About 13 years ago, Americans began eating genetically engineered food, and, no one told us. While other countries require mandatory labeling of these food ingredients, the U.S. FDA has continued to hide the facts because many of the executives of the FDA move back and forth between jobs at the FDA and Agricultural and Pharmaceutical corporations.
Several have been on the board of directors of corporations such as Monsanto. Monsanto is a leading advocate and producer of "genetically modified organisms."
A genetically modified organism (simply known as a GMO) is also called "genetically engineered." A GMO is a plant, animal or microorganism (e.g. bacteria) that is created or altered by means that overcome natural boundaries.
Genetic engineering or modification involves crossing species that could not cross on their own in nature because of the limitations God has placed on His creation for our own protection. For example, genes from a fish have been inserted into strawberries and tomatoes. I hope it was clean fish; but there is a point in that.
Newscientist.com article: Rice with human genes to be grown in US, March 10, 2007:
New Scientist Print Edition: US citizens ignorant of genetically modified diet, December 16, 2006:
The lifespan of ladybugs was reduced to half when they ate aphids that had fed on genetically altered potatoes in Scotland. The ladybugs also laid fewer eggs. The ladybugs did not even eat the genetically modified food directly, as we are doing now. They ate something else that had eaten the GMOs. The danger lived on in the food chain.
Geneticists have created salmon that is several times bigger than normal salmon, and grows faster. Thankfully, these salmon are currently being farmed inland. However, to save a few dollars the salmon farm is currently seeking permission to farm the salmon in fenced off sections of the ocean. The only way that we can know whether a salmon is genetically altered or not is if it is wild salmon, but if it is farmed salmon then most likely it is genetically altered.
The problem is that if even a couple get away, they could cause the extinction of salmon, because wild salmon prefer the larger salmon because they assume they are better mates. The resulting offspring have much less chance (if any) of surviving and reproducing.
The danger to many humans who are allergic to certain foods is guaranteed, because no one will know what they are eating. In 1996, a company called Pioneer Hi-Bred spliced Brazil nut genes into soybeans. Some individuals, however, are so allergic to this nut that they go into apoplectic shock (similar to a severe bee sting reaction), which can cause death. Animal tests confirmed the peril and fortunately the product was removed from the market before any fatalities occurred.
"The next case could be less than ideal and the public less fortunate," writes Marion Nestle, head of the Nutrition Department of New York University, in an editorial to the New England Journal of Medicine. About twenty-five percent of Americans have adverse reactions to foods. Eight percent of children, and two percent of adults, have food allergies as tested by blood immunoglobins.
Genetic Engineers have designed "pesticidal foods" which have genes that produce a toxic pesticide inside the food's cells. This represents the first time "cell-interior toxicity" is being sold for human consumption. There is little knowledge of the potential long-term health impacts.
When human beings tamper with nature they end up with results that have huge negative impacts on our environment, and inevitably our health.
We find ourselves on the brink of obliteration, partly because of the "God is dead" propaganda war for the last four decades, and the resulting deterioration of this society to near lawlessness. The number of things decaying in this society has become overwhelming.
A worship of the environment and its elements was in full swing. It was a society very much like today, except without the technological advances that we have.
God designed and created Israel as a seed of highest quality, but she rebelled against Him turning herself into a degenerate alien plant. God gets right to the core of the problem telling Israel that "the fear of Him is not in her."
We see here God praising Israel for how they were when He first established them, but eventually they stopped loving, revering and obeying Him.
Israel and Judah have committed two evils, which they continue to commit to this day. One, they have forsaken, that is hated and rejected God, and the second evil is that they have relied on their own resources for their needs. Physically they have rejected God's providence of living waters, the source of water and food, which sustains them, and they gone after it themselves. Spiritually speaking, they have reject God's providence of living waters, that is the Holy Spirit, which can only flow from God through Jesus Christ.
This is the heart of the reason why people go contrary to the natural laws of life. They do not fear God, therefore nothing restrains them. The Eternal says that their own wickedness will correct them. In our lifetime, this altering of God's creation with GMOs will become a punishment of this nation. The sickness, deformities and death that follow will result from the tampering with God's creation.
Next in Jeremiah, the Eternal emphasizes that Israel's sin is long standing and deep rooted. It is habitual.
This is partly a reference to religion of environmentalism, worship of mother earth. I am sure that they had different terms for it then, but it is the same principle, the same type of religion.
Those are very powerful words for God to state toward the nation that He formed.
