The Goal is Whole: Live it Out L5: Resetting the Subconscious

FULL STUDY:

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13)

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

In this study and the next, I will share some remarkable insights from the Holy Spirit that have helped me live out the new creation life. For more than three decades I gradually came into understanding what the new creation is, how I am made part of God’s wonderful family, and how I can engage the new life by faith. I was delighted with the progress. But then I discovered another realm, not immediately obvious in the Scriptures – the subconscious. When understood and embraced, accessing this can bring unprecedented growth in our new creation fruitfulness – especially the pursuit of freedom and wholeness.

In my book, “More than a Leopard,” I explain in detail how I came into understanding of this realm, how I was led by the Holy Spirit to discover it in the Scriptures, and how to unpack its potential for us. For a more complete understanding I recommend reading the book! But in this study today, and the next study, I will summarize some of the main content.

I discovered that, within us is a subconscious realm that includes a self-image and what psychologists have called an “automatic servo mechanism.” Our self-image is an inner picture of ourselves that we carry unknowingly, formed by our life experiences, things people have said to us or about us, ways we have been treated, beliefs (including limiting beliefs) that we hold about ourselves, etc. The servo-mechanism is a part of our inner make-up that constantly works to steer our life in accordance with that self-image we hold inside. The mechanism is a bit like an auto-pilot system in a car or plane, so I have taken to calling this simply that, our auto-pilot system, or “APS.”

The APS is designed to help us fulfil purpose, destiny, calling, etc, including the pursuit of holiness and wholeness. But it only works that way if our self-image is itself whole. The truth is, for every one of us, our self-image is less than whole. It has been impacted by our fallen inner nature, and the influences of a fallen world around us. For some, bad experiences, abuse by others, failure, sin, immorality, words spoken over us, etc., have left us with a severely damaged self-image. If this is not addressed, we will struggle to successfully live out who we really are in the new creation, because the APS will be steering us in another direction – the direction of outworking our inner brokenness.

This is where the power of the new creation comes in. As we have seen in other studies, when we are born again, we receive a new, pure, spirit, that is complete in Christ. This is our means to wholeness, not just in spirit, but in spirit, soul, and body. Every part of us! We have studied already in this series how we can outwork this in our normal conscious realm (thoughts, feelings, choices, etc.), through identification, faith, walking by the Spirit, etc., which is essential. But we need to engage the new creation life in our subconscious also. If we don’t, there will be ongoing inner disharmony, and the APS will be working against us, focused on our broken self-image rather than our new creation spirit. The task is not to fix, or heal bad elements of the self-image, but rather to re-align it with the complete new creation we already have within us, and thereby reset our inner self. Before I discovered this, my self-image was still steering me contrary to who I am in Christ. There was disharmony between my conscious and my subconscious. Although I made progress, I would frequently slip back, as the APS kicked in and steered me back to outworking my old nature.

When this subconscious reality was first brought to my attention, I immediately saw the potential in exploring this further. But my concern was, I need to see this in the Bible! I don’t want to open my life to being persuaded by some worldly psychology. So I asked the Holy Spirit to show me. For the rest of this study, and the next, I will share what He has opened up to me. This was through a process of step-by-step understanding, where my prayer became, “Lord, show me more!”

I got a very rapid and impactful start to my discovery though, as within minutes of asking the Holy Spirit, I was prompted to read the passage where Jesus spoke about what He called the “greatest commandment.” The Holy Spirit’s track to opening my understanding around this new realm did not start in some obscure, little-known passage of Scripture (although that would still have been valid). Rather, it emerged from one of the most pivotal statements in the whole Bible:

One of the scribes came and…asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:28-30)

The foremost! I was familiar with this passage, but was suddenly intrigued by the four inner faculties with which we are to love God. Jesus states our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy 6, where there were just three faculties mentioned – heart, soul, and strength). Many commentators consider the “mind” to be part of the soul (e.g. mind, will, emotions). And the Scripture references “thoughts” in the heart also (e.g. Hebrews 4:12). In which case, I got to pondering, “Why did the commandment according to Jesus mention “mind” separately also?” Strong’s dictionary explained why. The Greek word there (dianoia) translated as “mind” is a word more complex than the normal word for mind. It has the prefix “dia” added, which denotes “dividing into two or more parts.” Strong’s suggests this implies the idea of “deep thought,” but it could also be taken as “second-part thought.” As I read this, I asked the Holy Spirit to reveal more, and immediately sensed that this is referring to the subconscious realm – a part of our mind-faculties that is both deeper, and second-part!

Next, I followed Strong’s referencing to a small number of other passages that also carry the same dianoia word. Very quickly, two of these in particular emerged as revealing in detail not just the existence of a subconscious realm, but also the way it operates. And more than that, how we can connect it to the new creation life we have received! The psychology reference that opened this up to me initially had revealed not just the existence of the self-image and APS, but also how we can actually access and re-shape our self-image through inner visualization (imagination), beginning with a state of intentional calmness. The two passages I explored seemed to be revealing these exact same insights, direct from the bible, as I continued to ask the Holy Spirit, “Show me more!” He seemed to be confirming and validating my tentative grasping that dianoia in the Greatest Commandment is indeed revealing (or including) the subconscious realm. How exciting! Here is the first of those two passages:

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” (Ephesians 1:18-19)

The underlined word is the word dianoia in the translation I was studying at the time (NOTE: I since learned that other manuscripts use a different word here, but I considered it inconsequential as this was the specific manuscript base I was using as the Holy Spirit led me using Strong’s – i.e. The King James Version). So, this passage reveals that we have inner “eyes” – the eyes of the dianoia. The eyes of our subconscious. Our subconscious sees! What does it see? It sees images! Not only does this correlate with the existence of an inner self-image, but also that we can actually visualize there too. In fact, Paul advocates through his prayer that our inner eyes become enlightened, so that we can know what we have in the new creation. The word “know” is literally the word “see”… so that we can see new creation truth and reality with those inner eyes. This is accessed through visualizing. Paul lists three dynamic elements of truth he prays we will see there:

• the hope of His calling,
• the riches of the glory of His inheritance
• what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards us!

Huge topics! We will be looking more at these and how we can engage what Paul is praying for in the next study. In closing here in this study, let us look briefly now at the second significant dianoia passage the Holy Spirit was highlighting:

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy . (1 Peter 1:13-16)

Again, the underlined word is our Greatest Commandment word, dianoia. In this passage, Peter exhorts us to prepare our subconscious for action. In other words, we need to access it and bring it into fulfillment of new creation purpose – the specific elements he mentions that include grace, obedience, sonship, new nature reality, holiness, etc. As I meditated on this, I sensed the Holy Spirit bringing to the forefront the work of the APS, which is the ”active” part of the subconscious.

In its original form this phrase “prepare for action” is an ancient idiom that states, “gird up your loins.” It is a reference to how the Orientals would lift up their flowing garments and secure them with a leather belt so they could run, or do active work. Of interest here is that the “loins” were considered the location of reproductive ability (semen). In its simplest form, the APS is bent on reproduction too – reproducing everything it “sees” in the self-image. So, while the Ephesians 1 passage revealed the idea of self-image and visualization, this passage reveals the reality of the APS. But what of the intentional calmness that necessarily prepares us for visualizing? (we will explore this practically in the next study). It is right there in this 1 Peter passage. “Keep sober in spirit”. The word sober literally means “calm”!

This is a lot of new ideas to consider, and I encourage you to review this study, and ask the Holy Spirit for His insights. In the next study I will take us through some practical application of these revelations that I have learned, and also explore other dianoia passages with more life-changing insights into how we can live out this glorious new creation life in all its fullness!