I once bought an unassembled gadget. After reading and re-reading the instructions I couldn’t figure out how the pieces went together. In my frustration, I finally threw the instruction booklet down, picked up all the pieces, studied them, then began assembling the gadget. In a short time, I put it together without the instructions. I'm still like that today with watches, mechanical things, furniture, etc. I simply cannot follow instructional manuals or the processes as written! I have to look at something to be assembled or taken apart AND THINK on my own!
The human mind is amazing. It has great power to imagine and carry out good or evil. It has the power to shape a person’s life. What we think about is what we are or what we do. In reality, where the mind goes the body follows! How powerful is that thought! We all need the mind of Jesus! To become like Him we need His mind and His Spirit and this will only happen when we set our minds on His Word. Philippians 2:5 KJV “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind. Thinking controls our actions. A wise person will change their corrupt mind. A fool never will. All of us are changing whether we want to admit it or not. The world affects and changes us through our thinking. For example, TV and movies are powerful influences on children and even adults. Commercials influence us to buy products. That’s why companies pay millions of dollars to produce them. Movies can influence a person’s behavior. Kids have watched violence and immorality and then have gone out and put these things into practice. It’s sad to think that good doesn’t affect us as much as evil does. Of course, we see less good than we do evil on the movie screen.
If you want to know the mind of a person, just listen to their words. What a person talks about is what he is thinking. Why don't we talk about the Word of God and Christ? Could it be that we are not thinking about them? Out of sight out of mind? Our bodies will manifest what our mind harbors. One battle, particularly for men, is the attraction to pornography. King Solomon once said, “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?” (Proverbs 6:27). Along those lines, can you repeatedly bring sexually arousing images into your head without consequences? You may not be physically burned by sexual images, but psychologists argue that those images can actually be burned into your mind. My husband and I knew of a married couple who regularly washed their minds with pornographic movies until it became an addiction and soon escalated into areas of deviation.
WE MUST THINK and train our minds to follow Paul's instructions found in Philippians 4:8, KJV: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. However, when you make the decision to clean up your mind, do you think the battle will be easier or harder? It gets harder. Temptation isn’t much of a battle if you easily give in to it. It is fierce when you decide to stand against it. Although you may despair at times, with all your steps backward, God won’t give up on you. Remember, your sins are already forgiven. This is a winnable battle because you are alive in Christ and dead to sin, you can become all God has called you to be. The bigger war has already been won by Christ.” No matter your sin ... big, small, perverse, habitual, all spiritual battles can be won because greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world! We must believe this, trust, and ask for the Lord to work in us and through us. We must ask for Him to strengthen us powerfully by His Spirit who lives within us! Here are some relatable scriptures:
1) Colossians. 3:1-2 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
2) Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
3) II Peter. 3:1-2 “Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.” The only way to wholesome thinking is by reading the Word of God. Psalm. 119:11 “Thy Word have I hid…”
4) II Corinthians 10:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
As we set out to rid our minds of years of impure, foolish, vain, and prideful thoughts (making it obedient to Christ), remember that merely trying to stop thinking bad thoughts, whatever they may be, won’t work. You must fill your mind with the crystal-clear Word of God. There is no alternative plan. We overcome the father of lies by choosing the truth! A good illustration is to picture your polluted mind as a pot filled to the brim with stale black coffee. It’s dark and smelly. There’s no way to get the pollution of coffee out of the liquid. However, sitting beside the coffee pot is a huge bowl of clear ice cubes. Your goal is to purify the contents of the pot by adding ice cubes to it every day. I wish there were a way to dump all the cubes (words of the Bible) in at one time, but there isn’t. Every cube dilutes the mixture, though, making it a little purer. Since you can only put in one or two cubes a day, the process seems futile at first. But over the course of time, the liquid begins to look less and less polluted, and the taste and smell of coffee decrease. The process will continue to work. But only if you don’t add more coffee grounds! Do you follow what I'm saying? Daily, little by little, line by line, precept by precept, scripture by scripture, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, THE WORD OF GOD washes your mind of old ways of thinking. Where the mind goes, the body follows. "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Romans 12:2)
Until He Comes,
-Pat-
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