"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit ... and it was so." (Genesis 1:11) "All flesh is grass. ... But the Word of our God shall stand for ever." (Isaiah 40:6,8) "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." (1 Corinthians 3:19-20) "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." (Romans 1:21-22) "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God." (2 Corinthians 3:5) "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." (1 Corinthians 2:12) "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walks to direct his steps." (Jeremiah 10:23) "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." (Proverbs 3:6) "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord. ... For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord." (Isaiah 55:7-8) "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." (Psalm 25:14) "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. ... Of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom." (1 Corinthians 1:24,30) "Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 2:2-3) "The Lord gives wisdom; out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding." (Proverbs 2:6) "Wisdom and might are His: ... he gives wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding." (Daniel 2:20-21) "Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law does he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he does shall prosper." (Psalm 1:1-3) "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." (Colossians 3:16)
Jesus Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life." (John 14:6) As there is no life but from Him, so there are none of the manifestations of life that are not from Him. This does not make Him responsible for everything that men think and do, since they to so great an extent hold down the truth and the life in unrighteousness. They do not give the life free course, but pervert it, and the result is confusion and emptiness. "Christ [is] the wisdom of God, [as well as] the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:24)
Just as there is no power but of God, so there is no wisdom but the wisdom of God. The so-called wisdom of men who reject the Lord, is foolishness with Him. "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." (1 Corinthians 3:19)
There is no right thought except the thought of God. "All flesh is grass." (Isaiah 40:6)
Man has no more power to manufacture thought than the grass of the field has. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." (Acts 17:28)
Our perfect gift is from above, and comes down. Muscles are the organs by which motion is effected, but they do not originate motion. If they had that power in themselves, then they would continue to move indefinitely at will. But all have seen muscles that could not act, and that not only in dead men. There must be a power to act on the muscles, else they are useless. That power is the life of the Lord.
So with the brain. It is the organ of thought, but it does not originate thought. A power entirely distinct from the brain must act through it, else it is useless. When that power is allowed free course, the thoughts are right; otherwise they are vague and perverted. "23 The way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walks to direct his steps." (Jeremiah 10:23) "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." (Isaiah 55:7)
But a man's ways and thoughts are all that make him anything more than a useless lump of clay. Does the Lord desire that a man shall forsake his ways and his thoughts, and be a nonentity? Not by any means. He offers him something that is far better.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9)
God's ways and thoughts are as much higher than man's ways and thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth. The Scriptures therefore teach us that it is possible for God to take complete possession of a man, and to think and act through him. This is God's design for man. Only as this is the case, is man a complete and perfect man.
The body is designed to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, and that means that all the organs of the body are to be simply the instruments through which the Holy Spirit will manifest himself. This complete submission to the will of God will not destroy any man's individuality, but will on the contrary make it more marked. God is infinite. He who has made every plant "after its kind," each with a distinct characteristic of its own, will make every man perfect after his kind, if he will but be as passive to the Spirit of God as the plants of the field are. "Commit your works unto the Lord, and your thoughts shall be established." (Proverbs 16:3)
Only by the Spirit of God can we "know the things that are freely given us by the Lord." (1 Corinthians 2:12)
What has the Lord freely given us? All things. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32) "[He] gives us richly all things to enjoy." (1 Timothy 6:17) "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights." (James 1:17) "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven." (John 3:27)
Since everything is given us by the Lord, and we cannot know the things that are freely given us by Him except by the Holy Spirit, it follows that there is absolutely no real knowledge in the world that does not come from the Spirit of God. To reject the Holy Spirit is to reject wisdom and knowledge. If He does not think in us, we have no thoughts that are worth thinking. Every thought is to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
O what marvelous treasures of wisdom and knowledge there must be for all who are willing to humble themselves to admit that they know absolutely nothing, and to submit to let God think His own thoughts in them! Some of the possibilities for man when God's thought and Word has free course in him, are revealed in the plants of the field, which offer no opposition by self-sufficient pride.
In studying God's action in them, let us remember that He will do as much greater things in the man who is as submissive to Him, as the object for which man was created is greater than that for which the grass of the field was made.--Present Truth, October 20, 1898.