Living in the Freedom of the Spirit - Week #3

Great input from some of you - thanks for taking the time to bless and help us with your thoughts and experiences related to the themes of our reading.

This week we have read chapter four, What About Our Feelings? The previous chapters have been on the mind, and now Tom Marshall moves to another part of our soul life, the emotions. He starts the chapter with a statement that I have found to be very true as I have lived and moved within the Christian community:
There is probably no area of our personality where we need more help - and receive less - than in the area of the emotions or feelings. Generally Christian teaching has taken a fairly negative attitude towards the whole subject. We may, in some churches, allow freedom of expression for joy and praise in worship, but this is still regarded by others as rank 'emotionalism.' Even where expression of worship is encouraged, there remains a very tentative and uncertain outlook towards the emotions as a whole.

As one of you commented about Marshall's teaching, although we aren't meant to lean on feelings as our primary guide to truth, neither are we meant to ignore them; and when we ignore or suppress the emotional part of our makeup, we end up damaging the positive feelings as well as the negative simply because we don't have the luxury of selecting which ones to suppress. Consequently, many sincere believers have unwittingly cut off a big piece of their personality which is a gift from God. (Every human, no matter what their basic personality, has an emotional part of their nature - we all express that part of us in different ways; however, not only do we all have emotions, but that part of our makeup, influences us much more than we like to admit.)

(It's interesting to me that western believers have been trained to trust what our minds can accept but to be suspicious of our emotions. My contention related to this is that we can't trust the human mind any more than we can trust the emotions. Both are part of our soul life which is given to us by God but which has been profoundly damaged in the Fall of man and each person's choice to go our own way.)

The author's definition of emotions is that they are the "total response of the person to happenings in our environment. Thus a sudden noise makes you afraid, an insult makes you angry or the sight of a person in pain causes you to feel pity." Depending on the intensity of the feeling, there can actually be physical sensations that accompany the emotions (i.e., a red face and tense muscles when angry...). Isaiah 21:3,4 says, "...My heart falters, fear makes me tremble..."

Marshall then makes an important observation about our emotions and how they can have a long-term effect on us: "...once activated by a set of circumstances, the same feelings can be repeated time and again merely by recalling the event. A situation that caused us fear or shame can still bring anxiety or embarrassment every time we remember it even years later. It is this repetitive effect, particularly with the strong negative emotions that produce physiological changes, which can be the source of a whole range of functional and organic disorders."

After pointing out that the emotions are "powerful motivators of behavior" and that "in spite of the cherished idea...that we make decisions on the basis of logical reasoning, every salesman and advertiser knows that to bring people to the point of decision-making you have to move their feelings...," the author says that we can get into serious problems when we apply moral or ethical values to emotional conditions. "If we regard all pleasant emotions as 'good' and all unpleasant emotions as 'bad,' confusion follows..."

Anger is one such emotion...at times it's a sin, but not always, etc. Marshall concludes the chapter with this statement: "...the emotions are not of themselves reliable guides to behavior. We cannot rely on them to motivate us towards the good and away from the bad. Any specific emotion may, in fact, be either good or bad, right or wrong."

Lord, thank You that You have made us emotional creatures in Your image - You are an emotional God - and thank You for the purposes You have for our emotional well-being. I pray that You, by Your Spirit and Your healing presence, would come and do a work in us Your people to bring us into full personhood in You. Thank You that, although this is daunting to us, it isn't difficult for You and that You delight in bringing us to fullness in You. Blessed be Your name, Lord Jesus!

For next week read chapters 5 and 6 which continue on the subject of our emotions. Have a great week!

Living in the Freedom of the Spirit - Week #2

Chapter 3 about the "Renewed Mind" is wonderful! I've had a couple of people comment to me about it in person, and I trust that those of you who are reading along are being challenged and helped by it.

One of the key truths that Tom Marshall brings out related to the mind, which I commented on in the previous posting, is that obedience creates authority. He continues with this into the chapter on the renewed mind.

God deals with all human needs through "two divine works or actions": the work of the cross, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Marshall walks through how the cross separates and delivers us from the dominance and authority of the world, the flesh and the devil, and how the cross stands between us and our past. Of course, this has to be personally received and applied by faith, as is true of all benefits won for us by Jesus in the work of the cross. We must not only be forgiven for our sins but delivered from the domination of the authorities that rule in our minds. This can be done by:

• confessing the sins of our mind and receiving God's forgiveness
• renouncing and rejecting the authority that we have given in our mind to the world, the flesh, the devil and our past

This step of renunciation of alien authorities must be done by us..."if we ourselves do not reject and renounce them, we remain under their power in spite of what the cross accomplished. We are the ones who must dismantle them because we are the ones who set them up in the first place...Make the act of renunciation very specific and very definite...Confess it aloud until you really know in your heart that it is done...(Here the author gives a good prayer to use for doing this.)

