Disposition and spirit

I quote today's reading from My Utmost here because it applies so perfectly to what I am studying, particularly the first few verses of Romans 8. It helps to answer the question I have been flushing out of what God did that the Law could not do. It also provides one of the best definitions of sin that I have heard.

Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Romans 5:12.

The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Heb. 9:26)—an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of selfrealization—I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When Our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and upright, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.

Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. “And this is the judgment” (the critical moment) “that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.”

Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. October 5

“This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality... He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.” This is a very good way to describe the two groups of people I see addressed in Romans. The first group displaying moral degradation is presented in Romans 1 and again primarily I think in Romans 6. The second group who focus on moral attainments are found in Romans 2 and primarily again in Romans 7. The commonality between both classes of people is the root problem of the condition of their spirit, what Chambers describes as the disposition.

This also helps me understand more clearly the issue of inherited sin that makes so many people very upset and mad at God. When we think of sin as primarily external oriented bad things we do that make us guilty before a Judge, then we get a strong reaction of feeling like a victim of unfairness by the Judge and we resent God's right to judge us.

But when we come to realize that the deeper issue of sin is our disposition that demands our rights for ourselves and our right to self-actualization independent of our Creator, then the issue of sin takes on a whole new color. In fact, it may not even appear as sin anymore but may seem to be a very legitimate attitude or belief.

Our obsession with rights may have caused us to embrace within ourselves the very core of the sin problem without our even realizing it, which in turn causes a great deal of confusion when trying to understand what God wants to do for us in salvation. Based on our country's Constitution document, many of us believe that our rights are inherent in just being a human being, but that is not really the case. It is true that our legitimate, God-given rights supersede the interference of any government or group of people trying to dictate and micromanage our lives. Governments can only give privileges, not rights. Rights must be respected by others but cannot be endowed on us by them.

But our relation to God is quite different than our relation to government by other humans. Our “rights” as human beings in relation to each other are really privileges when viewed in relation to God. And while rights cannot be granted, but only respected by other humans, they cannot be viewed in the same way when we think about our relationship with the One who created us.

“The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of selfrealization—I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself.” Self-fulfillment, actualization, realization are all very popular ideas today that run cross-wise to the design we were originally created to live by. Salvation places us “in Christ Jesus” where we are not self-actualized or realized but find our highest joy and fulfillment in realizing His character and beauty, love and power flowing through us while lost in complete self-forgetful focus on others.

Many religious people rightly denounce the inroads of popular philosophy about self-actualization. But they fail to realize that in their attempts to achieve righteousness themselves they have simply replaced one symptom of sin for another; because sin, at its core, is not in the external manifestations but is a condition of the heart and the spirit causing us to focus on ourselves while the rest of the universe lives in the condition of selfless, life-giving attention on others. The life of all creation is the necessary circulation of the life-giving blood of selfless love – receiving to give. When we get caught in the trap of focusing more on our selves than in being open channels to pass through grace from God then we begin to stagnate and become poisoned with the lies of sin.

I believe that Oswald Chambers and Paul are saying the same thing. The disposition inside of us, the condition of our spirit, is what we need to pay most attention to. When we realize that we are born with the natural problem of idol worship – the craving to be our own god and run our own life apart from God – then we can recognize more clearly that the real problem is inherent in our natural disposition of selfishness. This is the deepest place inside of us that must be transformed by God's grace for us to enjoy the Redemption provided for us in Christ.

Romans 8 is Paul's description of the condition of connecting our spirit to be led by God's Spirit so that we can become reoriented to live the selfless, other-focused life we were designed to live and enjoy the satisfaction and fulfillment that our hearts deeply crave. How do we get into that relationship with God? By surrendering the very core of the problem to Him – our right to ourself.

While I do not believe I should surrender my God-given rights to be controlled or manipulated by other humans, at the same time I cannot find success and fulfillment by demanding my rights. My only hope is to surrender my rights back to the One who gave them to me to begin with, trusting that He will look after me and care for me while at the same time setting healthy boundaries in my relationships with others.

