REANIMATION - PART 8

WEDNESDAY 26 MARCH 2025

Pauline epistolary expression numbered as Ephesians 4:23 reads, "and be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (NKJV). Perceptual renewal are cognitive process marked by an ability to perceive and gain the mind of Christ by spiritual awakening rooted in the Word of God. More below!

Reference: 2nd Corinthians 4:16 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day."

How can our inner person be renewed day by day? Firstly, this renewal can take place in the attitude of the mind, and it can also strengthen the spirit of man. Secondly, we are daily renewed by the Word and by the Spirit of God. And today's article is focused on:

1. Renewal by the Word.

The English Standard Version of Acts 20:32 reads:

"And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified."

In accordance with the above versified passage, what are you building up? Faith that steers your Christian walk in a victorious manner through the fuelled energy of your mind and spirit, as you function in God's grace effectively. How does your "faith muscle" get built up? By practising active hearing or listening to the Word often. To instantiate this verity, Romans 10:17 (NKJV) reads:

So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Join me to observe an "auditory signal" and a "visual signal" in the above versified statement. The path of any precise spiritual understanding is activated and established by these two particular signals, and therefore, your spiritual level of hearing is an incomplete perception, until these two types of signal are evidentially involved.

Interestingly, both of them could be acted upon separably, meaning that some people can end up with the first segment. Those who end up with the first segment: "Faith comes by hearing", can acquire any kind of faith, depending on what they focus their hearing on, or the knowledge they feed on, but the second segment is a specific hearing, based on the Word of God, and it's all about acquiring the God-kind of faith, which is eternally transformative in nature.

To clarify this spiritual enlightenment from the standpoint of analytic approach and order, look at it this way:

Faith comes by hearing - an auditory signal.

And hearing by the Word of God - a visual signal.

In other words, any kind of faith can come by hearing, but the God-kind of faith gives us the correct picture of God's will to envisage, and so, its not just about faith coming by hearing, what is the "knowledge" makeup?

Every specific message in the Scripture, including all of God's promises, gives you a sound visual image on which your attention should be focused, for your beneficial effects and reward. And this image is part of your perceptive process, which involves light shining brightly in your spiritual understanding - through the lens of your faith.

To instantiate this verity, when the Word says, "You are a chosen person, a royal priest, a holy nation, and God's very own possession", if you deliberately and constantly cogitate on these realities, they will form the right mental images [visual signal] in your mental space - based on their descriptions, and that way, you can express the images outwardly - from a habitual standpoint.

So the Word of God helps us to visualise and properly focus on its light, which we absorb and assimilate properly as it gains entry access to our spirit, and admittedly, our cogitative attention determines how much light we let in. On account of this verity, a Psalmist's inspired utterance reads, "The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple" (NKJV). Stay tuned for part 9. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 10:5; Hebrews 11:6; 1 Thessalonians 2:13.

Guided Prayer:

Today and always, I submit to the authority of Christ's mind in all areas of my life, acknowledging His rightful place as Lord, and trusting in the continual reanimation of my inner man through the Word and by the Spirit, which is yielding glorious results in my life day by day, in Jesus' Name, Amen!