Filter Shield

I am aware that around each of us there exists an atmosphere. I am not referring to the physical aroma that emanates from our bodies, though that may be somewhat of a factor, or maybe more of a symptom. I am speaking of the spirit, that elusive part of us that may be more real than the physical realm that we usually assume is reality. The word “spiritual” really means anything in reference to this spirit realm.

When we start throwing these words around the idea of “spirits”, as in ghosts or angels, also comes into the question. They definitely are a factor that strongly plays into this issue at times, but what I am focusing on here is the immediate sense or flavor or “spirit aroma” that is created and surrounds our own unique individual spirit and the effect that it has on both ourselves and others. This is an area that is often completely outside the awareness of many people. Because they are not aware of their own spirit or may even be hostile to even believing that it exists, they lose the ability and cognizance of what is going on in this realm, how they are being powerfully influenced by others and how much of an effect they are really having on their surroundings.

Some in the spiritual healing ministries have drawn pictures to illustrate the condition many of us find ourselves in with locked hearts. They sketch a drawing of a person with something like a force shield around their body that has been put in place to keep others from getting to their heart. This is usually erected very early in life as a barrier in our attempt to keep our hearts from being further damaged after repeated abuse and pain. It is a natural part of our human experience to act this way, but it is also very damaging and obstructive to the process of healing and growing in maturity.

This “force shield” around us is really an atmosphere that acts as a very selective filter that blocks out or allows in only selected ideas, emotions and communications according to the evolution of the damage done to our hearts previously. It is constructed in our mind through the various experiences and traumas that we have been through, many of which we are no longer aware of. The healing process involves undoing the locks and bars that have been constructed over the years so that we can once again begin connecting meaningfully with others at the heart level and begin to understand and experience life as God intended for us.

I have been thinking about this filtering shield the past few days and some of the ways it operates as I observe it in action both in myself and in those around me. I have noticed that this filter is built mostly on assumptions about life, about others, about God, about what is good and bad, about what if desirable and what is threatening. Most of the time many of these assumptions are at best partially wrong if not totally, but we believe them very strongly in our heart even when our head knows otherwise.

These filters seem to have the effect of allowing us to only see and hear what is important to us and also what are serious problems of our own. Though we almost never think of it this way, this is why we most often focus on the problems and issues in those around us that are the biggest problems of our own but that we have the least ability to see in ourselves. This seems to be a very pronounced attribute of this filtering phenomena. I think this may be because these “mutual” problems are where our mind dwells, either consciously if we are working on them, or unconsciously if we are in denial of them.

This filtering atmosphere around us often causes us to focus on the negative problems we perceive in those around us, those we work for, people in the store, people in church or in our families. We talk about them to our friends and complain about their faults while our friends silently are wondering when we might wake up and realize that what we are so accurately describing is really ourselves more than the people we are complaining about. But often our friends or family are too intimidated of our reactions to express what they are seeing us do so they just quietly let us vent until we have exhausted our energy or time. Or, worse yet, they may join into the pity party and began telling their own stories of the faults they see in their co-workers or others, being careful to not include us in their list of complaints at least for the time they are with us.

It is really amazing to me how very accurate the complaints a person has about those around them often fit the very character of that person themselves. It is also very frightening because I realize the same truth must apply to my complaints about others and I begin being much more attentive to the things I feel compelled to say about others and asking God to show me why this is such an intense feeling inside of me. The more intense my frustration is with someone else's problem, the more likely it is that this issue must be a part of my own nature and needs to be discovered and healed.

I also begin to think about how this same principle applies on the opposite side of the equation. When I choose to break out of the rut of focusing on the negative in others I can begin to create a new atmosphere that will invite people to see in me what I am seeing in them which in turn becomes motivation for that positive thing to be strengthened in me. For instance, how many times have we heard an unexpected, genuine expression of deep appreciation and suddenly felt to urge to be more appreciative ourselves? When we hear someone receiving affirmation, especially when they don't seem to have obviously earned it, we become aware of the incredible power inherent in affirmation to transform a life and we want to both experience it and give it. We feel the warm glow of life surging through our body and spirit and for a short time we resolve to be more positive and more loving. But habits die hard and we too often find ourselves back in the rut of negative thinking, criticizing and fault-finding with our filter locked solidly in place.

