What are you putting in your Mind?

Verse of the Week:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1

What are you putting in your Mind? 

I love healthy food.  I am constantly trying out new healthy recipes with my husband to see if they taste good.  My husband and I try to eat something called a plant based diet; noticed I said plant-BASED!  I am by no means a vegetarian, and my favorite food will always be my Dad's yummy rib eye steak fresh off the grill. However, 80% of mine and Brian's diet consists of fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, rice and other grains.  The rest is sugar, oils, dairy products, and meat.  Even though I love eating healthy food, I will be the first one to admit that I am a sweet freak!  Give me some of those yummy chocolate M and M's  or Reese Peanut butter cups, and they will be gone within the hour.  I bought some Cadbury Eggs over Easter, and I am sorry to say that I ate all six, ok five of them (I did manage to part with one and give it to my husband) within 2 days.  I notice that the more sweets I eat, the harder it is for me to get away from them.  Now that the Easter holidays are over, I am constantly looking around our apartment to find something sweet because my body craves it!  Because I didn't buy any sweets at Walmart, I have gotten desperate and have searched in every crack and cranny in my kitchen to find something sweet to eat. My body is similar to a metal detector, only I call it my sweet detector. The moment I come near something sweet, the alarm goes off in my brain, beep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeep!!!! Lately my sweet detector discovered that we have corn syrup in the pantry, and I am now mixing it up with peanut butter. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I am desperate for my sweets.

But there have also been times in my life when I am not desperate for sweets, I will have gone weeks without very many sweets.  As a result, my body craves the healthy foods like my fruits and veggies.

Here is the point I am trying to make, whatever I put into my body is what my body is going to crave. If I put sweets in my body, it will crave sweets.  If I put fruits and veggies in my body, it will crave fruits and veggies.  We can apply the same thing with our mind.  Whatever we fill our mind with is what our mind is going to crave.

When we accept Jesus into our hearts we are a new creation.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"  We have a brand new spirit in us, the Spirit of Christ!  Our inner new man is no longer bound by the law and no longer sins but has been made perfect.  So why do we keep on messing up?  One of the reasons is our minds. 

While we are transformed inside, our mind and body has not been transformed.  Our mind is going to respond to situations in life based on what we put into it. That is why Paul in the book of Romans talks about how we must constantly renew our minds. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1)  We renew our minds by focusing on Christ, reading His word, praying, discussions with fellow Christians, etc.  

Paul also talks about walking in the Spirit.  Galatians 5:16-22 says,  "I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness  revelries."

When we walk in the Spirit and fill out minds with the things of God, we do not have desire to fulfill the desires of the flesh.  So when Paul lists off the works of the flesh in Galatians 5 (adultery, fornication, sorcery, hatred, jealousy, selfish ambitions, etc.), he is saying that if you walk in the flesh  and fill your mind with the things of the flesh, you are prone to doing the things of the flesh.  But what happens if we fill our minds up with the things of the spirit inside of us?  Here is what Christ's spirit inside us has...

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering  kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.  Against such things, there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

 If you fill your mind up with the things of the spirit, you tend to display the fruits shown in the above verse. So lets renew our minds and walk in the Spirit!  We do this by focusing our minds on Christ. It is like driving a car; when we drive, we focus on staying on the road.  The moment we stop focusing on the road, and start doing other things like texting on our cell phone or looking at a crying baby in the back seat (yep...I am guilty of that one!) or falling asleep, you start to veer off the road and eventually you can find yourself crashing.  So how do we focus on Christ so that we don't crash?  Well, in John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Christ is the word. Lets fill ourselves up with His Word. I found out from a friend of mine that she renews her mind by focusing  on who she is in Christ.  You see, In Christ, I am loving. In Christ, I am joyful.  In Christ, I am peaceful. In Christ, I am kind.  In Christ, I am good.  In Christ, I am faithful. In Christ, I am gentle. In Christ, I have self- control. Christ displays those traits and is living inside of me. But you can move beyond the verse in Galatians and look in the Bible at other ways you are with Christ living inside of you.  In Christ, I am a Saint.  In Christ, I am righteous.  In Christ, I am loved.  In Christ, I am forgiven.  In Christ, I trust in God. The list goes on and on.  

What are you filling your minds with today? Are you filling it with who you are in Christ?  Or are you filling it with the things of the flesh?

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Ephesians 4:22-24