Human Nature and Spiritual Nature

Galatians 3:23. "Before the coming of this faith we were held in custody under the law"

There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is: to understand human nature is not complicated.  It is simple. It is The Law. The Law says we must do God's will to feel God's Love. If we do not do God's will, we will not feel God's Love. If we change our ways to do God's will we will get back into feeling God's Love.

What this means, is our human nature is based on, "our thoughts create our feelings about what happens to us." When what happens to us goes well, we feel at Peace.  When our relationships go well, we feel loved.  When we do well, we feel happy.  If what happens to us does not go well, we must change the event to feel at Peace, or the relationship to feel loved, or change what we do to regain happiness.

The problem arises because if we cannot change the event, we will feel upset; or change the relationship, we will feel unloved; or what we do, we will feel miserable.

It is like feeling upset when spilling a glass of red wine on the table cloth our mother-in-law gave us.  All we need to do to feel at Peace is change the event by sending the cloth out to be cleaned.  What if it cannot be cleaned?  Then we can change the way we think about it.  Besides, our mother-in-law never liked us and we never really liked her. She will never know about the stain and it becomes no big deal.  We suddenly remember the cloth was not given, but borrowed. We have to give it back. The stain will never come out so we will always feel upset when we think of it. The mother-in-law is furious with us, so there will be no closure in the relationship.  She will constantly remind us of what we did, being sure we never forget about it. That is our human relationship dilemma.

The bad news is, we cannot change our human nature. The good news is, while we cannot change human nature, we can transcend it. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "I am coming from above. You are coming from the world.  You are coming from this world (human nature); I am not of coming from this world (coming from spiritual nature). John 8:23

Jesus was coming not from our human nature but from the spiritual nature which all of us have within ourselves. We transcend our human nature by going "up" and "in" our spiritual nature.  "Up" meaning we use our conscious heart faculty, not our "down" rational head faculty, so we can move from "out" to "in". That is, to feel the Presence.  We are saved by faith which is using our spiritual nature to experience God's Presence.

Experiencing the Presence means we can feel Peace "in", not "about", the cloth being stained permanently.  We can feel the Love of God in our hearts, even if the other person is furious with us. We can be in the Joy of the Lord, even if reminded about what we did. We are able to transform the event in our spiritual nature with a wisdom we would never have in our human nature.  We will find we no longer are a victim of a past event, and there is closure in it for it no longer is unforgettable.