This filter not only is composed of assumptions but is knit together with expectations. We have compiled a list of things we expect to hear from people about us and we simply cannot hear or believe anything that is not on our list. It is simply beyond the realm of possibility. If we believe we are ugly we will discount and disbelieve every word anyone says to us to the contrary. If we believe we are stupid we will only allow messages into our hearts that agree with that foregone conclusion. If we believe that our real identity is found in the faults and sinful desires of the “flesh” that lives inside of us, we will gravitate toward those who point those things out in a spirit of condemnation to reaffirm the condemnation we already feel even though we may strongly resent them. What we believe about ourselves and our true identity is the filter we use to screen out all messages that disagree with the assumptions and expectations locked into that particular filter. And will tend to use the same filter to view others and judge their character. “To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.” (Titus 1:15 RSV)

Our words combined with our spirit take on creative-like powers. In judging others we craft the very filter that will be used to judge us because it is the only thing that will be allowed in. “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” (Matthew 7:1-2 NRSV) We reap what we sow.

Law or Principles

I observe that when people try to make a covenant with God based on externals the result is often rule based. We think we know what God wants for our life, we want to align our lives to look like godly people so we set up rules so that the people in our group will behave and look like what we believe to be correct. These rules are oriented necessarily to dictate outward activities and relationships because rules simply can't be applied by humans to the heart. How could you arraign someone in court for not following a rule in their heart? Since it is impossible for any human to see into another person's heart accurately no one would be able to make an accurate determination about such a matter. Therefore, man-made rules always apply to externals.

God's way of operating is based on covenant relationship. (see FFI for excellent resources on understanding covenant vs. contracts) Although humans most always try to turn covenant arrangements into rule-based contracts, true covenant relationships are based on the heart. God has promised to exchange our hearts of stone for a heart of flesh. This new heart with God's “laws” written into its DNA is flexible and adaptable, unlike rule-based formula-oriented relationships.

The major problem with ruling the external with the focus on laws is that life and times change but rules are much slower to follow. What seems to work for current circumstances does not translate well to other people or to future generations. The result is a whole lot of rules and laws that quickly become obsolete and even ludicrous. Because of the obvious irrelevance of so many rules to practical life combined with the reluctance of the rule-makers to remove the old laws, most people adapt by learning to ignore some rules while carefully following others. This is usually based on the arbitrary enforcement of selected rules by whatever enforcers are nearby to do so.

This principle is at work both in secular society and religious communities. The proliferation of rules is like a plague that is constantly increasing the confusion and complexity of our lives. It is the essence of what is known as tradition. This increasing obsession produces more and more stress which slowly erodes our emotional strength and debilitates healthy relationships. Strict attention and focus on rules hardens the heart while professing to produce goodness and correctness in people however those are defined by the particular group or person in charge.

This strategy is at the heart of the Babylon system. And it is important to understand that it is not God's plan or method. And although God has stooped to meet us in our ignorance and set up systems of rules for us to observe because of our strong insistence toward this orientation, His original and perfect plan is based on heart relationships and heart motivation. His rules and laws are descriptive in nature instead of proscriptive. Man's laws are almost always proscriptive.

What is the difference? Proscriptive laws involve arbitrary commands requiring an enforcer and arbitrary punishments for infractions. The unholy trinity described at length in other places on this site (see labels) uses this system as its modus operandi. Rules, in fact, become a sort of deity in and of themselves. It is assumed that every problem can and must be solved by creating another law. (If you have any doubt about this, just casually observe how congress operates over a period of time.)

