2.1 The Bubble of Self
© 2019 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
I must know four things. I must know God. I must know myself. I must know the connection between God and me. And I must know God’s purpose for me. In other words, I must know God, myself, Christ, and salvation.
In fact, the ruling questions of the Bible are – What is man? – Who do you say that I [Jesus] am? And – What do you want? In other words, the Lord Jesus requires a personal response from each of us regarding Himself.
Of course, all four of these are brought together in Jesus’ definition of age-unfolding life, that is, the consummation of salvation – This is age-unfolding life, they might know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3).
Understanding Ourselves. This lesson is an attempt to understand the human, how we work inside of ourselves. Because I never understood what these “other people” hovering around my perception were and because I never understood what I was, I have sought through the years of my life to understood what I and them might be.
Typically, on this topic, I refer to how “I” know myself, but since I have realized over the years that you are likely much the same, as me as far as this topic is concerned, I will use the generic “you” instead of “I.” You are a story of words, flowing out from your deepest desires, that is your heart, inside a bubble of spirit self-awareness.
Inside the Cell Wall. Think of a one-celled amoeba. Everything that is that one-celled creature is inside of its cell wall. It’s hair-like tentacles reach out to perceive the world around it, but the cell wall protects it and divides it from everything else.
You are a person because God, your Father, is a Person.
And so this perception you have of yourself exists inside of a bubble of awareness, a bubble of self. Your bubble of self exists inside of a very definite wall or barrier that distinguishes between you and everything outside of you. With your body, that wall is your skin, but your spirit, although it extends out farther than your skin, it also possesses a God-given wall of protection.
To Know. Because God honors you as a person made just like Himself, He has given you the authority over what you allow to enter your bubble of self and what you refuse. Nothing, not even God, can enter the wall of your bubble apart from your willing permission. Your wall is your protection, but your wall is also your limitation.
Now, the key word in this large equation of God, man (you), Christ, and salvation is “to know,” as we have seen. And “to know” is a sliding scale concept. On the one side, to be aware is “to know.” Then, to believe is to know. Then, to walk in intimate fellowship is to know. Then, to live inside of Someone else’s bubble and they inside of yours is “to know.”
Symmorphy. And thus we see that the word and place, the implementation and consummation of our salvation is found in one line. – KNOW that I am inside of Father’s bubble of Self, and you are inside of My bubble of Self, and I am inside of your bubble of self (John 14:20 – modified).
But not one of these “inside of’s” could ever happen without the express permission of the other. God is meek and lowly of heart; He sees all others as better than Himself. God never forces His knowledge on anyone.
Paul invented a word in order to describe this incredible quality of two persons living inside of each other’s bubble of self. That word is symmorphy – two persons sharing the same form.
Reach and Center. Let’s talk about your perception of yourself. Just think this through inside that perception to see if I am correct or not.
Your perception of yourself does exist inside a “bubble.” The top of that bubble seems to extend just above the top of your head and it reaches out to just beyond your shoulders. The bottom of that self-perception is somewhere just below your belly. Your hands and feet are accouterments, one might say, but you do not perceive self out where they are. Inside your bubble of self are two centers of energeia. One of those centers is a couple of inches behind and just above your eyeballs, that is, your mental perception, which is, in fact, tied tightly to your eyes as part of the same center.
Heart and Mind. The stronger center of energeia inside of your perception of yourself, however, is your heart. And that perception of heart is larger than the physical organ itself. Science shows us that the energy field extending out from the heart is, in fact, about 5000 times more powerful than the energy field extending out from your brain. It is your heart, in fact, that creates this entire bubble of self-perception inside of which you live. In fact, even though your brain does the mental calculations, if you will think about it, it is your heart that energizes your hands and your feet, not your brain.
But what is your heart most strongly connected with in the same way as your eyes and mind? It is your voice-box.
All Good OR All Evil. Your heart is the rule of who and what you are; your heart is you. – A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks (Luke 6:45).
In order to understand yourself, however, that is, what on earth all this swirl going on inside your perception of yourself might be, you must understand and place three things – desire, knowledge, and power. As you can see from Jesus’ words, the same human construction, created like God’s own construction of Self, can operate as good or as evil, dependent entirely on the heart. Note, however, that the only two options are all good or all evil. There is no back and forth, NO good AND evil together.
