As born again people of God, we have the mind of Christ and the Holy Spirit as our teacher. When we try reading the revelation of the Word with a carnal mind, the Church always ends up back under the Law.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 (Amplified), "Consequently, from now on we estimate and regard no one from a (purely) human point of view (in terms of natural standards of value). (No) even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint and as a man, yet now (we have such knowledge of Him that) we know Him no longer (in terms of the flesh)." Verse 17 goes on, "Therefore if any person is (ingrafted) in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old (previous moral and spiritual condition) has passed away, Behold, the fresh and new has come."
We see the difference here between revelation knowledge and sense knowledge. The carnal minded Christian still sees (and really only sees) Jesus as the Man. The Spirit minded or Word minded man goes beyond the Man Jesus, to the Christ. When we Jesus or any other born again person, we see the new man, the new creation and we no longer see the past, the faults or the shortcomings of our brethren.
Paul says that "Even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint and as a man, yet now (we have such knowledge of Him) that we know Him no longer (in terms of the flesh)." Paul didn't say that Jesus didn't come in the flesh or that He didn't die as flesh, but that it didn't stop there. What happened after the flesh died and the new spirit of life came? Romans 8:2 (Amplified) says that, "For the law of the Spirit of life (which is) in Christ Jesus (the law of our new being) has freed me from the law of sin and death."
We still mostly identify with the Jesus from the Gospels, the Man of Galilee and Nazareth. We marvel at His power and His glory He walked in. We can see Jesus as He walked on water and stopped the storm. We've seen His miracles presented in theaters around the world, and thank God for these portrayals), but this is only the beginning of Jesus' ministries. This part of His ministry lasted only 331/2 years. The other part is the part we don't see or preach, but it's the eternal part.
We cannot make movies about this part because we don't know how to express it. The only way to actually see Jesus in His present day ministry, is by the Word. As we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the Word and make it real in our lives, then we can see this ministry.
Satan has tried keeping the children of God steeped in Law, creeds, doctrines and man's thoughts and good deeds. He's tried doing everything he can to keep the family of God from walking in the liberty that's theirs in Jesus. Satan would have us still believing that God is more our problem than our answer. We still struggle in our walk with Him because we haven't allowed Him to be revealed to us through His Word. We have walked in mental assent more than in faith in much of our Christian walk.
Mental assent is dangerous and very deceptive in the believer's life. Sometimes mistaken for faith, this place of mental assent has made way for all the doctrines that cover our failures in God. We will declare that we believe the Word and will become upset at even any hint that we don't believe. Then, we build doctrines that excuse our unbelief and build up our own beliefs.
This mental assent is where so many different doctrines come from in the Body of Christ today. We've approached the Word and professed our faith in it, but we fail to act upon it. We've felt as though our prayer life was powerless and our ability to actually pray for the sick was just not there. We keep seeking experiences and a deeper place that would bring about the power we knew had to be there. We knew that we were supposed to have victory, but then decided it was still somehow for the future.
Mental assent has deceived us and we didn't realize we were still trying to become what God had already made us to be. The authority and ability we were seeking was already ours. We were deceived into thinking that because we couldn't memorize the scriptures or quote them, then we didn't believe them. However, Jesus said in Mark 16:17 (Amplified) that, "And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe; in My Name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages." Mental assent would say that we believe those words, but we don't do them. We were confronted with the fact that we say we believe God's Word, but we weren't able to see the power of it in our lives.
We began making excuses for why God's Word was failing in our lives. It never occurred to us that we were the ones who failed. We would have refuted anyone saying that the Word was untrue, but we still couldn't point to any such results in our lives. As believers, we would agree that what the scriptures say about our being the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, is true. Then, we would speak about ourselves like it wasn't true. We speak about our sinful nature, our past failures and our weaknesses. We count it an act of humility to come to the Father as someone who is dirty and unworthy and not righteous through Jesus.
We've made more about sin than righteousness and we've acted like the power of sin was greater of stronger than our redemption. Faith in His Word would determine that the power of His redemption has made us absolute righteous and has given us the ability to stand in God's presence free from sin and condemnation (like it never happened).
Mental assent made our prayer life a place of crying and pleading for God to hear us. We've kept trying to "pray through." When you know Jesus and use the Name of Jesus, you've already prayed through. We didn't realize that our place as joint-heirs with Christ and the authority of His Name, gave legal right in prayers, even though we knew all the promises about prayer.
James 1:22-24 (Amplified) says that, "But be doers of the Word (obey the message) and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves (into deception by reasoning contrary to the truth). For if anyone listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his (own) natural face in a mirror, For he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like."
James 1:5-8 (Amplified) tells us that, "If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God (Who gives) to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproach or fault finding, and it will be given him." Verse 6 says, "Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitation, no doubting) for the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind." Verses 7-8 go on, "For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything (he asks for) from the Lord, (for being as he is) a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute) he is unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything (he thinks, feels and decides)."
We believe that God's Word is true and we confess that we believe in prayer, but we can ask for wisdom and not receive because of being double-minded. James says that being double-minded is like we are a man of two minds. Even when we ask for wisdom and God gives the wisdom, we still doubt that it was actually God and reason away the wisdom He gave us.
Mental assent has caused so many different doctrines and areas of unbelief in the Church,. On one hand we say we believe (mental assent), but then we don't ask in faith. James 1:6 (Amplified) says, "Let him ask in faith without wavering." This dangerous play on faith or mental assent is so subtle that we haven't made the connection in our lives.
In the natural mind, we would never dare say that God lied to us, so we confess that the Word is true and we believe it, but we never act on what it says in faith. We make up religious sounding excuses for why the Word doesn't work in order to cover our lack of faith in it. This is a battle raging in the unrenewed mind of a born again believer. He is born again, he is a child of God and he has all the promises of the Father in Christ Jesus, but nothing is working for him. He doesn't know why things don't work, so he makes up things to console his unrenewed mind.
We've created so many doctrines for our Christian walk to cover our lack of trust in the Word. We say that God has allowed all of these things to happen to teach us. This might be one of the most used terms of our carnal minds, "God doesn't do these things anymore." Another often used verse of unbelief is, "God doesn't do these things for everyone."
All of these excuses come from the mind of self righteousness and mental assent. It's self righteousness because, after all, if God were going to heal anyone in these last days, then wouldn't He have healed me? So, if I didn't get healed, then I won't believe that God won't heal me because I don't believe. Self righteousness says that "As good a Christian as I am, healing must have passed away."
This mental assent is so close to what we consider faith that it's difficult to tell the difference unless we look deeper into the Word. Satan will come instantly with accusations and condemnation against us for lack of faith. This place in the life of a believer is something every believer goes through and will go through. Learning to trust God at His Word comes one step at a time.
First, we must believe that we have been forgiven and accepted. This in itself, takes time. Satan is "Johnny on the spot" to tell you it didn't work. So, now, we mentally assent to the fact of our salvation at first. We sometimes have doubts about it for awhile because we still do some of the dumb things we did before we were saved. After being with other Christians for awhile and being in the Word, we begin to see some changes in our lives. Now, we can go from mental acceptance to faith in receiving.
As we grow in our walk with the Father, we put more and more faith in His Word. We must always remember what Paul said in Romans 12:2 (Amplified), "Do not be conformed to this world (this age), fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs by being transformed (changed) by the (entire) renewal of your mind (by its new ideals and its new attitude)."
If we don't allow the Word to change our way of thinking, then we will allow the world to control our way of thinking. This is something that every individual believer must do for himself. We will always think one way or the other, depending on what you hear and what you do with what you hear. Some will go on to greater revelation and some will not.
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