If you can’t change your mind, you’re closed to being changed.

I was reading Deuteronomy and Acts when the Spirit opened my mind to something I hadn’t “seen” before.

In Acts, Paul searched for, arrested and voted to put Jewish believers in Yeshua to death. Stephen being the first (Acts 8:1). Israel, like the US, had a constitution with 613 laws given by God. These Jewish believers broke one and were arrested.

Deuteronomy 13:1-12 gives us that law. It states that any prophet who appears in Israel and performs a “miraculous sign or wonder” (A) and then says, “Let us follow other gods” (B), must be killed, even if it’s a family member.

Jesus did miracles (A). Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (B). The Israeli judicial body took Him to mean that He was God, which was blasphemy. And as eye witnesses of both A and B, they picked up stones to kill Him. (Jn. 10:22-33)

Yes, Jesus did A, but not B. First, He was and is God. Second, He wasn’t trying to draw people away from but closer to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Both are what the Law and the Prophets teach.

Yet, Luke writes that Jesus had to open the apostles’ minds in order for them to understand what the Law and Prophets actually said (24:44-45). And this took place after He physically rose from dead and was standing before them!

Paul had such a mind opening experience. Jesus physically showed up to him as well. This caused Paul to question all that he was taught up to that point. He now saw in the same Scriptures – the Law and the Prophets – that Jesus could be and was indeed the Son of God. This new understanding literally changed his entire life’s trajectory.

We all know what we know when we know it. But like Paul and the apostles, are we ready for the Spirit of Truth to awaken us to the truths we need in order to be set free from past understandings that keep Jesus at a distance?

I have. Hopefully you are open to it as well.