Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. Colossians 3:1-2 (TPT)

Your Mind – Thinking High Series – Part 2

Go to PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3  |  PART 4  |  PART 5  |  PART 6  |  PART 7

To remedy sins and lusts and temptations, my Youth Pastor used to tell me, “Set your mind on things above.” Whatever you do, don’t THINK ABOUT IT. Don’t spend time with the angst and the depressions and the temptations and the desires… push them out of your mind! Ignore them!! Replace them with thoughts about God’s love and what heaven will be like and what God wants you to do on the earth. But, of course, if I tell you NOT to think about a pink elephant in a tutu… can you think about anything else?

Setting your mind on things above and not on earthly things is not about ignoring, or pretending, or running away, or turning a blind eye. It’s not even purely addressing the things that you THINK about.

Let's get real: you cannot always control what comes into your head. I bet that if I were to tell you that every thought we have was going to be written down and published in a book, or online, for all to read, you would FREAK OUT. As would I. Sometimes, the thoughts that pop into my head scare the living daylights out me, they shock and disgust me… I can’t control everything that pops into my head. But I can control how those thoughts continue in my mind and what form they take.

The Ancient Hebrews didn’t regard the brain to be the seat of the intellect: for them, it was the heart. Emotion and intelligence were not separate but were beautifully entwined. Today, we tend to split the natural and the supernatural into two, but for the Jews, everything is spiritual. Love for God was not so much a thought, or an idea, or a feeling, but a way to live, and they loved God best not through song or prayer, but through living. Heart and action went hand in hand. That's not to say that faith and loving God is “works based.” But “love of God” outworks in the way we live our lives; for expression, not attainment. The word “mind” meant so much more than just what you think about and what level of academic intelligence you were at.

If our christian life is all about running away from sins and temptations, then how on earth can we call ourselves “overcomers?” It’s one thing to dwell on and entertain evil, it's another thing to face it within ourselves, and then help clean up its mess, within us and around the world. God calls us to be people who can deal with dirt and darkness on the regular and not be consumed by it. Gandhi said, “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” But he definitely got his feet dirty while helping those in the grip of evil.

“Setting your mind on things above” is not so much genre picking for your thought life, as it is the decision around how you are going to face all that presents itself to you: body, soul, and spirit. How are you going to engage the world that is full of both evil AND light, where the good AND bad abound, and you, YOU, have the ability to bring heaven to earth. It’s the focus of dealing with dirt, rather than dealing IN it. And it's your choice.

Over to you! What's your thought life like? Leave us your thoughts in the comment section below.

Go to Part 3 – Whatsoever Things »

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