Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 1 Cor 2.6 ESV
Association, imitation, impartation.
These are the three ways that I know of how things are transferred spiritually.
While many people desire impartation, I don’t think many of us appreciate the depth and demand of an impartation. What does it mean to impart something or to have something imparted?
Let us consider something medical like a kidney transplant. There is a recipient and a donor but it requires more than just the availability of these two for a successful transplant. There are other invisible variables that must agree for success. The recipient receives a fully grown kidney and more so one thats not grown inside that person hence the case for rejection. Therefore compatibility matters. Does the host have the right environment to maintain the part they are receiving? These and other questions have to be answered before the operation is okay-ed. …..
Association, imitation, impartation.These three things must be taken together because they work together. I have seen and heard a number of people who have sought one and not the other. Some seek more impartions than associations while others seek more associations than imitations. And in my few years, I have seen all this not bear the right result and it always bothered me as to why certain results were never seen.
For anything that one must receive, they have to carry the mind to associate with the bearer and therein also be willing to imitate the bearer and they shall eventually receive from the bearer by impartion. It’s one thing to receive communally and it’s another thing altogether to be given as one who has qualified themselves for it. Association and immitation are the responsibility of the receiver and only impartation is the bearer’s responsibility. To imitate is to mimic. To associate is to connect in close company and mindset.
The key here is in the ability of the recipient to maintain that which they have received. Environments matter, ask the kidney!! It’s important that before receiving something one understands the weight of not just what they are getting but the responsibility of both growing in it and growing it. After all, the first command starts with be fruitful. (Be fruitful in all you have) It’s therefore not so much about getting!! James says that many ask but receive not because they ask amiss. He doesn’t say that they asked for the wrong thing… they just don’t comprehend the full extent of what they are asking and so they don’t receive it. Until one matures, certain things cannot be entrusted to them otherwise it will be chaos.
A friend once told me that if she had the gift of healing she’d go to the national hospital and heal everyone..good idea!! Yes!! But is it really a good idea?? So what shall be said of the doctors? Where does it leave their dignity and profession? How about patients in other hospitals? Or how about the patients that will come tomorrow?? Ok…what if during this miracle moment there’s a stampede as patients run out of wards looking for my friend? Just asking….
So we have to associate and be willing to imitate. These provide the avenues for us to learn how the bearer functions. What environments they keep as a conducive space for the growth of what they possess. These grow us up to that thing which we desire. But it also helps us deal with the flesh and any ‘amiss’ mindsets we might have over the things we desire.
Adam was the only one to ever receive a “finished” project. And we know how that turned out. Don’t we ever wonder how he never planted another garden…like, is that not a curious thing? How come we don’t hear about him doing something similar to what he saw in the garden?? But how would we expect him to replicate or maintain what he never built?
God planted then brought Adam in. That interaction between God and Adam in the cool of the day was the association. The ‘absence’ of God as Adam named the animals was the imitation part. These provided for the necessary environment in the hope that Adam would, through the association and imitation, grow up and eventually receive the full package by impartion. And what was the package?…story for another day.
If God had to leave his place and show up to physically meet with Adam then it rules out any “working remotely” idea from the association equation. We can’t expect to imitate what we can’t see?
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 1 Cor 2.6 ESV
To the mature impartation is made.
Random Thoughts 