Once rules have been formulated based on some select group or person's opinion of what everyone else must do to be “right”, then some kind of punishment must be created to frighten everyone enough to obey the rules. The punishment often has no relationship to the law except its arbitrary imposition and attachment to that law. It usually has very little to do with natural cause and effect. In our society the two most common punishments that have condensed over time are fines and imprisonment. It matters very little what the law was that was broken. The punishment is almost always the same. Only the amount or length of the punishment may vary.

Now that the punishment has been formulated for the arbitrary rule, it is passed on to an ever-expanding group of enforcers to impose the punishments. This is usually deeply immersed in the “economics” leg of the unholy trinity. The system of law enforcement is almost exclusively a means of enrichment of the elite groups of “insiders” of society, those involved in making more laws, controlling most of the economics or acting as the enforcers. This encourages segregation of society into class systems between those who can get inside the privileged groups and those who are exploited outside the groups. There are all kinds of groups that are usually overlapping, but the grouping is very apparent most of the time.

This whole system of external rule-based living is inherently designed to harden hearts and make us cynical and callous. The “Babylonian” system designed and implemented by the greatest enemy of our souls is intent on destroying the image of God implanted in our hearts. It purports to have a better alternative to God's relational family-relationship system because it focuses on external performance and results more than God's system seems to. It teaches that the externals are the most important thing about us and that our value is based primarily on our ability to exalt ourselves at the expense of others.

Descriptive law is a completely different order of thinking and living. Descriptive law is not so much law as we are used to thinking of the word but is simply descriptive of the underlying principles of reality as it really is. In fact, God's laws, if understood correctly, are not really laws as impositions but are simply explanations of the great principles of cause and effect inherent in creation and the universe. These have been condensed into written descriptions in the imperfect and incomplete language of men adapted enough to get us to begin to understand how things work outside our limited understanding. The “laws” of God are like the laws of nature, which in fact are the laws of God. But unlike human arbitrary laws, God's laws do not require the system of arbitrary enforcement and oppressive enforcers to impose irrelevant punishments. God's laws are completely natural and His guidance (received through the heart) is designed to align us correctly with these principles so that we do not run crosswise to them and suffer the natural consequences of doing so.

God created the universe with immense power built into the various aspects and forces. These “natural” powers must stay in the synchronization and balance that was designed for them so that they accomplish what they were intended to do. As long as all the elements and intelligent entities stay in harmony with each other as originally designed they act as a blessing to each other and glorify the amazing skill and love of the Designer. But as soon as choices are made to violate the inherent principles in place, the incredible forces built into the system are in danger of breaking out of their boundaries and causing harm and unintended consequences that God never intended.

For instance, take the “law” of gravity. Gravity is not an arbitrary rule with arbitrary punishments for violators and with enforcers standing ready to impose the punishment. It is not at all like man's system of rules. It you violate the “principle” of gravity you unleash power inherent in gravity that results in consequences that are directly related and proportional to the violation incurred. We do not usually accuse God of arbitrarily punishing someone for violating the law of gravity, we are usually observant and open-minded enough to admit that the resultant pain and problems were directly the responsibility of the “violator”. We understand, usually, that if we stay in harmony and live within the constraints of this principle we can actually use it for our advantage and blessing. The inherent and immense power in this principle or law is woven into nearly everything we do. We know how to apply other principles that at times may supersede the normal constraints of gravity, but we understand our relationship to this law as simply a description of reality, of how things are in the world we are placed in.

When we apply this concept to all the rest of God's “laws” and begin to view them in the light of natural principles, that they are simply descriptions of reality that describe the boundaries of dynamic forces kept in balance, we will begin to unmask many of the lies about God as being an over-powering enforcer of capricious arbitrary edicts looking for opportunities to punish us and condemn our hearts.

In reality, God is passionate about restoring the balance of power in the universe to the model He first created. This model is based solidly on interconnected hearts in perfect harmony and joy with each other, drawing abundant life from the Creator and blessing everyone around them with life. This is our destiny and design. This is the identity built into to us called the image of God. When we realize the blessing and identity implanted within us that God longs to grow in our hearts we will re-connect with the real Source of life and begin to flourish and thrive within the natural constraints of all the mighty forces of nature and relationships.

