Senses That Make Sense
Dear Family,
Much of the information we gather during the course of any given day comes to us via our five senses. And the vast majority of their purpose and usefulness is to produce and enjoy pleasure!
With the eyes, color, so much color! The information is not delivered in black and white as it could be. It is in color!
With smell, fragrance so appealing and so specific it can lift you mentally to places nothing else can.
With taste, flavors abound! Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, roast chicken, a grilled hot dog, delicious!
With touch, feeling the wind against your skin, the soft clean sheets as you wrap yourself in bed.
With hearing, a babbling brook, a symphony, leaves rustling in the wind on a fall day.
I am told when one loses one or more of the five senses the others left become heightened to almost a super human level to compensate for those missing.
Perhaps you can relate to this but in my life during times of mental and emotional pain I seem to lose the full effect of all the five senses. Color is not so bright, fragrances are not so pleasant, taste becomes bland, and my personal favorite, touch, becomes almost nonexistent.
However, the information that comes from one’s heart and delivered to one’s soul is always accurate and perhaps even more crucial and heightened during times of extreme pain and stress. Even though the five senses do have a powerful effect on the mind, the heart perfected by the presence of the Holy Spirit in each human being has much greater and far-reaching implications than do the five senses on our respective brains.
If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you now are well aware of my modus operandi. Yes, my “M.O.”, my “go-to and default position” is always the Gospel. I’m so proud of it! It is the Power of God to the saving of the soul!
Paul said,” God has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.”
Where do those four incredible qualities reside for every human everywhere? In their heart, that’s where.
Since the Cross of Christ, His Resurrection, Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the heart has become a vast resource for truth about these four realities—wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. This is critical: these four characteristics of God are no longer what we are called to pursue, obtain, or aspire to as Christianity so diabolically teaches. All human beings already have them all! They are as close as your pulse and as vital as the blood coursing through your veins.
The process of information received to the brain comes one of two ways. Either it comes from the exterior stimulating the five senses OR internally from the heart imputed with God’s very own characteristics.
The brain is an amazing machine. In actuality the eyes do not see, the brain does. Taste buds do not taste, the brain does. Skin doesn’t feel the brain does. The ears do not hear the brain does!
The gates of the five senses are just that, gates. The Gospel, the Scriptures which foretold the Gospel, is to the brain what the five senses are. The five senses gather information from the external world. The Gospel gathers information from the internal world, your heart where the Kingdom of God exists, and conveys it to the brain.
When guilt and judgment are predominant in the brain, you cannot just simply enjoy color. You must JUDGE the color. As with all the five senses, when we are under the cloud of legalism and religion we cannot simply enjoy color, taste, feel, aroma, or sound. The pleasure which our senses are designed to deliver is truncated by Christian-thought. We first must judge it! Or we feel guilty by being associated with it. Taken to their extreme, we see the serious sects of all religions stripping their worlds to the best of their ability of as much color, sound, and visuals as possible. Yuck!
On the other hand, the Gospel of Grace and the Gospel of Peace opens a flood gate of reality to flow from your heart, from every person’s heart, directly to the brain or the soul. And what is the Gospel’s #1 assignment? To remove guilt and judgment from the brain is the Gospel’s priority! And with laser like precision God’s revealed grace removes guilt and His peace removes judgment.
The brain ruled by guilt and judgment sees a colorless world. The brain can no longer “see” color. Color has been judged. It cannot produce feelings that can border on the euphoric. The color carries with it guilt. It is like a seriously faded shirt or blouse. Life becomes gray, taking on the pale of death. And although the faded garment might feel comfortable because of your familiarity with it, it really doesn’t look good on you anymore. And you know it.
The brain NEEDS stimulation! The brain NEEDS pleasure! But mostly the brain NEEDS salvation!
Without the full stimuli of the five senses, due to the filters of guilt and judgment, the brain experiences many kinds of mental and emotional maladies. Addictions of all kinds run rampant in this colorless and guilt ridden world.
However, by continually cleansing the brain with the Gospel through meditation, discussion, reading, listening—by consistently saving the soul—the brain can now see, hear, smell, taste and touch to its highest designed level rewarding the human it works for!
Void of guilt and judgment our senses finally can make sense!
At one time in my life I was so distraught by the guilt and judgment of a religiously tormented mind that I remember not even being able feel the comfort of fresh sheets when getting into my bed. I never want to be that emotionally dead again. And with the Gospel of God’s Peace and Grace, I don’t have to be and neither do YOU!
Much Love,
Michael