FUNDAMENTALS
OF DISCIPLESHIP
A KINGDOM HEART – XXV
Ephesians
4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the
Master, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of
their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of Elohim through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of Elohim through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
Last
week’s post ended with this comment:
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By now, we have learned and are heeding the call to
"keep" our heart "with all diligence."
Why? Because "out of it, are the issues of
life." In more contemporary
language..."We are sensitive and conscious to protect our heart; for through the
heart, the Life of Elohim passes from our spirit to our soul." What could be more important to our
daily living than to facilitate the divine transfer of IAUE's glory from His
throne to its manifestation in our lives?
One of the most important aspects of guarding our heart is to shield it
from our own willfulness, demanding our own way in contradiction to the will of
our Father. Pursuing willfulness decreases the capacity of our soul to hear and
correctly interpret the signals coming to us from our heart. ("He gave
them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.")
Remember our illustration of the shared wall of the
duplex that both unites and divides the two rooms, just as does the heart unite
and divide both soul and spirit. Let's add a new illustration to view the
heart; then we will combine these two illustrations for our study today.
Picture an archery target with three concentric circles: a yellow
bullseye surrounded by a band of red, and the red band bordered on the outside
with a band of blue. Now, let us call the area of that innermost circle, the
bullseye, the spirit. The red band around the spirit, we will call the soul;
and the outer blue band we will call the body.
Now, imagine the line where the yellow of that
target's bullseye (the spirit) meets the red of the middle band (the soul). You
cannot really say it is where the yellow stops and the red begins, or where the
red stops and the yellow begins. To create that line of distinction between the
two areas, something of each is contributed. If we take a cross-section of that
"line" and look at it from a side view, we will see it as that wall
that helps to define the difference between the Unit A and Unit B of the duplex
in our earlier illustration. That is the picture of the heart I want us to
visualize today.
That membrane, the heart, separating the spirit and
soul, possesses two "filaments" which represent the "contributed
part" of each. Think of it as the wallpaper on each side of the wall. Unit
A has one wallpaper; and Unit B has another wallpaper. It is only one wall, but
it has the distinctiveness of two separate rooms. So does the heart of man. The
part that the spirit of man contributes to the heart is called the "conscience." The
part that the soul contributes to the heart is called the "understanding."
Before any man comes to know Yahushua as
his Messiah, he has no life in his spirit. Man is born into the world
physically alive, but spiritually dead as a consequence of original sin (Genesis 2:17). The life of IAUE is not resident within
man's spirit prior to the "new birth" (John 3; 2 Cor 5).The heart is intended to transfer the life
and truth and will of IAUE from man's spirit to his soul; but when there is no
life in the spirit, there is nothing to transfer. The heart of the man/woman
who refuses to honor and obey the authority of Messiah cannot be healthy and
perform its divinely-intended function. Therefore, the conscience atrophies and
the understanding of man, being deprived of light and life, is darkened. This
brings us to our verses for today.
Ephesians
4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in
the Master, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity
of their mind,
Paul instructed the Ephesian believers (and
us as well) NOT to behave as do the lost Gentiles who walk after the "vanity of their mind." What is vanity of mind? What does it
mean for a man's thoughts to be vain?
If you fall overboard a ship in the
middle of the night, and the ship continues on ahead for miles, your cries for
any man to help you would be in vain. They would be a waste of effort for they
could not possibly yield any benefit. Accordingly, the man who has never been
illuminated by the Life and Light of IAUE within his spirit has never had
anything pass through his heart to aid his thinking. He is like the Israelites
at the end of the book of Judges: "...every man did that which was right in his own
eyes." (Judges
21:25)
This further explains the truth of Solomon’s words: “There is a way
that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverb 14:12, 16:25)
Even though men often make attempts to
be humanitarian or spiritual or self-denying, every thought and motive behind
their actions are impure. Their best thoughts are without benefit. They are vain.
Ephesians
418 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated
from the life of Elohim through the ignorance that is in them, because of the
blindness of their heart:
The man without Messiah has his "understanding darkened."
That wallpaper on the soul-side of the heart, is darkened. Why is that? It is
because it is "alienated from the life of Elohim."
It has no Light. The understanding in the heart of man has the function of translating
the signals coming to it from the spirit and through the conscience so it is in
a format useful to the mind of man. The understanding of a "lost" man
has no illumination, making the heart...blind. This further explains why the
thoughts of man are vain. Every thought of the man who knows not Messiah is
borne of darkness, regardless how "good" those thoughts might appear
to be.
Ephesians
4:19 Who being past feeling have given
themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
Such are the lost. They live in darkness. They know
only spiritual blindness. Their every thought is vain. Though social mores and
human governments have a restraining effect upon the outward behavior of man,
everyone is capable of doing any form of wickedness. To the Ephesians, Paul
contrasted the believer with the Gentiles that were around them. He described
them as being "past feeling." This
reflects on their conscience having become hardened and unresponsive to any
moral value. When the conscience is seared, the darkness of man is unrestrained
even by social mores and human governments. The only thing that matters to such
men is doing whatever is right in their own eyes.
It is unto a world of such men and women that
Messiah appeared the first time, taking away their sins. Now IAUE commands all
men everywhere to repent; and having repented, to guard their hearts, and to
perform all His will without resistance.
Kingdom heart: a
heart that offers no resistance to the performance of the will of IAUE.
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