Renewing of the Mind: Part One

Chapter Twenty-two: Why we have  to renew our mind:

In the last teaching series on Spiritual Warfare we looked at how Satan attempts to distract you and get you off track in following God and doing His will.  We also looked at how Satan tries to entice us to give in to our carnal, fleshly nature in order to achieve his goals.  But he does this through various means.  It's not just our flesh that we must battle, it's also our thought life.  So, you may be asking, why is it  important that we pay attention to our thoughts?  After all, I'm right with God.  I've been redeemed and saved.  

The goal of this first teaching is to help you realize the seriousness of the need for you to renew your mind.  It's not just a suggestion in the Bible that sounds good.  It's crucial that the seriousness of this topic really sinks in, otherwise Satan will use you at his pleasure.  Therefore, my goal will be to make you aware of what can potentially happen if you do not take control of your thought life,  and learn how to discipline it.  After all, how much attention do you really pay to the thoughts that go through your mind on a daily basis?

 

When we think about the consequences of the fall of Adam and Eve and sin entering this world, we usually think about how it affected our physical bodies and that as a result we'll all die someday due to sin's toll.  But do you realize that sin entering the world  also affected our minds, our thoughts, and the way we think about things?  Ephesians 4: 17-18 tells us that, " So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts." 

 As a result, an unbeliever lives with his mind fixed on futile things, temporary things, things that have no lasting value.  Lacking spiritual discernment, he is in the dark about spiritual matters and cannot comprehend the things of God.  Scripture warns us in First Corinthians 1:18 that, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

The only one who is pleased about mankind's living in darkness of mind is Satan.  The Apostle Paul tells us in Second Corinthians 4:4 that, " The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."  Satan is battling to maintain control of men's minds and he will stop at nothing to attain this goal.  His main objective is to keep man unaware of the truth of the Gospel by attempting to stop man from getting to know God.  Satan's goal is to keep mankind in spiritual darkness.

God, Himself, tells us in Titus 1: 15-16 that man's natural, carnal mind is defiled.  It says, "To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.  They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good."  These are people who say they know God, but the way they are living shows otherwise.

In First Timothy 6:5, Paul gives us another example of how the carnal mind of man is depraved.  It reads, "... and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain."  Depraved is another word for corrupted, ruined, destroyed or debased.  These men of Paul's time were teaching that the real purpose of religion was to raise one's social status.  They may  have done things that appeared good and helpful, but they were doing it for the wrong reasons.

In addition, Romans 8:6-7 tells us that, " The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so." We are being told that this mind that we were all born with, is spiritually dead, separated from God, and is focused on the things of our carnal, fleshly nature. 

A carnal mind is unable to know God or to have fellowship with Him, and thus cannot fulfill His purpose.  The unregenerate mind is actually an enemy to God and what He wants to accomplish.  It is, simply, spiritually dead.

Fortunately, God made a provision for us to get control over this carnal, unregenerate mind that attempts to control us.  This ungodly mind can spring up at any minute, surprising us with its thoughts, it's prejudices, it's maliciousness, it's impatience, it's jealousies and even envies. I realize most people don't pay much attention to what they think about or how their thoughts affect them. They just go along with whatever thought comes into their mind, not giving any consideration as to whether it's in their best interest to follow it through, or even whether it's pleasing to God to think upon it.  Do you ever really stop and wonder where your thoughts come from, or do you just go along with them, assuming that they are to be taken seriously and followed through?

Scripture tells us in Proverbs 23:7 that, "For as he thinks within himself, so he is...".  We can understand, then, why the mind would become an area that the enemy would want to influence.  In life, we see how simple things like advertisements try to manipulate us into thinking that we need a certain product and that it will change our life for the better.  It attempts to make us feel "how could I have lived this long without it?"  Advertising companies spend millions of dollars annually trying to come up with ways to catch our attention and get us to buy their products by trying to mold and shape our thinking. Imagine how much more Satan would love to be able to mold our thinking, get us focused on the wrong things, and even go so far as to use our thoughts to go against what God wants. Think about your thoughts.  They influence your mood, the way you feel at any particular moment, how you react to others and ultimately the choices you make in your daily life.

The area in which spiritual warfare takes place is in the mind of every believer. We struggle in our minds against many different areas: the world, our carnal, fleshly nature, and Satan. Our mind has a lot of influence over what decisions we make and the course of action we take. As Christians, we strive to live as God would have us live, but if we are ignorant of the struggle that goes on in our minds and do not make an effort to "take every thought captive", we will be tossed to and fro, quite like the man Scripture describes in the first Book of James...unstable in all we do, always questioning our decisions, wondering why we react the way we do and confused as to why we say the things we do.  Remember, Satan's goal is to weaken our faith and render us useless, and if he can't do it by causing us to question God and His goodness, he'll try to keep us feeling hopeless and frustrated by other means.  

In the next teaching, we will look at how we can begin to renew our minds.