for the highest bidder, all in the name of the Lord, of course. Our churches do not have actual physical images of who they want God to be and to look like, however, they do have the images in their mind and these images bear little resemblance to the one and only true God. The congregations seek pastors to be priests to them of their image of God. Like Micah, in their minds they know and believe that the Lord does them good because of their special doctrines and the special image they have of God. The word “image” comes from the word “imagination.” The mind has imagined what it wants to believe because of what suits it and serves its own selfish interest.

The church has become a mixture of truth and man’s imagination. In the book of Ezra, a book concerning the rebuilding of the Temple of God, when Ezra discovered that the children of Israel, including the priests, while in captivity, had married strange wives of the people of their captors, he commanded a great divorce. The strange wives were cast out of the congregation.

The church is and has been in captivity for a considerable length of time because they have not regarded the work of the Lord nor considered the operation of His hands and have no true knowledge of God (Isaiah 5:12-13). The church has married many erroneous thoughts. By church I am not speaking of the organizations themselves, although it is true of the organizations because the organizations reflect the people who have formed them, but I am speaking of the individuals who make up the church whether they are flock or clergy. In order for us to be built into the temple of the Holy Ghost there must first be a purging and casting away of all thought which is not identical to the mind of Christ. We must divorce ourselves from our own wills and not have a mind of our own. Stubbornness is as idolatry and rebellion as the sin of witchcraft (1st Samuel 15:23). When we choose to have our own mind in a matter we are practicing idolatry and witchcraft in the eyes of the Lord.

I don’t know of anything that closes our ears to the Lord and causes us to counterfeit His mind than the desire for having something in ourselves where everything is not of the Lord. There is inherent in the natural soul of man the desire for glory. It manifested in Adam and Eve when they saw that they could be as God judging for themselves what was good and evil. There is quite a difference between being subservient to the mind of God and counterfeiting a god that has a mind that suits us. The gods that we counterfeit are truly gods of judgment because they are born out of our judgment of God Himself. How often have I heard people declare what God would or wouldn’t do based upon their own concepts of good and evil. Jesus said that “"I CAN DO NOTHING ON MY OWN AUTHORITY; as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just because I SEEK NOT MINE OWN WILL, but the will of the Father.” (John 5:30) The precondition to hearing and understanding and rightly interpreting the word of God, whether the written word of God or the witness within, is the irreversible, permanent decision to do the will of God and divorce one’s self from an independent will.

In Jeremiah chapter 42 the people came to the prophet Jeremiah from the least to the greatest and asked Jeremiah to go before the Lord for them that the Lord might show them the way that they should go. They made the statement in verses 5-6 that the Lord be witness between them that they would do exactly as the Lord had said, and would not judge it whether it was good or evil for them, but would obey the voice of the Lord. The Lord gave them ample opportunity to consider this position of theirs by waiting ten days to give Jeremiah an answer. After the ten days had passed when Jeremiah returned to them he knew, by the word of knowledge, that they had “dissembled in your hearts” or as the Amplified Bible states it, “You have dealt deceitfully against your own lives.” Jeremiah then goes on to tell them that they had decided to ignore what the Lord would tell them and had already made up their own minds that it was good for them to go down into Egypt. Unfortunately, this is the manner in which people deal with God and this is why man does not have the fruit of intimate relationship with the Lord and few, very few are actually guided by the Lord.

Recently I was reading in Numbers Chapters 13 and 14 where Moses sent the spies into the Promised Land (I won’t go there, but there is spiritual significance to the fact that at this time the River Jordan was not swollen and could be crossed). The men that went in with Joshua and Caleb could see that it was a wonderful land, but they also saw the people of the land. Many of the people of the land were giants and were seen as an obstacle to being able to enter in without the mind of the Lord. Their response was “We be not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we . . . we were in our own sight as grasshoppers . . . Let us make a captain and let us return into Egypt.” There are two points to be made here. One is that if the glory could not be in them, if they were not able to do it of themselves, they wanted no part of it. Two, their response was a desire to appoint a captain and return into a place, regardless of how unpleasant in some respects, where they decided for themselves and the glory was in them. The world resembles this posture: Living in sin, dying of diseases, poverty everywhere, unhappiness regardless of station in life, as Esau preferring the temporary pleasures of the world and independence of mind to the birthright they have in God through the Lord Jesus Christ and the inheritance of the blessings of God provided through Jesus. However, they are the captain of their own lives.