Ancient Israel turned into the degenerate plant because they did not fear God. They forsook Him, the fountain of living water; and so, that "seed of highest quality" that God planted, rejected the true fountain of living water. In stark contrast, dead gods cannot impart life. They are not a source of living water. Yet Israel pursued them.
God the Father is the source of the spiritual water; Christ is the fountain, and the living water is the Holy Spirit.
1) The rebellion of the Israelites is like an animal that has broken and burst its yoke, asserting willfully that they will not serve. Being yoked to God is necessary to private and social well being; yet they still neglect it.
This fundamental apostasy brought their miseries upon them. This apostasy was in preference to the sexual cult at the numerous sanctuaries in honor of the Baals. Of course, the two religions were irreconcilable. There was no way of combining Baalism with the true religion of God.
The covenantal relationship with the Eternal was substituted with a sensuous abandonment to the worship of nature. No doubt collision between the Creator God and the agricultural gods of the Canaanites was inevitable; but the nominal assimilation of the Baals to the Eternal while capitulating to the cult practices of the Baals was not the right way. In fact, it led to their eventual destruction. They did not have the self-control or the willpower to resist it.
Not only primitive peoples, but also many other cultures and civilizations have fallen prey to the seductions of "Nature" and the divinization of natural drives and desires. We are seeing that in every way, exploding today, in the media with television, internet, radio and movies all exploiting this in great ways and encouraging it.
Even the goats are being genetically engineered so if you think drinking goat's milk is healthy then you had better make sure that it is organic.
It had been five years after putting these things on the market before anybody realized it.
The people become degenerate in their thinking, moral corruption saps the self-control of the community; a creeping guilt-consciousness perverts the moral foundation of stability because the people do not fear God.
Later, their behavior was against God in rebelliousness. They became an abnormal vine in the well-tended vineyard, and they became a degenerate abnormal people, because they had no fear of God.
Even though they appeared religious, these practices could prevail only in an environment of moral lethargy and religious indifference. They just did not want to bother to seek truth, so they believed what pop-culture dictated to them. This is exactly what we are seeing happening today in the religions of this nation. However, this is only symptomatic of a deeper problem—that of spiritual and moral uncertainty that results from not fearing God. We have situation ethics where what is right is whatever you as an individual consider to be right.
Look for a moment at the restless young camel interlacing her tracks. Without the driver the camel wanders aimlessly over the desert. Her tracks look like a crazy patchwork, going nowhere. This is the way life is when God is not part of it. People are directionless, random and without purpose.
Then Jeremiah introduces the most bitter of his indictments.
Jeremiah interjects, 'Do not run your feet bare in your pursuit or run your throat dry.' But the people reply, to all these commands, 'It is no use to talk; I am in love with foreign gods, and I will go after them.' They were like someone addicted to drugs, alcohol, smoking or gluttony. They knew they should stop for their own good, but they had no self-control, so they just gave in.
The tragedy of this is that in their minds it is hopeless. In this the people are represented as having fallen so far into lustful passions that they cannot respond to the Eternal's call to mind. It serves merely to emphasize how locked in to ones own willfulness the will to self becomes when the relationship with God is broken.
Emptiness and guilt-consciousness will arise in the heart; and as the guilt feeling becomes increasingly acute the people will seek a scapegoat in the person of the one who most sharply opposes them. For Israel and Judah it was Jeremiah. In our society, the ministers of God cry aloud and spare not. We even see the attacks on secular moral voices in the world. People do not like to be told that they are doing something wrong.
It is interesting that with genetically modified organisms they are trying to play god and be creators. They are even going beyond the cloning into trying to create beings of different types of animals, including humans.
The people of Israel and Judah, their kings, princes, prophets, and priests—all who have worshipped either a tree or a stone, will be confounded like the thief, who when desperate at troubled times, pleads to God for help. We can see that the genetic engineers will be pleading for help from God when the whole GMO problem gets out of hand to the point where it starts destroying our food storages and individuals.
This worshipping of nature includes: obsessions related to genetic engineering, over-protection of the environment at the sacrifice of human life and elevation of the importance of animals to the level of human beings. All these obsessions are linked to pride and greed.
[Genetically Modified] foods may cause disease, but no one was even willing to listen,
let alone investigate the unpredicted side effects. For them, it was all about profit. Now our whole population is threatened by the serious dangers described in Genetic Roulette."
According to Kirk J. Azevedo, DC.
