Renewed
Sunset at Desertview Watchtower
I have spent the past days sick. Ugh! Nobody likes to feel the pain and discomfort of some enemy attacking our body. However, as I lay upon my bed waiting for good feelings to return, I considered the fact that a portion of my discomfort was my miraculously formed body defending my health and defeating that which was attacking it. In some weird way, that seemed to help. But that is what our bodies do. God has built a ready defense mechanism into our physical nature. Our bodies immediately recognize something as evil, with malicious intentions, and attack without reservation to minimize the negative impact. How wonderful!
This got me thinking about our minds. Unfortunately, that ready defense is not built into our minds. Thoughts and ideas bombard our brains every day that have significant and negative impact. Our brain does not know what to accept and what to reject. Our brains need help.
Romans 1 links our mind (thinking) to sinful actions bringing forth the wrath of God.
1:18 ~ “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth”
1:21 ~ “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
1:25 ~ “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”
As it was in the days of the time Romans was written, so it is today. 2 Peter 3 prophecies that those who scoff at God’s word will willingly forget that God created all things out of water and through water, that he destroyed the earth by that same water, and that the earth is being held for judgment by fire upon the return of Christ. These are all issues of the mind that are direct results of the warning provided in Colossians 2:8. “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”
But we have been given help. In fact, 2 Peter 2:3 tells us we have been given everything we need for life and godliness. When Jesus ascended and sat down at the right hand of His Father in Heaven, all authority in heaven and earth was given to Him. By that authority, He commissioned the Holy Spirit to indwell all believers to remind us of what has been said and done and to continue to conform us to the image of our Creator. The attacks on our mind and our thinking will come without reprieve, but we have been given the means to not only defend ourselves, but to fight back. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” God’s word is alive and active, sharper than any double edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). Everything must be held against the authority of God’s word. This presses the point that we must not simply be familiar with God’s word, but know it intimately. The washing of God’s word over our minds every day renews us and provides interaction with the truth. The only way to rightly identify a lie is to be deeply interactive with the truth.
Cling to God’s word today and be RENEWED!
Praiseallujiah!
Jon