Caleb and Moses and Aaron and Joshua were different. Their response was “We are well able to overcome it . . . He will bring us into the land and give it us . . . Rebel not against the Lord (or against the requirement of faith which is to have the mind of the Lord) neither fear the people of the land for they are bread for us: their defense (our fear of faith which is a fear of giving up the glory in ourselves, of giving up independent thought) is departed from them and the Lord is with us.”

After Moses’ intercession, which by tremendous implication says that the Lord is able, the Lord says, “I will pardon these people, but as truly as I live all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. (Not filled with the glory of man)” The Lord clearly puts the whole issue on the basis of glory when He makes this statement. He would not let any over 20 years old enter the Promised Land. They died in the wilderness. This whole episode is an allegory for us. The death of that generation is a metaphor or is symbolic of what has to occur in us before we can truly follow the Lord and enter into the Promised Land of the New Testament. The Promised Land of the New Testament is a soul (mind and emotions) that is in complete agreement with, identical to, and one with the mind of Christ. It is a mind that orders matters according to faith in what God has said and not according to logic based on what is seen. Faith is a matter of thinking like the Lord and doing what those thoughts direct regardless of obstacle or human inability. Jesus said for us to deny ourselves and follow Him. We must deny any desire for glory, we must deny any desire to have any result that comes from our own innate abilities—that is our cross which we must pick up. It is the cross Jesus picked up embodied in His statement “In My own self I can do nothing” and in His statement “Without Me you can do nothing.” This cross is foolishness to most.

In Isaiah 4:4-6 the Lord says, “when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke (the glory of the Lord) and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy and a pavilion. It will be for a shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.” As has been seen in Isaiah chapter 5 which begins “I will sing to my beloved a song” people go into captivity when they do not have the true knowledge of the Lord and Isaiah further says in chapter 5 that the concern of the Lord is with wild grapes or fruit that is not designed by Him. In the scriptures in chapter 4 it is in the intent of the Lord to wash away the filth (the desire for glory) and cleanse them by judgment and burning. What He desires is to cover His Body with His guidance and to have all glory be under His covering or canopy as the scripture says. Having the glory in the Lord protects us from the heat of the day and provides us with refuge from the storms. However, if we are, as chapter 5 describes, without knowledge of the Lord, Hell enlarges itself (verse 14) and opens her mouth without measure and the glory and pomp of the individual descends into it and the mighty are humbled and the eyes of the lofty humbled. Verse 20 says, “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil” (we do not know what is good and what is evil and often in the name of the Lord proceed thinking something is good when in the Lord’s eyes it is evil because it is not the Lord’s will) and in verse 21 it says, “Woe unto them who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.”

Faith is a good thing. Faith is the union of belief with activity. We are quite capable of believing, but not acting on what we believe. Many believe that Jesus is in fact the Son of God, but never act by declaring Him to be their Lord. Faith says that God is able. Let us receive and follow the direction of the Lord. Let us go beyond ourselves into the land of promise where we live according to what God has said and not according to the limitation of our abilities and not according to the limitation of the obstacles of this earth. Heaven’s truth overrides our abilities and any obstacles in the path of the Lord’s will. The Lord is able to take us into faith. Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. He is able to take us into the position where we have His mind. Let us say that the Lord is able to destroy everything in our souls that rises up against Him. He is able to destroy the walls that we have erected that keep Him out of our mind and emotions.

