THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL STRENGTH

Here is Yehovah’s secret to spiritual strength: “For thus says Yehovah Elohim - God, the Holy One of Israel: ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength’” (Isaiah 30:15, NKJV).

Note: The word for quietness in Hebrew means “repose.” Repose means calm, relaxed, free from all anxiety, to be still, to lie down with support underneath.

Not many in Christendom today have this kind of quietness and confidence. Multitudes are involved in a frenzy of activity, rushing madly to obtain wealth and pleasure. Even in the ministry, Yehovah’s servants run about worrying, fearing and looking for answers in conferences and best-selling books. Everyone wants guidance or something to calm their spirit. They seek solutions in every source except from Yehovah. They don’t realize Yehovah Elohim - God has already spoken a word for them through Isaiah. If they don’t turn to him as their source, their striving will end in sorrow and confusion.

Isaiah describes what Yehovah Elohim's - God's righteousness is supposed to accomplish in us. “The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever” (Isaiah 32:17). If we’re truly walking in righteousness, our lives will bear the fruit of a calm spirit, quietness of heart and peace with God.

As Isaiah looked around, he saw Yehovah’s people fleeing to Egypt for help, trusting in men, relying on horses and chariots. Ambassadors were coming and going. Leaders were holding emergency strategy meetings. Everyone was in a panic, wailing, “What can we do?”

Isaiah assured them, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Return from your backsliding. Repent of your rebellion of trusting in others. Turn to Yehovah, and he’ll cover you with a blanket of peace. He’ll give you quietness and rest in the midst of everything you’re facing.”

Beloved, the same is true for us today. The New Testament confirms it. The Messiah Jesus told his disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

Remember that Jesus told us to know that every word he spoke was given him by his God and Father to speak. John 12:49  For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father who sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. John 12:50  And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. John 14:10  Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works.

So when Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" He is speaking forth the words God gave him to speak. It is God whose peace is with us and He makes sure we will recieve it because He has given to the lord Messiah power over all of His creation Himself excluded. Everything that the Messiah Jesus does he accomplished as the one Yehovah has assiagned to do so, according to His will.

We must hold fast to the words our God and Father has given to us to live by, no matter what the circumstances are around us. We can if we will draw upon the indwelling power of the Spirit of our loving Father that He has given us to accomplish all He wants us to do according to His will. So in reality it is all of Him and nothing of us except to be totally committed to walking in faith obedience before Him.

Written by David Wilkerson (1931-2011), edited by Bruce Lyon

WHEN YOU HURT LINGERS

In one way or another, we are all hurting. Every person on earth carries his own burden of pain. When you are deeply hurt, no person on earth can shut down the inner fears and deepest agonies. Not the best of friends can understand the battle you are going through or the wounds inflicted on you.

This is what the Psalmist was wrestling with in Psalm 6:6-7, “I am weary with my groaning; all night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows old because of all my enemies.”

Is there a balm for a broken heart? Is there healing for those deep, inner hurts? Can the pieces be put back together and the heart be made even stronger?

Yes! Absolutely yes. Yehovah our God didn’t promise you a painless way of life. He promised you “a way of escape.” He promised to help you bear your pain, strength to put you back on your feet when weakness makes you stagger.

Our loving Father said, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NKJV).

Your heavenly Father watches over you with an unwavering eye. Every move is monitored. Every tear is noticed. He identifies with your every pain. He feels every hurt. He will never allow you to drown in your tears. He will not permit your hurt to deteriorate your mind. He promises to come, right on time, to wipe away your tears and give you joy for mourning.

Paul encouraged the called-out Assembly, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4).

You have the ability to make your heart rejoice and be glad in Yehovah. His eye is on you, and He commands us to rise up and shake off all those fears causing doubt.

Written by David Wilkerson (1931-2011) and edited by Bruce Lyon

IS MIND MERELY MATTER?

Is there a fundamental problem in the search for AGI - Artificail General Intelligence? Is there some assumption being made that dooms researchers’ efforts to reproduce the human mind through microchips and networks; some missing element that keeps true AGI, forever out of reach?