But I can only live in this kind of relationship with Him if I see enough of His goodness to be able to trust Him with my right to myself. The worse my picture of God is twisted and distorted by the lies of the enemy the more difficult it is for me to rest in His love and entrust Him with the management of my life. Because of this I have found it most helpful to fill my mind with more and more clear truth about what God is really like. As I do this the faith and trust awaken naturally and I don't have to force myself to trust Him. The more I see His trustworthiness the more naturally my faith flows from a heart drawn to His genuine love for me.

(next in series)

Familiar Religion

I am looking again even closer at the first part of Romans 8 and I am seeing something more familiar than I expected emerging. I went through the verses and pulled out the key words and phrases connected with references to the flesh and was surprised at the picture they produced when assembled together. Every one of them are familiar exhortations heard in nearly every church in the land and made up the main body of instructions that I remember hearing most of my growing up years. These are the main methods and techniques developed by religious people and passed on generation to generation that have become our legacy of tradition. Paul identifies this line of reasoning and motivation for getting right with God as a religion of the flesh.

There are a number of elements brought into these verses from points of emphasis by religious flesh. But it is shown that these goals cannot be accomplished by a religion of the flesh.

• Fulfilling the requirements of the Law – righteousness – obedience to God's rules.

• Accomplish this by firmly setting your mind to it – determination.

• Attaining to eternal life – getting life for ourselves.

• Becoming like God – godliness.

• Subjecting ones self to the Law of God – just surrender to obedience.

• Pleasing God (by implication but unarticulated – appeasing God).

• Belonging to God, His chosen people (or maybe God being on our side).

• Living under a sense of obligation to keeping the requirements of the Law through hard work (deeds). This could include a sense of obligation for “speaking in tongues”, getting the “spirit”, or any number of other denominational preferences and demands.

• This is the spirit of slavery motivated by fear.

I now see a direct connection between this passage and Romans 2:17-29 where he describes explicitly the kind of religious thinking that he labels as “according to the flesh”. It might be easy to think this doesn't apply to us since he started out with the name “Jew”, but that is not going to cut it. Even his reference to circumcision can sometimes become a distraction, but again that is only the particular issue that is a symptom of a deeper human problem in our view of trying to get right with God. These passages apply just as strongly today to our familiar routines and forms of religion just as much as it applied to Christian Jews in Paul's day. All we need to do is replace a few words that are unique to their time and tradition with our own favorite issues and doctrines and we will find that this book fits our situation all too well. The underlying principles in the heart and mind have not changed at all.

It is becoming apparent that the more I look at these passage the more questions I come up with. I guess its a good thing I am not on a hard time schedule with any deadlines to meet. That allows me to continue to explore for answers to these questions even though that process produces even more questions. I find that asking questions is a wonderful form of freedom that maybe I have not long indulged in because of the atmosphere of suppression usually surrounding religion. Typically religious people prefer to simply tell others what to think and believe instead of encouraging questions. But I believe that real spirituality thrives on questions, at least if the spirit of the questioner is honestly seeking for truth and not just using questions as a smokescreen for animosity.

Questions in the spirit realm are like hunger in the physical body. The more intense and focused our hunger is the more tasty food becomes when the hunger finds its desire. The same is true in emotional things and I suspect in every area of life. If we do not feel our need (question) we do not appreciate the fulfillment supplied for that need.

One of the biggest problems with typical evangelism is that we are most often trying to present “answers” to questions that most people are not asking. We are trying to supply something for which there is no hunger so we find a great deal of resistance to our force-feeding techniques. Any surprise there? I find the same principle in methods used to study the Bible. Nearly every form of “Bible study” that I have ever seen is generally a regurgitation of someone else's beliefs imposed over a string of proof texts and pre-arranged answers to which the studier is expected to conform. This is simply becoming a clone of another person's thinking and disengaging our own faculties for stimulating use of our own brains. It was never God's design for us and I am continually baffled as to why religious people continue to use this kind of methods. The very term “Bible study” or “prayer meeting” carried an immediate sense of heaviness and dread for me for most of my life whenever I heard it suggested. It was not until I began getting involved in a dynamic group using inductive-style thinking for study did I get really excited about the Bible and have enjoyed it increasingly ever since.

