Left Brained Christianity
by Milt Rodriguez

"Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him. For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words."  I Corinthians 2:9-13

The Human Soul
We know that God created us with three parts; spirit, soul, and body. The soul is the part of man that contains the mind, the will, and the emotions. The bible usually refers to this part of us as the soul, or the heart of man. Your mind is the part of you that reasons and contains your thought processes and intellect. The will is the instrument for choosing and making decisions. The emotions are the part of you that feels, or you could say that they are your "feelings." The soul is the seat of your personality and is in the process of being transformed by God. He never intended that your soul be the control center for your being. That happened through the Fall. Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which gave their souls the power to become independent selves. Now they had the ability to think and act for themselves based upon their new found knowledge of good and evil. This made their souls the central control headquarters for their lives.

God had intended that they eat of the tree of life and take His divine life into their spirits. This would have made the spirit the controlling factor with His life as the "force" behind it. Then God would have been able to express Himself and have an image of Himself in the world. But instead, the soul became larger and more powerful and the spirit of man shrunk and became weak.

New Life in Christ
Of course, we now know that the real (true) Tree of Life has come and opened the Way for us to receive God's life into our spirits. As believers, we have God's own life dwelling within our spirits. However, the problem still remains with our big, powerful souls. The soul is used to being in charge and will not give up the reigns so easily to the spirit. Herein lays the choice that we make everyday as "spirit-born" believers. Are we going to live today by that life that dwells in our spirits, or are we going to continue to live by the life in our souls? Jesus told us that if we love our soul-life, we would lose it, but if we denied this life, we would gain eternal (or divine) life (see John 12:25, Matt. 16:24-26). He also said that He lived because of the Father, and that if we eat Him (Christ) we shall live because of Him (John 6:57). In other words, Christ is the food for our spirits. If we eat that food, then our spirits will grow strong and we will become Spirit-controlled people.

The problem is that most of our "methods" for feeding our spirits are actually feeding our souls because the methods themselves are "born" of the soul! We take scriptures such as John 6 and try to understand them with our souls (more specifically, our minds), and that just won't work. These are spiritual words and can only be understood with your spirit. "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." All scripture must be apprehended rather than comprehended. Jesus said the words He spoke were spirit and life. We cannot comprehend these things with our minds; they must be apprehended with our spirits

The Need for Revelation
Christianity today is pretty much a left-brained religion. Theology, which originated from philosophy, permeates our seminaries and bible colleges. A man has to be trained in these "disciplines" before he is considered to be "qualified" to minister or pastor. There is much bible "study" and exercising of our brains going on here but where is the Spirit born revelation? Paul told the Galatians that he based his whole gospel upon a revelation of Christ in him (Gal. 1), and he considered all of his education as a Pharisee as dung compared to knowing Christ (Phil. 3:8). Paul, even at the time of his death, longed to know Christ, not a theology, not a doctrine, but a real living Person! Someone Who lived inside of him.

Another Realm Altogether
Left brain or right brain thinking have nothing to do with this. We are speaking of another realm here; another place, altogether. Now when most believers hear or read the phrase "getting to know the Lord," they immediately think about "getting to know the bible." I am all for becoming acquainted with the scriptures and I preach from them myself. But if we think in those terms, we are missing the whole point of the bible. The scriptures point us to a Person. That Person is Jesus Christ! If we stop at the scriptures, then we are missing the whole purpose of the scriptures and that is to bring us to Christ (see John 5:39, 40). The life is in the Person! The scriptures are not there to enlarge our frontal lobes! The natural man (or mind) can never understand the things of the Spirit. That's what your spirit is there for!

Brothers and sisters, let's spend our time getting to know that Person. That can only happen as we fellowship with Him. And that can only happen in our spirits.

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