Jeffrey Smith reports (from the Institute on Responsible Technology) in his May 25, 2007 article
That is the major part of the diet of the United States. The two major test sites for the United States are Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
Jeremiah said that the Israelites want to have gods in their own image. Today, greed for money and power, as well as scientific and technological advances are major idolatries of this present Israelitish driven society. Jeremiah continues, if they make gods for themselves, these are the gods that they should call on for help in their time of trouble.
They have attempted to steal from God Himself nothing less than His gifts and their own birthright. They want to be creators, but all they do is degenerate God's creation, which they have stolen from Him.
Jeremiah's response later, in chapter 2, verse 29, to their attitude is that despite all that God has done for them and despite their rebelliousness against Him, they still have the audacity to complain against Him.
Jeremiah recorded that the Eternal had said to Israel, "I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality." The 'seed' image often represents human lineage or heritage. The "Seed" of Eve, which continues through Abraham and David to Christ, is opposed to the seed of the serpent beginning with the forbidden tree tragedy.
The "seed of David" is a specific reference to Jesus Christ. In comparison, "Abraham's seed" refers to the many spiritual descendants of faith. God promises Abraham that his offspring will inherit the promised land, or the kingdom.
Genesis 12:7 To your descendants I will give this land. [Spiritually speaking, that is the kingdom that He is promising.]
Abraham is in Shechem at this time. The focus is on the land as well as other reaffirmations of the promise. The land becomes an inheritance thanks to God's promise to give it to Abraham and his descendants.
The Israelites, (which, of course, includes the Jews) rightly consider themselves of Abraham's physical seed, having descended from his son Isaac and grandson Jacob.
However, Paul points out that Abraham's spiritual descendants were heirs "through the righteousness that comes by faith," not by the law. In this distinction he asserts that because Abraham was credited righteousness by faith and not by law, spiritually converted Gentiles also descend from Abraham, being heirs to God's promise.
Before Jesus was resurrected He promised to send a spiritual helper—the Spirit, thereby making converted Gentiles heirs "through the righteousness that comes by faith," just as is offered to the descendants of Israel.
In Romans 4:13, the apostle Paul interprets the 'giving of land' to be a reference in Genesis 12:7, to the entire world. Prophetically, Israel's domain is the whole world, and that is where the kingdom of God will be established here on the earth at Christ's return.
Romans 4:13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Paul here defines the seed of Abraham as all who by faith embrace the promise of the spirit, which enables the obedience by which we are credited righteousness. So we absolutely have to have the Holy Spirit to be able to have such things as self-control. Paul defines the seed of Abraham as all who by faith embrace the promise of the Spirit.
Romans 4:14-16 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all
The true seed of Abraham is the individual who is an Israelite inwardly. This is spiritual conversion. But, since the physical descendants of Israel rejected their covenant with God, they rejected their spiritual inheritance as Abraham's seed.
Galatians 3:29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
God's relationship is now with spiritual Israel. The physical nation of Israel rejected God's covenant with Him. Therefore, the physical descendants of Israel do not really understand what has happened, as it has not been revealed to them.
The only ones truly part of spiritual Israel are those who have been circumcised in the heart. Therefore, if a Gentile is circumcised of the heart, then, in God's eyes he is a spiritual Israelite or a spiritual Jew.
Romans 9:7-8 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, "In Isaac your seed shall be called." That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.
Just because they were sons of Abraham did not mean that they were 'shoe-ins' for the kingdom of God. God can raise children up out of the stones. He said that His church would be the foolish and weak of the world.
Even though there may have been some Jews who were intellectually superior and physical descendants of Abraham, it meant nothing spiritually.
John 8:37-44 "I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father." They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father." Then they said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God." Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it."
Here we see a contrast between Abraham's seed and Satan's.
God has a plan of salvation for mankind that continues to work through Israel. It is not the physical nation that He is concerned about. (Although He is concerned for the future of the descendants of physical Israel as we see in many prophesies). He is intimate with and concerned for spiritual Israel—His church.
These Jews, who Jesus was speaking to, acted more like children of Satan. They lived their lives with the same attitude and lies that Satan lives by and transmits to the worldly society. Therefore, they are his children! What we see here is the contrast between children of truth and children of lies. When we see these corporations hiding the truth, and our government and the FDA hiding the truth, we know whose children they are.
Christ is in the lineage of Abraham and He prepared the way by which everyone can eventually develop a relationship with the Father. Christ's work makes it possible for God to be our God, just as He promised.
Galatians 3:16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," who is Christ.
Paul makes it clear that the word 'seed' refers to a single person, Jesus Christ, the Seed to whom the promise referred.
