Spiritual Life Impact: The Renewing of the Mind

By Peter Tassone

The purpose of the mind is to create self. The purpose of the renewed mind is to create self in the image and likeness of God in both form and function.

The mind is not in the brain.

The mind is born in darkness. It has to learn everything.

The mind/spirit is a mirror image of the body/brain. A mind-body marriage.

The mind answers the brain's what, when, and where questions with the how, who, and most importantly, why answers.

The mind is a prosecutorial tool, always seeking after the truth.

The mind must have a reason for the behavior of the body.

Trust is the movement of faith.

Revelation is experiential knowledge imprinted within our being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798885059886

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Mission Statement

Author's Personal Note

Spiritual Life Impact

The Mind

Mindfulness

Spiritual Cognitive Modeling

Mental Processing

Spiritual Conceptual Change Reasoning

Mind/Body Temple

Rite of Passage, Salvation

Mirror Neurons

Relationship

Creating a Relational Environment

Spiritual Relatability

Developing a Spiritual Relational Consciousness

Forgiveness

Developing a Relational Attitude

Nuance of Language

Language

Semiotics

Human Taste

Verbal Self-Handicapping

Logic

Basic Properties of Logic

Accurate Translation

Interpret

Context

Concept

Conviction

Self

Face-to-Face with Self

Self-Will

Spiritual Freewill Choice

The Dark Side of Self

Memory

Developing Form and Function

Empathy Field of Learning

Birthplace of Revelation

Spiritual Focus of Attention

Spiritual Restoration and Recovery

Desire

The Pathway of Exchange

Becoming Wisehearted

Trust, the Movement of Faith

Dichotomy

My Present Personal Dichotomy Profile

God and Man, a Duality or Dichotomy?

The Threshing Floor

The Threshing Floor / Mercy Seat

Experiential Decisions

Priesthood of the Believer

Dichotomy Process of Addiction

Addiction

Reference Books

About the Author

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Spiritual Life Impact

The Renewing of the Mind

Peter Tassone

Copyright © 2023 Peter Tassone

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2023

ISBN 979-8-88505-987-9 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88505-988-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Mission Statement

I therefore beg of you, please, brethren, through the instrumentality of the aforementioned mercies of God by a once—for—all presentation to place your bodies at the disposal of God, a sacrifice, a living one, a Holy one, well pleasing, your rational, sacred service (rational, in that this service is performed by the exercise of the mind). And stop assuming an outward expression that does not come from within you and is not representative of what you are in your inner being, but is patterned after this age; but change your outward expression to the one that comes from within and is representative of your inner being, by the renewing of your mind, resulting in your putting to the test what is the will of God, the good and well pleasing and complete will, and having found that it meets specifications, place your approval upon it. (Rom. 12:1–2 GNT)

Author's Personal Note

Dear friend,

If you feel detached, unfriended, let down, and disappointed or disenfranchised from mainstream man-made denominational, organized religious belief systems. If you feel that you don't seem to fit into today's religious thinking, don't be surprised or upset. Perhaps it's because you are ready to ask yourself the most difficult question that a believer can ask themselves: Why isn't my current belief system bringing me the life of God? If you have the courage to ask this question and you are sincerely seeking to search out the answer as well, then you are ready for The Renewing of the Mind.

This manuscript is not interested in bashing mainline denominational belief systems. Nor does it have an agenda to create its own additional flavor of the month belief system. The Holy Spirit is our revelator and teacher to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

My prayer is for the spiritual life impact of the life of God open our eyes and ears to the truth of the mysteries of the mind of our Father in the crisis-filled last of these days. The manuscript that you are about to read has been inspired and revealed by the Holy Spirit and experienced, with absolute results in my own personal life. I hope and pray that the renewing of the mind will bring truth and insight to your personal spiritual life impact as we become sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, in a call to change together.

