One of the key truths that Tom Marshall brings out related to the mind, which I commented on in the previous posting, is that obedience creates authority. He continues with this into the chapter on the renewed mind.
God deals with all human needs through "two divine works or actions": the work of the cross, and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Marshall walks through how the cross separates and delivers us from the dominance and authority of the world, the flesh and the devil, and how the cross stands between us and our past. Of course, this has to be personally received and applied by faith, as is true of all benefits won for us by Jesus in the work of the cross. We must not only be forgiven for our sins but delivered from the domination of the authorities that rule in our minds. This can be done by:
- confessing the sins of our mind and receiving God's forgiveness
- renouncing and rejecting the authority that we have given in our mind to the world, the flesh, the devil and our past
This step of renunciation of alien authorities must be done by us..."if we ourselves do not reject and renounce them, we remain under their power in spite of what the cross accomplished. We are the ones who must dismantle them because we are the ones who set them up in the first place...Make the act of renunciation very specific and very definite...Confess it aloud until you really know in your heart that it is done...(Here the author gives a good prayer to use for doing this.)
Often there are cases that require special prayer ministry - these have to do with generational bondages and with curses. We inherit strengths as well as weaknesses. But if we have inherited a weakness in a certain area, and we ourselves yield along the line of that weakness, it creates a bondage that is far harder to break than any ordinary habit...Freedom from this requires 1) accepting responsibility for my sin in this particular area, 2) renouncing the authority that I have allowed to become established in my mind, 3) receive prayer for cutting the link with my past inheritance, 4) after being set free, blessing and honoring those who have given me life. We can also be loosed from the curses (that have come to us through cutting words) through the power of the cross.
Finally, Marshall talks about the gift of a renewed mind (II Tim.1:7). This renewal comes "only by the working of the Holy Spirit."
As we consciously and deliberately yield up our mind to the presence of the Holy Spirit, He will wash out the old habitual thought patterns, the compulsive thoughts that claimed autonomy, and the weary treadmill of negativity...It is a mind in which there is now only one authority, because its thoughts have been brought captive to the obedience of Christ...Because the internal problem of authority has been resolved, the result is life and peace...
I really like the figures 3 (page 31) and 4 (page 47) in which the author contrasts the double mind with the renewed mind. Figure 3 shows that the authority of the world, the flesh, the devil and the past is still active in the "enlightened but double mind". In contrast, although the renewed mind can still be tempted by the world, the flesh, the devil and the past, the line of authority from those sources is broken, because the cross stands between them and my mind and I am free to "decide what is going to occupy" my mind.
This is a life-long process and practice, because this side of heaven we are never exempt from temptation.
One final word from my own experience...a powerful way to strengthen the mind in truth is through the Word and especially through singing the Word (the psalms are wonderful for this since they were written to be sung); also, singing in the spirit is very strengthening of the inner life and it ends up strengthening the mind as well!
I pray that together we will know the "unknowable" love of God and day by day be renewed in our thinking to see Him and ourselves and others through His perfect eyes. May His joy over you be your strength this week!
For next week, read chaper 4: "What About Our Feelings?"
The reading of chapter 3 in Living in the Freedom of the Spirit was very encouraging and confirming. The Lord has been at work in this area of my life…the renewing of the mind.
ReplyDeleteThere are many areas of our individual lives that seemingly escape the awareness process. No doubt many of those areas involve pain…emotional pin…and it is protective to hide those areas and actually “forget” them consciously. It often takes another “trauma”, or a family event, and grateful, as we share with another praying with us, the Holy Spirit gently brings us to an awareness of the mind-emotional bondage that we are experiencing.
I was absolutely affected by the author’s quoting of II Cor. 10:4,5. When I consider how much teaching I have had on the renewing of the mind, I was amazed at my reaction to this verse. Listen to it once again: The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Now, that makes sense, doesn’t it, or does it? Remember all those nagging emotions and thoughts that torment us and keep us from being free?? Sometimes we don’t even know they are there. But when we discover them, it is absolutely profound as to how we can see the effect of them in our lives.
At this point it is essential that “we demolish the arguments and every pretension” that is not true and therefore it is against the true knowledge of God. “We take captive every thought”… “to make it obedient to Christ.” For some reason, this overwhelmed my soul and my whole being.
To illustrate: I have operated without the knowledge that my “love receptors had been damaged,” to use a Judith McNutt quote. This affected my responses to various happenings in my life. Recently, I had been talking with another (someone who I have been able to share and pray with). I had also just been taking care of our youngest grandchild (just over 1 year). His parents were on an overnight trip so it involved two days and the help of our other daughter while I worked. Anyway, this little guy only wanted to be held…all day almost for tow days. He didn’t want to eat, or drink and just pushed it and us away. So I asked him (as though he could speak), “are you lonesome?...don’t you have anyone to play with?...aren’t you feeling well?” Of course, I didn’t get any verbal answer…he just hung on.
Going back to the “love receptors”, we were involved in asking the Lord for some insight. It was then that I saw my little grandson and his reaction to everything because all he wanted was his mom…nothing else would do, so shove it away…rebel, pretend not to be interested, etc, etc. It became quite clear as a pattern in my life…not necessarily outward rebellion but a “shoving away” or “pretending not to be interested” (and not even realizing it). As though the emotional love I needed as an infant or whatever wasn’t there so “I don’t need it.”