Some people become alarmed at this perspective because it sounds in many ways like New Age thinking. New Age does teach a lot about inherent forces in the universe and living in harmony with natural principles. Like all false systems of thought, New Age has a great deal more truth in their understandings than most Christians are willing to accept. But the higher percentage of truth a belief contains the more deceptive potential it carries to smuggle in the small but deadly errors. In this case, the main embedded error that is fatal in this system of belief is the original lie given to Eve that we can be our own god, that God is not a separate entity from us but is our collective consciousness. This is largely reinforced in their minds because of the horrific lies about God that Christians still teach and believe in today.

But we must be very careful not to discredit the true part of something simply because it has been coupled with something erroneous. This is a very strong tendency among many but prevents us from embracing many concepts that are actually based in true reality. Every one of us is incomplete in our knowledge of truth and we all harbor lies that make us potential agents of deception ourselves. I have observed that many people associated with New Age are far more open-minded about learning new things than most other “religious” people. The prejudice against God that I see in most people who embrace New Age thinking is almost always based on terrible lies and abuse heaped on them by others claiming to represent God while acting more like demons. In response to this abuse, these people find the harmony and common sense that is more prevalent in New Age circles a refreshing breath of fresh air compared to the oppression and nonsense perpetrated by “religious” abusers.

The laws of nature are the laws of God because God created nature. This applies to all the universe. But sin has disrupted the balance of powers originally set up by the Creator and we now see some of the natural results and consequences everywhere we look. I personally believe that even some of the chaos we observe far out in space may possibly be continuing catastrophic results of sin on the part of some of the angels who fell so long ago. There are strong hints to this effect in the book of Jude and elsewhere in the Bible.

Sin is, in its essence, a crossing or violation of natural principles of harmony with the powers set up in original balance. The Bible defines sin as “transgression of the law”. “Trans” means to go crosswise to and “gress” involves movement (such as pro-gress or re-gress). When the law is understood as descriptive of natural principles with inherent built-in power, then to go crosswise to these natural principles will result in suffering the consequences of the power released in the wrong way. Sin disconnects us from not only from our only source for continued life but from the only reliable guidance system that will keep us aligned in harmony with all the forces surrounding us.

We are so ignorant on this subject that we are pitiful. We have tried to reduce all these concepts into religious talk and meaningless phrases strung together like so many mantras. We assume that if we can find the right religious recipe then we can maneuver our way into escaping pain and into favor with God.

But we must realize that God is already on our side, He is not the one against us. He is passionately doing everything imaginable to attract us to Himself and allow Him to bring us back into healthy alignment with the rest of creation so we can thrive and reconnect with all of the channels of life He created for us. This is the plan of salvation, to restore us to our proper place and function in the life-giving circuit of power. If we insist on remaining mis-configured and continue to trust other sources for guidance and life in place of trusting Him, we violate and break open the natural boundaries of intense but largely unknown forces in place all around us and unleash those forces into destructive results they were never intended to accomplish. God's incredible grace is the only thing currently protecting us from the disastrous affects of those forces even now. He is waiting and working within this atmosphere of grace to draw every person who is willing back into the protection of harmony with Him and His principles.

The time is soon coming when the level of sin and its effects on these forces will result in terrifying consequences that are inevitable when the grace of God is pushed firmly out of the way. Those who still cling to their barbaric lies about God will insist that God is a punisher and executor. They firmly believe that God operates His government like men do and therefore He will enforce His laws with stern punishments just like evil-hearted men do. The terrible thing is that this is largely the view and belief of most Christians right now. These lies about God become the filter through which everything is viewed and interpreted. Because this false picture of God is cherished so strongly, they will in fact experience the very results of the false ideas they impose on God.

