The Mind and the Word of God

IL.message series promo

DAY 4 – The Mind and the Word of God 

 

“...Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,

which is the word of God.”

Ephesians 6:17

 

The Apostle Paul says that the soldier needs a helmet. Helmets were made of bronze and equipped with cheekpiece. These would protect the skull, and, more importantly, the mind. The mind is the most valuable asset Christian has. It is the primary method in which God communicates and connects with believers today. 

 

THE BATTLE FOR THE MIND 

 

Research says that we have 50,000-70,000 thoughts per day. This means we have between 35 and 48 thoughts per minute. That’s a lot of thinking! The battle for most is in the mind. This is why the Apostle Paul says that we must renew the mind. Why? Because it’s a critical target for Satan. He knows that if he infiltrates the mind of the Christian, he’s hit the central operating center of the Christian, and it’s only a matter of time before he will control every other area of your life.

 

What’s sad is that most Christians are living in mental defeat, not mental victory.  In fact, 80 percent of the thoughts most people have are negative.

 

Many Christians think “I can’t,” or “I never will be able to do that,” or “I could never break free,” or “I will never get out of debt,” and that’s when you bet that the enemy has you right where he wants you. Feeling defeated, incarcerated, held captive, like POW, a prisoner of the demonic warlords.

 

The enemy seeks to brainwash you, to create negative, defeatist mental pathways that lead to imprisonment.

 

These pathways of the mind become so well worn, it becomes easier and easier for the enemy to bring more and more soldiers and weapons to be formed against you into your life. Once this pathway has been worn down, it’s no wonder 98 percent of people are continuing in the same thought patterns as the day before.  If they think condemning thoughts or negative thoughts and operate with a defeatist mentality yesterday, the likelihood of them doing it again tomorrow is significantly higher.

 

 

These are mentally weak prisoners of war. The war is in the mind but plays itself out in the body later. This is why the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4:23 to be renewed in the spirit of the mind. This means we need a new mind-set! The mind becomes prone to thinking a certain way, negative or positive.

 

One way of thinking leads to the camps of captivity, and the other leads to the freedom camps.  As we renew our minds, we began to train the brain in being renewed. It’s a spiritual and physical process that takes place in the mind.

 

The Apostle Paul said that we need to “be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”  This is the essence of the Christian life: needing to know and do God’s will, and we must have a mind to do it. So how do we do this? We must fill it, filter it, and focus it.

 

PROTECT THE MIND

 

The Apostle Paul addressed two churches with this specific message. In Ephesians, he said to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. To the church in Rome, he said that we should seek to be transformed by the renewal of the mind. (See Ephesians 4:23 and Romans 12:2.) So how do we do this?

 

Fill it. The Christian must fill the mind with God’s word. We are to meditate on it day and night, being careful to live out the truths taught in scripture. Then, with the Spirit’s help, we are told that we will find success and win our war (Joshua 1:8). God will raise his servants up as he did Daniel, giving them wisdom and knowledge (Daniel 1:17). 

 

Filter it. The Apostle Paul once said, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). The battlefield wasn’t a physical space, but a mental one.

 

The believer must filter what comes into the mind by doing as the Apostle said – taking thoughts captive. This requires effort, though. If you arrest a thought and take it in, you then need to take a second step to filter what you allow into the mind, by checking it against God’s word. It’s by doing this exercise that you protect your greatest asset: “the mind.” 

 

Focus it.  Lastly, we must focus the mind if we are to use it. When we focus it on scriptures and biblical truths, we are training it to be obedient to Christ and have a great deal of good to offer the world. We are to set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2).

 

Once we do this, we will be able to wield the sword, the Word of God, in whatever battles we fight. We will be able to withstand the enemy in our time of trouble. Our mind will be strong, centered on the salvation we hold to and the scriptures we love and so desperately need for the spiritual life.

Leave a Comment

Comments for this post have been disabled.