LIVING EPISTLES MINISTRIES
WISDOM, CHRIST
The Mind Of Christ vs. The Carnal Mind
(A study during a period of fasting and praying)
by
Fidelis Onwubueke
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LIVING EPISTLES MINISTRIES
WISDOM, CHRIST
The Mind Of Christ vs. The Carnal Mind
(A study during a period of fasting and praying)
by
Fidelis Onwubueke
|
|
|
Living Epistles Ministries
Sheila R. Vitale,
Pastor, Teacher & Founder
~ Christian Spiritual Philosophy ~
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John 7:17-18
17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
18 He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. (KJV)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Whether Earthly Or Heavenly, Will Cause You To Rise Above The Normal
HEAVENLY WISDOM – Mind of Christ. . . . . .3
If You Do Not Have The Mind Of Christ.
Conspiracy Is A Treasonable Combination
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOOLISHNESS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
HEART. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
ii
LIVING EPISTLES
MINISTRIES
WISDOM, CHRIST
The Mind Of Christ vs. The Carnal Mind
(A study during a period of fasting and praying)
by
Fidelis Onwubueke
.
I have always prayed for wisdom, just like Solomon asked God for wisdom, and by it was able to accomplish much. On this day however, God revealed to me, just a speck in His sight, what it means to have wisdom. It was such a mighty revelation to me that I wrote it down in the following paragraphs,
I believe that to excel (have victory in this world) we need wisdom.
Wisdom In What Ever Form, Whether Earthly Or
Heavenly, Will Cause You To Rise Above The Normal
The wisdom of this world will bring you great success in the things of this world and age. But that success is one that decays, one that is still subject to the dictates of this world. You can also say that this wisdom is still subject to gravity. But this is not the wisdom I am looking for, or asking for.
Wisdom in the context of my study and search is not just a thought or something you apply when ever you need to, or when ever you choose.
In other words wisdom is a state of being. A new state of mind that becomes permanent.
1 Corinthians 1:24
But unto them, which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Proverbs 2:1-2
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;
Jesus said a number of times,
He That Hath Ears to Hear, Let Him Hear
Mark 4:9
And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear .
This wisdom is one that speaks to us, and there has to be a hearing of it because wisdom crieth out.
Proverbs 1:20
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets.
One type of wisdom will bring us success in this world and the other type will make us overcommers of this world. As Christians, and in order to fulfill Gods word for us, we need the wisdom that is from above, not the wisdom below.
This brings us to the two wisdoms we can live by and it really doesn’t matter that we are Christians. We can be Christians but still live out of a wisdom whose end is decay and death, even though we might seem to be excelling in this earth’s dimension.
HEAVENLY WISDOM – Mind of Christ
There is indeed an earthly and a heavenly wisdom. The mind which rules in us determine what wisdom we live by. Again, this wisdom is a condition of mind. It is a state of being. We are either conscious or unconscious of it.
There are many instances in the bible where these wisdoms, both earthly and heavenly are clearly referred. Jesus referred to the earthly wisdom in
Luke16:8
And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
This might confuse some:
How can the Lord commend a steward who has done an unjust thing?
How could unrighteousness be credited as wise? How could the Lord have termed the children of this world as being wiser that the children of light?
We get a better understanding when we are able to discern the wisdom used or applied here.
The word wisely here is a form of the word wisdom. This is not the wisdom from above; this is not the wisdom that we as Christians should shoot for. This wisdom here is earthly, a worldly way of doing things. It is the wisdom of a system that makes you friends with the world, but an enemy to God. The children of this world are wiser in that they use their Carnal Minds to their advantage, but the children of light are foolish because they have failed to nurture and grow the Mind of Christ but use their carnal mind (earthly wisdom) instead.
James very clearly speaks about these two wisdoms. Wisdom that is below, earthly – Carnal Mind. Wisdom that is above, heavenly - Mind of Christ.
James 3:15
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish
James clearly refers to the manifestations of the Carnal Mind as wisdom. How interesting. Then in verse 17 he says;
James 3:17
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
God would not permit the wisdom of this corrupt mind to go on forever. He is totally against it. If we chose not to be transformed, we shall go away with this world system.
1 Corinthians 1:19
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
1 Corinthians 1:20
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
God is going to destroy this world completely. He will make a total end of it. It will cease to be. Foolishness in us has to be taken away, it has to be destroyed.
The wisdom that is from above says.
Matthew 6:33
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Foolishness is knit together with the Carnal Mind. To be carnal is to be foolish. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Christian or not. A carnal Christian is a foolish Christian. Foolishness is one with the carnal man and thus, his mind. The wisdom of this world is indeed foolishness with God.
1 Corinthians. 3:19
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
To Be Wise In This World Is To Be An Enemy Of God
You cannot employ the wisdom of this world’s system in the kingdom of God. What ever seems wise in the sight of man will make him an enemy of God. Christ alone is wisdom and if the wisdom that you live by does not come out of the Mind of Christ, then it is enmity with God. This brings us to a shocking revelation:
If You Do Not Have The Mind Of Christ,
You Cannot Manifest he Wisdom
Which Can Only Come Out Of That Mind
On the other hand, no matter how wise you might seem, if your wisdom is out of the Carnal Mind, it counts for nothing with God. It is indeed foolishness with Him. Its end is death, decay and destruction. It will pass away like everything in this world. Let God, by his Spirit, change us. He wants to change our Carnal Mind and replace it with the mind of Christ, the only legitimate mind. He wants to drive our foolishness far from us, but how easy is this going to be?
