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The Battle of the Mind
The mind is the guardian of the heart. This is why we are commanded to renew our minds daily[1]. We are also instructed to do this by washing and renewing in the Word of God[2]. The Bible speaks much about renewing the mind and not allowing ourselves to be conformed to this world.
The corruption of the world around us is inescapable. It’s impossible to live without being exposed to the influences that challenge our walk of faith. Even driving down the highway exposes us through billboards, signs, and even vehicles painted with seductive advertisements. Radio, TV, and everyday life challenges the moral standard of the Christian life. For this reason, we must be active in renewing our spiritual state of mind. Consider the words of Paul in Romans 7:22-23
22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Don’t be surprised when you struggle. Though our soul has been redeemed from sin, we remain in a corrupt body which groans for its day of redemption[3]. Even the apostles, those closest to Christ and who were given the power to lay the foundation of the church, were not exempt from this struggle. They may have had a special calling, but they were no different than you and I. They, too, strove against temptation in their quest for a holy life.
A teacher once claimed that those who reach a certain level of spiritual maturity will no longer be affected by sin. He claimed temptation was like a layer of clouds. Once you rise above it, temptation would now be below you and could no longer affect your life.
How I wish that were true. As is the case with most misconceptions of truth, this teacher was reading a book by someone who claimed to have achieved this level. Anyone who says they are free from sin or temptation is blind and has deceived themselves. If the apostles of Christ, those God used to communicate scriptures to the church, were not immune to temptation and human failure, why would anyone today think they would achieve this level? Those closest to Christ still struggled, so we can expect the same. Peter was rebuked for being caught up by peer pressure and showed great hypocrisy. Paul confessed his own struggles. And these are the two apostles most highly regarded by the church and other apostles.
No one is above temptation and no one can breeze through life without wrestling against the flesh. We all strive to conform to the standard God has empowered us to stand upon. The Apostle Paul expressed the groaning of his soul by acknowledging that his natural tendency was to do what was wrong and neglect what is right. Even more disconcerting is his statement that sin in his flesh wars against his mind, trying to bring him back into the captivity of his old lifestyle. I say disconcerting because it shows how we all can expect this struggle. However, it is also encouraging to know we are not alone in our battle.
The Bible gives a clear solution to this problem. We are commanded to set our minds on the things above – the eternal things of God. Setting our minds on the things above doesn’t mean we are gazing into the heavens and waiting for eternity. It means that we focus on godliness and how to live by faith in this present world.
We do this by teaching our minds how to untangle from worldly things and how to remain on the right things. How we think affects who we are, what we believe, and the focus of our life.
Incorruptible Seed.
Let’s discuss something that is the cause of confusion among Christians. We just read the Apostle Paul’s lamentation of his struggle with sin in his flesh, and how at times it causes him to do what he knows is wrong. In a moment we’ll look at the Apostle John’s discussion about how the child of God does not sin and cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
Christians look at John’s statement and wonder, am I really a child of God? If we cannot sin because we are born of God, then does that mean sin disqualifies my claim of faith?
Absolutely not. The apostles struggled with sin, just as every person who has ever lived. Sin remains in our flesh and wars against our minds, attempting to entangle us back into sin and enslave us in our old passions. It’s a life long struggle. The battle will rage until our bodies are redeemed at the coming of Christ.
How then do we reconcile the struggles against the flesh with the promise that we cannot sin? It’s the battle of two opposing forces in our lives. Though our old nature of sin was buried with Christ, our bodies of flesh remain susceptible to sin. Even so, we have a new nature, incorruptible and holy. Look at 1 Peter 1:22-23
22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,
23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
Take notice of Peter’s words in verse twenty-three. We are born again of incorruptible seed. Remember when we discussed the doctrine of being born again? Our old man (old nature) is crucified with Christ. It’s crucified, buried, and we are raised as a new creation with eternal life. This new nature is placed within us by God. It is of God and has its life through Christ.
