WATCH YOUR THINKING!

WATCH YOUR THINKING!

Rom 8:5-7

5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

          The unbeliever thinks differently than the believer! His reasoning is natural rather than spiritual. The Bible says that he is “dead” in trespasses and in sins (Ephesians 2:1). The unsaved person is alive physically, but dead spiritually. The inner man is dead toward God and does not respond to the things of the Spirit. He may be moral, and even religious; but he lacks spiritual life.

          In chapter 7, Paul explains that the old nature is in rebellion against God and will not submit to God’s laws. The carnal mind challenges everything God demands and suggests an alternative. The new nature challenges every preconceived notion of the carnal mind. Inside the believer the battle rages for dominance and we are constantly called upon to choose one philosophy or the other. We choose, according to verse 6, either death or life and peace.

          The carnal mind is a very selfish mind. It rebels against every restriction of pleasure and manifests itself in a gross lack of respect for honorable things. It prides itself on being non-traditional but the reality is that it disdains law. This kind of thinking tends toward trouble and ultimately death.

          The spiritual mind always seeks God’s wisdom; always questions its own desire for pleasure and comfort; and is aware of the needs and feelings of others. While the carnal mind is sneeringly pugnacious, the spiritual mind is a peacemaker. The spiritual mind is the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). It is the mind of personal sacrifice for the greater good.

          The Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and cowardice  unmatched in Christian history. It is difficult to do justice in words to the complete loss of intellectual morale in the twentieth-century church. One cannot characterize it without having recourse to language that will sound hysterical and melodramatic. There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality.... But as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. Harry Blamires, an Anglican theologian, literary critic, and novelist.

When evangelist D.L. Moody described his conversion experience, he said: "I was in a new world. The next morning the sun shone brighter and the birds sang sweeter .. the old elms waved their branches for joy, and all nature was at peace."

Dear Lord, let me obey the words of Philippians 2:5 which says: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” AMEN