Only those who are willing to radically be transformed into a completely new reality and perceive God from His perspective will be synchronized enough to survive the effects of nature's forces out of control because of sin. And more important, they will be fitted in heaven during the millenium to come into perfect harmony with God so they can not only look on His face in the final day of reckoning but will, amazingly, become part of His very body. They will participate in the greatest exposé of God ever to take place in all of time.

Sinners in Zion are terrified; Trembling has seized the godless. "Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning?" He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, He who rejects unjust gain And shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe; He who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed And shuts his eyes from looking upon evil; (Isaiah 33:14-15 NAS95)

New Age and Critical spirit

New Age thinkers see the image of God created in man and worship the image instead of the Creator. (see Romans 1:20-25) This could be, I suppose, maybe an improvement over worshiping hand-carved images that are greatly demeaning to humans, but still misses connecting to the Source of life. God's plan is to re-implant His perfect image (seed, incarnation) inside of us and grow it into maturity to become like Himself. “In all who will submit themselves to the Holy Spirit a new principle of life is to be implanted; the lost image of God is to be restored in humanity.

“But man can not transform himself by the exercise of his will. He possesses no power by which this change can be effected. The leaven --something wholly from without--must be put into the meal before the desired change can be wrought in it. So the grace of God must be received by the sinner before he can be fitted for the kingdom of glory. All the culture and education which the world can give, will fail of making a degraded child of sin a child of heaven. The renewing energy must come from God. The change can be made only by the Holy Spirit. All who would be saved, high or low, rich or poor, must submit to the working of this power.” (SD 34)

One of the striking differences between New Age philosophy and real truth of reality is pointed out right here. New Age spiritualism observes the inherent image of God within us and believes that along with that image is inherent power like God's. But this was lost to us in the Garden of Eden when we became corrupted by sin. Since that time our only hope is in the redemption by Jesus and an outside power infused into us through a vital and constant connection with Him to salvage us from the destructive effects of sin.

Criticism immediately places me in an adversarial relationship with others. It forms in my mind an image of them as an enemy to be overcome, changed into my image or attacked. The spirit of fault-finding, of focusing on the weaknesses and short-comings of others is an attempt to compare them with myself with the presumption that I will appear better in the outcome. But instead, the result is that those very problems and weaknesses and faults that I look at in them become more and more integrated into my own soul as a result of my prolonged attention on them. And as they do they increasingly distort my vision and bias me to amplify those problems until I have assembled a log in my eye – a petrified log – that biases me to view more and more people with critical assumptions. And in the process I also begin to judge God Himself as having faults and weaknesses like my own. Hence one of our continued methods of creating God in our own image.

This was brought home to me today as I read these words in My Utmost for His Highest this morning. “God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. 'I know this is what I should do' – and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance. We have shown our ignorance of Him in the very way we determined to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, we hurt Him by our advocacy for Him, we push His claims in the spirit of the devil. Our words sound all right, but our spirit is that of an enemy. (MUHH 1/29)

Truths from the New Age

I watched a video that my daughter wanted me to see on quantum physics and our mind. It was purporting to establish the New Age self-god philosophy. I could see a great deal of truth in the presentation, much more than most Christians want to believe. I thought back over the overall plot line and reasoning and realized that they teach that because God is behind good and bad, because of the lies about hell, because of all the lies about God taught in Christian churches (they didn't label them as lies of course) then the solution lies in believing that we are god collectively. There is no good or bad. They contradicted themselves several times but that goes unnoticed by most observers. They said we shouldn't create a god in our own image, inferring a god who is good and evil like ourselves. That statement is true, and unfortunately that is what Christians have indeed done. But then they turn around and create god in their own collective image.

They said they didn't endorse sin, violence and aggression but they offered no cure for it except to say that you can escape it by simply changing your thoughts. They teach that there is no reality outside and separate from us, that all reality is a creation of our brains. They teach that the internal reality is more real than the physical world around us. They demonstrate through the plot line of the story that the evil consequences of falling into sin (in their illustration getting drunk and waking up nearly naked the next morning with all its implications) are just bad emotions and feelings that can easily be eliminated by simply choosing to think differently about yourself thereby changing your reality. They correctly point out that your life unfolds according to the choices you are making and the root problem is how you think and perceive yourself. However, they strongly avoid the existence of sin and of a God distinct from us to whom we have to be accountable. They insist there is no judgment or condemnation, that evil is something to be avoided by simply changing what we believe about ourselves.

