Discipline of Mind

Deuteronomy 6:4 “   Listen, Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! 6:5  You must love the LORD your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength.”

This blog is an exercise in loving God with our mind. Put your thinking caps on and let’s go!

Romans 10:9 reads “because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

When we confess (which carries with it a non-negotiable strength of conviction) that Jesus is Lord, we enter a lifelong process of yielding every part of our existence to his lordship so he can transform us into the people He wants. This process is called sanctification. My favorite scripture on this reads:

Romans 12:1-2 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present

your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service.

Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and

perfect.

The Greek text shows us the verbs translated as “present your bodies” and “do not be conformed” are task of the believer, our part of this sanctification process. It is one way we put our words into actions when we say “Jesus is Lord”. My favorite part of this is the “be transformed” part. The Greek word used here means “transform the essential nature of something” and is the same word we get “metamorphosis” from, as in a chrysalis turning into a butterfly. The Greek verb shows that this “be transformed” part is being done to the believer by God. That’s his part. By God doing his part, we miraculously get a renewed mind! We are going from a chrysalis stage to a butterfly. This is typically a bit by bit processor but once in a while God makes an incredible wholesale change in someone. (these

are incredible testimonies to hear)

Here's the deal though – God gives us the choice to cooperate or not. We can resist God and the work he is wanting to do in us. This topic finally lands me at the main subject of this blog entry – worshipping God with our mind. Because worshipping God with our mind means cooperating with him in the work he is doing in us. God gave us the gift of the ability to make choices and He respects those. However, if we are choosing to not submit our mind the Lordship of Jesus we are significantly harming both ourselves and our relationship with God. Further, we open a door the enemy may use to deceive us and create all sorts of trouble, including suicide.

So how do we worship God with our mind? Here are a few main ways:

1. Pray – 1 Thess. 5:17 “constantly pray”

This most fundamental thing about being a follower of Jesus is a relationship with God. If you

are not using your mind to talk to God, you need to review whether Jesus is Lord of your life. By

definition, relationships require communication.

2. Reason - Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD:"

We can systematically look at what God has created and learn about him. In fact, Romans 1:20

tells us that what can be learned about from just looking at creation is enough for people to

know God and for God to rightly judge them for their sin. Reason is a powerful tool of discovery.

However, reason should always be in submission to revelation. Reason requires learning good

thinking skills like proper logical analysis and organized problem-solving skills.

3. Knowledge - Heb. 10:16 "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds”

Building our knowledge of God means reading or listening to scripture, books by Christian

authors, material by trusted credible thinkers, conferences, sermons, blogs (like this one) and

the like. Knowledge can come from a lot of sources, but we need to know it is trustworthy.

This is why daily Bible Study is so important. We need to be taking in God’s word first and

foremost. The Upward Men have a daily Bible Study that anyone can join where we dig into the

word and share our thoughts.

4. Memory - Isaiah 63:7 "I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the LORD has done for us."

Stories of the faithfulness of God to believers past and present allow us to learn about God and

how he works. They help us identify when God is at work so we can join him. They also

encourage us in times of great struggle and are powerful weapons of spiritual warfare as we see

in Revelation 12:11 “But they overcame him (the accuser) by the blood of the Lamb and by the

word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.”

Worshipping God with memory was so important to ancient Israel that they had a practice of

making great towers of rocks called Zikkarons. When a great move of God happened, they

would build a Zikkaron so that when their kids saw it they would ask what went down and hear

the story.

5. Meditation – Psalm 119: 97 “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.”

Meditation is when we take the reasoning, knowledge, and memory we have and think on it.

We mentally chew on it like a cow or sheep chews the cud. What is critical here is what we

choose to chew on. We want to keep this focused on things that glorify God because what we

think on grows. James 4:1-2 warns us:

“  Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from

this, from your passions that battle inside you? 4:2  You desire and you do not have; you

murder and envy and you cannot obtain…”

One of King David’s sons, Absalom, let his passions for his half sister Tamar battle in him so

badly that he wanted to die. He was not taking care to meditate on Godly things and it ended

up destroying him ultimately. Men, meditating on sexual sin will wreck you.

6. Imagination - Psa. 8:3 "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have ordained."

Imagination is the fodder for storytelling. Think of the great fictional work born by the

imagination of CS Lewis and JR Tolkien. Both authors used their imagination to communicate

deep truth about God. Jesus used his imagination to create parables that spoke deep truth.

Also our imagination helps us as finite beings probe some of the mysteries of God.

This same imagination can be used for concocting godless fantasies and desires. Be a very

careful steward of your imagination because it can lead you to a terrible end.

Our minds are powerful reprogrammable computers. They literally get rewired as we think. The more we think about a topic the more effectively our brains think in that space because of something doctors call “neuroplasticity”. Or simply put – what we dwell on grows. Whether it is good or bad.

Apostle Paul didn’t know about neuroplasticity but when he wrote Philippians 4:8 he was spot on

regarding how to program our brains: ”Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of respect, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if something is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things.”

Author Kent Hughes notes about Philippians 4:8 “"Think about such things". The word he uses is logidzamai, from which we get the mathematical computer-like word logarithm. It means a deliberate and prolonged contemplation as if one is weighing a mathematical problem”

This is not casual thought. And this is no casual battle because our enemy knows how our brains work, though he cannot read our thoughts.

The bottom line is this: If we call Jesus Lord then he is Lord of our mind and what we put into it and do with it. Whatever we do with it or put into our mind either draws us closer to God or moves us further away from God. It is a very real “lordship” detector. What is your detector saying?