Here are a few more questions that I am wondering about as I look at this passage. I don't have time right now to explore them, but I like to at least get them out into the light so I can ponder them and listen for any suggestions that the Spirit may bring to my mind throughout the day.

8 why would a person want to please God? Not appease God. For a growing, bonded relationship.

9 He does not belong to Him. It is not clear who each of the pronouns belongs to. It may work equally well either way.

10 the spirit is alive because of righteousness. Not our righteousness – that is the deeds of the flesh in verse 13. Our spirit comes alive because of His righteousness. How/why is that?

Adam and Eve were tempted to live according to the flesh instead of the spirit.

Several references to dwelling. Goes back to John 15 – abide.

11 He who raised Jesus... will give life to your mortal bodies. Notice it is not Jesus who is doing this. And also notice that Paul says mortal bodies as opposed to flesh. What is the difference?

13 ...by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds... Notice that this activity is done by the spirit – in the spirit realm, not something the flesh can do. Also note that what is put to death here is deeds. This brings up the idea of any dependence on deeds of the Law by which to change God's mind about us.

14, 15 Spirit of God is opposite the spirit of slavery. Could it be that in 6:16 the second kind of slavery mentioned is legalism resulting in legalistic righteousness? Not according to 19 & 22. In 8:15 he moves the analogy up a step to go from a slave mentality in chapter 6 to adoption and a spirit of loving a kind and generous parent.

16 The Spirit testifies with our spirit... The more synchronized we get with God the more His Spirit reinforces the truths we are discovering and internalizing.

(next in series)

Humiliation or Humility?

In My Utmost today it talked about humiliation. I have often wondered what humiliation really is and how to properly relate to it. I know that it is not the same thing as humility, but it can be somewhat related.

It seems that humiliation may be differentiated from humility by the key ingredient of my inner perception of value. Humility is an attitude that I have to choose myself – it cannot be imposed on me. Humiliation is an atmosphere, an identity that is forced on me from the outside, and is an insistence that I am not valuable. Humiliation uses the weapon of shame to steal all of my sense of value or worth. On the other hand, humility actually requires a sense of settled value at my deepest core to empower me to live in perfect freedom.

So it strongly appears that these two attributes or perceptions may actually be opposites. Humiliation is really the counterfeit of humility. Humility contains a great deal of peace and can dissolve the walls that keep my heart from connecting with others. But I can only be “successfully humble” after I receive a sense of settled assurance that I am intrinsically valuable simply because God created me valuable and His heart jealously guards my heart. As I learn to live and relate from a position of untouchable, unaffectable value, then I can feel more free to be humble.

Many have taught that pride is the opposite of humility. But pride is simply the flesh's idea of how to induce a sense of value to fill my natural emptiness inside. But if I receive with my heart, not just my head, the reality of my value in God's opinion about me, then I no longer feel empty inside. That emptiness is the very condition that creates my greatest liability and vulnerability to fall victim to all sorts of schemes against me. Not only am I susceptible to the delusions and suggestions of pride but I am ripe for the devastation of humiliation.

Humiliation exploits my lack of feeling valuable and tries to magnify it exponentially. It sends strong messages of shame and attempts to strip away any feelings of value that I may be trying to hang onto. It insists that any delusions that I may have about being valuable to anyone else, especially God, are just that – delusions. It is a method straight from the heart of hell and originates from the great liar himself. My only defense is not to argue with the lies but to fill my heart with the real truth from the heart of God.

If my sense of value has been assembled through the use of pride using any other sources of value other than God's thoughts about me, then my identity and value are vulnerable targets for the attacks of humiliation. Humiliation knows how to infiltrate the weak points inherent in pride-assembled self-worth and can quickly strip me of all dignity and leave me defenseless. If my sense of value comes from my performance and/or dependence on what others around me think about me, I am ripe for a successful attack by humiliation. I will be devastated and will often blame God for not coming to my defense. But God cannot defend the house built on the sands of the shifting opinions of our friends or a self-assembled identity based on my own goodness.