Desire. Desire is the rule of yourself. – What do you want? – Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find (Matthew 7:7). Everyone lives inside of precisely what they want; everyone finds exactly what they seek.
But when it comes to the human, “What do you want?” is a tricky question. You see, the primary thing all humans inherited from Adam is the need to pretend, to pretend towards self, towards others, and towards God. We are very good at pretending, and we are very good at deceiving ourselves. What do you have? You have it because that IS what you want.
Authority. Power, then, is the extension out from your desire.
Now, God placed man as the master over all creation, heaven as well as earth, with the command – “Subdue!” Removing that authority from you never enters God’s mind. And God created your heart to be just like His heart; God created your heart as the place of His authority in the universe.
Your heart filled with a God who is meek and lowly of heart is the source of the River of Life flowing out (John 7:37). Your heart empty of the knowledge of God is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). That’s why God sent Jesus to live inside your heart, so that you might know God as He is.
Defining Power. We must define power. Power is the effort and ability to alter your circumstances including the actions of those “other people” hovering around your perception of self, to alter your world from what you don’t like to what you think you want.
Your power has three avenues of expressions out from your center – your forehead, your voice-box, and your hands. Out from the heart, the forehead is either kindness or domination. Out from your voice-box, your words are either blessing or cursing. And the hands either build up and heal inside your world or tear down and hurt.
And in your exercise of power, these other people predominate, these “things” you hardly know, what they do, and how they affect you, far more than the material parts of your world.
Knowledge. Then there is knowledge. Your knowledge, the things you think you “know,” is a real mess. Nonetheless, here is our reference. – For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? (1 Corinthians 2:11).
What you “know” exists only inside of your own bubble of self, your own human perception. Nothing that you “know” exists outside of your bubble, that is, the things that do exist outside of you are known only as the ideas of your own mental knowledge. In other words, the things outside of you do not themselves enter into your bubble that you might know them. Rather, your wall of perception, your five senses, perceive those things, and you interpret what those perceptions mean by your own rules.
Being Symmorphic. Now, God created you symmorphic. That is, God designed you specifically so that another Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, could enter into your bubble of self and live inside of you as you AND as Himself inside your bubble. God designed you in a form capable of you and Jesus sharing together the same form (Romans 8:29).
Empty of the knowledge of God, this quality of being symmorphic is your greatest vulnerability. We will talk more about that vulnerability and your God-created wall of protection in the next lessons. Here we want to focus a bit more on your perception and interpretation of everything you think you know about everything outside of your wall, that is, the ideas of your mind.
The Ideas in You. All knowledge is interior and personal. Even the word “absolute” is altered entirely by the thinking and prejudice, the fears and emotions, all the life experiences of each individual person who might use that word. Every word or perception entering into your mind is slotted and defined, fitted and placed entirely by your own human emotions, rationale, life experiences, prejudice, fear, hope, beliefs, fantasy – the list continues. You rule over that word or idea in every way. There is no such thing as what a word means, but only what a word means to you.
In other words, as a word from the Bible enters your perception, it makes no difference what God might have meant by that word; the only thing that matters is what you want that word to mean and where you intend to place it inside all the structures and categories of your present incredibly limited knowledge.
Correct or Wrong? Now here is the primary problem of the things you “know.” You are “correct” about everything. You must be correct, because otherwise you would be wrong, and that would be – intolerable! Your assertive power requires you to be right. If you are “wrong,” then there is no anchor for you to grasp hold of, no certainty, no foundation. If you are “wrong,” then everything you think you know must be scattered into utter confusion.
If you are “wrong,” then it must be only because you are LOST.
Do you want the truth? You ARE wrong. And you are LOST. And that is the very best thing that could ever happen to you, for only the lost know salvation. Only those who go silent before God can ever know Christ as the rightness of their life.
Considering Other People. Now, there is so much more to understanding how you operate as a person created in the likeness of God, and how the knowledge of God, of yourself, of Christ, and of salvation all work together inside of your bubble of self-perception. And throughout this entire text we will add pieces of understanding to this first essential framework of understanding the human.
Here is our application of everything in this lesson, however. Consider those “other people” hovering just outside your wall of self-perception. They are just like you in every way described in this lesson. It is only as we understand ourselves that we can understand other people. And it is only as we understand other people that we can be the instruments of their JOY.