"Understanding Spiritual Things"

St. John 3:8-15

8) The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

9) Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?

10) Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

11) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

12) If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

13) And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

14) And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

15) That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

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henever the Lord speaks of "heavenly" things, He always means things "spiritual" as opposed to "natural." This is the reason that He asks of Nicodemus how he would possibly expect to believe heavenly things when he told him of something earthly that he would not believe.

Being "natural" creatures, the Lord knows that if allowed, we would try to serve Him through our natural understanding. That is primarily why the greatest amount of his instruction involves trying to get us to understand that all that He is, all that He does and all that we must be, must be based on the spiritual. Without this "transplantation" of the mind, we would never understand Him.

It is somewhat amazing that even after salvation, we "fight for the right" to continue to operate in the flesh. This, despite the fact that we know that Jesus came, died and reappeared as the Spirit in order that we might be able to communicate, serve and ultimately, live with Him. Obviously, had all of this been possible without His sacrifice, Jesus would not have come.

As unpopular as the message, all that the saved man needs to know, today, is spiritual. That is, he does not now and never has needed any other solutions to his problems but spiritual ones. Less this be misunderstood or not understood, the Lord is the Source of all solutions and since He is spiritual, all of His solutions are spiritual.

The only limitation that man has in carrying out the will of God is his understanding of God. That is why it behooves man to adopt the mind of Christ so that all possible impediments to understanding (including the natural processing of information) will be brought under subjection to the influence of the Spirit of God.

The reason that we see so many denominations and variations even amongst those calling themselves "apostolic" is explained by the fact that for what God gives that man is not willing to accept, he will develop his own "substitute"--and then, accept that as God's. This explains so many differences in doctrine, dress, discipline and development . For so long and continuing until now, man has been so misled about salvation and what is required that when he hears what is really necessary, he is neither willing to do nor accept.

Jesus Christ came, taught, lived, died, rose again and returned as the Holy Spirit that from the Day of Pentecost until now, Man would be able to live a spiritual life. If we claim to have accepted Him and indeed, capitalize on the gifts and benefits of our choosing, yet persist in living as we choose, just exactly who are we "fooling"? n