Galatians 3:19, 26-29 What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
In the history of humanity since Adam, only one person has qualified to receive the inheritance of the promises that were made to Abraham: that, of course, is Jesus Christ. We become co-heirs with Him if we are in union with Him. But we have to meet the conditions of the New Covenant.
This means God has called us to His truth—to His way of life. We have unconditionally yielded to God. We believe the gospel of the coming kingdom of God. We accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins. We have been baptized and we have received the Holy Spirit with the laying on of hands by a minister of God.
If we submit to God in this way we become "in Christ." We are in Him and He is in us. He becomes part of us through His Holy Spirit. Of course, this happens in a spiritual sense and we become members of His church, true seeds of Abraham. If we submit to God in this way, we become in Christ.
Since Jesus Christ is the Inheritor of God's promises, He has covenanted with us to forgive our sins. Our acceptance and obedience to the New Covenant sets us on the course toward eternal life. Therefore in a sense having the Holy Spirit equals eternal life. Of course, we do not receive that literally until we are changed and we are born again.
The Holy Spirit does more than impart to us the possibility of eternal life. It imparts to us the characteristics of the Almighty, the All-powerful God the Father.
That portion of the Holy Spirit which a person may receive, if he asks God for it in conforming to His will, may be compared to the germ, sperm or seed of physical life. It transmits to us God's spiritual characteristics and attributes.
First, the Holy Spirit—the seed by which we are begotten—comes from the Father. God has masculine characteristics. That is why we call Him "Father." We are called the "begotten children of God" (I John 3:1).
God, then, has the power to beget us as His children. He begets us "by His Spirit." Each portion of the Spirit by which we are begotten is termed in the Bible a germ or a "seed."
The genetic determinism of seed is fruitfully applied by metaphor to salvation. Peter describes freedom from sin as growing from a new type of seed.
I Peter 1:22-25 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
In John 3:5-8, Jesus completes this by saying we must finally be born again—at the resurrection—when we will be spirit. Now, however, we are only flesh with the spiritual seed of eternal life impregnating us.
Second, notice that an attribute of God's Spirit is perfect character. The Holy Spirit, the seed of eternal life, transmits that possibility into us. It is the Spirit of obedience—of perfection.
Every begotten child of God must ask God for the power to resist sin. We must let Christ live His life in us through the Holy Spirit. If Christ abides in us, through the Holy Spirit, we have the power, which enables us to resist practicing sin. This is what the ancient Israelites and the tribe of Judah did not have.
We are weak and powerless to resist sin; we need divine help. We need the same power that was in Jesus Christ, which enabled Him to resist sin. That power comes from the Holy Spirit of God!
Conversion starts with repentance, which requires a change of mind from wrong to right. But that change is not enough. We must receive the Spirit of God in order for that change to be permanent. Our minds need to be developed to become like God's mind. The apostle Paul tells us that you must "have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
God made this possible by placing a spirit in each of us—a spirit we know of as "the spirit in man." It is not the person—it is something in him. Connected with the physical brain, it forms the human mind. It imparts the power of intellect and personality that no animal can have.
The spirit in man is not conscious of itself. It cannot know apart from the brain. It is spirit essence. It is a human spirit. Humans, having this spirit, know only physical things. It requires the addition of another spirit—God's Holy Spirit—to open the human mind to comprehension of spiritual things.
"The mind of flesh," with which we were born, "is death." It produces death through sin; "but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace." Essentially, the Holy Spirit imparts eternal life and spiritual characteristics of God. Only when we are born of the resurrection do we become perfect.
I John 3:9-10 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother
We realize at this time that we are only begotten of God. And our birth of God comes at our resurrection.
One who is born of God is unable to sin habitually, because the divine nature—the Holy Spirit remains in him. God will not abide in sin; therefore, if His Spirit dwells in us, and we choose to continue in sin, then He will withdraw His Spirit from us.
The English word 'seed' is from the Greek 'sperma' meaning seed sown, as of grain, plants, trees; then anything that resembles it, anything which germinates, or which springs up, or is produced. God's seed is His Holy Spirit, and can include God's word.
If His Holy Spirit dwells in us, then, so does the word of God. Then, if God's Spirit remains in us so does His word. In the Parable of the Sower, Luke 8:11 says, "The seed is the word of God." The word "seed" can mean several things in scripture.
Christ is the only person thus far born of God. He is perfect. If He, in a sense, lives His life in us by means of the Holy Spirit—that is the same as saying we are to live by every Word of God, for Christ is the Word personified—therefore, Christ is the Bible in action.