This is very strong delusion mingled with very strong truths. A very large part of the reason it is so tremendously attractive and deceptive is that it builds itself on the foundation of many of the lies about God. It sets those out as facts of religion and then presents itself as the only viable alternative to all the negative effects those lies have produced. This is spiritualism in its pure form. And this philosophy is the heart and soul of Babylon, fallen Babylon, the unholy alliance between Catholicism, corrupted Protestantism and New Age spiritualism predicted in Revelation. Protestantism is the compromising link between the legalism and God-lies on which Catholicism is founded and the seemingly best answer promoted by spiritualism. It won't take much adjusting to create an overwhelming magical spell of deception from this lethal mix. The result in the soul is intense attraction but underlying confusion which is the meaning of the word Babylon.

What is our reaction to be if we are to escape the magic and the deception? Certainly not more infusion of intellectual knowledge, though that is usually what is attempted. While it is important to not be ignorant of Satan's schemes, we do not have to dissect them, analyze them and disassemble them to determine what is true and false. Eve tried that and started us on the road to where we are now.

The only hope and safety we have is to know the real truth about God and allow Him to transform us to be spectacular demonstrations of grace that will draw hungry, empty souls to the real source of life. Satan's lies about God had to be accepted and become presumptions before his lies about how we should live could take hold in our souls. That is why it is crucial to first focus on undermining his lies, not by lengthy exposés and dissections of what is wrong with error, but with ever-expanding revelations of the truth of God's beauty, consistency, faithfulness, compassion, justice and the truth about consequences. This cannot have real effect against the enemy if it is only a “religious” activity. It has to be a heart-transforming demonstration of inward power effected by the Spirit of God. The confusion of Babylon will never be overcome by force, by unmasking all the errors and uncovering the conspiracies like so many Christians are addicted to doing. Babylon will fall, will collapse in ruin, when its foundation of lies are exposed by the overwhelming revelation of the beauty and glory of God, not only in the beliefs but in the lives of the people who allow Him to dwell in them richly.

There were many fascinating insights and truths in this video that greatly strengthen the truth about the real God of heaven and how he created the universe and us. Many of these truths are rejected by many Christians for various reasons. Some because of their tenacious clinging to the lies about God deeply rooted in religious traditions, and others because we tend to reject any new insights if they are discovered first by our opponents. This puts us into a seeming quandary. If we study into New Age ideas to extrapolate genuine truths about God we are not immune to becoming infected with subtle deceptions along with them. If we avoid knowing anything about these things because they are promoted by deceivers it appears we will take much longer to discover them for ourselves. But this logic itself smells of a possible subtle deception. It assumes God is not eager to share the truth about Himself with us directly. The real obstacle is not so much our access to information as it is our prejudices and pride that prevent us from integrating new truth and insights into our current beliefs about God and reality.

If we were to release our prejudice but still screen every idea through the objective filters of the Word of God in the Scriptures and the Spirit of God dwelling within us, we would grow much faster in our perceptions of God and reality. Many of our prejudices are rooted in strong opinions about Bible translations or traditional, unchallenged assumptions about what the Bible means by various passages. When we allow the true Spirit of God to unlock our hearts as well as our minds when we study truth from His Word, we will be amazed and delighted to see lie after lie unmasked as truth emerges more and more perfectly interlocked and synchronized with creation and reality. As we focus on connecting our hearts in vital communion with the heart of God – the real and only source of life and truth – we will be filled with not only amazing knowledge about how reality works in the physical, mental and spiritual worlds but will become a living exhibition of the glorious results of that transformational truth. This is my desire and choice. I choose to open myself to the Source and draw heavily on those resources of life. I want to be made an exhibition in the trophy train of Jesus' captives. I want to become a slave of love completely swallowed up in the life of the Lover who stopped at nothing to redeem my life from deception and death. I give my permission for God to do anything and everything He needs or wants to do to bring about this end. Make my life a flaming passion for the glory of God.