There are only two main characters in this manuscript, the Holy Spirit of God and the person who is reading this manuscript. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Peter Tassone

Spiritual Life Impact

It is difficult to imagine a modeling apparatus which creates a system, in duplicate, beginning from the level of atoms or elementary particles, all the way to the infinite and eternal particles of thoughts and imagination. However, causation, at the spiritual level, is exactly what the Holy Spirit of truth has done. A system of elementary particles made up of the substance of His own character and models an apparatus which creates a cognitive duplicate image of Himself, in us. He then absorbs us into that vicarious self-system, and we emerge as sons and daughters of God. Not a copy or similarity or a sample. Not a replica but an authentic, one-of-a-(new) in kind creation with no differences. The inside and the outside are one and the same—no cognitive dissonance. We are authentic in structure, in image, likeness, form, function, meaning, purpose, and destination. These spiritual cosmic particles enter into the DNA of one of the daughter cells of our endocrinological system as a new-in-kind microbe of an emergent living system of models that communicates between the known and the unknown particles of physical/temporal and invisible/celestial as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things yet to be seen and eternal. Behold all things have become new-in-kind. The unexplainable mind/spirit meets the unexplainable brains/body and explains. In this light, the scientific general laws of the development of living systems becomes spiritually the same. Spiritual cognition meets natural selection, and a new-in-kind species comes into existence, ever evolving toward the vicarious image and likeness of God in both form and function.

The word vicarious here means of the same life source and substance. Man says that the more complex the organism, the more difficult it is to change its structure. It is not a truism by chance. It has come to be true to show that only God can bring about a new-in-kind emergent living system, self-aware and eternal. Man says that in the process of change, the details of an organism are created accidentally without plan, and therefore it does not follow that all their structures and consequently their programs are naturally coordinated. However, on the contrary, contradictions that may seem to remain between programs result in successful coordination because in God's economy, details translate into harmony, and nothing is created accidentally. In God's economy, nothing is created accidentally, without an absolute plan and purpose, and thus their structures and consequently their programs are mutually coordinated at all levels. The life that comes from God is not made of just physical structural form and function but eternal purpose form and function that goes far beyond this material world. The life that God brings in salvation is His own life, the life of His own personal possessions, His attributes. They are eternal and born within us. We become a newly created species of being in both form and function, vicarious, alive with the same life source as our Heavenly Father.

Vicarious refers to an interchangeable equal replacement to the original firstborn item, from the exact same source and ability. An equal environment of cohabitation with nothing diminished (John 10:27–32 GNT).

Cohabit—one organ performs part or all the functions equally, normally performed by another.

Co-inside—to be filled within by the same environment or sphere, able to coexist together because of or by means of the same necessities for life.

Effulgence—the substance of the particles of the same life source as Our Father (Heb. 1:1–4 GNT).

Heteromorphic—opposites of the same kind.

Coexist—two seemingly opposites placed within each other to form both the inside and the outside, having come from the same source to occupy the same space at the same time. Example, latitude and longitude.

Sphere—the center of a series of connecting concentric circles. One and the same in nature, character, source, vocation, avocation, purpose, direction, destination, image and likeness, form and function.

As children of light be habitually conducting ourselves; for the fruit of this light is in the sphere of every beneficence and righteousness and truth, putting to the test and then approving what is well pleasing to the Lord. (Eph. 5:8–10 GNT)

May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be eulogized, the one who conferred benefactions upon us in this sphere of every Spiritual Blessing in the heavenly places in Christ…in whom also having believed, you are sealed with the Spirit of the promise, the Holy Spirit. (Eph. 1:3–4, 13 GNT)

Now, as for us, we all, with uncovered face, reflecting as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are having our outward expressions changed into the same image from one degree of glory to another according as this change of expression proceeds from the Lord, the Spirit, this outward expression coming from and being truly representative of our Lord. (2 Cor. 3:18 GNT)

Homoioma (G)—of the same image in form and likeness in function (Rom. 8:3, 6:5–10, Phil. 2:7 GNT, Gen. 1:26, 5:1, and 3 NAS).

While the word vicarious is not used in Scripture, the concept is found everywhere. The greatest picture depicting the time and place of a vicarious activity was on the cross. A unique environment that no one could stand in but God Himself. He stood there on our behalf, in our stead, a vicarious demonstration of giving up His life for our life. This act was not metaphoric but absolute. We are now seated with Him in that same place where He now causes His name to dwell permanently forever within us. Christ suffered on our behalf so that we now can stand in the same place He stands as joint heirs of the kingdom of our Father.

Homoiopathes (G) means suffering like things (James 5:1–17 GNT). The Greek word Pascho is where we get our word passion. It means to suffer in like manner, like things in like ways.

Joint participation in 1 Corinthians 10:16, 17 (GNT) makes the decisive point that not only in content of oneness but in fact, it comes only from God. It's the final place of liberation. Salvation is only found within the overwhelming, insatiable, over-all-encompassing life of God.

There are three senses of the concept of vicarious: protection (gift), preservation (cleansing), and blessing (fellowship).