We have, at hand, the power of self-control as we yield to His Spirit. We have the capacity to grow toward a perfect character like God! God's children are to grow up to be like Him.
The physical creation reveals the divine attribute of God to reproduce us in His image. The world has the same witness of the attributes of God, and so obviously they flat out and willfully reject it.
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
I wonder if these genetic engineers realize how complicated God's creation is and how it could not have possibly come from happenstance or fiat.
Romans 1:19-22 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools,
Nature reproduces—therefore it reveals that God does. And if He is our Father, if we are begotten of His Seed, the Holy Spirit, we shall become like Him.
That is what the world's geneticists and biotechnicians do not understand! God has authored creation to provide the proper nutrients to sustain healthy life. Just look at all of the pollutions that we have in our water, air and food. Everything mankind has done to try to improve that has resulted in degenerating life, because mankind is driven by the many elements of sin.
We now know certain facts about the result of GMO's. For example, animals fed GMO corn developed problems of their blood (leukemia for one), blood pressure, kidney, liver (including significant changes in kidney weight as well as lesions on the kidney and liver), and allergies to infection, increased blood sugar levels, and diseases—including cancer. These are all things that they have found in genetically modified and fed animals, especially cattle.
These are not minor problems, but major changes in the body. They are toxic reactions to poison. Think of the repercussions when we eat the meat of animals that have been eating GMO corn. Can these animals truly be called healthy?
The pressures coming at us today in this world are tremendously trying! Not only do we have to be concerned about our own physical health. We constantly face the fact that the world's great minds, while lacking self-control, have hearts bent on evil continually.
In addition to that, if we are true members of God's church, we must be overcoming sin and producing spiritual fruit. We know that this can only be accomplished with the help of God's Holy Spirit. The pressures on members of God's church are tremendous today. We see so much, because God has revealed not just spiritual truth to us, but physical truth as well about what is going on around us.
The Father always looks after His children. Therefore, nothing can happen to us, unless He allows it. We have nothing to fear. Even knowing this we still have anxiety over these things because our human nature wants to preserve this temporary body at all cost. This is why He has sent His Holy Spirit. He knows we cannot do it on our own. Seeing the things that they are doing to our food makes us realize how important it is for us to ask God's blessing every time we partake of a meal. We really have to ask God to take these impurities out of the food, because we do not know when we are eating them many times.
Since there is an Eternal Heavenly Father, and we are His begotten children, then God must be a Family. And, the Church of God must be composed of the begotten family of God. The Holy Spirit unites us in His church and His family.
The Apostle Paul confirms this family relationship in his letter to the Galatians:
Galatians 4:6-7 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
It is the same Spirit by which we are placed or immersed into the church. Paul also told the Corinthian church:
I Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.
In Hebrews 12:9, the Almighty is called "the Father of spirits." We are ultimately, at the resurrection, to be composed of spirit—members of the Divine Family.
Often in scripture we are declared to be heirs of the Divine Nature—of immortal, incorruptible, perfect, all-powerful spirit possessing the very mind of God. We are to be partakers of the 'divine nature' as the apostle Peter tells us. But we may also receive a part of that power in this life.
Whenever we become members of God's begotten Family, we receive a portion—a seed or germ—of the Father's Holy Spirit.
Acts 10:45 And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.
This gift is called a seed. It is poured out from the Father in heaven and, like physical life-giving germs or sperms, unites with the human spirit in each of our minds upon conversion. Each human mind is like the nucleus of an egg to which the Holy Spirit or seed unites.
Just as an egg in a mother's womb must be nourished with life-giving food through the placenta, so we must be nourished by the Word of God. John 6:63 says, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."
Those words are the Bible. That is why human beings must live by every word of God—because it nourishes us, just like the placenta nourishes the fetus.
Just as the physical life-giving nutrients circulate in the mother's uterus, so must the life of God circulate through our minds. We drink in the life-giving words of God from the Bible through reading and studying and meditating. If we are not doing that, then we are malnourished spiritually.
Then, just as the physical poisons are carried through the umbilicus by the bloodstream away from the fetus in the womb, so must we allow our sins to pass from us by asking forgiveness through prayer to God, the shed blood of Christ figuratively bearing our sins away. Not only must the words of God flow into our minds through Bible study, but also Spirit must flow into our minds.