Often there are cases that require special prayer ministry - these have to do with generational bondages and with curses. We inherit strengths as well as weaknesses. But if we have inherited a weakness in a certain area, and we ourselves yield along the line of that weakness, it creates a bondage that is far harder to break than any ordinary habit...Freedom from this requires 1) accepting responsibility for my sin in this particular area, 2) renouncing the authority that I have allowed to become established in my mind, 3) receive prayer for cutting the link with my past inheritance, 4) after being set free, blessing and honoring those who have given me life. We can also be loosed from the curses (that have come to us through cutting words) through the power of the cross.

Finally, Marshall talks about the gift of a renewed mind (II Tim.1:7). This renewal comes "only by the working of the Holy Spirit."

As we consciously and deliberately yield up our mind to the presence of the Holy Spirit, He will wash out the old habitual thought patterns, the compulsive thoughts that claimed autonomy, and the weary treadmill of negativity...It is a mind in which there is now only one authority, because its thoughts have been brought captive to the obedience of Christ...Because the internal problem of authority has been resolved, the result is life and peace...

I really like the figures 3 (page 31) and 4 (page 47) in which the author contrasts the double mind with the renewed mind. Figure 3 shows that the authority of the world, the flesh, the devil and the past is still active in the "enlightened but double mind". In contrast, although the renewed mind can still be tempted by the world, the flesh, the devil and the past, the line of authority from those sources is broken, because the cross stands between them and my mind and I am free to "decide what is going to occupy" my mind.

This is a life-long process and practice, because this side of heaven we are never exempt from temptation.

One final word from my own experience...a powerful way to strengthen the mind in truth is through the Word and especially through singing the Word (the psalms are wonderful for this since they were written to be sung); also, singing in the spirit is very strengthening of the inner life and it ends up strengthening the mind as well!

I pray that together we will know the "unknowable" love of God and day by day be renewed in our thinking to see Him and ourselves and others through His perfect eyes. May His joy over you be your strength this week!

For next week, read chaper 4: "What About Our Feelings?"

Living in the Freedom of the Spirit - Week #1

Blessings in the name of the Lord Jesus!...wow, what a name!

Well, we’re into our next book, Living in the Freedom of the Spirit. Thanks to those who made comments on the first two chapters. We’d love to have increasing participation in order that we can all benefit from a variety of perspectives…and don’t hesitate to ask questions, ok?

This week I want to focus on three things that Tom Marshall teaches in these two chapters.

First, he says at the start of chapter one: …knowledge of God comes primarily as revelation to the human spirit, not as information to the mind (I Cor. 2:9,10,14). This is foundational to us even in our reading this book (or any of the others). The human spirit can grasp what the natural mind cannot grasp. This is why the discipline of contemplation is important in the believer’s life – in contemplating Jesus we can receive from Him what our minds cannot compute.

But here’s the beautiful thing – the more I can receive of Him through faith and trust, the more clearly my mind begins to function; and although our human mind in its limitations will never be able to intellectually understand all about God, its capacity will grow as my heart is set on fire. My mind functions better now than ever before in my life, and I’ve watched this happen as my heart has increasingly been made whole and expanded in the love of God. I’m watching this happen with some of our young people here at Bethany now, and it’s thrilling to me.

This isn’t to say that everyone will have the same natural mental capacity, but I do believe that with the healing of the soul and the setting afire of the heart, the mind’s capacity grows.

Many years ago I read from Jessie Penn-Lewis that if you are reading or hearing spiritual teaching that you’re not able to grasp, don’t try to strain your natural mind to grasp it but place it at the feet of Jesus and rest in Him, asking His Spirit to shed light on it when you are ready. That has been a great help to me over the years. This isn’t the same as laziness…

Second, Marshall talks about the “sources of our thought life.” The first three (the world, the flesh and the devil) are more commonly focused on, so I want to underscore the other three that he presents: the human spirit, the voice of God, and the past.

(By the way, I was glad for the observation by one of you that (we)”… have given Satan too much credit for negative thoughts that get into peoples minds. According to Tom Marshall, there are other influences...” It’s true – there are a number of sources for our negative thinking, the devil being only one.)

It’s important that we recognize that the human spirit is a source of thoughts. This will help us as we grow in discerning between the voice of God and our own voice. There’s nothing wrong with my own voice, but I need to learn to know which voice I’m hearing so that I put appropriate weight to it.

