Half of learning is learning. The other half of learning is unlearning. Unlearning is twice as hard as learning.
If you study the teachings of Jesus you will note that learning was not his primary goal. His primary goal was unlearning. He was engineering religious minds in reverse. For example in the Sermon on the Mount, He repeats two phrases over and over:
- “You have heard that it was said…”
- “But I tell you…”
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery’. But I tell you that whoever looks at a woman lustfully, has already committed adultery” (Matthew 5:28).
“You have heard it said ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy’. But I tell you, love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44).
So Jesus was seeking to unlearn His generation the disastrous lies that had been etched into their psyche.
So we see that half of spiritual growth is learning what we don’t know and the other half is unlearning what we do know. And mark this down – The failure to unlearn irrational fears and false prejudices keeps us from becoming who God wants us to be. We are born with only two fears, fear of falling and fear of loud noises, but mankind has conjured up 2000. That means that every other fear is learned and more importantly, that means that every other fear can be unlearned.
The lame man in John 5 is a shining example of the need of unlearning. He had been crippled for 38 years and assumed that he could only be healed if he was the first one into the pool of Bethesda when the waters were stirred. But Jesus uninstalled that false belief with one sentence, “Pick up your bed and walk.”
In a word, Jesus rewired the man’s brain which had kept him captive for 38 years.
Neurologically speaking that is what we do when we internalize Scripture. We are literally upgrading our minds by downloading the mind of Christ which is set forth in Scripture. We are specifically commanded in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform your thinking any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” I read that a computer hard drive needs to be defragmented to optimize performance. Our minds also need to be defragmented. But how do we defragment our minds? How do we get ourselves out of the mental pit we’ve gotten ourselves into? The way to upgrade your mind is to download or internalize Scripture.
Permit me to express this truth in a neurological way. “Doctors Avi Karni and Leslie Ungerleider of the National Institute of Mental Health did a fascinating study asking subjects to perform a simple motor task – a finger-tapping exercise. As subjects tapped, the doctors conducted an MRI to identify what part of the brain was being activated. The subjects then practiced the finger-tapping exercise for four weeks. In each instance, it revealed that the area of the brain involved in the task had expanded. That simple task – a finger-tapping exercise – literally recruited new nerve cells and rewired neuronal connections.”[1] As it were, when we internalize Scripture we are recruiting new nerve cells and rewiring our minds. The result is that we stop thinking human thoughts and start thinking God’s thoughts. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).
Final conclusion: The reason scores of men in MMM, young, middle aged and old, are being literally transformed is not because of Bill Bennett or Thad Faulk or Walt Fletcher. It is simply because they filled their minds with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit has taken this truth and produced godly thoughts which issue in godly men. Deo Soli Gloria!
If you are not willing to look foolish, you are foolish
When you get excited about God, don’t expect everybody to get excited about your excitement. Why? When you begin to internalize God’s Word in your life, the Holy Spirit will turn up the heat underneath you and that will disrupt the status quo. Some people will be inspired by what God is doing in your life and will join you. Others will be convicted, and they will mask their personal convictions by finding something to criticize. Nine times out of ten, criticism is defense mechanism. We criticize in others what we don’t like about ourselves. According to 2 Samuel 6, when the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem, David leaped and danced before the Lord. Many thought David was crazy, especially Micah his wife. But David knew that spiritual maturity was caring less and less about what people think and more and more about what God thinks. Do you agree?
[1] Mark Batterson, In a Pit with a Lion, Nashville, Tennessee: Multnomah Publishers, 2006, p. 46.