2st Spirit, Soul, Body (15)
2004-08-15 | Pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee | Romans 7:21-23
Last time, we looked at the size of the heart, and it was said that the size of the heart increases as much as the mind is cultivated with the spirit. If your heart grows like this, you can produce a lot of fruit not only in the church, but also in your home, workplace, and business.
Originally, Adam’s heart was filled with only the knowledge of the truth. However, as the spirit died due to the sin of disobedience, the knowledge of the truth gradually disappeared and was filled with the knowledge of untruth.
As such, since some knowledge of the truth remains in the human heart, they think good things are good and pursue goodness. However, since there is another heart called conscience, the human heart can be divided into three main types.
1. The basic nature of conscience
When the spirit of Adam, who was a living spirit, died, the nature of the soil, which was the original material of Adam, began to be applied to Adam’s heart. Soil has a characteristic that the quality of the soil changes depending on what ingredients are added to it. So, if Adam’s heart, which was filled with only the knowledge of the spirit, had a soft and oily nature like the soil, then gradually poisonous and evil ingredients were added to it and he had a degenerated nature.
As such, nature is the fundamental nature of each person’s heart, and as a person is born, sees, hears, feels, and sees, his nature changes as much as evil enters his heart. For example, a deceitful and cunning disposition, a cowardly disposition, a rough and tyrannical disposition, a self-seeking disposition, a false and excusing disposition, an arrogant disrespectful disposition, these evil dispositions enter and gradually change the mind of a person into untruth. is.
The nature created when untruth enters a person’s heart is transmitted to their children and descendants through the person’s “ki”. “Qi” is “the crystal of the essence that comes out of a person’s whole body,” and God allowed each person’s qi to be contained in a person’s sperm and egg. Children who inherit the qi resemble their parents because it contains not only their appearance, but also their constitution, intelligence, personality, and even habits. The parents’ nature is also contained in the flag and passed on to the descendants, so when the children resemble their parents and their hearts have soil like a roadside field, it can be seen that the children are generally strong.
However, the nature may change depending on the environment in which one was born and raised. This is because, as much as we see, hear, and feel evil in an evil environment, our nature becomes evil, and if we grow up in a good environment, evil can be planted in our nature relatively little. In this way, human nature is created independently for each person by adding acquired ingredients to the inherited background.
2. Conscience
When people in the world distinguish good from evil, they evaluate it based on conscience. Since this conscience comes from nature, it cannot be the absolute standard for good.
For example, there are cases where a person kills a vicious criminal because he can’t overcome his anger and says that he has to punish himself. “I did what was right in my conscience,” even though he clearly committed the crime of murder. I am proud of myself.”
Also, if you ask, “Is stealing good or bad?” most of them answer that it is an evil thing, but when you ask, “What kind of thing is theft or not?” it reveals that each person’s conscience is different. Some people feel remorse when they get drunk, no matter how small, but most people don’t care about using a very small thing without telling the owner, or borrowing a small amount of money and not paying it back. Sometimes, when the other person asks, “Why are you touching other people’s things” or “Repay what you have borrowed,” instead of saying, “You are narrow-minded with such small things,” you may think that the other person is not good.
Also, the standards of conscience vary greatly by generation and region. In the past, when I went to my parents in the countryside, I did not greet anyone I met before entering the house and greeting them. I was taught it was proper to greet my parents only after I greeted them, so not doing so would be a disgrace to my conscience. However, Westerners and young people of today do not feel remorse for being disrespectful to their parents even if they meet someone before greeting their parents.
It is the fact that the consciences of the people of the world are different, so it cannot be the standard of good and evil. Still, people are living under the illusion that the standard of conscience is good and right. What criteria must we meet to truly distinguish good from evil?
We must find the absolute standard of true goodness in the Word of God, which is only good and truth itself, and we must also change our conscience into truth in the light of God’s Word.
3. About the components of the mind
In Romans 7:21, it says, ‘I want to do good, and evil is present with me.’ This means that there are attributes of truth and untruths in a person’s heart. In verses 22-23 that follow, the human heart is again classified into three categories.
First, “I delight in the law of God in my inner man,” but the ‘inner man’ who enjoys God’s law means the heart of clear truth, that is, a white heart.
Next, “I see another law in my members wrestling with the law of my heart and bringing me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.” will be
Lastly, the ‘law of sin’ in my members means a clear heart of untruth, that is, a black heart planted by the enemy the devil. In the end, this verse means that a person wants to keep God’s law in the heart of truth, but the heart of untruth overcomes even conscience and is guilty of sin. means to do
Therefore, you can see that the heart becomes more and more darkly colored, the conscience changes, and the nature deteriorates to that extent. As the descendants inherited the spirit of their ancestors, as the generations passed, the world became worse and more sinful.
4. To achieve the heart of the Spirit
In order to achieve the heart of spirit, we must not only cast off the untruthful mind among the three minds, but also discover and throw away the untruth in our nature, which is the basis of our conscience.
However, the mind of obvious untruths can be easily and quickly pulled out, but untruths hidden in nature cannot be easily discovered. Because each of us behaves in our own way without going against our conscience, we think that we are right and good.
Then, how can we discover the untruth hidden in our nature? It is found when a person is undergoing trials and experiences difficulties. Some people think that they have lost their blood, but as they suffer in their hearts, blood comes out in an instant and surprises themselves. I thought I had given up on hate, envy, and jealousy, but when I see my brother being loved and greatly blessed, I find that I am not completely happy. I thought it was the heart of a very humble and useless servant, but when I receive the love and recognition of the saints, my pride is revealed at some point. I thought I loved the Lord and trusted Him completely, but because of the Lord, I suffered severe hardships, and I sometimes find that I am not.
That is why God sometimes allows trials even for those who have good faith and appear to be good, but this is to reveal the untruth hidden in their nature.
For example, before being tried, Job couldn’t find any evil on his own, but he was faced with severe hardship, so he poured out his grudges. Also, when his friends exhorted and criticized him, he tried to ignore them with arrogant words and suppress them. The truth is that this evil was hidden deep in the righteous Job’s nature.
So is David. David had a beautiful heart and heart to be recognized as a man after God’s heart, and he loved God and the people very much. When he saw the wife of his servant Uriah, he got drunk and conceived a child.
When such a good David was in a predicament, the untruth in his nature was revealed, and he committed the evil of murder. In this way, when David realized his sin, he immediately and thoroughly repented. And through this, I was transformed into a better and more perfect heart than before.
As Psalm 119:71 says, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.” After both Job and David had removed the untruths in their nature through this refinement, they received not only spiritual blessings but also great blessings that cannot be compared to those of the past.
Dear saints,
When we enter the kingdom of heaven in the future, we can see that each person’s glory is different (1 Corinthians 15:41). This difference depends on how much our heart resembles God and forms a perfect heart of spirit. Therefore, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will quickly find out the untruth that is contrary to the truth in your heart and fill it with the truth to achieve a perfect heart and reach a place of glory like the sun in heaven.