The last voice the author speaks of is the voice from our past, and this is often not well-looked at by believers. We are either ignorant of the impact of this voice or are afraid to deal with it or it has been so well buried over time that we are oblivious to it, and yet it is still influencing us, if the sanctifying grace of the Spirit hasn’t been applied to that voice.

I don’t think it’s as commonly believed now (at least not consciously), but we used to say that “time heals”; only the cross of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit genuinely heals. Leanne Payne (Restoring the Christian Soul) says, “Time, a creature, does not erase our sin. Only by our repentance and His blood is sin and guilt lifted from both past and present…”

As is true about other areas of our lives, some things of our past may be instantaneously removed upon initial conversion, but through the process of sanctification, the Holy Spirit lovingly uncovers areas yet to be cleansed that are deeply buried beyond our consciousness. How and when He does this is totally up to Him, but I know from experience that He is very good at this and is perfect in the way He does it.

Finally, in chapter two Marshall talks of the blinded mind and the “enlightened but double mind.” He touches on a very important reality in life, which is expressed in Romans 6:16 – obedience creates authority. “Whatever we habitually obey becomes authoritative in our lives.”

So whatever power we are under has gained its authority over us through our obedience to it, and this is a principle that never changes. So even as believers we can be in Christ and still be double-minded. Marshall says, “Like Lazarus after he came out of the grave, we often remain bound by the grave-clothes. Furthermore, the world, the flesh and the devil are constantly striving to regain ground that has been lost. Thus it is the painful experience of most Christians to find…that many old bondages either persist in the mind, or (through failure to walk in victory) are re-established by the same principle of obedience...There is war in the mind…Areas of the mind are still under the control of the old masters. Into these areas they inject their poison…”

Lord, I rejoice in Your power to save Your children! Thank You for what You are doing and will continue to do…here we are; we love You and trust You. In Jesus’ name.

Next week’s reading is chapter 3 on “The Renewed Mind.” The Lord is with you!

Life Together - Week #6

We've come to the final chapter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book, which is on Confession and Communion.

I commented on this in an earlier blog but want to express again my appreciation for Bonhoeffer's large perspective on life together as God's people. The fact that he presents our life together as something bigger than our immediate relationships (in other words, we are part of a universal family in the Lord Jesus that extends back into human history and forward to the end of humanity's earthly pilgrimage as we know it) is a wonderful faith-builder and an encouragement to persevere in the intensity of the end of the age.

In this final chapter, I love how he points out that in confessing my sin to even just one other believer and receiving forgiveness immediately makes me part of the whole:

A confession of sin in the presence of all the members of the congregation is not required to restore one to fellowship with the whole congregation. I meet the whole congregation in the one brother to whom I confess my sins and who forgives my sins...If a Christian is in the fellowship of confession with a brother, he will never be alone again, anywhere."


This underscores the importance of personal and trusting relationships within the Body of Christ. One doesn't need many at all in order to feel part of the whole, if we understand this reality that our connection in to the larger Body is through open and healthy relationships (even if it's only a couple of people) in which we can confess and receive forgiveness.

I believe Bonhoeffer is right on when he contends that we "remain alone with our sin" because we don't have fellowship together as "sinners." In other words, if there isn't a place in the Body where I can speak openly of my sin and there lies hidden something unconfessed and unforgiven, I am truly alone...somehow psychologically, we can't get free unless it comes to the light as confession in the presence of another believer:

Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception.

The author ends with a section about who we should trust to open our hearts to: Anybody who lives beneath the Cross and who has discerned in the Cross of Jesus the utter wickedness of all men and of his own heart will find there is no sin that can ever be alien to him.

Holy Spirit, thank You that you know us well and love us perfectly...do Your good and kind work of bringing hidden things to light and give us the courage to open our hearts to trusted brothers and sisters in You. Thank You for those You have given us with whom we relate in this way and for the greater Body of Christ with whom we genuinely commune because of the few who are close. Teach us in this day in the Church's history how to be Your people together, for Jesus' sake...Thank You! Amen.


This week we start the book Living in the Freedom of the Spirit by Tom Marshall. Our first reading is the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2.
Grace and blessing on you this week!

Reminder of next book - Living in the Freedom of the Spirit

Just a note to remind you all that the next book we'll be reading together is Tom Marshall's Living in the Freedom of the Spirit. It's available through Amazon.com, or some local bookstores may carry it.

We'll be starting to read this next week...see the blog for scheduling of reading, ok?

Blessings on your week!