Guarding Our Minds

Our minds are wonderful gifts from God. They are like the most incredible super computer which enables us to process everything we intake from the  world around us. Our minds enable us to take that information and make choices and navigate our way through this life. Our minds allow us to process that information and become incredibly creative in what we do with it. Personally, I am immensely grateful that God gave us these minds and the flexibility and ability to make those choice, to create music, art, humor and so many, many other things that add color to the experience we call life. And it is with these same minds that we are all able to intake and process the message of the Gospel, to perceive God’s truth and, based upon that truth, He gave us an incredible gift called free will, in which using these minds he gave us, we process all that we take in pertaining to life, creation and the creator and we then are given the right and ability to choose for ourselves whether we will put our trust in Christ or put our trust in the things of this world and ourselves. Our minds are incredibly important in making a decision for all eternity, and this is why Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This why we are to put on the helmet of salvation... to guard our minds. Never lose site of just how important the mind is in our walk with Christ. With that in mind, it really should be pretty obvious then that Satan has designs to make strategic attacks on our mind. In fact, often times we refer to the mind a the spiritual battleground. If we allow Satan to have his way our minds become filled with debilitating doubts. We will find ourselves embracing crippling lies and open ourselves to entertaining false affections. When Satan gets a toe hold into our minds, we begin rationalizing sin to the point that we actually believe the lies we have let in or even told ourselves.

One thing I've learned over the years is that this war with the flesh... the battle within our mind becomes especially strong when we make a conscious decision to pray. When we decide to pray, the fight is one. We find ourselves saying things like "I'm too tired... I'm too busy right now, I'll pray later. Often times we feel unworthy to approach because we've neglected our prayer life, or because of un-confessed sin. Doubt causes us to think prayer is useless in light of the situation we find ourselves in. We might think, "God would never listen to someone like me... God doesn’t care... I don’t feel anything so I must not be spiritual enough."

This is the very place we need to become bull dog like and relentless relentless with the truth of just who we are in Christ. We need to know in no uncertain terms that we can win this battle with our minds. Through Jesus' triumph on the cross and by the power of His Spirit, we have all the spiritual weapons we need to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5).