MIND CONTROL

2 Chronicles 6:12-8:10; Romans 7:14-8:8; Psalm 18:1-5; Proverbs 19:24-25

“Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.”

“Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.”

“I love you, Lord; you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”

Today’s selection from Romans is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful, important, practical and complex excerpts of Scripture to be found. A very human saint still struggles with dark spiritual issues which threaten to tear him apart. A take-no-prisoners battle is being fought in Paul’s soul as his “natural” and “spiritual” sides vie for control of his head and heart. Paul is caught between warring forces he can neither avoid nor control on his own. An impotent victim, he clings to the only thing that is tougher and more powerful than the legions within - Jesus Christ:

“Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.”

Even knowing he is free in the power of Christ not to sin, Paul still finds himself coming up short. His emotions bounce between the hope of the Holy Spirit and the frustration and frailty of his humanness. He doesn’t sound free. His mind keeps returning to his failings like a dog returning to its vomit. Given his history, Paul’s penchant for this kind of vulnerability is more than understandable. As Saul, he had done horrid, deplorable things. No amount of prayer likely ever erased the visual images of his martyred victims. Whatever Scripture or Christ Himself says, self-condemnation is a hard habit to break. As long as we remain focused on our weakness, our eyes are off Jesus, and odds are we will just repeat our sins, continue to feel guilty and condemn ourselves.

I know a thing or two about self-condemnation. It’s slow poison. Raised in a highly performance-oriented environment, I’m not sure I was ever really clear about the difference between simple failure and sin. A “B” in handwriting, a missed pop fly in the outfield or a lie all merited the same consequence: condemnation. Not being good enough became a personality flaw with which I was all too well acquainted and from which there seemed to be absolutely no escape. I worked desperately to save myself but remained miserable in my failures and my sins. Success was quickly forgotten when the next hurdle could not be cleared.

Until I got to Romans 8; it caused me to start thinking about what I think about. What I came to understand is, Christian or not, it’s simply impossible to ever get past condemnation as long as we continue to allow our shortcomings and perceived lack of talent or ability to dominate our thoughts. Romans 8 gives us some solid alternatives.

First and foremost, NO CONDEMNATION! None, zero, nada, for those in Christ Jesus. If the Lord says we are not to be condemned, why do we still wallow in it? I venture to say it is because we don’t feel worthy of our freedom from its clutches, so we keep returning to it. Satan - and sadly, other people and our own minds, too - keep us feeling guilty. They do not want our focus turned outward in any respect. So, Paul finally finds his answer, and gave me mine, in Romans 8:5-6. Perhaps not so surprisingly, the secret proved to be that we both just needed to stop thinking so much:

“Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.”

It comes down to this: what would happen if we really were diligent about letting the Holy Spirit do our thinking for us? I’m not talking about mental abdication or surrender, exactly. I am talking about an intentional focus on giving God the first and last word, and every word in between, when it comes both to our view of ourselves and the decisions and actions in which we engage. If we were to adopt God’s view of us after Christ, failure would become valuable experience. Guilt truly would be wiped out by grace. Insufficiency would transform into just another opportunity for divine intervention. We would see the Spirit working through us more clearly and understand our value to the Father more perfectly. Armed with that knowledge, we really would be free to live the life for which we were created.

Sin and insufficiency always begin in the mind. If we allow our thoughts to be possessed by the Holy Spirit, we have nothing to worry about. It’s only when we, like Peter on the water, take our eyes off Jesus that we begin to sink. The Holy Spirit is our life raft on the rough seas of life. If we are going to be obsessed with anything, let’s be obsessed with keeping Him in the center of our thoughts and hearts. Let’s allow the Spirit to control our minds. We can fool ourselves about our worth and our talents. Only our Creator gets the true picture, and He died to show it to us.