The need for the first is accomplished when the evil one is totally and completely removed forever in salvation, where the gift of God's eternal life is immediate and irrevocable. The second one is completed and made final when we receive our glorified bodies. Right now, our spiritual beings are being preserved. The final one is accomplished in its eternal, never-ending journey of discovery and the sharing of the characteristics and attributes of our Father beginning in this life at salvation.

When Jesus said, Thy sins be forgiven or Take up your bed and walk, this is not a metaphorical statement. We see the vicarious nature of God making a wholistic sweep of healing. What is healed in salvation is the whole person or the pneuma, or breath. At salvation, God has breathed into us His breath of life. We are not a whole or complete being until God has breathed His eternal life into our eternal spiritual life. The vicarious relational movement of the Spirit of God is not just to be forgiven of our sins and have our hands stamped to get in to heaven. Christ became our vicarious substitute on the cross as a once-and-for-all expiatory satisfaction for our sins (Gen. 22:8, 13 NAS). He has resurrected us to become the proofing of the substance of His character here on this earth in our life. We proof God. We demonstrate in word and deed that God is real and that He makes up the how, who, and why that He says He is in all things. To glorify God is to show God to be truthful in all of His character. The point is, our Father created us to share His life within us, not from the things that He has created on the outside but from the things that He has created from Himself on the inside, His personal possessions, the substance of Himself.

Heaven, the high places of God, has come to be born in us. The Holy Spirit of God has set up His habitation, His dwelling place, His home in us. We now exist as one with our Father in the same environment, coexisting by the same necessities of life. We are becoming the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Christ not only redeemed us but He Himself with His own blood and body paid the redemptive price that we could never pay. You can't get much more vicarious than that. Christ is not only our deliverer but also the substance of the means of deliverance. He is personally involved within our life within His life. He has become the expiatory satisfaction, the required recompense that holds God's judgment in contempt because mercy triumphs over judgment. In our priestly duties, we continue the process of repentance and rest by sacrificing our flesh which continues to be the maturation of our salvation.

With God, salvation is a shared experience, with both parties investing intimate relational interests as in a marriage. Soterion (G) or salvation means to make room in a large place, a wide space. A more spacious place confers the idea of deliverance from the confines of being enslaved. As in a marriage, you are both now released into the spacious new world of freedom to love, completely absorbed within one another with nothing hidden. When the word relationship is stressed in the noun form, it comprehends a totality that includes both the deliverance and the ensuing state of salvation, actually a personal pronoun/verb (what it's called is also what it does). All salvation that is not divinely validated is not real. It is a sin to reject the God who saves. By forgiveness, the garment of righteousness replaces the filthy garments of sin. In salvation, we are now daughters or sons of the king permanently. The logos (G) or reason enables the soul for belief, but the Sofer (H) or Savior of our soul, in confession, is God. Soteria (H) or salvation is not maintaining one's humanity but acquiring the sharing within of the divine, face-to-face. Salvation is the vicarious act of God's agape (G), self-sacrificial love, that brings us into communion (fellowship) within His life, His demonstrating love of self-sacrifice. Communion means that which we share in common of the things of our Father, not just that which we share humanly in common.

At salvation, we not only step into the permanent place of right standing with God, but He has also given gifts to us, both men and women. The gifts that He has spiritually graced us with is the implanting and thus sharing in common the gold, silver, and precious stones of the substance of His personal possessions, He Himself, His attributes, the substance of His character, are the gifts that He has spiritually ingratiated not only with us but within us as His sons and daughters. The place of this ingratiating and expiatory gifting is in the propitiatory, the Hileos (G) or gracious. Hilasmos (G) is the place of expiation, of being merciful. The Hilasterionercy (G) is the place of mercy. The Golden Kapporet (G) is the cover over the Ark, the mercy seat. It is the place where God's sacrifice meets His justice and is satisfied with the correct and proper recompense of sacrifice for sin, which is the blood of Christ and thus the life of Christ. The picture of the Shechinah brightness of God's purity lapping up Christ's blood sprinkled on the mercy seat as a consuming fire is the picture of the acceptance of the pure cleansing blood of the sacrificial lamb, Christ Himself on the cross. The cross is the Kapporet (H) or mercy seat where the redemptive purifying work of Christ's blood cleanses and purges us, by the fire of God's purity, of our sins, completely and at once and for all, past, present, and future.

Therefore, now, there is not even one bit of condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit, that of the life in Christ Jesus, freed you once for all from the law of the sinful nature and of death. (Rom. 8:1 GNT).