Attempts to create genuinely human-like intelligence and its associated characteristics; consciousness, free will, and abstract thinking; have been rooted in fundamentally materialist assumptions from the very beginning.

Researchers take for granted that the material world; the physical matter and energy of the universe and the physical forces that act upon them; is all there is to reality. Their work relies on the idea that matter is essentially all there is to mind.

And, truly, matter does have its effect on the human mind. Humans are physico-chemical beings. Like the rest of creation around us, we are made of particular arrangements of atoms and molecules. The human brain: which plays an essential role in the human mind; is clearly a physical object, made up of a vast network of neurons engaging in intricate chemical and electrical transmissions. Neuroscientists have many tools that allow them to measure how different activities and feelings excite different regions of the brain. Studies show that damage to the brain can dramatically alter one’s personality, and researchers have found that applying a magnetic field to a portion of the brain can even affect the moral choices a person makes.

Unquestionably, our physical brains play a vital role in making us who we are.

MIND OVER MATTER

There is abundant evidence that our minds are also more than our brains; that something outside the physical, chemical confines of the human brain also contributes powerfully to the human mind.

In this regard, neurosurgeon Egnor frequently points to the work of two famed individuals in his field of brain science: Roger Sperry and Wilder Penfield.

Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his famous split-brain research with human subjects whose corpus callosum had been severed; the connection between the right and left halves of their brains had been completely removed. The subjects seemed to function just fine, even with one half of the brain completely unable to communicate with the other. But Sperry’s tests teased out intriguing details; such as finding instances when subjects could not describe an object seen by just one eye, as the brain’s language center was located in the hemisphere lacking access to the image that eye saw.

But he also found that his subjects’ normal powers of reasoning and abstract thought were intact. Surgery had limited the information to which they had access: the right eye, for instance, could only pass information to the left hemisphere; but the ability to reason, make conjectures, and think conceptually was not diminished in the slightest, even though their brains were literally severed into two distinct parts, each unable to communicate with the other.

To fully account for his research results, Sperry concluded, one must consider the realm of ideas and consciousness not simply as a byproduct of the brain’s chemicals and molecules, but rather as vital elements that act on those chemicals and molecules. “Mental forces in this particular scheme are put in the driver’s seat, as it were,” Sperry concluded. “They give the orders and they push and haul around the physiology and physicochemical processes as much as or more than the latter control them. This is a scheme that puts mind back in its old post, over matter, in a sense; not under, outside, or beside it” ("Mind, Brain, and Humanist Thinking," The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1966).

Simply reducing the human mind to the physical components of the brain, in Sperry’s formulation, fails to account for the complex activity of human thought, consciousness, and will.

While not denying that humans possess a physical brain like that of the animals, Sperry concluded that his view of the mind “does deny, however, that the higher human properties in the mind and nature of man are the same as, or are reducible to, the components from which they are fashioned.”

Another suggestion that “mind” transcends the physical brain is found in neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield’s advances in the field of brain surgery to control epilepsy. Penfield found that, when performing brain surgery on conscious patients, he could prompt them to experience particular phenomena by stimulating different parts of the brain. Patients would experience sights, odors, and other physical sensations: even emotions: prompted by nothing more than his electrical stimulation of parts of the brain.

Yet he noticed that one outcome never resulted from his work: No poking or prodding of the brain ever produced an abstract thought in a patient. It never produced a movement in the patient’s intellect or conceptual thinking. While physical sensations could be teased physically out of his patients’ brains, abstract thoughts and concepts could not. In fact, as patients could communicate with him and reason about the illusory sensations he was prompting, he understood that their human intellect, reasoning, and will stood in some way apart from the work he was doing on the physical brain.

Although Penfield began his career as a materialist; believing that there was no more to the human mind than the collection of material that makes up the brain; his 30-year career in neurosurgery forced him to reconsider that position and conclude the opposite: that something exists outside the brain, completing the human mind and contributing to its higher faculties.

