His Thoughts - C. R. Oliver (summer reading list TXT) 📗

His Thoughts

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.' 

Isaiah 55:8

Introduction:

Several weeks ago, I awoke to God's voice speaking to my spirit and saying, "Come up here and think my kind of thoughts. My thoughts are higher than the ones that occupy your mind." I immediately wanted to respond to this, but found myself culling first one thought, then another, as they seemed to not "fit" into what I surmised to be His thoughts. My anxiety began to rise at the frustration of realizing just how mundane and earthly were my assignations. It was then the "still small voice" declared, "This invitation is not to be a daunting task, but an adventure to higher ground." 

As time progressed, my whole world began to change as I sought volitionally to "think His kind of thoughts." How "mind boggling" was my first reaction when I began to realize the difference between His interests and concerns and mine. He never considers a matter as too difficult, or time consuming or having the possibility of failing. Never once do "circumstances" altar action or purpose. He speaks what He desires and it is accomplished. 
My first guidance lesson, by the Spirit, was Deuteronomy 29:29 ff. Here, it became plain that God had given His children capacity for such pursuits.

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Join this passage to those in Chapter 30.

"For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' 14 But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

With God's offer comes the power and capacity to fulfill it. We reach into those unknown regions with confidence, for we will find if we ask, seek and knock. Our frailty is lost in His provision. Covering us is a Divine interaction. Although it exceeds our descriptive powers, it, nonetheless, exists to help reach beyond ourselves into His realm. Even the Scriptures support us and carry us to elevations far beyond what we have deemed "deep thinking."

My word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. 12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.
                                                    Isaiah 55:11-15

We, who are charged to speak the Oracles of God, should envision ourselves with the capacity of the mind of Christ in order to speak forth that which will not return void and send such at our command. Instead of considerations of difficulty or failure, there comes a type of prophetic conveyance accomplishing what is spoken. If we are of His kingdom, we must speak the language of it. 

Once one's thoughts stretch and expand, there is a desire for more. David's Psalms are full of pursuits after the mind of God.

Psalms 25:4-5
4 Show me Your ways, O LORD;
Teach me Your paths. 
5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day

Having been reared in the atmosphere of such desire, Solomon's answer to God's inquiry came in the form of his request for "more" wisdom and knowledge. God gave it to him.

1 Kings 4:29-34
9 God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. 30 Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 He was wiser than any other man, including Ethan the Ezrahite--wiser than Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations. 32 He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. 33 He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. 34 Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.

Oh, how there is a longing to hear the God-kind of wisdom and knowledge, whether from a political platform or from a pulpit's elevation. If somewhere we could hear just one word, crystal clear from "the heart of heaven," it would be like drinking from a living fountain-as it should be. (Words come out of our thoughts and our thoughts have been too beggarly.) Consider now our "capacity" gift from God, versus the use of that facility. 

Jesus, who lives within us, once rose to declare:

Matthew 12:42
The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.
(What do we rise to declare?)

It was Paul who wrote:

1 Corinthians 2:13-16
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Paul's treatise to the Corinthians is full of truth about the wisdom of God and how we can and should rise to a level of knowledge and wisdom beyond the conjecturing of an unredeemed world. There is such a thing as a "wisdom of the age" which flows through society and seeks to saturate and corrupt those who adhere to it. There is also a "Godly wisdom" which the anti-Christ cannot ascertain, because it is a mystery.

1 Corinthians 2:6-9
However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 
9 But as it is written:
"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man 
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

Prior to this verse, Paul established the root of Godly wisdom as Christ, the personification of God's wisdom and knowledge. (Wisdom is the ability to apply to the proper time, place and person the knowledge received in revelation.) Early in his text, Paul says God will destroy the (earthly) wisdom of the wise. Destroy means not just to kill, it is to annihilate it to the point of extinction. 

The time has come for this generation to realize that leadership and world powers will run out of their solutions. Their thinking will hit a dead end and their logic will fail and have no place to turn, for their rationale has no other future than oblivion.

1 Corinthians 1:19-23
19 For it is written: "I will 
destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified.

This was when the sons of God will be made manifest, for they will shine in a darkened world! They alone possess the wisdom to guide a generation which has been filled with facts, but has little wisdom. 
Solomon wrote the following passage about three thousand years ago:

Proverbs 2:6-8
6 For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; 
8 He guards the paths of justice,
And preserves the way of His saints.

Paul echoed in Romans:

Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable areHis judgments and His ways past finding out!
34 "For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?" 
35 'Or who has first given to Him 
And it shall be repaid to him?" 
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

National disgrace is openly displayed when politicians and pulpiteers spout their warped thinking. Anti-God and Anti-populous, their diatribe reveals what the ancients well described. 

Isaiah 47:10
Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you.

Jeremiah 8:9 (Reviewing the exhausted leadership of King Zedekiah)
The wise men are ashamed,
They are dismayed and taken.
Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD;
So what wisdom do they have?

Society becomes saturated with warped thinking and compromised truths, until its whole thought pattern is corrupted. Here is where we reside today. Scripture pictures it best in Ezekiel's portrayal of Tyre and why God destroyed them. We see the modern culture following the identical path. Our society is in its death throes. Hit after hit, both from national government, financial markets and terrorists attacks have caused a "bob and weave" reaction. There is no clear understanding of a path to guard the freedoms fought for by past generations. A corrupted wisdom is a sure path to destruction.

Ezekiel 28:17-19
"Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;
You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor;
I cast you to the ground,
I laid you before kings,
That they might gaze at you.

18 "You defiled your sanctuaries
By the multitude of your iniquities,
By the iniquity of your trading;
Therefore I brought fire from your midst;
It devoured you,
And I turned you to ashes upon the earth
In the sight of all who saw you. 
9 All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you;
You have become a horror,
And shall be no more forever."'"

No one understood the power of wisdom in a degenerative situation better than Daniel. So appreciative of God's revelation to him, he