How you intellectualize it

You know, it doesn’t really matter what you say or how you intellectualize it. Your voice is coming from your spirit, not your head. Oh, your brain justifies what is coming out of your mouth. But the source is your spirit.

Jesus said, “…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).

The heart (Spirit) is where your convictions originate. The mouth is the final destination. But the path of your convictions passes through the brain along the way.

Your principles, precepts and beliefs come from your spirit. The brain simply justifies that spirit.

With that being said, beware of two things.

1) Be in tune to the spirit of the person you are with. The spirit is the rudder that will guide the ship. Watch where they go.

2) Now here’s a biggy. A spiritually deficient person may be an intellectual superior. Do not engage.

“Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall” (Proverbs 4:14-16).

And finally, although the spirit goes from the heart, through the brain to the mouth. The opposite happens too. What is said can reach down to our very spirit.

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8)

As Christians we are to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.

“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14)

God’s word quickens the spirit and invigorates the soul. The mind justifies through the word of God and not by the philosophy of man or his “vain jangling”.

The power of God’s word is in our faith in that word. That faith comes from our awakened spirit. The spiritually deficient or dead have no such quickening or faith, only intellect.

One final thought about intellect

“Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24).

The word “seek” from the passage above comes from the Greek word “zeteo”. It means to think or to reason.

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

Those void of the spirit of God but full of intellect and philosophy will not be able to enter the strait gate.

Bill Hitchcock