THE MISSING INGREDIENT

The idea that Sperry and Penfield developed through their research; that the human mind is not completely reducible to the physical components of the brain and possesses some additional  element; is actually reflected in the inspired pages of your Bible. There, we are told that “there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding” (Job 32:8).

Indeed, it is the spirit in man that gives him knowledge and comprehension: “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?” (1 Corinthians 2:11).

This is not an immortal soul; it is an essential God-given element of the mortal human mind, making men and women who and what they are.

The spirit in man and the remarkable human brain combine to produce the phenomenon we know as the human mind.

Just as a player sitting at a piano produces music, the human spirit and human brain work together to make thoughts, plans, and consciousness possible. Separate the player and piano, and the music stops. Similarly, separate the human spirit from the human brain, and thoughts cease.

Indeed, the book of Psalms describes the human condition at death: “His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:4, World English Bible).

Consider the difference between a “player piano”; a piano with a rotating drum that can reproduce preprogrammed instructions to play its keys; and a seasoned musician sitting down at a finely tuned instrument to perform a masterpiece.  There may be a superficial similarity at first, but when the preprogrammed notes run out, the similarity ends. So, too, have all human attempts at creating AGI fallen short of the wondrous reality of the human mind.

We may; in fact, we almost certainly will come closer and closer to creating convincing imitations of the real thing. But the dream of truly and fully reproducing the wonder of the human mind through the realm of silicon and copper wire will likely remain just that: a dream.

LIMITED AI AND LIMITLESS HUMANITY

The human brain will continue to create fascinating approximations of itself as scientists develop ever-more-complex software that can interact with flesh-and-blood human beings. It will surely create broader and broader implementations of what today are narrow problem-solving artificial intelligences.

The more we advance in imitating ourselves through AGI, the more we will discover about the complex nuances of our own human image.

The more we learn in our attempts to “reproduce” our humanity, the more we learn about ourselves; including the amazing discovery that we are far more than an assembly of chemicals produced by repeatable physical processes.

We are in fact much more than the sum of our physical parts. We are truly something astonishing.

Indeed, how apt are these words attributed to Wilder Penfield: “How little we know of the nature and spirit of man and God. We stand now before this inner frontier of ignorance. If we could pass it, we might well discover the meaning of life and understand man’s destiny.”

Indeed, God reveals what mankind is unable to discover; not only that there is a spirit in man, but also that mankind has a wonderful destiny ordained by its Creator.

That destiny will not ultimately be found in man’s struggle to create technology in his own image, but in his rediscovering that he himself is made in the image of a creator God - Yehovah. With one foot planted in the physical realm and one in the spiritual, we bear the fingerprints of our Divine Designer in a way that should fill us with wonder and cause us to reflect: For what purpose has He made us so? And importantly: how have we aligned our lives in harmony with that purpose?

Our efforts to create something in our own image should impress upon us the humbling significance of the fact that we are made in His.

A MATTER OF FAITH

Life is short, but made up of millions of choices: Will you get up when your alarm sounds, or roll over and sleep in? What will you wear today? What will you make for breakfast; or will you even have breakfast? How will you treat those around you? Will you believe in God or in blind chance?

That last question may rankle evolutionists, as they generally do not like the expression “blind chance,” preferring to give credit to “the power of evolution.” But then there is Richard Dawkins’ book The Blind Watchmaker; so much for rejecting blind chance!

But life is short, a realization that sinks in more and more as each year passes by. Whether or not we believe in Yehovah Elohim - God is a choice. It is a choice because, if we are honest and inquisitive, we search out the evidence, weigh the evidence, and then choose what to believe based on the facts. “Examine all things. Firmly hold onto what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21, Modern English Version). We should accept neither blind chance nor blind faith. Facts do not negate faith, nor are facts a substitute for faith. Facts and faith must work together.

