Changing Our Worldview, Pulling teeth

I shared this Sunday morning, it was birthed out of my did not our hearts burn within us email from Friday.

Changing our worldview, Pulling teeth.

Isa28:9 “Whom will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
10For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little.”[1]

We say we will follow Jesus anywhere, I do think we mean it. We think of this in terms of leaving someplace and going to a different place.

But sometimes he wants us to follow him into a different paradigm with our minds with our thinking, and we can go crazy, especially if it bumps and jostles what we thought we had together.

Jesus in the boat saying beware the yeast of the Pharisee's and his disciples thought he said this ”its because we didn’t bring enough bread!”

Our mind’s, are like file folders where we store all our knowledge

My son Nathan brains, at 18months has a file for family, sistas, ma ma, dada

He has a Car file: The car file is also where he puts anything that moves, planes, boats, wheels, park benches too, if they have the right shape to them.

You take an 8-12 yr olds, young adults and adults we will have lots and lots more, seniors will have even more than someone middle aged, sometimes you can see seniors refuse to even think about anything more, right? I don’t want to know about computers etc etc. No more, new information. But its line upon line…..

In the example from the World Trade Center, people spoke how their minds couldn’t assimilate what they were seeing with what understood about life. So they could at first only see clothes falling. The information didn’t fit. They had no where to “file it.”

john 3:12“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Its left unspoken but the answer is you cannot.

Even if we were to take a principle from the bible, if it was one that we had never heard of, or maybe it doesn’t fit in well with other principles that we have always accepted as true. What happens? “There is no way we have missed this” “Get thee behind me Satan…. this be not of the lord”

I told you about Nathan's file, for my daughters I want to equip them with Jesus and Bible folders that are so big that I hope as they get older if someone ever says, no, no, this has nothing to do with Jesus or the bible they will go “that’s impossible” and they will then start to look for the error in someone’s thinking that has been take captive to a worldly philosophy. Or if someone brings forth something from the word that they haven’t heard of and if it doesn’t clash with the established Christian creeds and what they know of the Word they will be able to receive it.

A Problem: for most of us we were given a file about Jesus too, but we also got a healthy dose of Americana with ours, so ours is a Jesus that though we know the word says he and the father are one, and we know we worship the one true God, who made everything , sent his son to die for us…..

God is Old Testament, He made it all and is a bit stern.

But Jesus, He loves us! We see him carrying us across the beach when I cannot go further. In many ways we were given folders where God is like room service standing out in the hall, waiting to see if we need something. We can find those baby lullaby units that you hang in the crib, pull the string and hear the tune, you know, maybe “Jesus loves me” Try to find one that plays “Holy, Holy, Holy”

Coorie Ten Boom Jesus file, what did it look like? War, hiding jews, prison camps, a taste of hell on earth, her father dying, her sister dying, under Nazi captivity. I submit that her folder labeled Jesus, was different from ours.

The Pharisees and Sadducees had no folder to fit Jesus so they put him in the Satan folder.

One high priest had some wisdom in Acts when he said, back off and see what happens “lest we find ourselves opposing God.” Now we are saved, we are born again and I have never heard a modern Christian say “we should be careful lest we find ourselves opposing God.” There is no way we missed something like this.

So if we have a God so big that the universe cannot contain him then we better look for extra boxes of file folders and get used to the idea that we will never have it all together, we are finite creatures following an infinite God We must be comfortable with the Idea that we may have to re-label files and folders as we see more of what and who God is, as he reveals himself to us.

The more an area of thinking or life is in rebellion to God the harder it is to see where Jesus is or how it used to relate to him. The truth can be so twisted that its hard to find Gods original truth under the pile of lies.

We think in terms of giving him our hearts as believers, today that has way more elements from romanticism. An effect of modernity, the times in which we live is to compartmentalize things. “My heart says yes! but my mind says no!” We try to separate heart and mind but biblically they are one. Jesus will not save our hearts and send our minds to hell.

With our minds we can stake out the parameters that God fits in and operates from. That becomes a form of autonomy, as Eve in the garden operating as a neutral judge over God’s word.

john 3:12“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

Isa28:9“Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
10For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little.”[1]