Each converted Christian receives a seed—composed of spirit, not matter—that unites with the human spirit in each repentant human mind. That is what begets us. But that spiritual germ must spiritually grow like the fetus in a mother's womb. Let "Christ be formed in you," Paul told the Galatians. We must grow in spiritual-mindedness.
How is that seed, now united with our minds, going to grow? It grows by the addition of more Spirit—by the "supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ," as Paul told the Philippian church. God is the source of the living water; Jesus Christ is the fountain or delivery system of the living water supplying what is needed for spiritual growth.
Added to the seed or germ which proceeds from the Father there must be a continual supply of Spirit sent from Jesus Christ so that our minds grow spiritually—until we grow to mature spiritual minds. Spiritual growth comes through prayer—earnest, genuine prayer. Most people do not grow spiritually because they do not pray in a heartfelt way.
Just as a fetus in a mother's womb must have physical substance added to the original ovum egg and sperm, if that new physical life is to develop, so we must be filled with spiritual nourishment—"filled with the Spirit" so that our minds grow spiritually.
The Holy Spirit from Christ and the Father may be compared to a current of electricity flowing through a light bulb. We are that bulb. But there could be no light without a filament inside the bulb. That filament is comparable to the spiritual seed from the Father. As we receive more of God's Spirit, we emit more power and more light. Our light literally fills the room.
The expression "filled with the Spirit" from Ephesians 5:18, does not mean to be filled with emotional manifestations (which come from the flesh and not from Spirit). It means that we are imbued with Spirit from heaven administered through Jesus Christ in His office as High Priest.
Romans 8:8-9 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
That is frank and plain, simple and earth shattering. We know this because many of us have been reading this for decades. But the impact is always a great one.
We are motivated and guided by the Spirit. That is the Holy Spirit in the form of a seed from the Father transmitting His characteristics. That is the Holy Spirit from the Father and Jesus Christ, filling our minds so that we can grow spiritually.
Spiritual qualities and entities seem unreal to most people. And no wonder. Spiritual things are invisible, not discerned by the senses until revealed in writing in the Bible. The Bible makes clear the nature of the Spirit.
John 4:21 tells us that "God is Spirit." The God Family is composed of spirit. The Father and the Son, who are composed of spirit, have definite shape. From one end of the Bible to the other we are told about the shape and the parts of each member in the God Family. The Father and the Son each have a head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, fingers, a torso, legs, feet, plus inward parts. They are all mentioned in the Bible.
Human beings are in the image of God. Humans are matter, but God is spirit. The Holy Spirit, like matter, exists in various states. It not only composes the members of the God Family, it also flows through our minds, and empowers us to do good works.
Even though the Father and the Son are in definite locations with respect to each other, spirit proceeds from them and fills the entire universe much like air fills everything on earth. Remember David's words that God's Spirit permeates everything.
Psalms 139:7-12 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall fall on me," Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
Spirit is God's life. Air contains the physical life-giving oxygen of man. Notice how similar the comparison is. The divine Spirit that fills the entire universe is the channel by which the Father and the Son create. The Spirit of God transformed the creative energy of Father and Son into the physical world we see around us.
Human beings have no such attribute or power born into them; although they try to become creators by interfering with God's perfect physical design. Human beings may form tools that transform man's expended physical energy into visible objects, into light, heat, and numerous other physical manifestations. But he does not have the sense or self-control to not interfere with, or alter things that could end in tragic results that may come from his meddling—the atom, hydrogen and neutron bombs are a case in point.
Humans were put here on earth to learn to develop tools for limited creative work—to train them for the eternal goal of becoming part of the God Family, which means sharing control and not trying to take control of the creative Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit of God is the key to eternal life! If we do not have it, then we do not have eternal life dwelling within us. Most people do not have it, because they do not understand what it is. Many believe that it is a part of a trinity—a third person in a godhead closed to entry by mankind, but as you know, scripture nowhere supports this. Only perverted interpretations do.
Belief in the trinity hides from man the very power of God that can live within us and make us into powerful spirit beings with eternal life and the character, nature, form and shape of the living God. When we understand the truth, the supreme gift of God's Holy Spirit is a tremendous endowment.
The God Family is, at present, two beings, who think and act with the power of the Holy Spirit. When God begets us with that Spirit, we are impregnated with eternal God-life, to grow in God's qualities of mind and power until the Second Coming of Christ, when we will be born into God's Family as His literal children!
Paul asks this blessing on us in:
Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Glory must go to God for His grace, and the Helper He has sent to us through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our intimate relationship with the Father and His Son by way of His Holy Spirit is truly something to be treasured.
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