Beyond What We See

The children of Israel saw with their own eyes the opening of the Red Sea, and passed through it with walls of water on both sides of them. That was a fact of their actual experience, but it did not have any lasting effect on their thinking or behavior; this is where faith comes in as a different kind of evidence. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Many are familiar with the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were thrown into a furnace for defying a king’s order; but how many fully understand the story? Daniel 3 tells us that the famous King Nebuchadnezzar built a great image. Whenever the band struck up, everyone was to bow down before that image. Some jealous individuals;  apparently with tilted heads and open eyes; reported that these three young men refused to bow down and worship the image; the three were summarily hauled before an angry king and given one last chance.

Reading their response to the king’s command, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that they knew God would save them from the flames. But a careful reading of the account gives a more accurate picture.

Too often, people fail to recognize that Nebuchadnezzar’s question at the end of the ultimatum was rhetorical: “And who is the god who will deliver you from my hands?” (Daniel 3:15).

The king believed his power in the situation was supreme. Though no reply was needed or expected, these three young men gave the following bold and confident answer: “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up” (Daniel 3:16–18).

This was remarkable, considering the choice before them. They understood the king’s character and knew this was no idle threat and that Nebuchadnezzar would carry it out.

So, what did they mean when they said that “our God whom we serve is able to deliver us”? The emphasis should be on the first two words: Our God was their answer to the king’s question, “And who is the god who will deliver you from my hands?”

They answered without hesitation, despite the situation before them. As we read in the older King James Version, “Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer [you] in this matter.”

Principled people, secure in what they believe, have no need to think over a clear choice between right and wrong, and have no regard for the consequences of choosing right.

These three young men knew God was perfectly able to rescue them, but did they really expect to be rescued after being thrown in the furnace? Perhaps; but that isn’t necessarily implied in their response. They knew, based on the history of their people and all the recorded miracles; the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho, and a host of others; along with countless personal interventions for which we have no record, that God is real and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

So, what did they mean, “He will deliver us from your hand, O king”?

Remember, they did not know the end of the story. Would God change Nebuchadnezzar’s mind? Would the cavalry show up at the last minute, as in a suspenseful Western?

No matter: to these three young men of faith, bowing before this idol was beyond consideration. “But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.” Like Abraham, they were assured of a resurrection from the dead, over which Nebuchadnezzar had no power (Hebrews 11:17, 19). Centuries later, Jesus reminded others of this truth: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body  - your whole being in hell – Lake of Fire – Revelation 20:15” (Matthew 10:28).

It is easy to read this account and think that these were fearless super humans who knew what the outcome would be. They didn’t! Yes, they were undoubtedly men of faith and courage.

How many of us would have passed this fiery test? If we are honest, not many. How did they?

These three young men believed that Yehovah Elohim - God exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him; we see this in their choice to defy the king. And, like other men and women of faith, their faith was not blind.

David appreciated the wonder of divinely designed life (Psalm 139:13-16: For you have possessed my reins: you have covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are your works; and that my soul knows right well. My substance was not hid from you, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in your book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them).

Amazing, Yehovah in His foreknowledge knows our end from the beginning of our being!

David looked at the heavens and marveled at mankind’s place in God’s awesome creation (Psalm 8:3–4).

The Apostle Paul declared that God’s invisible attributes are so clearly evident in the natural world that those who reject Him are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

Note: Recognition and proof of God’s existence are not the same as faith.

That heart-of-our-being conviction of faith goes above and beyond physical facts seen with our eyes (2 Corinthians 5:7). The children of Israel saw mighty miracles but lacked the evidence of faith to enter the Promised Land. Yet those three young men, who did not see the miracles of the Exodus, who were standing before the greatest king of their time, chose to believe based on the evidence they did have. Their belief was hardened by a deep convictions of right and wrong. Daily choices regarding these convictions had set their character like stone. They understood the future beyond this short life and beyond the grave, believing in the hope of eternal life.

Looking to the Reward

Faith must be exercised when we don’t know the outcome.

That is the kind of faith Noah, Abraham, and many others possessed. “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:7–8, 13).

We all look around and realize that today’s world is heading for trouble such as never has been before; such terrible trouble that, without the return of Jesus the Messiah, human life will not continue (Matthew 24:21–22).

