February 17, 2015
Unoccupied
I’ve visited a number of
churches who place emphasis on a type of meditation that encourages you to
leave your mind open — open to God, the Spirit, inner light forces, the earth’s
energy, etc. It’s curious that these churches never mention the existence of
evil spirits and there is no call to discern the spiritual world through the Word
of God. Jesus warned us against leaving our minds unoccupied and void of the
truth. “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places
seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will
return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied,
swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with
it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there” (Matt
12:43-45a NIV).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Here is more opportunity to talk about humility. An open mind is an element of the discovery process. It engages the conclusive process by bringing to it information. But it is neither the conclusive process itself, nor a mechanism of it. The humbly open mind would examine these churches’ conclusions about “an open mind” by being open minded enough to note that “…open to God, the Spirit, inner light forces, the earth’s energy, etc.” is closed to anything that are not these. And that is not open. To close the mind to anything is an arrogant denial. For what can be known about something until it has been considered?
-----Now that sounds dangerous. And the open mind is risky, because as it states, it is open, therefore anything can get through - shepherds, sheep, sheep dogs, or wolves. The important thing about the mind is definitely not blocking certain things from it. The important thing is that what comes to it is properly recognized according to what it is and dealt with appropriately by what is right. So a demon, or Satan himself could speak into your open mind without problem, as long as you rightly dealt with his message This is what Jesus did in the wilderness. The problematic thing is in not knowing how to rightly deal. But again, Jesus showed Scripture to be right dealing.
-----He did finally command Satan to be gone. Would that indicate the closing of the mind? It could be viewed as such, though Jesus later was found dialoguing with Legion. Maybe He left a little crack in the door. Or maybe Jesus had gathered a sufficient amount of information in the wilderness that His conclusion became concludable; Satan had shown his objective; he had cut to the chase, “Worship me.” With the cat out of the bag, it was time to conclude rather than to observe. And “Be gone!” was the conclusion because worship is the core. And the correctness which all true worship has in common is that God only is worshipped. So why hear more of the same once that point has been reached?
-----An open mind brings all information for comparison and sorting. But comparison and sorting isn’t accepting and receiving. Accepting and receiving are elements of the mind occurring after the concluding process. Satan’s information did not compare, so it was sorted out and turned away. That’s not the closing of the mind, it is the rejecting and disposing process occurring also after the concluding process. Nor does the fact that Satan was turned away with his information indicate Jesus closing His mind. Satan had merely been fully analyzed at that point. Why keep in mind what is false? Openness has to do with access, not abode.
-----Therefore, the heart set to worship God in truth is not a closed mind, it is a concluding mind. It measures information brought to it carefully according to the truth its come to know. By the time we all have come into a substantially complete, conclusive process, a certain amount of truth has become known just by observation of life and nature. Then more truth is learned from those who know it. Amongst them are some who lived with, walked with, and talked to the truth and set down their testimony to it in the Word of God. The truly arrogant, closed mind is seen wherever there is a refusal to simply read and consider what they have to say. Churches which say nothing about facing Scripture obviously have turned their backs to it.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment