Michael’s book is
available through:
Abiding Life
Ministries International
Littleton, Colorado
Notice: this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the
Wilderness. Why a blog? So that many can receive the weekly thoughts
I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner.
Sanity…sounds
so sweet, doesn’t it? Knowing what we
know about the differences in mental and emotional PEACE, plus having a SOUND
MIND…and having neither…is it no wonder why so many folks are searching for
that SANE state of mind? Michael gives
us his 2nd result of “being born dead to God in the spirit” and what
the Believer has that the Unbeliever cannot possess. And, he then presents his 3rd
result…
THE SEARCH
FOR SANITY
excerpt
from pages 80-84 of SIW (5th printing,
March 1998)
excerpt
from pages 76-81 of SIW (14th printing,
March 2012)
(used with permission from
ALMI):
…I
define sanity as having one’s mind, will, and emotions under the control of the
Holy Spirit…sanity is being in touch with reality, and what can be more real
than being in touch with God? (2)Therefore, if we are all born dead to
God in the spirit, what is everyman’s condition at birth? Insanity!
Insanity is merely being out of touch with reality, and God is the only
absolute reality…Even the believer who is born again and has Christ’s Spirit
within the renewed inner person can erect a wall of unbelief that disallows
Christ’s rule over the soul; at that moment the believer, too, is quite insane.
…Emotions
are deceptive…The unsupervised emotions of man provide quite a playground for
Satan; there he can maximize his calculated destruction with minimum effort.
…after
one traffics in depression for a period of time, it can come to be the normal
course of the day…Just as we can judge thoughts and reject them, we also can
determine which emotions are following the enemy’s lead.
We
were not created to live independently of Him; that brings insanity. It is only in humble dependence upon the
Creator that mind and emotions enter into soundness and trustworthiness. Being born dead to God in the spirit has
caused us to be self-centered in our attempts to have our deepest needs met; it
also has caused us to exist in a condition of insanity, wherein we have
listened to and acted upon false thoughts and lying emotions.
The
final result (3) of being born dead
to God in the spirit is loss of identity; we were created for God, and yet are
not brought into the world possessed by Him, or Him by us. Therefore, our very reason for existence is
not apparent. We are born in a condition
of not knowing who we are but being driven to find out…Being born without God,
self-centered and insane, we have received identity messages from others in the
same condition and proceeded to believe and live out of them!
I
am constantly amazed at how easy it is to read and understand life from
Michael’s writings. The truths of
Scripture come alive and can be appropriated in a quick and simple manner. “Sanity…having one’s mind, will, and emotions
under the control of the Holy Spirit.”
How easy to grasp…how quick to be able to know whether my soul (mind,
will, and emotions) IS or ISN’T under the control of the sweet Holy Spirit!
The
issue is not a “contest” or a “judgment”, and certainly not a “condemnation,”
of whether I AM or I AM NOT…it is a “recognition,” and (if I am not) then a
CHOICE of moving TO the Holy Spirit, or “resisting and remaining” under
another’s control.
“Identity.” I remember being Born Again at the age of 35
(actually 11 days before my 35th birthday). Having been encouraged and I had gotten
involved in some beautiful scriptural studies immediately that taught me WHO I
AM in Christ, I had my new identity to replace all the old ones that the world
and those in the world had taught me.
Wow! I NEVER knew how monumental that would turn out to be! And then, 15 years later, I learned WHO CHRIST
IS IN ME! Beautiful!
There
is a lot in these 5 pages of the book…hope you have one to read in its
entirety. Let me close today with this:
unbelief, emotions, and dealing with depression are gripping far too many in
the Body of Christ. It is my prayer that
you have someone help you to find “it is only in humble dependence upon the
Creator that mind and emotions enter into soundness and trustworthiness.” Finding that “humble dependence” is not as
simple as speaking it, due to the false thoughts and lying emotions that can
linger past the new birth.
Note:
if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books,
please contact ALMI
(www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!
To access ALL past weekly
blogs, go to Getting
Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com
Lee McDowell Christian Ministries
leemccm@gmail.com
1737 CR 2051 Nacogdoches, Tx 75965 936-559-5696
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