.
Proverbs 22:15
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
Isaiah 11:1
And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
Let us break down Proverbs 22 verse 15. There are some very interesting revelations here. We are going to do some word studies using Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and the New Webster’s Dictionary.
Foolishness is bound up …
Bound used in this Scripture is from the Hebrew word qashar pronounced (kaw – shar). It comes from a primitive root that means to tie, physically (gird, confine, compact) or mentally (in love, league) it also means join together, knit, conspire (conspirator, conspiracy).
Of important note here is the word bound. We all know that bound means to tie, join together. But it also means knit. This shows the level of intricacy and complexity of the union. Of all the words that describe and define bound, the most interesting is conspire. This word sheds the most light on the foolishness described in this Scripture.
According to New Webster’s Dictionary. It means to plot, to combine for some evil purpose: to tend to one end.
A plot: This is a treasonable combination
One who engages in a plot or conspiracy.
Conspiracy Is A Treasonable Combination
What exactly does treason mean? What makes this combination treasonable?
First let us find out what treason means. We go back to New Webster’s Dictionary for some definitions.
A crime that undermines the offenders government. Disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior. An act of deliberate betrayal.
We shall look up undermine and subversive , two words that come up in the definition of treason.
In opposition to civil authority or government
Destroy property or hinder normal operations.
From the break down of the above definitions we can say:
In the heart of a child is a conspiracy. A combination for some evil purpose. A combination whose chief aim is to hinder and oppose the normal operation of the government.
I would suggest that this is the government of God through the Mind of Christ.
Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
A crime that undermines the offenders government.
Adam committed this crime against the constituted authority of God when he ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He lost his Godly mind and brought forth, or birthed, the Carnal Mind. His brief fornication with the Serpent brought forth a child: the Carnal Mind. He lost the wisdom of God and gained the wisdom of the world. He lost the glory that he had with God..Adam was no longer governed by the Mind of God. God no longer sat on the throne of his heart. The conspiracy was complete and the treason fulfilled. The heart of Adam had a new God and ruler.
2 Thessalonians 2:3,4
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
John 17:5
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was..
1 Corinthians15:45
And so it is written: The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam, was made a quickening spirit.
A treasonable combination took place when Adam obeyed the Serpent and the Lordship of Christ over their lives was overthrown. He lost his union with God and gained a new union that give birth to this present world system, and all the wisdom that has come out of it since then. He lost Gods’ wisdom and instead became wise in himself.
Genesis 3:6
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise [wisdom of this world. Carnal mind].
Yes they did indeed become wise, but it wasn’t wisdom to be desired. It was a wisdom whose end was death. No matter how glamorous the product of this wisdom is, it really doesn’t matter whether it is in the church or without, the end is death, death, and death. There is no reward of eternal life to all who live by this wisdom.
Romans 8:6
To be carnally minded is death. . . .
Genesis 3:3
God hath said Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
They did die when they ate of that tree, because they lost the mind of God and became carnal. To be carnally minded is death.
Romans 8:6
For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is Life and Peace.
Let us go on with our breakdown of Proverbs.22:15
What is foolishness? This is the Hebrew word IVVELETH and it means silliness (synonyms, immature, childish, stupid, unwise) . It is from a root word that means to be perverse.
Let us look up perverse in the dictionary to get a better understanding of this definition.
Marked by a disposition to oppose and contradict Resistant to guidance and discipline. Marked by immorality, deviation from what is considered right or proper of good. Depraved criminals.
So foolishness also means depraved criminals. But what does it mean to be depraved?
Having the nature of vice (synonymous with evil, vicious). Hopelessly bad an unregenerate criminal (synonymous with unreformable, unregenerate); Marked by immorality.
insusceptible to reform (synonymous with irreclaimable unredeemable irredeemable. Hopelessly bad.
Perverse is synonymous with abnormal, bad-tempered, bitchy, cantankerous, capricious, contradictory, contrary, contumacious, corrupt, crabby, cross, degenerate, delinquent, depraved, deviant, disobedient, dogged, erring, fractious, hard-nosed, headstrong, intractable, intransigent, irritable, miscreant, mulish, nefarious, obdurate, obstinate, ornery, petulant, pig-headed, rebellious, refractory, rotten, self-willed, spiteful, stubborn, unhealthy, unmanageable, unreasonable, unyielding, villainous, wayward, wicked, willful
Indeed we cannot reform the Carnal Mind. Psychologists and Preachers alike have tried to heal the mentally ill by suggestions to their Carnal Mind aimed at reforming it. But the foolishness in the Carnal Mind, which is also one with it, cannot be separated from it. God doesn’t want to reform the Carnal Mind. He is not interested in Christians who have been reformed by the polishing of their Carnal Mind. He wants to do away with that Mind. It is an illegal mind, it is a corrupt mind. It is a mind that is hopelessly bad in His sight, no matter how good it might seem in this world, or the works of it might seem to be. We cannot negotiate with it, and should not. We should yield it to the fire of Gods’ righteous judgment to destroy it, so that by his Spirit, He might bring forth in us a new mind, the Mind of Christ.
