How do we pass over from death to life in our mind when the battle is so real and often seems impossible? Scripture tells us the carnal mind is at enmity with the Lord (Romans 8:7). We hear this over and over, but do we really understand the process to overcome, pass-over and come into a complete resurrection within our mind? Do we really believe we can attain that state of peace?
James tells us that it’s the engrafted word which saves (James 1:21). Another word for engrafted is implanted.
Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
James 1:21
The Lord gave me this analogy – a man and a woman, who haven’t been able to conceive naturally because of infertility, see a specialist who has specific training in the science of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF). The specialist will transfer a fertilized embryo into the woman; however, it’s only the embryo that is engrafted into the woman and continues to develop that brings forth a baby. If that embryo doesn’t implant and continue to grow, a child will not be produced.
The most common reasons embryo(s) don’t implant is because they stop growing before they can implant. This is also one of the main reasons for miscarriage.
Compare this now, spiritually. We haven’t been able to ‘get pregnant’ with the Word on our own accord. Now we are receiving the revelation of the Word (sperm) (1) of Christ through the specialist, Apostle (Ephesians 3:5), from his years of experience and wisdom imparting the pure word, faithfully teaching us week after week.
Jesus is the Word and He is perfect; He is the express image of God (Hebrews 1:3). So, if we are hearing the seed Word (Luke 8:11) but it isn’t bringing forth life in our earth; a change in our mind and therefore a change in our walk, we can safely rule out that there is an issue with what we are being given. If the Word we are being taught through a true Apostle isn’t bringing forth fruit after its kind, we need to look at our womb, AKA our mind.
Apostle Michael said in a recent teaching that the resurrection occurs when we hear the revelation, understand the revelation, and walk in the revelation.
Let us see how Origen interprets the three-day journey of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and how we too are to come out of our Egypt, a place of limiting God in our minds:
. . . Without doubt, that as long as anyone remains in the gloomy activities of the world and lives in the darkness of daily business he cannot “serve the Lord,” for he is not able “to serve two Lords.” He cannot “serve the Lord and mammon.” Therefore, we must go forth from Egypt. We must leave the world behind if we wish “to serve the Lord.” I mean, however, that we must leave the world behind not in space, but in the soul; not by setting out on a journey, but by advancing in faith. . . . And what, however, does Moses say? Let us see how or to what extent he orders us to set out from Egypt. “We will go,” he says, “a journey of three days into the wilderness and there we will sacrifice to the Lord our God. . . . we travel a ‘journey of three days” from Egypt if we thus preserve ourselves from all filth of soul, body, and spirit, that, as the Apostle said, “our spirit and soul and body may be kept whole in the day of Jesus Christ.”‘ We travel a ‘Journey of three days” from Egypt if, ceasing from worldly things we turn our rational, natural, moral wisdom to the divine laws. We travel a ‘Journey of three days” from Egypt if, purifying our words, deeds, or thoughts-for these are the three things by which men can sin-we would be made “pure in heart” so that we could “see God.”
Do you wish to see, however, that this is what the Holy Spirit indicates in the Scriptures? When this Pharao, who is the prince of Egypt, sees that he is strongly pressed to send the people of God out, he wishes to effect by this inferior place that “they not go farther away,” that they not travel the full three days. He says, “Go not far away.” He does not wish the people of God to be far from himself. He wishes them to sin, if not in deed, certainly in word: to fail, if not in word, certainly in thought. He does not want them to travel a full three days from himself. He wishes to have one day at least in us as his own. In some he has two days, in others he possesses the full three days. But blessed are those who withdraw a whole three days from him and he possesses no day in them as his own.
Do not suppose, therefore, that Moses led the people out of Egypt only at that time. Even now Moses, whom we have with us-“for we have Moses and the prophets”-that is, the Law of God, wishes to lead you out of Egypt. . . . If only you would hear the Law of God and understand it spiritually, it desires to deliver you from the work of mud and chaff. It does not wish you to remain in the activities of the flesh and darkness, but to go out to the wilderness, to come to the place free from the confusions and disturbances of the world, to come to the rest of silence. (2)
Origen is comparing the three-day journey out of Egypt to the purification in our thoughts, speech, and deeds. Until all three areas are purified, we are not completely out of Egypt and therefore the resurrection cannot occur in us. We could be speaking the truth and doing good deeds for the kingdom, but if our mind is not renewed, we have only come two days out of Egypt.
Until all three areas are purified, we are not completely out of Egypt and therefore the resurrection cannot occur in us.
Let us now see how our mind is renewed according to Origen:
Our mind is renewed through training in wisdom and meditation upon the Word of God, and the spiritual interpretation of his law. And to the extent that it makes daily progress by reading the Scriptures, to the extent that its understanding goes deeper, to that extent it becomes continuously new and daily new. I do not know if anyone can be renewed who is lazy in respect to the Holy Scriptures and training in spiritual understanding, by which it becomes possible not only to understand what has been written, but also to explain more clearly and to reveal more carefully. (3)
It’s not enough for us to simply hear the word and expect fruit, we must continuously meditate on the Word and gain wisdom through experience in walking it out. James writes that we must be doers of the Word, not hearers only (James 1:21). This is the growing of that embryo, that will implant and in time birth the fruit of the virtues of Christ, the resurrection in us.
When we hear the Word, we need to receive it as truth, no matter how much it contradicts our old ways of thinking, because man’s wisdom is coming to nothing (1 Cor 2:6). We must walk out what we understand and press for revelation for the areas we don’t understand. We should then expect the change in our thoughts, speech and walk, as the Word does not return void (Isaiah 55:11). Let us allow the person of Jesus, through the revelation of His Word to take us the full three days out of Egypt and into our promised land. From the vices of our flesh into the virtues of Yah, allowing Him to live, breathe and walk among us. We can attain the perfection of our mind. Let it be, amen.
References:
(1) Strong’s Dictionary G4690 for the word “seed”
(2) Origen Exodus Homily III
(3) Origen Commentary on Romans (Bk 9, Ch 1)
