Shortcut thinking

Isaiah 40:22 says, “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.”

Jordan says, “You read that, and if you just take it like it says, what would you think the earth looked like? Nobody that ever believed the Bible bought in to the scientific error of believing there’s a flat earth. If you wanted to be scientifically astute you’d have believed what the Bible said about the earth being a sphere. It says that he ‘sitteth upon the circle of the earth.’ He’s the head of creation, the head of the government of the earth.

“I love that grasshopper business. Leviticus 11, talking about the diet stuff where Israel can’t eat this and can’t eat that, but there’s one verse that says Israel could eat grasshoppers: ‘Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.’

“They could eat locusts and then He said, ‘You can eat the bald locust.’ I’ve always said, ‘If you find a bald locust, grab him, will you, I want to try him out!’ That’s why John the Baptist came eating locust and wild honey. He came eating a clean diet. That’s the idea there.

“Isaiah 40:15 says, ‘Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.’ It’s one of those hundred or so phrases in your language that comes right out of a King James Bible. When he says the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers, he’s saying, ‘You know what, we don’t tell him what to do. He’s the king; he’s the head. Not us.’

"Isaiah 40:22.  Who stretched them out? God did. Who spread them out as a tent to dwell in? God did. You see, Israel understood that when Moses wrote Genesis 1:1 he was writing it to people who already understood what this passage said. They already knew God created the heaven and the earth as a tent for Him to dwell in—not just us but Him!

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“Don’t let the world decide how you are thinking, what you’re filling your mind with. You might have to turn the boob tube off or even throw it out. Don’t let them set the standard for how your thinking process operates. That verse will clean your plow—it will clean your mind and your life.

“Paul writes in Romans 12:2, ‘And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.’

“The motivation is I want to take who I am in Christ and apply it to my life. I’m going to do it by not letting the world set the standard for me, but letting the doctrine of God’s Word set the standard. I’m going to do it by replacing the inferior, worthless thinking process of the world with the new way of thinking that God gives me.

“God is giving you the capacity through rightly dividing His Word to think like He thinks, to understand what the real issues of life are, not the dust out there in the world.

“Folks, people are trying to do things to get power and money for themselves. And when you get up to those levels you don’t get there if you’re not a system person because that’s why the answer isn’t in all that stuff. The answer’s in changing peoples’ hearts.

“Galatians 3:3 says, ‘Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’ There’s a verse you need to consider regularly. It’s foolish to say, ‘I began in the Spirit, complete in Christ, blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, therefore God needs my intellect and my emotions to advance me.’ If you live thinking God is going to bless you more tomorrow based on what you do for Him today, you’ve missed the point. You’re in that verse.

“Foolish means you’re slow in your thinking. Lazy-minded is really what the word is. God doesn’t need your intellect or your emotions. He already gave you what you need in Christ.

“Renewing your mind, you need to replace the worthless, inferior thinking of human viewpoint with this new way of thinking that comes from God’s Word. You see, God giving you His Word is He gives you His thinking. You literally have the divine viewpoint about issues.

“If you take Romans 12, Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, you can find a half-dozen answers for every question you’re asking yourself tonight. Every problem you face you’ll find the beginning, if not the complete, set of instructions for you to follow. You will discover in there answers for every situation you’re facing. You know how I know that? For 50 years I’ve been reading those passages just for that reason. Now that’s a quick shortcut.”