It is amazing how we carry this type of thing around with us and with this thing moving and controlling us and we not realize it fully…so we are “tormented” in some way because of the wound that has allowed a thought in that really is not truth, not based on who our loving Father is, and we become “bound” in our thoughts and reactions.
This is a major area for the Holy Spirit to come in and have us become free as a child of our true Father. But, also, we must “demolish the arguments”, “take captive” of anything that is not of truth and continue to pray for awareness of areas of untruth in our being.
Let us help one another in the walking out our salvation in Jesus Christ and to know God’s great and deep love.
I loved this quote from chapter 4 "We are not meant to take feelings as the sole (or even the main) guide to truth and reality; but neither are we to ignore them. If we ignore, repress or suppress the emotional side of our nature, we damage positive feelings as well as negative ones."
ReplyDeleteHow true this is! I have seen that many times I do both - I either base truth on how I feel at the present moment (my belief system being lined up within my feelings rather than lined up with the Word of God). When that is the case, then "truth" comes forth out of wild emotions that I have - whether I am rejoicing one moment or struggling in darkness another moment. And that distorted way of seeing reality or truth was often how I viewed God, myself and others.
Also, the author mentioned as a person represses, shoves down emotions that results in damaging one's feelings (positive or negative). I learned from early on that it is necessary to suppress anything & everything...the one thing that must always be on this face of mine was a smile, although underneath I may have been fuming with anger or in the depths of darkness somewhere - image was more important. But now I get the awesome priviledge (joined with some pain) of unlearning wrong patterns & belief systems. God is sooo jealous for me...all of me - emotions included. And He wants me undivided and more whole and devoted to Him, rather then living divided & broken within.
This is Nonie and loved what Joan shared. In fact it made me cry seeing her with that darling grandson and understanding what he was experiencing. How I wish I had understood more of this while my children were born and those first months and years. I grew up with a mother and father that did listen and allowed us to be vocal to a point. Yet, the culture around us I think kept me from being completely free and I can see now what Mom saw in the latter years of her life. I still deal alot with feelings as Nita well knows, but the Lord has done alot to cut some of that and I am still learning. As Marshall said in this chapter 3 that "once we have said the irrevocable 'yes' to the lordship of Christ in our minds, the renewing work of the Holy Spirit becomes a continuous experience."
ReplyDeleteThe point that I want to share is that experiencing the presence of the Lord thru worship in extended times has been an awesome change for me. I cannot explain it, but somehow our minds are being cleansed during that time as we struggle (many times) to empty our minds of fears, busy schedules, and for me what I need to do next, and then turn to simply worship. For me just to go over the words of the songs to fill my mind with Jesus was a start. No one can talk me out of the truth of what I have seen happen within me. It also automatically took judgement and critical thoughts out of my heart and I was not sure how it even happened. Even my kids have seen the difference and Armand goes with me and helps with the scripture when we go to worship at our church. He has been helped as well. So, just wanted to thank Joan for sharing and encourage all of us to keep going even when we fail. I am asking the Lord to help me view others as HE sees them, and again it seems in worship that He is helping me little by little. We are all on our way by the grace and mercy of our almighty God. Blessings on whoever reads this!!! Nonie
Emotions!! Oh dear! Must we face them??
ReplyDeleteI don’t know about you folks out there, but, wow, if you had emotions when talking and sharing, weren’t you almost considered unstable? We were above all else, to be in control of expressing emotions (let alone have an emotion)…indeed, it was very suspicious. Perhaps it was my generation or my genetics, but to be able to talk stoically, to be unemotional and yet state what you wanted to say…now that was perfection!
I agree—it killed the good, positive emotions as well. If something “good” happened to a person, oh my, the next person may not be having that same “good”—best not get excited about it.
Am I cynical? I don’t know—all I know is as we are happy and glad when another has a “good” thing, we bless them and they are free to be happy and go about rejoicing in the goodness of the Lord. Obviously, this does not come easily and is built into us over time, experience and maturity…even if the Scriptures do say to rejoice when another rejoices. Just think how hard that is in reality! I think we wouldn’t have so many wounded people if we had applied this wisdom from above at an early age.
On the other hand, I certainly agree whole heartedly with the author’s cautions regarding emotions. Like he shared—in certain settings an emotion can be good, and in another setting, it can be bad. His balanced sharing of our having moral sensibilities that would show anger at an injustice to another as well as using emotions for God’s whole goodness to us…not use emotions as an excuse to agree to immoral acts, etc.
The Holy Spirit is absolutely essential and very much depended on to reach our spirit to indicate what is pure, honorable, lovely and of peace, etc. What a wonderful cleansing, healing effect that is. This “healing effect” allows us to relate the real Jesus in a warm, positive, loving and gentle way…speaking of emotions.
I could go on with some stories, especially of my salesman husband and his excited and emotional persuasions. Oh, yes, I could squelch a very excited, emotional statement quite easily. I would feel self-conscious and embarrassed at all that emotion. …notice, “I would feel”….
It was, and is, difficult learning a balance in it all—or have I learned it at all!!
P.S. Thanks for all the sharing!!!