Pentecost II Proper 5 Mark 3:20-35

"All sins will be forgiven, and whatever blasphemies are uttered, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."

Rational thinking looks at different things in the same way.

Conscious thinking looks at the same thing in a different way.

Transform your way of thinking by changing what you read rationally to how you read spiritually.

The best way to work with it is to just ignore it. Focus on the breaking of the Sabbath or the fact that His family thought he was crazy. You can always rationalize it.

Rationally, we let our theology define the words of Jesus. Rationally, for some, it means there is absolutely no forgiveness for one who defames the Holy Spirit. It means to some, if you defame the Holy Spirit you will not be forgiven no matter what you have done. We can become persons deeply troubled by a guilty conscience. We fear we have sinned too grievously against the Holy Spirit and cannot be forgiven.

On the other side, rationally, one can believe everyone has been forgiven on the cross two thousand years ago. If you sin against the Holy Spirit, just go to Jesus and He will forgive you. At the extreme, this is thinking you can commit any form of sin and at the last moment ask to be forgiven by Jesus. None of this makes sense.

Spiritually, we let the words of Jesus define our theology. It means looking at the Scripture for some new Wisdom. What would be defaming the Holy Spirit? It would be a denial of the Power and Presence of the grace of God. What is the difference between the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the Father? The difference is two are above spiritually and one is with us now; the Holy Spirit is here with us now. It is the Spirit of Jesus whom God has poured into our hearts. Gal 4

God's forgiveness through Jesus is always there. No matter what it is, we can always be forgiven. We need to distinguish between that which is eternal and that which in the moment. The Holy Spirit is a moment to moment movement of God. In Genesis the opening words are about how the Spirit moved across the waters. This was a movement of the Spirit of God. There are times when the Spirit has moved in our lives. There is a difference if we respond to the movement or not. If we do not, it does not mean the Spirit will not move again. It means we lost the opportunity of moving with the Spirit at that time.

An example of this would be a retreat our church had in the mountains. There was another priest who had about four other men who joined us. They did not exactly join us. They went off on their own. They seemed to be mocking some of the things we were doing.  They had a few beers and remained aloof for the next three days. At the end of the conference, we had feedback from some sixty people. The four sat in back of the group. After the feedback, as they were leaving to go, they all made a similar comment. "This was a very spiritual time and we missed it." Even if they decided to come back the next week, they still would have missed that moment the Lord moved.

We never know when that moment will be. When we do not respond we miss the mark which is the definition of sin. We are not forgiven, that is, the moment is lost to us. We can have more moments but they will never be that one. We do not have to regret moments we have missed. We need to learn from them, to be ready because we never know what God will do next. Rationally, we think it is no secret what God will do. Spiritually, we never know how God will do it next.

Know this: God Loves to surprise us. For Him, every day is Christmas time. Be ready for the gifts, but don't try to rationally peek before His time.

What is next for you? If you don't know, you are ready for anything. You are as prepared as you can be for the passing moment of the Spirit. Don't let your rational mind get in the way of your spiritual conscious Wisdom.