Filling my heart with a sense of value and what God feels about me is very different than filling my head with facts and assertions about God. Those are important and need to fill my mental library to overflowing, but they cannot substitute for a vital heart connection with Jesus Christ. My only hope for successfully living in joyful humility and becoming immune to humiliation is to live my life with an open com port connected to the Spirit of God. As my heart opens more and more to receive the inflowing assurances of value from God, as I feel more and more cherished and come to deeply believe in the unfailing passion of God for my soul, I will begin to fill up the emptiness inside that allows the enemy to exploit and manipulate me. I will become immune to his lies and the oil of grace will deflect all of the dirty water that he tries to dump on me.

Condemnation Reversed

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4)

And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40)

I think I am starting to see even more the relationship between two of the questions I have been dwelling on for the past few days: “What did God do that the Law could not do?”, and “What does it mean that He condemned sin in the flesh?”

The Law (10 commandments) describes in very sparse terms what a life would look like if one had love. That makes sense since it is a description of God's character and God is love. However, the Law cannot awaken or create love in me, especially since my perception of the Law is skewed through the distorting lens of my sinful flesh. What awakens within me under these conditions is condemnation and fear. Fear is the primary element of the enemy's kingdom and condemnation is one of his favorite weapons against us. Condemnation causes debilitation, reduction in energy and hope, torment and ultimately our demise. It severely limits my ability to thrive and deprives me of vital sources of life which progressively reduces my ability to function. It increasingly fills my heart with fear, dread and torture of soul, discouraging me and drawing away my life forces, both mental and physical. Condemnation tends toward and ultimately takes me to death.

The Law has no ability to stop this process; in fact, it is unintentionally an accomplice in this process through the deceptiveness and distortions of sin living in my flesh. I will never be free from this distorting lens of sinful flesh for as long as I live in this present world, but there is a provision supplied whereby I do not have to remain in this debilitating condition of slavery to sin.

So here is what I see that God did that the Law could not do. He introduced a new element into the mix by means of the life and death of Jesus Christ whereby my sinful flesh becomes the object of debilitation instead of my heart. He also empowers me by means of the indwelling presence of Jesus to receive the new element of selfless love. The presence and outworking of this supernatural love from my heart (the base of operations for my life where Jesus takes up residence) becomes the fulfilling of the requirements of the Law.

Love now becomes the motive for my life that displaces fear as my driving force. My relationships shift from being fear-bonded to being love-bonded. But another important thing begins to happen. By taking on the likeness of sinful flesh and from that vantage point, Jesus turned the debilitating effects of condemnation against the flesh instead of against my heart as indwelling sin has always done. In this new condition the indwelling Christ within me continues to introduce love, assurance, peace and all the other characteristics of heaven as He fulfills the requirements of the Law from His vantage place of living within my heart. And the effects of these new emotions and motivations becomes just as debilitating and disruptive to the man of sin in my flesh as the effects of condemnation had previously been on my heart from the working of sin in my flesh and mind. Sin in the flesh is now the recipient of condemnation instead of my heart.

The war is not over however. Sin is still very present and persistent in my flesh and it will not be uprooted until at least the Second Coming. It is still quite capable at any time of taking over control of my life again at any point in time should it be able to out-maneuver or deceive my will into accepting its suggestions. Then it will immediately commandeer my life and quickly move to try to undo all the positive progress that Jesus has worked to accomplish in my heart and mind. It will then impose an immense load of guilt and condemnation onto my heart as a result of the very things it has caused me to do through its suggestions in an attempt to regain its stranglehold over my heart and try to convince me that this is my true identity. It will attempt to throw me into feelings of hopelessness and despair and cause me to surrender complete control of my life back to my flesh and the familiar depression and darkness that have so long been my existence. It will fill me with fear and shame and insist that Jesus does not live in my heart and will not accept me back or forgive me. It will point me to the Law again through its distorting lens and declare that as a sinner my only option is to live in condemnation and fear and that there is no realistic alternative except to find as much pleasure from other sources as I can.