Note it was Rahab the harlot who invited the presence of God behind the walls. The part of us that must invite God in to give us the mind of Christ is the sinful part of us. It is that part of us that we know and recognize is a harlot and goes whoring with Satan’s offerings of glory and independence of God that must come to conclusion to receive God in peace. Rahab, too, is an allegory of that old nature in us that must receive God behind the walls and let God destroy the old life. We cannot destroy that old life, if we could the glory would be in us. We can, however, come before the Lord and say “I have played the harlot, but it is you I want. Come into the deep recesses of me where I have walled you off before and have Your own will be done in me as it is in Heaven.”


Below is a list of New Testament scriptures that are well worth pondering and spending time in meditation before the Lord concerning this matter of the conflict of our minds with the mind of God.

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work which you gave me to do; And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:4; 11; 20-23)

Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, . . . (John 10:17)

He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas said unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. (John 14:21-24)

If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. (John 15:10)

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. (John 15:13-14)
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. (Romans 7:21-23)

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:24-25)

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; (Romans 8:6-7)

Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:3)

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, (Philippians 1:27)

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (equality—the right to be like God and judge what is good and evil and have all the decisions concerning any issue of life within yourself), but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, (Philippians 2:5-9)

And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before Him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. (Colossians 1:21-23)

Let no one disqualify you, . . . puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. (Colossians 2:18-19)

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Hebrews 8:10)

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, unless you be wearied and faint in your minds. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons? - "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by Him. For the Lord disciplines him whom He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives." It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:3-14)

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2nd Peter 1:4)


Bob Highsmith
aspiritualhouse@yahoo.com

  ¶ Tuesday, December 21, 2004

  AM I AN IMITATOR OR BEING MADE AN IMITATION? AM I AN IMITATOR OR BEING MADE AN IMITATION?

“One cannot make a study of the New Testament without experiencing something of the nature of a shock, in view of the glaring difference between the Christian life as we customary live it and the ideal set forth by the Master . . . Why does not the Savior, so tender and so understanding, so loving and so wise, make requirements more in keeping of human nature? Why does He seem to be so unreasonable? Why does He not demand of us what we might reasonably attain? He bids us soar, yet we have no wings. Why does the Savior go so far beyond the merely natural and put Christian living on the basis of the supernatural? . . . Have we honestly faced this dilemma? Have we had the courage to face the implication of Christ’s word? If no satisfactory answer can be given . . . we must face the grave charge of overemphasis—exaggeration—fanaticism or whatever we may call this lack of harmony between Christ and the human nature . . . We do well to face squarely all the shocking aspects of this dilemma. Paul did. He candidly acknowledges that he delights in God’s law, loves it, but finds it something to which human nature cannot attain. . . . It was not that Paul, when he wrote Romans 7 was willfully disobedient . . . it was only that he was now seeing himself in a new light—the blinding light of the cross of Christ! . . . innocent little things, attitudes comparatively harmless, little sins . . . now break his heart . . . Paul wants to be like Jesus . . . is there a way out? Yes, there is. Paul found it—we can all find it.

We have been proceeding upon a false basis. We have conceived of the Christian life as an ‘imitation of Christ.’ It is not an imitation of Christ. It is a participation in Christ. ‘For we have become partakers of Christ.’ (Hebrews 3:14) ‘There are exceeding great and precious promises that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature.’ (2nd Peter 1:4) . . . The basic idea (the idea of imitation) is false to the principals that underlie the Christian life. To proceed on the basis of imitation will plunge us into just the sort of ‘slew of despond’ Paul found himself in when he wrote Romans 7. We are not what Christ would have us to be. The Sermon on the Mount does not find expression (in our lives) . . . We agonize and bleed and struggle—failure dogs our footsteps. What is the matter? We are proceeding on a false basis. We are attempting to do what the Savior Himself never expected us to do. The Christian life is not a life of imitation.

