God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 9

"The second attribute that makes you who you are and makes you able to receive from God also makes you who you are and can keep you from yielding to God is:

2.    Your mind

It’s a tough battle, the battle for your mind.  You want so much to be right and have the last word.  Your mind is not very receptive to learning new things. That is why you are so reluctant to receive revelation, because revelation refers to learning something new or unlearning something of no value.   It may not be a new thing or a new principle from God, but it may be new to you.

Your mind is reluctant to allow God to reveal new truths in you, but you must.  God calls you to a renewing of the mind and to put on the mind of Christ. 

Ephesians 4:17-24 aptly express this very thought.

Ephesians 4:17-24

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

V18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

V19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

V20 But ye have not so learned Christ;

V21 If so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:

V22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

V23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

V24 And that ye put on the new man, which is after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”

If your mind is stagnant,  you are not in the will of God. 

You have a lot to learn when you think you have learned it all. God gave you a mind to be utilized, challenged, stirred up and changed. You are to study to show yourself approved and when you do you are not going to be carried away with every whim of the undisciplined mind.

Your relationship with God is not (solely) of the mind, because if it were you could not live by faith.  And the Bible tells us that “the just shall live by faith.”

The mind science religions and the metaphysical religions are popular among those who have no faith because the teaching satisfies the mind, and requires no faith.

Unfortunately, satan has access to the mind and the body, and without the indwelling Holy Spirit, we trust our minds and our bodies to deliver us, but neither the mind or the body can deliver us.

Here again with the mind as with the body and the heart, you mustn’t attempt to get everything in order and then yield to the Holy Spirit.  No, you must yield to the Holy Spirit and then everything will get in order."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014