This is where the left brain can be most helpful when the right brain is overcome with negative emotions and lies about reality. If the mind (left brain intellect) has been filled with the truth about God and now fixes its attention on the promises and Word of God in spite of all the lying feelings in our emotional being, then the mind can take control of the will in spite of our overwhelmed feelings and choose to believe God's words. I can lay hold on God's forgiveness by blind faith and based on God's Word alone claim the reality of God's presence even though I may not be able to sense it. The healing life of God will then begin to dispel the clouds of deception that fill my heart and reveal that Jesus has not really left my heart after all, that He was only hidden from view by the cloud of condemnation imposed over Him by the lies from my sinful flesh.

The Word of God brought into the mind will act as a light in the darkness of our emotions and we can again see that our faith was not without reward. We can choose to receive repentance which is awakened within us by dwelling on the kindness and goodness of God. (Rom. 2:4) Repentance will open the door for the healing love of Jesus to be unleashed in our heart re-awakening our emotions of love and gratitude and reigniting the fire of God's passion in our life which is our vital connection for thriving.

Jesus acts like a mirror in our heart that catches the broadcasting beam of condemnation from our flesh and beams it right back at the flesh instead of allowing it to wreak its damage in our heart. With Jesus active and alive in our hearts the flesh is kept at bay and contained so that the new motivations of selfless love, praise and gratitude can become the well-spring from which a new life of glorifying God will begin to prosper “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:4)

(next in series)

The Law and the Sarx

I have sensed for a long time that there is at least a hint of what our original function was before the fall in the descriptions given in Romans 7 & 8. I am quite certain that I do not have enough wisdom to uncover completely what that looked like and I suspect no human may have access to that much insight, I'm not sure. But I think there may be enough clues still in place, pieces of broken “machinery”, misapplied parts of our internal makeup, that with some curiosity and a willingness to listen to the Spirit of the One who originally designed us that we might get some idea of what we might have looked like internally before sin messed up our wiring.

The reason I say this is because repeatedly the Bible refers to the Law as something that is good, that reflects God's character and that there is something inside of us that seems designed to want to align ourselves with it. I believe that is the remnants of our original design and function still in place that is no longer usable in the way it was before the fall of humans into sin. But the very existence of an innate desire to want to be in harmony with the Law and with God was certainly part of humanities original natural design.

What I have wondered for a long time is, “How did the 'flesh' function before sin hijacked it?” I know from this side of the fall that the flesh will not be salvageable, though I also believe that we will get a replacement body for our literal fleshly bodies at the Second Coming of Jesus that is far superior than what we now have. But is that new body going to be just like the one Adam started out with or will it be a step up from that, an improved version?

I don't think it is a safe assumption to believe that Adam's pre-sin body was just the same as ours. There is strong evidence that his original body was clothed with light and he very well may have had powers and functionality that we would now consider supernatural. But on the other hand, maybe his body was version 1.01 of the potential that it could have become if he had remained true and loyal to God instead of swallowing the fatal lies from the serpent. I use the word “body” somewhat loosely because I mean all his mental and spiritual faculties as included.

I went back and listened to a talk by Jim Wilder yesterday about the “sarx” because I remembered that he had some very helpful insights on this and I had not listened to it for a long time. I was nearly overwhelmed by the time I finished listening to it because it was so directly relevant to where my study is right now. In fact, near the end of his talk he read all of the verses I am now studying using language that shed a great deal of light on this issue. He spent the whole study explaining the “sarx”, which is the Greek word translated into the word flesh in this passage and he showed how we received it in the first place. He gives it the descriptive name of “picker” to help understand its misfunction in our lives. I would highly recommend listening to it, even several times, or purchasing a copy of it online. He also has other talks on this subject that are extremely helpful as well in his Kingdom Munchies Series.