God is incorruptible. What God gives is without corruption or sin. Our inner man is immune from corruption. In the passage above, Peter makes this clear. We don’t have a nature that can be corrupted – it’s incorruptible. Because our new man (or new nature) is born through the word of God which lives and abides forever, our new man also abides and lives forever. God’s word is incorruptible, God is incorruptible, and our nature that is placed within us and sustained through the Holy Spirit is also incorruptible. Now let’s bring 1 John 3:9-10 into the picture.
9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
Righteousness is practiced through the inner man – the incorruptible seed that God has placed within those born into the Spirit. That inner man cannot sin because he has been born of God. Let’s apply this understanding to Paul’s explanation. After explaining that sin lives in our members (body of flesh), the Apostle Paul also explains how sin in our flesh wars against our minds in an attempt to draw us back into bondage. He then concludes his explanation in Romans 7:25
I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
If we serve our flesh, we are serving the law of sin. Sin is in the body and is acted upon through the flesh. The flesh can corrupt our relationship with God and bring us back into bondage, but it cannot corrupt our inner man. The inner man is the seed of the Holy Spirit, created in Christ Jesus, and what is spiritual cannot be corrupted by the flesh.
The flesh cannot serve God because it is not eternal. Notice how Paul explains his service. Through the body he serves sin, but through the mind he serves God. We serve God as we set our minds on the things of the Spirit and not by works of the flesh. Even our best and most noble efforts of the flesh cannot produce anything but that which is of the flesh – corruption. That’s why the Bible says our best righteousness is filthy in God’s sight. We sin when we allow our minds to follow our flesh, but we are walking in righteousness when we set our minds on the things of the Spirit. Though we live in a body of flesh, our service is through a mind set upon Christ. We act out based on a mind of the spirit or a mind set upon the flesh.
Unlike Adam who fell from life when he sinned, we are sustained by God through His Holy Spirit. Life is now through God, not through man’s ability to live in perfection. The weakness of the law was man, but now the strength of the law of righteousness is Jesus Christ. Thus we are secure in our eternal life from the temptations of sin.
We are indeed held accountable for what is done in our bodies, but it does not corrupt the spirit of our inner man that has life through the Holy Spirit. Our minds can be corrupted, but not the Spirit that is born of God. Paul goes on to explain this in Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Who has no condemnation? Those who are in Christ and walk according to the Spirit. The Bible also explains that if we are led by the Spirit, we are no longer under the law.[4]
If we put it all together, the message is clear. We do indeed struggle with sin, but it no longer has dominion over us because of our freedom in Christ. Sin will continue to war against our minds, attempting to lure us back into the lusts of the flesh so we are again entangled, but we have the power to renew our minds and submit to the leading of the Spirit.
There will be times when we will give in to sin, but because we are born of God, the Spirit continuously draws us toward righteousness and empowers us to rise above the calling of the flesh. Though our body is corrupted by sin, that which is born of God cannot sin. The seed of God, the new man created in Christ, cannot sin because it is of the Holy Spirit. If we are pursuing life through our new nature, sin becomes powerless and irrelevant. If we submit our minds back to the flesh, we are empowering sin. The battle is fought by where we choose to place our focus.
The challenge is to renew our minds so we are walking according to the Spirit and not living for the flesh.
Next, let’s look at a biblical discipline that is rarely taught in the church. Biblical meditation is a spiritual discipline the Bible puts a lot of focus on. But we must understand meditation from a scriptural perspective.
Meditation
For every godly practice, there is an ungodly counterfeit. Just as there is bad doctrine and good doctrine, there is also a biblical form of meditation and an unbiblical meditation. Nearly every religion has a form of meditation, but as Christians, we must take care to not follow the practices of the world. The Bible has a lot to say on meditation; however, many meditation practices that pass themselves off as Christian are not. Many New Age practices are repackaged with Christian terms and then called by various names that sound innocent, but are still based on New Age practices.
I’ll point out a few misconceptions along the way, but rather than making the counterfeit practices the focus, we’ll look at what the Bible teaches on meditation. When we know the biblically sound way, the unbiblical way will be evident.
Engage your Mind
The Bible never calls us to turn our minds off. Instead of emptying our minds, we are called to fill our minds and think upon the good things God has revealed to us.
