Spiritual Magnetic Theory

I woke up very early this morning and my mind began to wander across various things and would not allow me to go back to sleep. Last night I bought some magnets at the store to help hold down plastic sheets over our car windshields to keep the ice off of them. Evidently my brain decided that it would like to find another use for these magnets, or to be more honest I think God maybe wanted to share something important with me about parallel principles in His kingdom.

I began to think about the polarity of magnets and the effect that they have on the human body as well as their relationship to each other. Suddenly it occurred to me that the principles of magnetism is very revealing as a powerful illustration of many things I have read in the Bible about salvation and the healing of our souls.

So this morning I got up around 3 AM since I couldn't sleep anyway and worked on trying to draw a crude illustration to explain what was swirling through my mind. I think it would be very helpful to set up a demonstration with real magnets to explain some of these principles of reality in a presentation some time. But for now I will have to work with just graphics.

One of the main verses that kept coming to my mind was this one.

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)

Think of these two factors as attraction and repulsion. The principle of magnets is that like repels like and opposites attract. When you face opposite poles of a magnet toward each other they will have a strong power to pull each other closer. When you face like poles of magnets toward each other they will repel each other. Both of these actions become stronger and stronger the closer they get to each other. When two magnets are attracted and finally meet each other it is very difficult to pull them apart. Conversely, trying to push repelling magnet very close together becomes very difficult to do as they will try to slip around and push against each other not wanting to be in close proximity.

I tried to make this first chart more or less self-explanatory. When we are attracted by the desires of our fallen nature to the allurements of this world designed to target our particular preferences and weaknesses, the magnetic attractions becomes stronger and stronger the closer we allow ourselves to get to those things. I we indulge ourselves in little flirtations with sin we are choosing to face our souls in that direction and the invisible magnet pull will become surprisingly strong and sometimes very unexpected.

At the same time we will find that the things of God just don't seem to be all that interesting. Oh, we may be very engaged in religious activities and even have a lot of enjoyment having animated discussions with others about religious topics, but the Law of God and the high standards that Jesus talked about just seem too difficult to reach and so we feel some degree of repulsion against giving ourselves fully over to God's control of our lives and full access to our hearts.

The second chart I made is also a bit simplistic but tries to illustrate the relationship that a real Christian will have with both the world and with God. Remember, these are not things that we have to work at making happen; these are simply principles of reality, of how our minds and hearts are designed to function just as magnets are going to act the way they do no matter what we may try to believe.

There are a number of other effects that take place in these relationships that I was not able to incorporate into these simplistic illustrations. One is the fact that when two magnets become closely attached to each other and combine their force fields, they actually increase the power of their attractions and repulsions for each other. Thus, when one becomes closely aligned with the world and sin, the repulsion and resistance against God become even more powerful than before the unification with the world. Likewise, when one becomes joined to Christ in covenant by sacrifice (Psalms 50:5) the revulsion to sin from God's perspective becomes the feelings of the person who is drawing closer to His heart.

One of the most important things about this is very similar to a principle that I observed when I explored the mirror analogy about our lives. The factor that determines what we are going to reflect is in our choice of what direction we focus our attention. If we focus on problems and sin in other people's lives or dwell on our own faults and failings all the time, that is what we are going to reflect and is what becomes part of our character. When we choose to focus on the character and glory and goodness of God, especially in the midst of trials, temptations or assaults by the enemy, then our mirrors will reflect the responses of God instead of our own natural reactions.

So too in this illustration, the determining factor that decides what kind of forces will interact in our lives is what direction we choose to face our own magnet. If we choose to flirt around the edges of what is right or indulge our carnal desires even occasionally, we will find maybe too late that the subtle, invisible drawing of the world is pulling us away from God and more and more into sympathy with the the things of this earth.

But if we accept the offer of Jesus to take away our fears, guilt shame, pain and heal our wounds by turning our full attention toward Him and learning of the real truth about how He feels toward us and what He did for us at the cross, we will find ourselves more and more enamored and enticed by the beauties of God's character, the consistency of truth and the satisfaction that comes from fulfilling our true design for living. As we turn our faces toward God and give Him our sins and our hearts, His righteousness will be more like a magnet for us and will then begin to glow through us. We will also find ourselves sharing His revulsion against sin and the things that used to be so attractive to us.

The action of having our magnets turned from one direction to the other is found in the term repentance. Repentance is a gift from God just as is everything else that we need for life. The key element that we exercise in all of this is our free choice as to what to do with the provisions of salvation that God offers us during this time of probation we are given here on earth. If we accept God's offer of salvation, believe in His forgiveness, embrace the truths of His healing love and compassion for us and seek His face by turning our shame-filled, fearful faces toward Him, His power will work in and through us to accomplish all of the rest as we cooperate with His work in our lives.

But if we try to waffle between trusting God with our lives and still trying to cling to things of this world at the same time, our hearts will become very unstable and like a magnet waffling between two opposing attractions we will find ourselves becoming more and more erratic being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (James 1:8).

There are many other potential inferences that I believe may be seen if this is considered even more thoroughly. But I wanted to at least get this captured and condensed initially so that I can think about it more and consider it from other perspectives and relative to other principles that I have been learning.