I cannot recall anyone ever talking about what possibly the legitimate function of our flesh might have been before the fall. But it seems that it has possibly exploited something in our original wiring that was used to keep us in harmony with the Law/character of our Creator. Something in connection with our will and our safeguarding, virus protection software that we were created with must have in some way relied on a connection to the Law to keep us in perfect synchronization with God and His perfect will.

As I thought about this this morning the idea came to me that everything in God's creation is designed to operate on the circuit principle. The very essence of love, which is the most complete description of God, is other-centeredness, selflessness and service for the good and benefit of others. All of creation was designed using this template and as long as we are in synchronization with that we thrive and experience peace and joy and satisfaction and fulfillment.

Sin has altered and attempted to reverse the circuit model and inserts a virus into our soul that causes us to believe that satisfaction and happiness will be found in selfishness, sucking life from others to nurture ourselves, making our primary focus our own needs and cravings, and helping others only as a means of getting something in return. It demands that life for ourselves can only be found by hoarding it, extracting it from wherever we can find it, and focusing first on our own satisfaction and happiness.

Maybe this gives me another clue as to how the Law originally fit into our design. If inverted religion causes a person to try to be good and righteous by directly focusing on the Law and attempting to keep it perfectly in order to impress and influence God to “save” them, they are attempting to operate the circuit of life in reverse. That might imply that before the fall the Law was used in an opposite function from what it is in dysfunctional religion today.

In my simplistic thinking I try to picture the mind/body/spirit setup as various compartments or functions with unique relationships to each other. Some time ago I posted a picture diagram of the soul that attempted to illustrate this. What I am now thinking is how the direction of flow in that circuit must have been affected by the entrance of sin which introduced the “selfishness factor” and caused the whole system to seriously malfunction in all sorts of unexpected ways. But where was the Law in the original design? Since it is good and is not dispensed with or set aside in salvation, how are we to relate to it in returning to our original schematic?

The flesh, or sarx, seems to have usurped the function of the Law from our original design. Or maybe it was inserted into our system between our mind, or heart, and the Law that caused a permanent distortion effect. However it happened, part of the problem is found in the various descriptions found all through Romans of those who are trying to serve God by a direct and primary focus on keeping the Law. But because of the presence of the sarx functioning in our life, that is not possible for anyone after the fall. But what I wonder is, was it even possible before the fall? Or is at least part of the problem the reversal of the direction of flow in the circuit?

I believe there was obviously an important function for the Law in our circuit before the fall. But it fit in so seamlessly that it was hardly recognizable. In a properly functioning circuit with the direction of flow in the proper orientation, the Law, it seems, would act more as a subconscious resource for the rest of our system. Or maybe it was accessed externally somehow through an internal portal or connection point so it could be used as sort of a data bank for our virus software to rely upon. In this original setup the Law was not the object of our primary attention but was a subconscious resource that supplied us the protection we needed to stay in synchronization with God's heart and character.

This concept seems to make a lot of sense since the whole process of salvation is God's working to restore us to our original design and function. And one of the most important procedures in the plan of salvation is where God writes His Law into our hearts. Evidently He is in the process of getting the pieces back into proper relationship inside of us, though that may not be all that is involved. In addition, the direction of the circuit must also be returned to its correct orientation or the circuit will still malfunction.

It is not completely clear in my mind yet, but it seems that the correct orientation and direction of flow might be something along this line.

Our primary attention – where we focus our headlight so to speak – is on the spirit part of our makeup with particular attention to listening to and synchronizing with the Spirit of God that keeps us in tune with His heart and feelings and passion.

This becomes our primary source of power that we depend on to satisfy all of our emptiness, cravings and needs for strength.

This primarily engages our right brain which is the control center of our whole being. However at the same time our left brain must not be ignored or sidelined completely, though it should be reset to remain in proper relationship with our right brain (which I believe is also referred to as our heart).

This sets up a condition or orientation in us where we can begin to really live from our hearts instead of relying on our head knowledge to be the control center for our daily life. With our heart in constant communication with the Spirit of God and being empowered with the selfless love of God flowing through our spirit, we can then begin to operate our circuit in the correct direction of flow and in harmony with the Law as it was originally designed to function.

