August 30th

AUGUST 30th

Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

These verses all give us a directive, an action that we are to take with regard to our minds. SO, although the Holy Spirit is responsible to sanctify us (when we surrender completely to Him), it seems that our minds are part of the responsibility we have. We have a responsibility to obey Him. He tells us to renew our mind, set our mind on heavenly things, and love Him with ALL of our mind. That means that there is not to be a part of our mind that is reserved for private thoughts (as if He wasn’t aware of them anyway) or for revenge or bitterness or unforgiveness or any other thing that doesn’t line up with His Word and Spirit. “But I can’t help it!” Well yes, you might need help with it, but these verses clearly give us the directive to do it so we need to change our mindset from “I can’t” to “How can I?” God does not give us directions that we can’t obey with His help.

Remember medical science has proven now that we can change our brains. We have already talked about how science has shown that prayer and worship change our brain structure. When we pray and worship we engage our minds in that. Our minds are not our brains, we use our minds to change our brains.

Our minds need to be renewed. Our minds need to focus on Jesus and His will, etc. Our minds need to Love God -completely. But How? Ask Him for Help. Ask Him to show you how. THAT is a prayer that we will definitely see the answer to if we listen and watch for it! As we do these things our brains will change structure.

Did it strike you as odd that our minds are included in all of these verses? (There are more.) Scripture makes it clear, if we pay attention to it, that we are not just spiritual, we are physical as well. We have to stop segregating ourselves so much and realize that the spiritual and physical really are interconnected. That is the way God made us, so He addresses the physical as well as the spiritual in His Word.

To obey all of these directives we have to surrender. We have to surrender ourselves, all of us…our will, our thought patterns, our desires, spiritually and physically. When we do that we can finally have a healthy mind and we will be able to discern God’s will. When we are still feeling selfish, we skew our view of God’s will with our will. We might even purposely try to blend them together to form some kind of hybrid will/plan. But that falls so short.

To get the best that God has for us we have to surrender. Maybe that is why Romans 12:1 is grouped together will verse 2.

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

In order to have God’s perfect will for our lives we have to surrender ourselves to Him and it can be considered an act of worship.

Lord thank you for making change possible. I don’t really know completely how to change my mind, will you show me please? I do want to renew my mind and focus my mind on you and I do want to love you with ALL of my mind. Help me to do this Jesus. Holy Spirit lead me in this journey please.