. . . What is impossible for me as an imitator of Christ becomes perfectly natural as a participant of Christ. Only when Christ nullifies the force of my inherent . . . (selfishness, the old nature) . . . and (implants in) me a divine life does Christian living in its true sense become at all possible for me. ‘The flesh profits nothing’ (John 6:63). Without Jesus I can do nothing. I must live in Him, and, renouncing my own life, find in Him a new life. . . . The trouble is we have not listened to Jesus. He tells us that we must abide in Him as a branch in the vine. . . . We must bear in mind that it is the office of the Holy Spirit to graft the believer into Christ, even as a gardener would graft the branch of a tree into the trunk of another.”
F. J. Huegel, Bone of His Bone

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
But fornication and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints.
Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving.
. . . for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light
(for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true),
and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
Ephesians 5:1-4, 8-11

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot;
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Romans 8:5-8


“He that loves a tree, hates the worm that consumes it; he that loves a garment, hates the moth that eats it; he that loves life, abhors death; and he that loves the Lord hates everything that offends Him.”
William Couper (1566-1619)


Blessed is the man that endures temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man.
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it brings forth sin and sin
when it is finished, brings forth death.
Do not err, my beloved brethren.
James 1:12-16
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
James 4:7-8


At casual glance Ephesians 5:1 seems to be contradictory of what Huegel has written. However, Paul’s use of the Greek word which is translated both “follower” and “imitator” is not contradictory because Paul is not suggesting that we in our flesh attempt to imitate God. Instead Paul tells us how we are able to be followers or imitators in Ephesians and elsewhere and that is by being “in the Lord.” Jesus also told us to imitate or follow Him and He told us how by prefacing His command with two other commands, “deny yourself” and “pick up your cross” (Matthew 16:24). These two acts of cooperation enable the Spirit of God to make us imitations of the Lord.

All of my problems with sin lie at the doorstep of my soul as do all problems of anyone else’s sin lie at the doorstep of their soul. The problems will start being dealt with when the soul activates to come to a conclusion that it wants to reside in Jesus and let Jesus reside in it. You see the soul does not belong to God; it belongs to us. Our Heavenly Father gave us control over our minds (and therefore our emotions because the emotions tract the thoughts of the mind) when He gave us a free will. The Soul consists of those three, the will, the mind and the emotions. Our spirits belong to God; He can take them back to Himself born again or un-born again whenever He wishes. The born again spirit has been perfected, but unfortunately it is connected to the unredeemed soul in an unredeemed body that have appetites and lusts that do not want to be controlled. There is an old nature, a nature quite different from the holy nature of God the Father and His Son and His Spirit, living in our soul. It wants to yield to the body and all the perverse and contrary ideas that are housed in and pass through the mind without thought of any eternal consequence and often without thought of contemporary consequence.

The answer to sin is cooperation with the triune God Head. Being born again gives our spirits that perfection that desires deep within to escape sin and walk in unison and tandem with The God Head. How do I begin this cooperation? It lies in a foundational decision to let the Spirit of God lead us through the mystical and supernatural cross that Jesus instigated in the life of God’s people that superceded the alter and animal sacrifice. We see the spiritual principle of the cross in operation even before Jesus was slain. It manifested in the hearts of men like the prophets, David, Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Joshua, Joseph, Gideon, and John the Baptist. These men were not perfect, but they had a heart attitude that placed God and Holiness in the supreme place of preeminence in what they chose to do in life which meant that they had to deny their natural desires that were contrary to God. The Spirit of God aided these men in that regard. It is written that John had the Spirit of God with him before his birth.

However we see in expression found in the Psalms what a struggle it was not being born again and we observe the grave sin in David and Gideon’s lives that they committed. But the understanding of the need and the desire to give God’s mind authority over their mind was irreversibly formed within them and adhered to as best they could. John the Baptist said it rather simply when he said that he must decrease in order that Jesus might increase. Likewise, we must decrease. We must come to the conclusion that our personality must find expression only in Jesus and loose any expression that brings sinful pleasure or glory and honor to ourselves.

