Hi all,
I recently sat down
with a young lady and heard how she came to know Jesus, which was quite
remarkable. Just a few years ago she had been an atheist - and not your
average quiet atheist - but one who actively, on the street,
demonstrated against religions, thought Christians were stupid and
uneducated, and looked down on all those non-thinking stupid religious
people. She was an activist, angry, yelling, demonstrating, flaming
liberal atheist - to paraphrase her own words.
BUT...She
considered herself a good person because she didn't lie, steal, or
murder. But she hated religious people; even turning to TV stations with
Christians on them just for the purpose of making fun of them to
confirm to herself how stupid and uneducated they were.
And
then her life took an unexpected turn in a tragic event. And after
several surgeries she was told at just age 20, that she would forever be
on crutches or a walker, and probably later in life a wheelchair as
there was nothing else medical science could do for her. She
contemplated suicide, unable to imagine herself going through the rest
of her life as a cripple. She thought it out; how could she do it the
easiest, the least pain...she was developing a plan to end her life.
Then
she saw a banner advertisement for a Christian meeting that proclaimed
'Miracles'. She thought that was really what she needed, a miracle.
"Maybe" she thought, "Maybe I can sneak in and and get my miracle and
leave before any of those crazy stupid people have time to tell me about
their Jesus."
On
her crutches she slowly made her way to the meeting and saw people
raising their hands and singing, and she wondered what that was about -
just more craziness by these stupid people. But immediately 3 women
asked if they could pray for her, which she allowed.
She
suddenly found herself on the ground looking up, unable to move, what
you and I might call 'in the Spirit' or as what happened to Peter in
Acts 9, in a trance - a state in which the natural senses are suspended
and one is in the Spirit.
Suddenly
the Lord started talking to her, showing her light and darkness. In
light was love, joy, peace...and He showed her the thoughts she had
towards others. She saw the arrogance and hate, and for the first time
in her life she saw those thoughts were darkness. She tried to argue
before Him that they were just thoughts, because she was a good person.
She was moral, honest, and hard working.
But
He was saying those thoughts of hatred towards others were darkness,
even if she didn't act out the hatred, the thoughts were the same as the
actions. He said those thoughts are actually material. They are solid.
They are the same as the action. She felt that dark material of her
thoughts, she knew it was true.
Suddenly
she saw that her hatred of certain people was equal to murder, that in
her thoughts she wanted them dead, which appalled her for she considered
herself a good person, she wasn't a murderer. Or was she? In her
thoughts she could see that she was. She saw the darkness was a spiral
down to destruction. She saw if she stayed with those thoughts in her
they would cause her whole life to spiral downward into darkness.
After
showing her these things He asked: "So what would you choose; light or
darkness?" She responded, "Light of course!" When she did that, she said
all that darkness, all that hate, all that arrogant exaltation of self,
lifted away and off her. She was suddenly in the light and something
had changed on the inside that was good and light.
She
told me she was glad He did not heal her right then, for if that had
happened she said she probably would have just left her crutches and run
away before she could hear more about Jesus. As it was, over the course
of a year as she got to know Him, He did heal her, and she is now back
to her active lifestyle - and walking with the Lord.
The thoughts are equal to the action - quantum physics
Jesus
said the same thing in Matthew 5 that He said to her just about 3 years
ago, that thoughts are equal to actions: "I say to you whoever looks on
a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in
his heart. if your eye offends you pluck it out (the lust leads the eye
to look at her) for it is better that it should perish than for you to
end up in hell. And if your hand offends you cut it off (the thought of
acting on the lust leads to the action)..."
In
the culture of the day, given that Jesus mentioned 1 eye and 1 hand and
not 2 eyes and 2 hands, He is clearly stating for us to cut off the
process by which the lust in the heart becomes an action. Jesus is
linking the thought with the action. The evil thought and the action are
one. Is the reverse true? The good thought and action are one.
But not every thought equals action nor has it yet become material
When the Father said in Genesis 1:26:
"Let us (Elohim, the plural of El, or God) make man in our image, after
our likeness..." that was an internal thought, it was directed to no
one, it was purely internal. It did not yet rise to the level of being
equal with action until the next verse: "So God made man..."
In
Genesis 18: 17-19 Christ had temporarily materialized into human form,
along with 2 angels, and had dinner with Abraham. As the angels headed
off to Sodom to rescue Lot, the Lord paused and "Said to Himself: Shall I
hide that which I am about to do, seeing that Abraham will surely
become a great and mighty nation...and train up his household and his
children in the ways of the Lord..."
That
again was an internal thought not directed to anyone. So when Jesus
equated the thought of lust being equal to the action He put it in the
context of thoughts directed outwards towards others which were based in
sin - sin being selfish actions which often involve using others for
our own purposes. The Lord showed the young lady above that her hatred
was equal to the actions, they were material in the realm of darkness,
and could one day manifest by taking her whole physical life down into
darkness.
Where is the link between the spirit and the natural, between the thought and the action?
What does science say? Do thoughts have mass? And I'm out of room, we'll pick it up there next week...until then, blessings!
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com
New CD/MP3 Series
In
English and other languages we read in the Psalms and Prophets words
like 'bless', 'thanks', and 'praise' and we group them all together. But
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