So we now have a better understanding of what foolishness and bound means. Now let us look at some scriptures that talk about the heart.
We can now see the condition in which the heart of man is. No wonder Jeremiah had said:
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.
Jeremiah 17:10
I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give everyman according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
The heart is deceitful because it has foolishness bound up in it. The illegal union between Satan and the heart of man causes it to be wicked. By this union the Carnal Mind was brought forth and its wisdom, a wisdom, which is in opposition to the authority of God. A wisdom by which the world has been deceived into thinking that it can trust in man. A wisdom . . .
2 Thessalonians 2:9 (Amplified)
. . . who’s coming is through the activity and working of Satan, which will be attended by great power and with all sorts of miracles and signs and delusive marvels .
Hebrews 4:12
But we thank God for his Word, which is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joint and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
God shall indeed redeem His creation because :
Isaiah 11:1,4 (Amplified)
There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall grow and bear fruit. With righteousness and justice shall He judge the poor and decide with fairness for the meek, the poor and downtrodden of the earth; and He shall smite the earth and the oppressor with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
Satan is responsible for the wickedness of the heart of man,. He sits in the temple of God and from there works all kinds of wickedness and abominations upon the heart of man and through man. But God shall indeed slay him by the rod of His mouth. Amen.
The Scripture that says, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child can be applied to your natural physical children. But to a great extent, the gravity of the Scripture is felt when it is applied to the new Christian in whom the mind of Christ is not yet formed.
1 Corinthians 13:11
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Galatians 4:1
Now I say, that the heir as long as he is a child differeth nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all. But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
So we see that the heart of man is so intertwined with this evil that it is going to take the rod of correction to drive it far from him.
The rod is Christ (again see Isaiah 11:1). It would take only the Mind of Christ to overthrow the illegal criminal Carnal Mind. Christ in us only can separate our spirit from the illegal union with the Devil, which produced the Carnal Mind which rules in unregenerated man.
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joint and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
What, or who is the Word?
John 1:1-3
1In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
2The same was in the beginning with God.
3All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.
Proverbs 3:19 (NIV)
By wisdom the LORD laid the earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place;
Proverbs 8:23
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
Drives Out The Foolishness
That Is Bound Up In Our Heart
The Word of God, is the wisdom of God, is Christ. The Mind of Christ has to be born in us for us to be saved. We have to possess the wisdom that is from above.
Proverbs 22:15
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
This is from a prime root that means to shove asunder, i.e disperse
To cause to separate and go in different direction. Synonymous with disappear.
So the rod of correction shall cause this foolishness to disappear from us. Our only hope for total salvation is to manifest Christ in us. The arising of the Mind of Christ. This is a mystery, but it shall happen.
Colossians 1:26
Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints
Colossians 1:27
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you the hope of glory
This world will have to end. The wisdom of this world can only sustain us in this world; it cannot and will never translate us into the Kingdom of God. God is going to do away with this world and only His word will remain. Only that part of creation that has become the Word – Christ – will remain.
Luke 21:33
Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.
The visible and the invisible aspects, the system, the entire wisdom of this world will pass. It will be done away with. The Christ Mind, the New Man will bring forth a New Creation the likes of which has never been seen or heard of. A new heaven and earth. This is a great mystery.
1 Corinthians 2:1
And I brethren, when I came to you, came not with Excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God
1 Corinthians 2:4
. . . enticing words of man’s wisdom.
1 Corinthians 2:6
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet not the wisdom of this world.
1 Corinthians 2: 6-9(Amplified)
6Yet when we are among the full-grown (spiritually mature Christians who are ripe in understanding), we do impart a [higher] wisdom (the knowledge of the divine plan previously hidden); but it is indeed not a wisdom of this present age or of this world nor of the leaders and rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away.
7But rather what we are setting forth is a wisdom of God once hidden [from the human understanding] and now revealed to us by God--[that wisdom] which God devised and decreed before the ages for our glorification [to lift us into the glory of His presence].
8 None of the rulers of this age or world perceived and recognized and understood this, for if they had, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.
9But, on the contrary, as the Scripture says, What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, [all that] God has prepared [made and keeps ready] for those who love Him [who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed].
This wisdom is Christ. The Mind of Christ is going to transform us from the wisdom of this world into the wisdom of God, from the corruptible to the incorruptible. Everything on this earth dies, everything decays. That is why we are admonished not to lay up our riches on the earth but in heaven.
Hebrews 1:10-12
And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
True Wisdom Is To Put On The Mind of Christ
1 Cor 1:30
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
Galatians 3:27
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Ephesians 4:24
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
We have to reject the wisdom of the carnal mind by manifesting the mind of Christ. Amen.
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