The spirit of man is not the problem. Jesus said that the spirit was willing. However, He pointed out that the flesh was weak—that is that our flesh, our strengths of mind and personality, our talents, our aptitudes cannot take us into the realm of life in the Lord Jesus or perform for us what is necessary. Our attitude can. It is a matter or attitude not aptitude. Anyone can form an attitude. (Matthew 26:41)


It is easy to see, isn’t it, that our problem lies in our soul. For this is where we are volitional or where we reach conclusion and makes decisions. The answer to sin is that we must make a foundational decision to give our souls—voluntarily give our souls—back to God, our Father. What is meant by “give our souls back” to God, our Father?

Scripture tells us that Jesus came to save that which was lost. Our Spirits are saved, but what is still lost to God is our wills, our emotions, and our minds. Jesus, it is said in Hebrews, is constantly interceding for us. His intercession is for the salvation of our souls. For our souls to be saved we must voluntarily conclude irreversibly that we are offering or giving our mind to Him as if placing it on an altar for sacrificial burning. Renewing our mind to the word of God as commanded in scripture is in and of itself insufficient. Knowledge of the word of God is essential, but the beginning of that knowledge is fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord consists of a practiced humility that yields to and gives supreme preeminence to what God has said.
It is permanently subordinating our will to the will of God, in regard to any present or future activity. This is all that we can do. In that process, a process that is impossible to describe, it is not a mechanical thing, it is a thing of the heart, an attitude, the Lord will, in His time and in His manner, change us and take us into Himself through and by the activity of His Holy Spirit. I venture to guess that over 95% of all born again people have never done this.

In the scripture cited above from the book of James, the Bible gives us a wonderful promise that if we will resist Satan who brings us temptation to sin that He will flee from us. However my problem is that I try to resist in the flesh. What is wrong with this scenario? The same scriptures that tell me if I will resist the Devil he will flee from me first tells me that my flesh contains the lust that Satan seeks to join with him so that I will take action and sin. I am trying to resist sin with the instrument of sin. Would I ask a bank robber to protect my bank from robbery? What a foolish exercise to try to resist the devil with our flesh. Our flesh is the devil’s friend. Note further that the Scripture also tells us that God cannot tempt or be tempted. It is very logical and scriptural then that if I will come into God that I won’t be tempted nor will I tempt others to sin because I am merged into a triune God Head that neither sins nor tempts others to sin. Stated simply if I can find the way that the spirit of God utilizes to take me into my Heavenly Father and Jesus His Son, I won’t find myself in sin. The emphasis in my life then should be to become one with them. It should not be to struggle by myself with sin.

The other wonderful promise of these Scriptures tells me how to find my way into God. My role is to draw near to God. If I do, the promise is that He will draw near to me. Two spiritual objects moving toward one another ultimately merge into one another and become one. I am a spirit. I may live in a human body, but I am a spirit, and as a spirit I have been perfected by being born again. As a born again spirit I desire that merger. It is my way of escape from sin and the lusts of my flesh. However I must override my mind and take control of my will and with a foundational decision begin the process of returning my soul to God. In this process I will start becoming one with the God, my Father, Jesus, His Son and my Savior and His Holy Spirit. I am undergirded in this process by the intercession of Jesus. Jesus said that He and the Father were one and prayed in the seventeenth chapter of the gospel of John that we be one as they are. When we start moving toward God we can have the assurance that Jesus is going to have his prayer answered, we are going to become a part of God and He a part of us.

What can I do other than exercising my volition to express a choice that I prefer God to my sin and to the offerings of the world? I can make an effort to cooperate along the way knowing that it will be the Lord who supernaturally implements this decision. I have personally found it of great benefit to pray the instance that sin appears and tell my Heavenly Father this: I don’t want that Father, I want you. I want you Father, I don’t want that.” I can say that with any offering that comes my way that wants to enter my mind, be it something simple like a movie I shouldn’t watch or a book I shouldn’t read or a conversation I shouldn’t partake of—anything that I know is not pleasing to God which presents itself to me for participation. I have resolved that my mind is God’s and I do not have the luxury of letting it participate with anything that I know is outside of the realm of holiness. It is very simple: I cannot fellowship or participate with things that don’t please God and be one with Him. Paul wrote that we cannot be partakers of God’s table and the devil’s table (1st Corinthians 10:21). That is my way of resisting and I find it works. I have found when I don’t do that that I have made a grave mistake and am soon praying for forgiveness.

