Dear Partners and Friends,
Renewing your mind to the Word of God is the main element of being able to move forward in His plan. In order to receive His instruction, you must be able to perceive the things He is saying. Walking in a full measure of God’s will requires a mind that can receive spiritual information without tilting or locking up every time God instructs.
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” – Amos 3:3
Every specialized arena in life has it’s own specific vocabulary. In law enforcement, there are abbreviations they have developed to help them communicate rapidly and effectively. For instance the abbreviation “PR” means “party or person reporting”. When a call comes across the radio that, “the PR has reported BIP. Please report QOA”, the officer knows a person has called to report a burglary in progress and they should respond with lights and sirens off. But, if you are standing in a group of marathon runners after their race, you may hear them say, “I made my PR.” In this instance, it means “personal record”.
We have to learn how to receive and communicate with God. The more familiar we are with the way He talks and thinks, the easier it will be for Him to lead us. God has help for you. He has a plan for you. It is a good plan with an end worth looking forward to. The Lord has answers for every thing you are facing in your life. His help, His plans, and His answers are spiritual. They will dominate and effect change in the natural circumstances you are facing. But, they begin in the realm of the spirit. You receive them in your spirit and then apply these spiritual truths to the mind.
If your mind is still governed by the thinking you used before you received Jesus as Lord, you will have a difficult time applying the spiritually revealed truths to your life. Instead, you will pull the truth up from your spirit and it will hit a wall of reason. You will analyze the truth of God in the light of previous experience or compared to the situation and discard the truth. What a frustrated life it is to be a believer with an unrenewed mind!
I know because I was one. The first time I heard about tithing (this was my problem), I was a young believer and struggling to pay my bills. Every time the church received the tithe, I thought to myself, “I need this money more than God needs it.” I wanted God to help me. I wanted the blessings I saw in the Word of God. I prayed for God to increase me. In answer to my prayers, the Lord kept leading me back to the tithe. I began to take the Word of God and re-establish my thought processes. I began to renew my mind so that my thoughts could agree with His thoughts. As I did, I began to see the tithe in a whole new light. I could see that the tithe was for my benefit. The Lord wasn’t taking from me in the tithe. He was opening His financial resources to flow into my life. Tithing is a privilege! It is a divine opportunity!
Forgiveness is another example. The divine instruction is, “Forgive, if you aught against any” (Mark 11:25). If you pull that truth up into the unrenewed mind, it gets immediately rejected. There are so many reasons and excuses as to why you should hold on to it. Your emotions begin screaming. Your mind is inundated with memories of what that person did to you.
But if the mind has been placed under the control of God’s Word, the reaction is different. You immediately take the thought captive. It doesn’t have the liberty to wreck havoc in your emotions or cause you to choose a destructive response. The renewed mind dominates every memory and makes it submit to the Word of God.
Bringing your mind under the governance of the Word of God is a daily venture. Just like your hair doesn’t stay combed, your mind doesn’t stay renewed. In this world, we are confronted with wrong thoughts and ideas. We can do what II Corinthians 10:5 says, “bringing every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
Partner, we can enter into the full measure of our Lord’s plan. I believe we will expand into more of it before this year is out. I’m praying for you!
