There’s a denial of spiritual realities in our world today that’s quite funny and also can be very dangerous. People talk about technology and the advantages modernization provides but downplay the existence of spiritual or supernatural realities. As funny as this seems, I think there’s also an unseen force pushing this thought pattern today.
The origin of man
Moses writes that man was made from dust and inanimate until God put His spirit in him. This shows us that man is spiritual at the core of his being. Man can relate with God in and through his spirit. The man was made to relate with God in the spirit. Man was made in God’s image to be spiritual. This is a vital quality man shares with God since man emanated from God.
The denial of this fact is a denial of an important aspect of our identity. When you check properly, you’ll see that those talking about the inexistence of God almost always downplay the supernatural, too. Whenever we do this, we are at sea concerning our proper identity. If we say God doesn't exist then the question arises about who we are and what our origins are. And where we don’t care about the supernatural being real, we are also oblivious to the existence of the devil or the spiritual dark side.
See how Moses starts out in the beginning. He talks about God creating the heavens and the earth then proceeds to talk about the chaos in the earth and how darkness was over the face of the deep. But he didn’t stop there. He’d write about God’s action in this chaos. His Spirit moved upon the waters. This happened even before the seas were created. That shows there’s more to that statement than just creation taking place. But more importantly, we are introduced to God’s personality as spiritual.
The great temptation
So, where we see and know God properly, there’s no confusion about who we are. And this is why there’s so much confusion on earth today. The devil is the master of lies and the father of it. He wants to trick people into believing God doesn’t exist or that he doesn’t exist. It’s the cause of the despair all around the world today. And men often bite this bait, not knowing they are falling for this age-old temptation.
Men want to trust their minds and their machines. They want to remain connected to the things they created for themselves. They won’t just accept the easy truth about God and, in the process, settle the truth about their own identity in their hearts. The unseen adversary set against them sets them on a futile search for truth outside of God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
But for believers who are attuned to this reality, we know that it’s an old trick, one as old as the Garden of Eden. The devil works daily in deceiving and pulling a curtain over people's minds, getting them to disregard the existence of God or what He’s said. This will, of course, plunge them into confusion and darkness, which is where he gains preeminence over their minds, but these people are ignorant of this.
God’s plan.
This is, however, against God’s plan for them. Again, even the things God created are a pointer to God’s own existence. This was Paul’s argument in Romans 1. He’d posit that the visible things we see are all pointers to God’s invisibility. Of Course, Jesus sheds light on God’s invisibility by calling God a Spirit in John 4. So, you see, a fundamental way to understand our identity is to see ourselves in God as He sees us, and that’s in His image. He’s spirit; He’s made us spiritual, too.
Much of the dependence of the world today on drugs, psychedelics, sex, drive for money, inordinate desire for power, etc., is to fill that void that God only created in a man for Himself. This is, in reality, not a gap, as it were, but simply the core of man reaching out for that which makes it complete, which is a relationship with the Father of Spirits. The Spirit our spirits originated from. So, you see, that desire to know God or to reach for something supernatural and out of the ordinary is perfectly normal. We only need to direct this need and desire in the right direction.
Jesus is the way to God. He is the Truth, which means there’s no other way, and He is Life, which means that in knowing Him, we know the Father. And in knowing the Father, we answer the questions about our own identity and why we are on earth. This Life will also remove the veil over our minds and expose the adversary who is set to turn God and man against each other. This will, in fact, hurt the man, but he’s often oblivious to this.
A way out?
The solution will be to study the Word of God after we have received this eternal life to know God better and to know ourselves better as God’s children. This is the way to unlearn the ways of the world we’ve learned in the past and walk in our new nature. This is how we get to walk in God’s plan for our lives because now our spirits are in union with the Father of Spirits, and our Spirits find rest in Him.
The knowledge of God is the end of all confusion for man and the end of ignorance of spiritual realities. And like I always tell my atheist friends, whether you believe it or not, there is a world out there you can’t see but which exerts its power on the visible. Take advantage of the Word of God and learn of Jesus. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
A great reminder of the essence of spiritual growth in Christ.