The New Age form of meditation is to empty your mind and try to think of nothing. The idea is that a good force will come in and bring enlightenment. The concept is that we must first be empty before our minds can be brought to a higher state. Some try to claim the Bible teaches this practice by quoting phrases out of context. “Be still and know I am God,” is often used. But what does it mean to be still? Does quieting our minds mean that we create a vacuum? Does it mean we must stop our minds from thinking?
Certainly not. Even the passage that says “be still,” also says, “know that I am God.” To know is to think upon something that gives knowledge. We quiet our minds from worldly distractions, but not from thinking.
Jesus told a parable of a sower who planted seeds. The ones that fell on good ground produced good fruit, but many seeds fell on bad soil. Some fell on stony ground and had no depth of faith and fell away when the hearer was offended. Some fell on the wayside, and birds took the seeds away. These are forgetful hearers of the word. Others fell among thorns. This example applies to our discussion.
The seeds among thorns were choked by the weeds and became unfruitful. Jesus explained that the thorns are riches, the cares of this life, and other things coming in. These choke our lives so we cannot grow into spiritual maturity. Other things coming in, and cares that hammer at our thoughts prevent us from seeing the glory God is revealing in us. We must purposefully be still and know He is God.
I encourage you to find a concordance and search for the word ‘meditate’ in the Bible. I’ve selected a few passages below. Take note that in each case, meditation is to think upon something God is revealing. We’ll use the greatest example of meditation in the Bible – the Psalms written by King David. This man rose from the fields where he kept the sheep to become the greatest king of Israel. God blessed him in every area of his life, promised that his family would keep the throne in Israel, and even was promised that Jesus would come from David’s descendants. Why did God bless this man so?
The Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart. What made David’s so special in God’s eyes? Why did this man have such a desire to pursue God? The love David had for God caused him to strive to know God more. Yet the Bible says that God does not respect one person over another. Therefore, what made David special is not special at all. I say ‘not special’, but by that I mean that he was not unique. God didn’t love David because he was special. David experienced God’s love greater because he pursued it.
I have several children. I love each of them with the same love, but not all experience the same amount of love. A child that wants to be held will naturally feel closer than a child that stands aloof. Some of my kids are affectionate, while others are less so.
This also applies to God. The Lord doesn’t love the preacher more than the layman. Those who seem strong in faith aren’t that way because they are more loved. They pursue the Lord and therefore experience more.
The Bible doesn’t say that God was after David’s heart. God reaches out to every heart. The thing that set David apart is that he saw God’s great love and it caused him to pursue God. He wanted to touch the heart of the Lord who had touched him.
What David had is available to us all. The same principles are for you and I. So the question to answer is, what inspired David to passionately pursue God? One simple word, meditation. The Psalms David wrote were penned from his times of meditation. Let’s look at the way he meditated, how it caused him to recognize the value of his relationship with God, and how it taught him to deal with the difficulties of life.
Let’s first look at what meditation means. Two passages clue us in on the meaning. Let’s start with Psalm 77:6
I call to remembrance my song in the night; I meditate within my heart, And my spirit makes diligent search.
Earlier in this Psalm, David begins by saying, “I complained and I was overwhelmed.” He is in a difficult time in his life and troubles seem to be swallowing him. Complaining didn’t resolve his troubles. It led to feelings of being overwhelmed. He recognized this and turned his focus onto the good things the Lord had done. He meditated on these things and during that time of meditation, he made a diligent search of his memories, and how they reflected the goodness of God.
Rather than emptying his mind, meditation was to diligently seek to remember the goodness of the Lord. As he remembered, he meditated on those things to find encouragement.
This is a strong lesson for us all. Like David, our natural tendency is to look at our problems and complain. Does complaining to ourselves ever resolve problems? No, it adds to our heavy heart and creates feelings of being overwhelmed. Instead of focusing on what we don’t like or our troubles, we must force ourselves to focus on the works of the Lord. Remember, this is a process of walking by faith. Once I recognize the hand of the Lord, I can have confidence in Him during my troubles. Troubles shrink in the presence of the Lord; therefore, we must be looking to Him instead of to what bothers us.
