When it comes down to the concept of intellect, what God’s word said about it, and how it challenges the validity of our walk, there are only two scriptures needed to bring clarity
Proverbs 3:5-6 says
- Trust in the Lordwith all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6.In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Mathew 22:37
- Love theLord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
On paper that might seem to be a very simple process. But unless you have a clear understanding of the hindering factors that exist between the heart and the mind, you will have no ability to fulfill either of these directives. The foundation of our relationship with God begins when we acknowledge His love with-in the depths of our heart. And once we have accepted him within our heart, that relationship even accesses our eternal soul, if we accept him in our whole heart. Allowing the smallest of anti-Christ authority to remain in hidden areas of the heart can lead to detrimental failure. It’s almost like building a house on a bad foundation, even though the erected product looks good, its destined to develop cracks.
The element that will challenge the validity of your heart is the mind. This is where we perceive and intellectualize according to our own viewpoint. This is where we develop a ability to disregard what we know to be right in our heart. So exactly how does the intellect of the mind supersede what you know to be right in your heart? Looking back at the verse in Mathew, we see that Jesus said to love the lord thy God with ALL your heart, ALL your soul, and ALL your mind. Many fail to truly fulfill the requirement of ALL. A failure of ALL in steps 1 causes inability of the entire process. By the time that we come to the mind, its easily able to manipulate the heart because the heart has not been fully surrendered to God.
Jeremiah 17:9 says: 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Throughout the word of God we can find a multitude of circumstances where people who clearly loved God, failed to maintain the desire of His heart in many ways. Abraham trusted the word God had given Him, and he rested on it. But when a period of time had passed, Sarah expressed her own thoughts about God’s plan, and she even gave her take on how to help God. And as for Abraham, rather than bringing his own thoughts into captivity to the directive of God’s intent, he intellectualized his wife’s opinion. His intellectual perception offered a clear excuse as to why it wasn’t necessary to wait on God. So he acted out her directive, and had a baby with her hand maiden Hagar. (Genesis 16) Now when God’s plan was eventually initiated through Sarah, here she comes again with an opinion on how to undo the previous act of intellectual perception. Now an innocent woman and her child (Hagar and Ishmael) to the heart-ship of Abraham, are cast into the wilderness alone. (Genesis 21). Abraham’s decisions were based on the desire of his heart to please his wife. He never even considered that he would not be pleasing God. He wanted her happiness more than God’s.
I remember when my wife and I were in the first weeks of our relationship. I stated to her that I do not trust any woman. Needless to say that her response was quite aggressive, so I needed to give a clearer understanding of what I really meant. How often have you been in the presence of someone’s conversation, and you knew that everything coming out of their mouth was nothing short of oppressive. It’s for this reason that whenever we are receiving words from someone we should be listening for the presence of God in what they are saying. So when I said I trust no woman I meant that I do not trust the flesh but I look for the revelation of God in their words. This is where the power to draw my focus comes from. And I also told her that you should never trust a word that comes out of my mouth if it cannot bring the peace serenity revelation and truth that is with God. God doesn’t want to control our lives, he just wants to be accepted in every part of it. That can only happen if we accomplish the tasks of Proverbs 3:5-6 and Mathew 22:37
Proverbs 3:5-6 says
- Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6.In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Mathew 22:37
- Love theLord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
When we first discover the depth of Gods love, our heart is pricked with desire to know Him. Just like when you met that person who meant so much to you, but now you find yourself rarely caring about their feelings. The heart wants what it wants when it wants it. And can be desperately wicked in its attempt to acquire. If we do not allow the desires of our heart to be engrafted with the ways of God, we are capable of every dark work, in and out of the presence of God. And we can even eventually treat him just like that that relationship that has (quote) lost its spark.
Inability to make every thought subject to the obedience of Christ cannot be accomplished if your heart is not first obedient to the directives of Christ. A heart that is not fully surrendered to Christ remains in its state of deceitful wickedness. Thus it is subject to the recommendations of the intellect, according to its own lust. There are some factors in life that should be easily perceived through the spiritual directive of right and wrong. But in many of them, we as a people have made conscious decisions to forgo Gods proclamation of right and wrong for our own perception.
