EARTH CALL: DEEP INNER CLEANSING OF THE HEART
“For this people’s heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.” (Matthew 13:15, BSB)
I have had these thoughts sitting on my tablet and this morning I felt the urge to get them out as the season of Pentecost quickly hasten into eternity. We can concur with the word that the human heart is beyond cure except by the Spirit. “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NLT). Polluted with sin, a toxic compost heap generating its content from the machinations of our inherently flawed cognitive processing system. It is time to search into this dark active world of our inner defences against the external world. The emotional dynamics of interfacing between the internal and external worlds is a subjective process yielding the unique thoughts, feelings, behaviours and understandings of an individual. These inner traits form our unique emotional construct. What is elicited from this secret world reveals its contents and true state of the heart. The base visceral self comes under stress when communication rapport with the social world is not socially intelligent.
There can be no cure for such base elemental incompatibilities with the social world except the beaming truth of the word pierces into the crevices and dark eerie chambers of the sensual and subjective heart, These regions are predisposed to inherent social preferences that are unconsciously biased. The toxicity of the cognitive processing system affects our self view, our world view and our understanding of others. The way we approach life and the way we see matters pertaining to our life purposes and our eternal destiny are all conditioned on our cognitive processes.. Of course there are evil spirits behind these emotional anomalies. Our social self is deeply affected by communicational and relational dysfunctions elicited from the baggages of an inherently flawed cognitive processing system.
In the very earliest of the human family we see Adam and Eve affected by the lying spirit that subtly moved against the word of God. This smooth -talking disarming spirit is suave and convincing to deceive the very elect of God. Adam and Eve were drawn into the eternal deception. All our actions, feelings, speech and thinking begins in the spirit and is worked out in the sinful heart. The corrupt and fallen being can only respond to the works of unrighteousness. The enemy of our destiny is manipulative and convincingly adept at spotting an opportunity to deceive God’s people. Without divine grace we are all vulnerable and weak in our disposition to doing the will of God.
The True YOU
God knows the true YOU. We cannot hide from the Holy One who knows the true state of the troubled heart. In this spiritually probing season we can expect the lover of our souls to chisel in, dig deeply and unyieldingly into the many hidden nooks and crannies of our being. It is the probing 7-fold mantle of the Spirit that will reveal the true YOU in this season of exposure. What many are afraid to confront in themselves, whilst redeeming grace is made available, will be violently turned over and laid bare. There is no doubt that t is a painful process to come under such levels of introspective works of the Spirit, but it is necessary. All our persistent internalised challenges are psychological baggages and weights, designed to impede personal and spiritual growth and development. We thrive under challenges when we ‘take the bull by the horns’ and face our issues.
Deep inner cleansing is an emotionally messy process as everything comes rushing to the fore. Sometimes, experiencing an emotional meltdown causes one to face and deal with unexpected challenges that requires one critically looking at themselves. Though it is painful it is by far the only way to move into our well deserved healing and to be released for this season. God loves His people and He will overturn an order of self-consuming denial and fudging of emotional issues to bring about His desired outcome.
Many stubbornly choose to be burdened under the cares of inner turmoil by remaining unforgiving and unrepentant. But I urge you to think again. We are in a different season and the call of the Spirit, appealing to the inner being is to be released into the living flow. It is imperative that we move in the flow of the Spirit towards inner healing.
Social Love
The biblical founding principles of life are integral to our human relationships. We must embrace the spiritually intrinsic values based on those intangible qualities that God’s word upholds. A covenant relationship with our loving Father is based on love, trust, forgiveness and relational faithfulness. In order to love and respect our heavenly Father it is imperative that we keep our side of the covenant agreement. Therefore, as we model our Father’s unconditional love we too must adhere to altruistic values to love other as we love ourselves. Social love is embracing, empathic and is the very essence of human kindness and compassion. Jesus showed this kind of love to the people as he traversed the cobbled dusty terrains in bible times. Jesus taught by example and so we can model the ways of our loving Lord.
Sadly, our world has fallen into disrepute and wickedness is exalted over righteous works and many do not know how to even love themselves. Therefore they cannot comprehend the values that are ingratiating of others and to extend the love and care that is loving and embracing. We can build on the tenets of trust and love when we have experienced the joy of forgiveness. God has shown through His example that the basis of our human relationships lies in the substance of love, forgiveness and trust.
GWENDOLYN SMITH. #NEW PENTECOST. 26th MAY 2022