All I can do is make the decision to know God regardless of cost and cooperate with the implementation of that decision by expressing It, reasserting it every time sin appears. Holiness is not a natural state. To move into it requires me to make the decision to seek the Lord and not let go of Him on the matter of making me a participator in Christ regardless of what it costs me, understanding that it will cost me not only what I have knowingly decided I am willing to give up, but most assuredly all that I have not considered, knowing that what I have not considered will be brought to my attention from time to time by the Holy Spirit letting me know I am holding onto something and must let it go as He and not me molds me into a vessel fit for the habitation of God, the Father, His Son and His Spirit. My role is that of choosing. As Joshua told the children of Israel, choose this day whom you will follow. This is the process of denying ourselves and picking up our cross through the power of the Holy Spirit.

To imitate means “to try to be the same as.” If I take that approach I am doomed to failure. If instead I take the approach of faith and pray as follows: “I will be as Jesus is because Father You have commanded me to be holy as You are holy. Come with Your spirit and make me an imitation of Your Son. I give to You my soul that I might think as You think, that I might will as You will, that I might feel as You feel. I want You, Lord. I want to be in You, and I want You to be in me so that I walk this earth as You by Your spirit and not as me by my flesh.” I will take on the divine nature and leave my worldly nature. AMEN!!!!! I might add that this requires faith’s expectation and the great deal of patience that faith provides us.

Bob Highsmith
aspiritualhouse@yahoo.com
  ¶ Monday, November 22, 2004

  KNOWING THE LORD That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; (Philippians 3:10)

Jesus said unto him, have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me . . . (John 14:9)


“Our minds are so often occupied with service and work; we think that doing things for the Lord is the chief object of life. We are concerned about our life work, our ministry. We think of equipment for it in terms of study and knowledge of things. Soul winning, or teaching believers, or setting people to work, are so much in the foreground. Bible study and knowledge of the scriptures, with efficiency in the matter of leading in Christian service as the end, are matters of pressing importance with all. All well and good, for these are important matters; but back of everything the Lord is more concerned about our knowing Him than about anything else. It is very possible to have a wonderful grasp of the scriptures, a comprehensive and intimate familiarity with doctrine; to stand for cardinal verities of the faith; to be an unceasing worker in Christian service; to have a great devotion to the salvation of men, and yet, alas, to have a very inadequate and limited personal knowledge of God within. The ultimate value of everything is . . . just the fact that we know the Lord in a deep and mighty way.

The greatest of the problems of the Christian life is the problem of guidance. . . . We are strongly of the conviction that it is one thing to get direction for the events, incidents, and contingencies of life, and quite another thing to have an abiding, personal, inward knowledge of the Lord. . . . We want instructions and commands; the Lord wants us to have a ‘mind’. ‘Let this mind be in you’ (Philippians 2:5), ‘We have the mind of Christ’ (1st Corinthians 2:16). Christ has a consciousness, and by the Holy Spirit He will give and develop in us that consciousness. The inspired statement is that ‘the anointing teaches you all things.’ (1st John 2:27) We are not servants, we are sons. Commands—as such—are for servants, a mind is for sons.

There is an appalling state of things amongst the Lord’s people today. So many of them have their life almost entirely in that which is external to themselves; in their counsel and guidance, their sustenance and support, their knowledge, their means of grace. Personal, inward, spiritual intelligence is a very rare thing. Immediately it is things that we reach out for: experiences, sensations, proofs, evidences, manifestations, and so on . . .