This mercy seat is the same place where we now stand as priests in our temple in the inner sanctuary, Holy of Holies of our Father's house, and offer up our flesh as the slaying priest. We are now the slaying priests, and our flesh is the sacrifice. Sin is not involved in this process. It's a sacrifice of praise, not a sacrifice for sin. It's the place where we exchange the weaknesses of our flesh and become ingratiated with the gold, silver, and precious stones of the attributes of Our Father, which adorn us as the bride.

This place of sacrifice is also called the high place of God's dwelling, the heavenly place of His presence where He has caused His name to dwell forever (Heb. 8:2, 9:5; Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10 GNT). This high place of the mercy seat is also called the Praitorion (G) or judgment hall. The Kritarion (G) is the place of judgment. The Gabbatha (H) is the high place of God's character (Isa. 58:14 NAS, John 19:13 GNT). This is the place where our priestly duty is to make a distinction, a judgment, between the holy and the profane things in our own life and sacrifice the profane fleshly things and make the exchange. This is Thysiasterion (G) or altar of whole burnt offering (Matt. 5:23 GNT). In this verse, our brother is the Lord (1 Cor. 9:13 GNT). What are the things that come out of the temple from the altar of God? They are the purified things of the substance of His character that He implants within us and grows the fruit of His character in us (Heb. 10:18–22, 13:15 GNT). We are a kingdom of priests (Rev. 3:21, 5:10 GNT). We are now the slaying priests who stand in this place of sacrifice that Christ has inaugurated and pioneered for us to stand in. As believers, we now permanently stand in the Holy of Holies on the mercy seat, baptized into the sphere of the Shechinah brightness of the flame of purity of the life of God. In this place, we are being ever purged from the contamination and condemnation of sin. Christ Himself carved out this pathway through the veil of His flesh so we could stand permanently placed in the presence of our Father, face-to-face, forever, shameless and unafraid.

Spiritual life impact is continuing vicarious, relational, face-to-face, breath to breath Eternal life journey in the absolute quintessential life of our Father. A place that is not of this world nor has it ever been. It is the place were only sons and daughters can stand blameless, redeemed, and righteous with no regrets. The spiritual impact of God's life has blasted us out of this universe of time and space into the loving and eternal arms of the One and Only, Almighty God.

Notes

The Mind

Romans 12:1–5 GNT states:

I therefore beg of you, please, brethren, through the instrumentality of the aforementioned mercies of God, by a once-for-all presentation to place your bodies at the disposal of God, a sacrifice, a living one, a Holy one, well pleasing, your rational, sacred service [rational in the sense that the service is performed by the reasoned out exercise of the mind]. And stop assuming an outward expression that does not come from within you and is not representative of what you are in your inner being but is patterned after this age; but change [transform] your outward expression to one that comes from within and is representative of your inner being, by the renewing [renovation] of your mind, resulting in your putting to the test what is the will of God, the good and well-pleasing and complete will, and having found that it meets specifications, place your approval upon it.

The purpose of the mind is to create self. The purpose of the renewed mind is to create self in the image and likeness of God in both form and function.

The purpose of the mind is to break down the unexplainable into smaller, simpler, and explainable parts for us to be able to understand the finite parts of our human and spiritual existence. The inductive reasoning process must be able to break down the infinite deductive conclusions to the impossible anthropomorphic questions, such as who God is, how He works, and most importantly, why? The mind was not given to humans for us to understand just our humanness but also our Godliness. The mind is the anthropomorphic gateway into the spiritual and unexplained personal presence of the almighty, eternal, ever-present, and all-knowing being of our Father for the purpose of explaining the unexplainable (1 Cor, 1:10; Rom. 1:28–32; Eph. 1:7, 3:8–12 to 4:8, 6:10; 1 Cor. 2:6–16; Col. 1:9–16, 2:2, 3; Rom. 11:29 GNT).

Without the mind God, remains sealed up in a mystery. Without the mind, there is no possibility for intimacy with such a being as God. The mind is the tool that we can use to see God and know what we are looking at. The mind does not have to explain itself or quantify its existence. It knows what it is in both form and function. The mind is a phenomenon that cannot be measured, explained, or even fully understood in human terms. All we know in this time and place is that we have one, and it is self-aware. It does not have to put itself into words that identify or explain its existence. The mind, by its nature, knows that it exists. The mind is a prosecutorial tool, an ever-emergent system that asks the questions how, who, and why.