Realize that all of us have only a brief window of opportunity to choose life, everlasting life in the coming Kingdom of our God and Father Yehovah. Our lives are short; and the choices we make have everlasting consequences.

One of the most foundational scriptures in the Bible is Hebrews 11:6: “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego believed that Yehovah Elohim - God exists; and that He would reward them no matter what Nebuchadnezzar did to them. How about you?

WHEN WE FEEL LIKE WE ARE ALONE

“Hezekiah prospered in all his works. However, regarding the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, whom they sent to him to inquire about the wonder that was done in the land, God withdrew from him, in order to test him, that he might know all that was in his heart” (2 Chronicles 32:30-31, NKJV).

Often, while in the righteous pursuit of God’s work, the steward of Yehovah finds himself apparently forsaken, seemingly left all alone to battle the forces of Satan, this world and our own fleshly desires. Every man God has ever blessed has been proved in the same manner. Consider Abraham’s situation. “Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him… ‘Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…and offer him there as a burnt offering’” (Genesis 22:1–2). We know the end of the story, that a ram would be provided as Isaac’s substitute [pointing to what Jesus did when he became a sin-offering sacrifice for us], but the patriarch did not know this on his journey up the mountain.

Do you find yourself in strange circumstances? Do you feel forsaken and alone? Do you feel like you are fighting a losing battle with an unpredictable enemy? These are signs pointing to the proving process.

Victory is always the desired result; but should you fail, remember that it is what remains in your heart, that what God is most interested in is your attitude after you have won or lost the lonely battle. Your devotion to him in spite of failure is His desire.

Jesus [speaking as the agent - sent one - of his God and Father] has promised never to leave us or forsake us, but the record of scripture reveals there are seasons when our God and Father hides his presence to prove us. Even the Messiah Jesus experienced that lonely moment on the cross.

Notice: Psalm 22:1-31: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you hear not; and in the night season, and am not silent. But you are holy, O you that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in you: they trusted, and you did deliver them. They cried unto you, and were delivered: they trusted in you, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, he trusted on Yehovah that He would deliver him: let Him deliver him, seeing He delighted in him. But you are he that took me out of the womb: you did make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon you from the womb: you are my God from my mother’s belly. Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and you have brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.  But be not thou far from me, O Yehovah: O my strength, haste you to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth: for you have heard me from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise you. You that fear Yehovah, praise him; all you the seed of Jacob, glorify Him; and fear - reverence Him, all you the seed of Israel. For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither has He hid His face from him; but when he cried unto Him, he heard. My praise shall be of you in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear Him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise Yehovah that seek Him: your heart shall live for ever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto Yehovah: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before you. For the kingdom is Yehovah’s: and He is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before Him: and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to Yehovah for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He has done this.

Would that our God and Father will enable us to exercize this wonderful and all encompasing faith when we for a moment feel as if we are all alone not realizing that our God and Father is with us every step of the way!

We become so preoccupied in proving God that we have not prepared our hearts for the great tests of life whereby God proves us. Could it be that the great trial you are now facing, the burden you now carry, is actually God at work proving you?

Jesus says we are to take up our cross and follow him (see Matthew 16:24). What is that cross? It is the flesh with its frailness and sinfulness. Take it up, move on in faith, and his strength will be made perfect in you.

This is one of the saying that give me great hope and reminds me to seek to develop the attitude of mind that Habbakuk had when he was inspiried by Yehovah to write this:

Habbakuk 3:17-19: Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in Yehovah, I will joy in the God of my salvation.  Yehovah Elohim - God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

May we sing this in our hearts and rejoice on how much our God Yehovah loves us and cares for us, knowing that if anyone hurts us it is as if they poked God in the eye.

Zechariah 2:8: For thus says Yehovah of hosts; After the glory has He sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that touches you touches the apple of His eye.

That is how sensitive our God and Father is towards those who love Him and seek to serve Him continually! Amazing Grace that has saved a wretch like me!