Consider the apostle Peter. When Jesus walked to the disciples on the water, Peter called out, “Lord, command me to come to you.” Jesus said, “Come,” and Peter stepped out onto the water. The disciples had been rowing against the fierce wind for hours and the waves were pounding them. Peter started walking on the water, but then took his eyes off Jesus and focused on the boisterous wind and became afraid. The wind became bigger than his faith in Jesus’ call to come, and he began to sink.
It wasn’t the wind that defeated Peter. It was that he took his eyes off the Lord and focused on the trouble around him. The wind had been hammering him for hours, but for a moment they were small and insignificant. While he trusted in the Lord and focused on Christ, they had no power over his life. But once he put his faith in what troubled him, trouble became more powerful than his view of God.
Jesus’ answer said it all. “O you of little faith. Why did you doubt?”
Every day you are meditating on something. The question is, are you meditating on your problems and the things that bother you, or are you taking time out to meditate on the things God has called you to meditate upon. Let’s look at another example from Psalm 119:27
Make me understand the way of Your precepts; So shall I meditate on Your wondrous works.
Once again, meditation is not emptying the mind, but stilling ourselves so we can put our focus on something eternal. Meditation is to focus on understanding God’s precepts so we can think upon the wonderful works of God.
Most people never see the wonders of God’s plan unfolding in their lives. The reason we miss God’s plan is because we are focusing on the way we want things to be instead of the works God is doing in us and through us. God takes things away that hinder us so he can give us eternal things that benefit us. But like a child who screams when something harmful is taken, we only focus on what we lost, instead of on the love God has for us.
Consider the grapevine. The Bible often uses this to illustrate God’s work in our lives. A grape vine only produces healthy clusters on new growth. An unattended vine will produce a few grapes, but for the most part, it is unfruitful. The vine is spending all its energy maintaining old growth and has little left for fruit.
A vineyard tender will prune the vine back at the end of each year. In the spring, new vines emerge, filled with life and energy. Clusters of grapes appear everywhere and much fruit is produced.
Our lives are much like an old vine, we spend most of our energy keeping up with busyness and things that produce nothing of eternal significance. This is why the Lord says that even those who produce fruit, God will prune that they may produce more fruit.[5] Yet the average Christian is blind to what God is doing. We spend so much time mourning over what was lost during pruning that we cannot apply ourselves to new growth.
This is why meditation is vital. You must set time aside to turn off the outside things crowding your thoughts. Don’t think about duties, TV, or other activities. Turn off your inner complainer. Turn off the things that bother you. For a moment, force your troubles out of your focus. Meditate. Think upon the Lord. Quiet your thoughts that are warring to take over your mind. Pluck them out like weeds. When they spring back up, pluck them out again. Find something godly to focus on and search the word and your heart to discover what God is revealing.
It is difficult to accomplish this. We have spent our whole lives surrendering our minds to every whim, thought, and distraction. It’s easy to float downstream. Just let go and allow your thoughts to carry you where they will. Unfortunately, our natural man often doesn’t carry us to good places. It’s part of living in a fallen world.
The law of entropy says that everything in the universe tends toward disorder. Unless something intervenes, breakdown and decay is the natural result. The Bible teaches how to intervene. Let’s take a little time and look at how the Bible instructs us to use the practice of meditation to overcome the flesh that wars against our minds.
Godly Meditation helps resolve anger.
Anger is a part of life. Everyone gets angry. Anger is not a sin, it’s an emotion. It is how we deal with it that determines whether it is healthy or not. Consider the meditation of Psalm 4:3-4
3 But know that the LORD has set apart for Himself him who is godly; The LORD will hear when I call to Him.
4 Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah
The instruction of scripture is to put anger in its proper place. This begins by putting ourselves in the proper spiritual position. Those who are godly are set apart for God. This means that if we act according to scripture’s call, we are in a position to see the goodness of the Lord. We first see His favor in our lives, then we see His hand in our circumstances. A godly perspective is how we must begin when dealing with anger. We don’t brood, but rather meditate. There is a difference.