To know the Lord in a real way means steadfastness when others are being carried away, steadfastness through times of fiery trial. Those who know the Lord do not put forth their own hand and try to bring things about. Such are full of love and patience, and do not loose their poise when everything seems to be going to pieces. Confidence is an essential and inevitable fruit . . . in those who know Him there is a quiet, restful strength which speaks of a great depth of life. . . . In Christ are ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden’ and the Lord’s will for us is to come to an ever growing realization and personal appreciation of Him in whom ‘all the fullness dwells.’ The absence of this real knowledge of the Lord has proved to be the most tragic factor in the church’s history.”

T. Austin-Sparks, On Knowing the Lord


We will never know the Lord from scripture alone. We will never come to know of the Lord from hearing testimony of the experience of others. We will never know the Lord from mere participation in church services even if we do experience a sense the presence of the Lord. The Lord will only reveal Himself to those who are (1) devoted to scripture because they want to become scripture, be what scripture is, rather than have an extemporaneous knowledge of it in their heads where it is knowledge only, something separate and apart from their own essence, and (2) who are devoted to communion with their Heavenly Father in prayer.

The devotion to scripture that gives to us the reality of the Lord within entails participation in the sense of working the scripture into our hearts to where we respond to life from scripture and not from our own thoughts—our devotion has made scripture a living thing in us and has become such a part of us, woven into our fiber, that we are living the scriptures. When asked by his disciples to show them the Father, Jesus responded that if you had seen Him you had seen the Father. In any respect can it be said of any of us that if you have seen me in that regard than you have seen scripture in life, you have seen the Father, you have seen Jesus. That is not an ideal; it is the purpose of our Creator, our Father in heaven.

Yet we are on a false basis, fooling ourselves, and will do nothing but frustrate ourselves if we delve into scripture without developing a devotion to prayer because the Holy Spirit will not open up the scriptures to an individual seeking intellectual knowledge. There must be a desire to seek the author of the scriptures, the person of the scriptures. A person who does not have within his heart a keen desire to fellowship with his Heavenly Father and His Son, our Lord Jesus, will find that the Father does not reveal His Son to him through the scriptures. We can only come to know Jesus in a real personal way through the Father revealing Him to us in the scriptures by His Spirit. To try to come to know Jesus in any real way while avoiding the Father in prayer is a futile effort. Jesus said that “no man knows the Son but the Father.” (Matthew 11:27) We cannot learn of Jesus by ourselves no matter how we ponder scripture. Paul said that it was when it pleased God that His Son was revealed and that not “to him” but “in him." (Galatians 1:16)

The spirit of God within us is there to teach us all things, to testify of what is the Lord, to guide us into truth, to receive of Jesus and makes it known unto us. (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7) It is in prayer that we develop relationship with the Father and commune with His spirit so that these promises can become a reality. Prayer is far more a matter of communion of our spirits with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit than it is in making requests for various things. A person who does not set aside a considerable amount of time before he or she begins their day to spend in fellowship with the Father, His Spirit and His Son will never know the Lord. We can learn a few things about the Lord from scripture, books, other people’s testimonies, experiences, and worship services. Some of these things will be accurate; some of them will be inaccurate and misleading. We can never really know the Lord and have His mind in us outside of a highly developed and extensive time of prayer in the early morning or late evening, when the rest of the world is playing or sleeping. I am not talking about a few minutes, I am talking about hours. I agree that is not natural. How to pray or commune with our Father, His Son and His Spirit cannot be taught. However if we do not step up on the side of the nest and let the Holy Spirit push us off into prayer we will never be guided by the wind, and we will live out our lives in a cold nest, abandoned for the most part by the Holy Spirit, unnourished and anemic. God says draw near, and He will draw near. His hearts desire is to reveal his Son, but there must be the necessary attitude, there must be the cooperation, there must be the setting aside of time. Open your life to provide him time, then open your heart, open your mind, open your Bible, open your mouth and talk to Him, and open your ears and listen to Him.

Bob Highsmith
aspiritualhouse@yahoo.com



  ¶ Monday, November 22, 2004