I have never seen an uprising of intellect as great as what we have seen through the administration of President Donald Trump. When dealing with the things of God, our focal point should never be intellectual perception, but revelation of the Spirit of truth that lives within us. Now I’m not trying to attribute any of the failures I’m about to present as being the fault of Donald Trump, but his social honesty caused others to be real with who the already were.
Isaiah 55:8-9 reads:
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9Â For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
It was intellect that turn the hearts of the people away from God in the desert in the time of the great provocation. And even today Christian institutions of education have exalted intellectual fortitude above the revelation of the Holy Spirit. In this hour has every ecumenical system come to trust the intellect that man has placed on God’s word rather than the revelation of his spirit.
The Scriptures told us that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. That’s because for you to know God and rebel against what is right by him, you must first go in and shut your spirit off. Once you do that, all the error of your walk is embedded not only in your intellect, but now it has made its way into your heart
Hebrews 3:10-13 says
10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
11 So I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
God it’s not a man that he should change, and the same as he bared wrath against the rebellion of his people in the day of the rebellion, so does he bare wrath against it now. The only difference now is that you are under grace that is withholding that wrath.
Don’t be mistaken as many are, grace is not a free pass. The very definition of grace is a period of extended consideration. You’re in a space and time where you need to make a decision what it’s going to take for you to truly serve God in the depth of all that you understand about him. With the people of Israel he said they have never known my ways and he swore By an oath that they would not enter into His rest.
Many feel that they are living a life of solitude. When all they really have is the benefits of their financial and worldly gains. There is a special place of rest that can   be found within the kingdom of God. When you are in a kingdom there is one sovereign ruler; and it’s not you, your money, your job, or the power of your hand. Maybe you would feel that I’m being a bit hard and what I’m saying but the scriptures made it clear.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
To exhort someone is to encourage and press them to do what is right, but you can’t do that unless you have come to a place of correctness in your own walk. And that’s impossible if we are deceived by sin that lives in us. Today can you say that you’re sure that you have not been hardened through the deceitfulness of sin in your walk with God? Through the administration of Donald Trump, and the era of Covid, many that believe they love God have manifested ongoing spirits of anger, malice, variance, and worse of all, denial. I remember how upset I became when I heard him say on national TV that maybe they could drink bleach. While expressing the depth of my anger I heard the voice of God say, John, leave Donald John leave Donald alone. My response was,  but he told them to drink bleach. This is when the Lord said to me, you do not know Donald, you only know the dark works of his hand. And if there is a good work in his hand you would never see it because you don’t desire to. When your life was in a place where you chose to walk as one addicted to drugs I never judged you by the content of your hand. I only judge you by the content of your heart. And I knew that the works of your hand were not a reflection of what you desired in your heart. It is I and I alone that will judge the earth and I have not done it as of yet. It is my desire that none should be lost, so would I not seek Donalds Hart just as much as I have yours? So why do you feel it necessary to judge Donald when you do not know his heart? The question that I have for you, is why do you choose to exit the place of peace, serenity, and joy that I share with you? Just to express your fleshly anxiety about him when his actions have no effect on my kingdom.
I’m not the only guilty one. There are those of us who profess the love of God and we involved ourselves in protesting in the midnight hour. But protests are held during the hours that the legislature are in their offices, so why are we out at 2:00 AM. it’s alright that many of us supported Donald Trump because he was a value to our monetary disposition, but why have we chosen to deny the hateful and racist things that he has implemented through his words. Plain and simple the heart is wicked and for its own preservation it will support anything as long as it gets what it wants. What is it that your heart really wants today? Is it the will of God, or what you believe you can acquire by having him serve you rather than you serving him? It is imperative that we search our heart to understand where we are.
“Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.”
Psalms 119:2, KJV
“With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.”
Psalms 119:10, KJV
“KOPH. I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O LORD: I will keep thy statutes.”
Psalms 119:145, KJV
“And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.”
Jeremiah 24:7, KJV
“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13, KJV
“I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.”
Proverbs 8:17, KJV
My Brethren, if the heart is not fully surrendered to the ways of God then it is vulnerable to the manipulation of the intellect. The heart is already designed to be manipulated by the intellect. the only way to change that is to turn the fullness of over to the ways of God. A heart fully surrendered to the will of God will bring the intellect into subjection
II Corinthians 10:3-6 reads
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
I pray that the God of all creation will bestow upon you a greater wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and vision of what is true in today’s world, that you might be evidence of the changes that must be seen in the mitts of his people.
