The Basement of Our Minds (Part 1 and 2)

by Pastor Holly Johnson

Many people live in the “basement” of their minds. The basement represents the past…

It’s usually musty and cold in the basement. You never know what spiders or “creepy-crawly” things you will encounter in the basement. There are often cobwebs. We use basements to store things that we don’t want or can’t use but we can’t afford to get rid of them lest we offend someone.

Basements are where we keep things that once defined us but no longer fit into our lives…. A childhood tricycle, an old guitar, etc

What would happen if the basement was the favorite room in your house.

You have guests………..

Follow us…… Pull a string to turn the light on….Creaky stairs…..

You start opening boxes and pulling out trinkets… old pictures….. with a somber look you start talking about the bad things that have happened to you… past regrets from childhood……

If you did this every time you had guests…. Pretty soon people would stop coming.

This seems strange… but many people spend the majority of their lives in the basement of their minds. Every conversation is filled with details about who has done them wrong. What has happened to them… how they have been hurt.

The basement of our minds are stored with things directly linked to our past and the choices we have made. Our pasts are full of things that have happened to us that we would not have chosen for ourselves – alcoholic parents… divorced parents… an ungodly father….an uncaring mother…kids at school who make fun of use… this list goes on……

The basement of our minds are also filled with bad decisions that we have made…. Bad marriages…substance abuse….greed…. ungodly living… sexual immorality.

My point is …just because we have been through trauma… we are not required to drag it up the basement steps every morning. Just because it happened in your past does not mean you must live with it today.

We must understand that the power of the Holy Spirit not only saved our souls but if we apply the word of God to our lives, His power will renew our minds.

Not locking up the past with its hurts inside refusing to address it, but putting the past in it’s proper place and taking control of our thoughts so that “yesterday” does not run the show.

The basement exists for a purpose… it holds our past failures and successes. We cannot forget every bad thing that has happened to us.. But we can refuse to DWELL in the basement.

One of the most powerful examples in the Bible of someone who shut off the echoes in his mind and climbed out of his basement is found in Mark 10 … This man is Bartimaeus.

When I read the word, I am always inspired and encouraged by this man and his determination to leave his past behind….

We can learn from the things Bartimaeus did to reach his miracle and we can follow those steps to walk out of the basements of our own lives.

Jesus had come to Jericho… the place of the curse that is spoken about so much in scripture.

If you knew the history of Jericho you might ask why Jesus even bothered going there.

Joshua 6:26 And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.

So God had levied a very serious curse upon Jericho. The man who rebuilt the walls back around Jericho would bury his oldest son when he laid the foundation and bury his youngest son when he hung the gate.

However, the city obviously existed. It had been rebuilt under direct disobedience to God’s command and was therefore under a curse.

Still… Jesus visited Jericho.

What does this say to us….

God will send His spirit to every cursed place on this planet.

You may feel trapped in a cursed situation, but REJOICE!!

God is not afraid of your problem or your circumstance.

When you get a revelation of who He is, miracles will happen.

Jesus was traveling with His disciples and a great number of people. There on the side of the road they encountered a man known as blind Bartimaeus.

Now his name wasn’t really “Blind Bartimaeus” …. It was simply Bartimaeus…. But his problem had changed his identity.

Isn’t it unfortunate how humans label people according to their shortcomings or sins?

Or defined people by their past mistakes.

“There’s that person who gossips… There’s that ex-alcoholic…. There’s that person who has had 3 husbands…..

We shove people into boxes and write them off….

Don’t you wish more Christians would strive to label people with things that remind us of our identity in Christ. She is becoming a mighty woman of God…

She is being filled with the fullness of Christ….

I want to be known for the right things in my life… not the wrong ones….

Bartimaeus had been identified by the people around him. They gave him his reputation, drew a box around him, and essentially said that he would never go beyond his blindness.

Not only that, his problem had affected even his own family.

The Bible says, “Blind Bartimaeus, son of Timaues, sat by the road begins”. (Mark 10:46).

Even his father was now being labeled because of his son’s blindness.

Have you known people labeled by their family members sins??

THE POWER OF HEARING

Something very subtle, but powerful happened….

Bartimaeus HEARD that Jesus was passing by. Someone had mentioned it or he had overheard it…..

Hearing was the first step in reaching his miracle.

Hearing is one of the most important activities in which we engage. What we hear forms what we believe and who we are.

What you hear can change your life.

That’s why music is so important in shaping your character.

When Bartimaeus HEARD that Jesus was coming by, he allowed that word that he heard to form in him the seed of faith.

He decided right there that he was going to start climbing out of that basement.

He heard the report and immediately began to think differently about his future.

I believe that faith welled up inside of him and he saw how his future could be rewritten!!

I believe that he pictured in his mind a future, not sitting on the road begging, but on walking, talking, working, resting, and worshipping like normal people of his day.

I believe he saw himself delivered from blindness. I believe that he began to imagine himself free from blindness.

When you refuse to imagine God meeting your need, then your imagination has become your god.

I believe that Bartimaeus not only heard that Jesus was coming, I believe that he had a Holy Spirit-inspired revelation of who Jesus was.