When I’m angry, I must meditate and be still. The same is true for you. First still yourself and push the emotional reactions aside. Meditate upon the things you know about God and godliness, and then put your anger into perspective. Stop and look at what created the anger. Is it anger over not getting our way? Is it petty things that aren’t worthy of the emotional energy we put into it? Stress is often the accumulation of little annoyances, but when we take the time to think upon the object of our anger, and put it into a godly perspective, anger and frustration can be diffused.
Not every battle is worth fighting. Not every situation has a resolution. People are blind to the faults they have that frustrate us. And we are blind to our faults as well. Sometimes we have to look at the frustration in light of the entirety of life and the eternal perspective of our Christian walk.
Jesus warned, “Hold fast to what you have that no one takes your crown.”[6]
What we have is the gift of God. Not only do we have redemption, but we have God’s path He created for us to walk in. The Lord said that He fashioned our days for us before we were born[7]. The same passage also says God has precious thoughts toward us that are greater in number than the sand of the seas. This means that God has already laid out a way for you to experience life to its fullest. This includes our eternal life.
Sadly, we let go of the crown of God’s reward so we can cling to anger against people. This is one way we let people take our crown. Some are led away from God through worldly philosophies, but even a theologically sound person can lose perspective and invest their lives in meaningless things at the cost of eternal things. Selfish anger is one of those meaningless things.
Anger isn’t always bad. Sometimes anger causes us to act in a good way. When Peter denied Jesus three times, he was defeated and guilt ridden. Afterward, Jesus came to him. “Peter, do you love me more than you love these?” When Peter said yes, Jesus gave him the command to feed his sheep, referring to teaching others how to become disciples of Christ.
Jesus asked Peter again if he loved Him. Again Peter said he did. Then Jesus asked a third time. Peter was grieved that Jesus kept asking the same question, but there was a point. Peter was defeated. His focus was only on himself and he didn’t feel worthy to be the apostle Jesus had called him to be. By the third time Jesus asked the question, anger began to light a fire in Peter’s heart. He was being forced to take his eyes off his defeat. God used anger to stir Peter out of self-pity and back onto his purpose.
Selfish anger never produces righteousness. We try to make our anger appear righteous, but the truth is, if I’m focused on myself, it’s selfish anger. When people become angry at how they’ve been treated, their emotions become destructive. But let someone get angry at the neglect of the poor and what happens? They set out to change the part of the world within their power.
A man recently passed away named David Wilkerson. He was a struggling pastor until an event angered him into action. In his book, The Cross and the Switchblade, David describes the event that changed his life. A gang of youth were being tried for murder. When he saw the picture in the paper, he saw children. Kids not yet in high school were committing murder. These forgotten children were being left without guidance on the cruel city streets of New York. It angered him and he set out to touch their lives. Though he never had the opportunity to meet the kids he went to see, God used that anger as a turning point and a call to action to reach the youth of New York’s streets.
When we feel anger, it’s a call to search our hearts while looking toward godliness. Is it my wrong that makes me angry and creates selfish indignation? Or is it a call toward a need. Maybe that need begins with dealing with my own selfishness.
Most people get angry and react, but never meditate. We go day to day reacting to what bothers us while anger builds up pressure and erodes away godliness. Jesus became angry on several occasions. But not once did He show anger for wrongs done to Him. He saw the poor being fleeced in the temple and he became angry and put a stop to the business of buying and selling in the temple. He stopped the priests from rejecting sacrifices in order to force people to buy from them. What happened when people called Him demon possessed, a drunkard, a sinner, and a deceiver? He explained the truth but never defended Himself out of pride.
Be still and think upon your walk of faith. How does anger reveal what needs to be changed in the world around you? How does selfish anger reveal what needs to be changed in your life? How can you turn a brooding heart into a meditating heart?
[1] Romans 12:2
[2] Titus 3:5 and John 15:3
[3] Romans 8:23
[4] Galatians 5:18
[5] John 15
[6] Revelation 3:11
[7] Psalm 139:16