Heart Capacity and Writing

The heart that has once tasted the love of Christ, cries out continually for a deeper draught, and as you impart, you will receive in richer and more abundant measure. Every revelation of God to the soul increases the capacity to know and to love. (SD 32)

Only the Holy Spirit of God can quicken the perceptive faculties.

Only to those who wait humbly upon God, who watch for His guidance and grace, is the Spirit given. This promised blessing, claimed by faith, brings all other blessings in its train. It is given according to the riches of the grace of Christ, and He is ready to supply every soul according to the capacity to receive. (SD 33)

As I read these statements over the past few days it occurred to me that what is going to happen at the point in time referred to as the “close of probation” is actually a time when people have so hardened their hearts that they have lost all capacity to receive the Holy Spirit. This loss of capacity is what some refer to as the locked heart syndrome. It can be locked by irreparable damage (by refusing repair) or by suffocation from an overbearing left-brain religion. Hearts of stone have no ability to expand in capacity like hearts of flesh.

On the other hand, God's plan for us is to be continually increasing our capacity by the exercise of joy in community and with Him. The latest brain science has discovered that joy (someone delighted and desiring to be with us) dramatically increases the capacity of the most important part of the brain and is what the brain craves the most. The whole plan of salvation is designed to restore our capacity so we can again mirror the face of God in our lives.

I have also been pondering the very act of writing itself, that is, writing about what one believes in particular. Writing locks ideas to a fixed point in perspective and does not allow for growth in understanding or shift in time and circumstances. In contrast, living in God's presence enables one to always live in the present allowing His wisdom to always be up to date.

Writing by its very nature also reduces the content of the thoughts and feelings of the heart in the very process of being condensed and filtered by the left brain to get the feelings and concepts small enough to express in language familiar to others. The left brain does not have near the capacity that the right brain possesses for expression but the left brain is where our means of language is based – another good reason to live from the heart. The heart – that I currently believe is primarily rooted in the right brain – is the only part of us equipped with large enough capacity to live life as we are designed to live it in vital connection with God's heart.

The right brain is the only soil suited to properly grow the seed of God implanted into us. The left brain is more like the hard ground or rocky ground where seeds are analyzed and displayed, stolen or left to flounder with very little emotion and passion available for the roots to grow into or from which to receive nourishment. The weedy ground person may be living more from a heart orientation but allows many other distractions to consume all its resources so very little is left for the image of God embedded in His word within us to flourish. (see Matt. 13:18-23)

Writing is useful to convey expressions of identity from a fixed point in our experience. But it must be remembered that those descriptions are neither complete or reflective of subsequent growth. To the extent that writing reflects the thoughts inspired by the Holy Spirit it can reveal valuable insights that can inspire others. But one must be careful to listen with the heart while reading someone's writings and focus on discerning the heart of God that inspired that person more than focusing on the agent who expressed those insights that are now frozen in words while their heart continued to move on in expansion of capacity through new experience.

This involves the issue of judging as well. When we make a settled opinion about someone's character based on their expressions without allowing for unknown evidence and growth since that expression, we judge their heart and often attempt to force them into a static mold based on our judgment. This creates an atmosphere conducive to hardening of the heart. This is the concept of judgment that we have typically assumed God will do at the close of probation. We sometimes think He will simply harden everyone's heart at an arbitrary point in time and they will be forever stuck with the character that they were caught in at that moment. That point in time, though never spoken about in this manner, is often assumed to be likely at a time when God finally runs out of patience with us and decides to change tactics with this rebellious planet to get on to the next phase of bringing an end to the Great Controversy. But this is another one of those damning lies about God that keeps us away from Him in our hearts.