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If a person were to drink a cup of water dipped from a sewer they would have a very good chance of contracting any number of diseases, viruses, etc. But a cup of water drawn from a cold
mountain stream is pure, nourishing. My intent is to establish a contrast in origins, and carry that concept out to the ultimate end, not in drinking water, but in human conduct. Who and what we are as human beings is determined by what we think, and all things relative to what we are will follow; what we accomplish in life, in terms of good or bad, what we gain in life, in terms of blessing from God or discipline, and what impact we have on all around us, in terms of benefit or burden. In every word we speak, and every deed we commit, we can be judged to be right or wrong, and in as much as God is absolute, the degree of right must be 100%. Any less falls short of His glory. Of course, this attainment, absolute good, is unattainable for man, is it not? Regardless of our intentions, no matter how pure we may hope them to be, the old sin nature will inevitably taint the outcome; origins. In fact, anything that comes of man's designs is tainted to God; origins again. It would seem that this concept of origins dooms us to be hopelessly sinful, and if it weren't for God's grace we would be. But He has made possible a phenomenal transformation, a condition of the soul from which Divine good issues forth in all we do and say. At the instant of salvation we are given 39 irrevocable gifts, and one revocable one; the filling of the Holy Spirit. When we are filled with the Spirit we are sinless, pure, until such time as we commit a sin. God can have no communion with sin, and our transgression drives Him away and leaves us carnal, cut off from God and incapable of doing what is good in His sight. Origins. Our thoughts, when filled with The Spirit, originate from a holy vessel. None of us, Christians, would be capable of maintaining sinlessness for long without another provision, what my Pastor calls "Rebound". This term embraces the mechanics of naming our known sins to God, at which time we are purified and restored to fellowship with God, once again filled with The Holy Spirit. the verse that explains this wonderful blessing is 1 John 1:9; "If we [cite] our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and [purify] us of all [wrong doing]." The origin of our thoughts must be what the scriptures calls "the mind of Christ", and that is a reference to the thoughts of Christ, or the book we call the Bible. Our objective, as Christians, must be to supplant our human values and motivations with those of our Lord. This is the spiritual phenomenon which lifts us up, above our human station, and makes us worthy instruments by which God works His will on earth. It all starts and ends with Him, you see, and the process in which we have a say is the gradual enrichment of our souls with Divine truth, which becomes the origin of what amounts to His thoughts, even though they are conceived within a human soul. If the origin of our frame of reference is from God, and our thoughts are composed in the immaculate dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, our soul, then the result is no less than perfect righteousness. The impact of this marvelous grace capacity cannot be estimated, because it exceeds by so much the abilities of man. Take Moses, for example. On the basis of this one man's pure thoughts God was able to work spectacular miracles....origins. Moses's motives and words and deeds were rooted in Divine revelation, and when he was in fellowship his expression of that origin had results that reflected God's ability, not his. In the hands of a brilliant surgeon an instrument can work life saving wonders, but in the hands of an ignorant man even slicing bread is a satisfactory accomplishment. When God is the surgeon, and we are the instrument, then we reap blessings beyond our most extravagant dreams. A footnote to this brief treatise; we are all equal before God. The lowliest of us, in terms of social status, material possessions, or any other factor, is meaningless in God's eyes. Any man or woman can allow God to transform them into an instrument of righteousness, and the eternal rewards for that attainment are unimaginable. |