The mind is a most glorious gift of God. The innermost essence of His personal possessions. The knowing ability of the unknown, the unfathomable riches of His deep things of the untouchable regions of His heart. The mind is the pathway of an unending journey of things never seen or imagined before. Exploring the visible, discovering the invisible.

My prayer is this: Dear Lord, let me see something that I have never seen before but have ever longed to see it. Let me be in a place that is only meant for You and I and no one else. Let the unimaginable be imagined infinitely and intimately in me.

Wisdom: is the ability to see God and know what you are looking at.

The six components of the mind are the following:

Language—vocabulary, pronoun/verb, form and function.

Thoughts—spoken or unspoken.

Memory—one well, learned rules of expectation.

Persona—self-image, real or imagined.

Empathy—my learning field.

Intimacy—one with, face-to-face.

The mind is not in the brain. However, they mirror each other in both form and function. The brain deals with the questions and the answers of what, where, and when. The mind deals with the questions and answers of how, who, and why. The heart is the decision-making control center of our wholistic innermost self that makes decisions to create our belief system.

DiagramDescription automatically generated

Romans 2:9

Explanation of the Diagram

On the left side of the diagram are the components of the brain/body. On the right side of the diagram are the components of the mind/spirit. The heart is the seat of all decision-making. The heart evaluates, sorts, and categorizes all the coded information that is constantly being sent to it from all areas of our self-awareness, visible and invisible. We are the only self-aware creatures that God has ever made. He has given us the ability to make a freewill choice. The Holy Spirit is not going to shove Himself down our throat. Coded information comes from the innermost part of our soul environment and the outward sensory parts of our biological environment. Nothing touches us psychologically that doesn't leave a biological footprint or signature. There is nothing that touches us biologically that doesn't leave a psychological footprint or signature. Once a choice of decision has been made, it is written on our belief system screen, in our hearts, and is stored for future use. We call this memory. The soul is the fillable part of our being. The unique capacities or containers of our souls are to be filled with the gold and silver and precious stones of the personal possessions of our Father. His attributes. The flow of all this coded information, visible and invisible, is the flow of our spiritual being. God has made us to be a triune creature. Body, mind or spirit, and soul. All of these spiritual and biological components come into existence when the sperm penetrates the egg, and our human/spiritual journey begins. Our biological being comes already knowing what to do and how to do it. The body doesn't have to learn to become hungry or digest food. The body parts all know where they fit and what purpose they serve for the body to operate and survive. Our mind, however, is born in darkness. It has to learn everything. Thus, the circle of life. Until we get saved, the mind is going to be a servant to the survival of the brain/body needs and desires.

Notes

Mindfulness

Mindfulness means to call to remembrance from the heart of what has filled our mind so far. What our mind has been filled with is what it is full of. Speaking of Christ in 1 Samuel 2:35 NAS, But I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in My Heart [mind] and in My Soul: and I will build Him an enduring house and He will walk before My anointed always. As Christ is the Chief Priest, we are called to be the anointed ones as enduring priests in the Lord's house, whose house we are. We are a kingdom of priests. The things of the Lord that are recalled and remembered in our hearts (minds) is what fills our souls.

Telling the story is a key part of recovery and restoration from many detrimental effects of life event hits of abuse, neglect, fear, loneliness, and the stress and anxiety of disappointment and anger. These hits have carved a traumatic groove across our innermost biological being and our spiritual heart, mind, and soul. Telling the story begins the inductive thinking process of placing the seemingly obtuse and nonconcentric pieces of our life event puzzle together to determine the what, where, when, how, who, and most importantly, the why of our life. Our mind has drawn and recorded a map/model of form and function that has been carved into our memory. It carries the residual effects of our past sinful behaviors.

The Holy Spirit, at salvation, is going to create in us the life of our Father by the process of the renewing of the mind. His purpose is not to recreate the drama or the pain or the emotional memories and feelings of the past to torture or terrorize us. He takes us from where we are at salvation and brings to our attention at the surface of our awareness the things that need to be placed out of mind and forgotten. The Holy Spirit begins to create in us a new-in-kind body, soul, and spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a psychiatrist.

Let a man examine himself, as the Scripture has said. It is a necessary function for the restoration and renewing of the mind. Truth is the light of our self-awareness examination process. Without the Spirit of truth, we cannot get a clear picture of what needs to be renovated and removed to be replaced with the life and mind of Christ.

Being a son or daughter of our Father is in reference to our relational identity with no reference to age. We will always be His children, and He will always be our Father. Our true identities as sons or daughters is