February 16, 2001

Monica,

I see more and more how the divine nature of God in us at our rebirth works out into our flesh if we let the flesh-nature die. The Bible says to pick up your cross daily and follow him. That is dying to the flesh nature and letting your spirit do the living. God has already put his divine nature within us; he has given us a free gift of righteousness. He has also put certain gifts within each of us for his glory. That gift will shine forth as the old nature is denied.

I heard two wonderful though sad examples of this today on Creation in the 21st Century on TBN. One is an artist/sculpture; the other is a musician.

One was born with cerebral palsy, had his eyes removed by the doctors as a infant because they were useless. In fact, they did not think he would live. His mother refused to take the "glob" home; she left him in the hospital. Still alive at six month of age, he was adopted in the Lemke family. Leslie Lemke with no eyes, little coordination because of the cerebral palsy, and not more than trainable level intelligence began showing signs of a genius-level gift for music. When he was two, his parents found him under the bed playing a recognizable tune on the bed springs. When he was five, there was a symphony playing in the background of a program the Lemke’s were watching. The boy heard the symphony one time and went to the piano and played the entire symphony flawlessly. I saw and heard video of him playing today as an adult. He cannot eat by himself; he cannot tie his shoes; he cannot dress himself; but with palsied limbs he can play complete symphonies flawlessly on the piano.

A man who finally learned to print Olonsa on his paintings does genius-level paintings and sculptures with similar mental ability. As a child he saw dolphins one time on TV, and from clay he sculpted dolphins that experts class as genius-level work.

God is showing us that our brains have nothing to do with the outflowing of the gifts he puts in us. In fact, our brains can get in the way. That is why we have to get more and more sensitive to our spirits and more and more dead to our flesh nature. Our flesh has a purpose, but our spirits must rule. Then what Father has put in us will flow out so beautifully!

This is also why we have to be led by the Spirit and not by the written law even though we end up doing just about the same things the law would require. As long as we are just putting on righteousness from the outside, the flow is not there. God wants us led by the Holy Spirit. We will more than fulfill the law, but it will flow out of the divine nature of God within us instead of being put on like filthy rags from the outside.

Love,

Dad