When the Holy Spirit regenerated us, we received the uncreated life of God. This life is powerful and without limitation. It is not restricted by space or time. But if our heart has problems, God’s life will be greatly hindered. If there are problems with our conscience, our mind, our will, or our emotions, God’s life will be hindered. God’s life has been imparted into our spirit, but this life desires to spread out and move into the different parts of our inward being. If there is any part in us which has problems, this life will be hindered and stopped.
Everyone who belongs to the Lord by God’s grace has God’s life in him. This is definite and cannot be denied. That God’s life is alive and lives in us also cannot be denied. Because we have God’s life in us, we receive revelation and enlightenment. His voice and feeling are within us. Why then do so many of God’s children say, “I do not receive revelation or enlightenment, and I do not have His voice or feeling”? Does this mean that God’s life in them is not real? Does it mean that God’s life is not living? No, God’s life is definitely real and definitely alive. Furthermore, God’s life is living in them. The reason they do not receive revelation or enlightenment, the reason they do not hear His voice nor sense the feeling, is because on their part there is a heart problem. Perhaps there is a problem in the conscience. Some sin which the conscience is condemning may need to be dealt with. Or perhaps the mind has the problem of being full of anxieties, worries, evil thoughts, reasonings, or doubts. There may be a problem with the will, such as stubbornly holding on to our opinion or being unwilling to obey. The emotion also may be full of fleshly desires or natural inclinations. At any rate, there is some part in the heart which has a problem.
God’s life has been imparted into us, and this life wants to move out from the spirit. But on our part we do not allow it to get through. Sometimes our conscience will not allow it through; sometimes our mind will not let it through; sometimes our will, and at other times our emotions, will not allow the life through. Therefore God’s life cannot manifest itself through us. We must remember that when God’s life moves through us it must pass through the different parts of our heart. If any part of the heart has problems, it will hinder the moving of God’s life.
This can be proved by Ephesians 4:17-19: “This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the nations also walk in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, estranged from the life of God because of the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; who having ceased from feeling have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness in greedy unsatisfied lust.” The word “mind” in verse 17 is nous in the Greek text. This word is used twenty-four times in the New Testament. Sometimes it is translated “mind” (as in Luke 24:45; Rom. 1:28; 7:23, 25; 11:34; 12:2; 14:5; 1 Cor. 1:10; 2:16; Eph. 4:17, 23; Col. 2:18; 2 Thes. 2:2; 1 Tim. 6:5; 2 Tim. 3:8; Titus 1:15; Rev. 17:9), and other times “understanding” (as in 1 Cor. 14:14-15, 19; Phil. 4:7; Rev. 13:18). The word nous in meaning includes both mind and understanding. In our human being there are three organs of perception: in our body there is the brain, in our spirit there is the intuition, and in our soul there is the mind. Our mind should be governed by our intuition. We all understand the matter of the brain in our body, but the intuition is hidden and less obvious. Sometimes we feel it and sometimes we do not; sometimes it urges us and sometimes it stops us. This we call the intuition. In between the intuition and the brain is our mind. The mind expresses the meaning of the intuition and causes the brain to make it clear. However, even if our intuition is strong and our brain is healthy, if the mind has a problem, the meaning within us cannot be made known. The nous in Ephesians 4:17 is an organ which is capable of thinking. It can be likened to our eyes. But the word “understanding” in verse 18, which in Greek is dianoia, defines the function of this organ and can be likened to our seeing. It is the power to understand.
Man’s vain mind (the nous) is his imagination, his “castles in the air.” This kind of mind is always filled with vain thoughts. On a certain occasion, after a preacher had finished his message, he asked some in the congregation to pray. In the course of one man’s prayer, he said something about 250 strings of money. (In those days money was counted by strings.) The mind of this man was entirely filled with the imaginations of wealth. When God’s life moved into this part of his being, how could it pass through? From this example, we see that whether it be a person, a matter, or a thing, it can all become an imagination to occupy our mind. Whenever our mind is occupied by some imagination, God’s life is choked (Matt. 13:22).
When a man’s mind is occupied by some imagination, his understanding becomes darkened and the power to understand becomes weakened. Once there was a young Christian who was occupied by a certain matter. He continued to turn the matter over and over in his mind until he was fully exhausted by it. At one moment he thought it was God’s will; at another moment he thought it was not God’s will. His mind was continually turning, with the result that he became confused. This means that his dianoia, his understanding, became darkened.
The reasons the mind becomes vain, the understanding darkens, and we become estranged from the life of God are due to our inner ignorance and the hardness of our heart which cause us to forsake all feeling. The heart may become hardened to such an extent that it no longer has any feeling. For this reason, the source of the problem is in the heart.
In summary, we can say that when the heart is hardened, we become estranged from the life of God, we become ignorant and unable to understand. The result is that the growth of life is hindered. Therefore, we must realize that it is not that the law of life does not move in us—the law of life is always waiting to spread out through our inward parts. However, if the different parts of our heart have problems, the moving of the life will be hindered. Thus, in order for the life of God to spread and move without hindrance, the heart must first have no problem.