In this arrangement, our left brain acts more as an advisor and counselor to the right brain instead of as a dictator or an abusive spouse. I think that maybe God designed two very differently operating sides in our brains to work with each other as an illustration of how a marriage between two very different kinds of people can operate when they are in proper relationship and keep a rich atmosphere of love in their lives.

So where does the Law fit into this salvaged system? I believe that it is in a sense saturated all through the system as well as accessible from an objective source. The intellectual mind can fill its library full of instructions and information about God's Law. Remember, God's Law is simply an external description of the principles that govern reality, not just a list of 10 terse commands. All of the true principles found in science and physics are also included in God's Law. The Law is simply a description of reality and the principles on which it functions. The descriptions of these principles can be stored in the libraries of the left brain for access by use of the right brain as needed. The more stocked that library is with truthful information the more freely the Spirit of God can access it for use by our spirit whenever the information is needed for use in times of decisions or crisis.

Those times of need are often very emotionally charged times. Maturity is the process whereby our right brain learns to quiet itself during times of intense emotion so that it does not cut off access to the resources of the left brain when they are most needed. The more mature a person is the easier it is for them to “act like themselves” during any intense emotions. Acting like ourself in this context means to act under stressful emotions the very same way we would act if we were not experiencing those emotions. That is one of the important reasons for maturity.

What Paul is describing in Romans 8 is what a circuit would look like while it is being restored to its original design. Because we still are saddled with the dysfunctional sarx that is constantly trying to advise our hearts and control our desires and choices, we have to always put up with its insistent and convincing clamorings while learning to always ignore them in favor of keeping tuned to the Spirit of God.

We have to have our focus changed from a focus on “keeping the Law” in order to be right with God to living “in Christ” Who is already right with God and has made us right with God “in Him”.

In the born-again life we still have a responsibility to keep our focus on listening to the Spirit with our hearts while ignoring the constant suggestions and logical ideas of our sarx. Our sarx will always suggest ideas that sound very logical, good and right. It represents itself as the good inside of us and its suggestions are always for our benefit and highest good. It purports to be a reliable source of counsel for living a good Christian life and its constant suggestions always sound very plausible and correct. But because it has a hidden distortion factor built permanently into it, whenever we follow its suggestions the results are always less than healthy and worse than that, someone's heart, those around us or own own, always receives a blow of death.

This helps explain the last verse in Romans 7. I often wondered why Paul would say he served the Law of God with his mind while at the same time he was serving the law of sin. But that is a description of the function of the sarx, especially a religiously oriented sarx. It focuses the left brain on the Law of God while the heart is kept in second place and its emotions also manipulated by the sarx. That of course causes our heart to get a very bad reputation and so we justify our dominant left brain's control of our soul by pointing to the fact that whenever we follow our heart we always get into trouble.

What we don't realize is that, in fact, our left brain is also being controlled by the sarx, only in a far more subtle way. By believing that, given enough information and right training, we can learn to make right decisions we are actually living the life most like the directions received from the sarx.

The sarx causes us to believe that we are capable, at least sometimes, of making right decisions on our own. This is most prominent in left brain dominant religion where we rely on our extensive knowledge about God and truth to make our decisions. But this is really living in the flesh, being manipulated by the sarx while fully believing that we are serving God and obeying Him. It is the problem of the religiously active people Jesus described who are so surprised at not being allowed into the kingdom and it is the problem that Paul has taken the whole book of Romans up to this point to uncover and address.

The sarx that we received at the fall has usurped the place of the Law written in our heart. It demands to be the relied on as the data source for our virus software. It sounds so right that we almost always fall for its suggestions because it feels and looks like the right thing to do, whether we are religious or not. It will always be present and active in us until the Second Coming at the earliest, so we have to learn how to live in a vital, dependent connection with the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus while still putting up with the clamoring of the sarx inside of our head. But it is only the principle or law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus that will truly set us free from the principle or law of sin and death under which the sarx operates.

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