Many people were with Jesus that day and they knew the historical fact that the man they were following was Jesus of Nazareth.

Everybody knew that. Common knowledge…. Not revelation knowledge.

But when Bartimaeus HEARD that Jesus of Nazareth was coming, he had a flash of inspiration. ….. Look at this…..

“And when he heard that is was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Bartimaeus HEARD that it was Jesus of Nazareth, but when the words came out of his mouth they were “JESUS SON OF DAVID”

A REVELATION happened inside of him that catapulted him past the historical facts into a new realm of spiritual insight that the rest of the religious onlookers that day lacked.

The crowd knew him as Jesus of Nazareth, an earthbound, geographical identity. But in that moment, Bartimaeus knew Him as the promised Messiah!

Just because you hear and know that Jesus of Nazareth is on His way, that does not complete your picture.

The facts must be accompanied by the truth.

Facts are facts… but truth is a revelation that only God can give.

When you hear the Word and accept it in your heart, revelation can happen to instantly change your life forever.

The blindest sinner on the street can see Jesus clearer than the religious person who appears to have perfect spiritual vision.

The worst drug addict or the worst person in prison can actually see Jesus clearer than the religious person who is doing the religious thing of the hour.

Bartimaeus saw past the religion. He heard about Jesus historically but talked about him prophetically. He started yelling, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Suddenly the battle had begun between the voice of faith that was rising within him and the echoes of his past that surrounded and defined him.

The battle was on between Bartimaeus’s reputation and his revelation.

Immediately the people told him to quiet down. They were annoyed and perplexed at this man’s persistence because they did not see what Bartimaeus say. They echoed his echoes and tried to reestablish his reputation as a blind man with no future.

Why was it okay for the religious leaders to spout their empty doctrine but not okay for the beggar to ask for deliverance?

Why was it okay for the crowd to follow Jesus, pressing in on Him, but not okay for a blind man to use the only means he had, his voice, to get the Savior’s attention?

There are always two voices in the land. There are those who cry out by their revelation and there are those who cry out for you to stop crying out by your revelation.

Religion is an echo, but revelation is a voice.

Everybody else was a spectator. Bartimaeus was a participator.

Everyone else had an opinion of Jesus. Bartimaeus had a revelation.

Bartimaeus kept shouting all the louder. “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

He let the voice of faith have the upper hand, and it began to drown out his echoes. I imagine that earlier in the day, when he heard that a large crowd was coming, he anticipated all of the money he would make.

So when his revelation of who Jesus was caused him to cry out, he must have felt the opposition, not just from the crowd, but from the devil himself whispering into his ear. “You’d better shut up, blind men. You make your living off this crowd. If you don’t quit yelling you won’t get any money”.

But I can also imagine the voice of faith responding in Bartimaeus’s heart. The crowd wants you to live up to your reputation as a blind beggar, but God wants you to live up to your revelation instead….

When you are on the brink of your miracle, people may oppose you.

They might stand against the voice of faith they hear coming from your lips. But once you have a revelation of Jesus, nothing and no one can stop you from receiving what he has for you!!

Will it cost you your reputation? Maybe…

Your livelihood? In some cases.

Just bear in mind that usually others do not have your answer, and they don’t want you to find it.

They will echo your echoes, but you can respond with the voice of faith and revelation, just like Bartimaeus.

God Hears your voice.

God will never stop for an echo, but He will stop for a revelation.

Mark 10:49. “So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called.”

Suddenly, all eyes were on Bartimaeus.

He was sitting there with his beggar’s clock…. With all eyes upon him…

He threw aside his garment… that garment that represented his occupation and license to beg… without it, he could not survive in society.

…He got rid of the limitation and the identification with his life as a beggar and walked boldly toward his deliverance.

He said, “I am not identifying with this coat anymore.”

He came to Jesus and stood before him and said, “Rabboni, that I might receive my sight” vs 51.

Can you imagine Jesus’ excitement when he heard the voice of faith…. Everyone else was calling him Jesus of Nazareth… even his disciples were having trouble understanding who he was…. Yet here was a blind man saying “Thou Son of David”.

Then Jesus said to him “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

In an instant God’s power collided with Bartimaeus’s faith.

The echo chamber blew apart and the basement door flew open wide!

There is power when we stand up to our echoes…. When we refuse to dwell in our basements…….

You do NOT have to be trapped in your past… You do not have to duplicate yesterday’s failure.

It is not too late…. You can be like Moses, who at the age of 80 shut up the echoes of the past and began to speak with the voice of faith.

You can be like Caleb who was still pursuing the call of God at 120 years old.

You can be like Joshua who had a 400 year heritage as a slave and in one night he believed the voice of God and became the leader of the greatest nation in history.

You can be like Bartimaeus, no longer blind because of the revelation of who Jesus is!!!!

HOW……Start listening to the voice of God when everyone else is still hearing an echo.

Let Jesus this morning show you the way out of your basement…. Let Him remove the blindness from your life….Let Him awaken your dreams….

Let Him heal you forever!!!

HEAR the Word…. GET a revelation…. And TAKE action……

Start today!!

Why is it important to shut off the echoes of your past??