In a book called What’s On Your Mind by Merlin Carothers of Prison to Praise fame, there exists a statement, though not jotted down that shouts at everyone who reads the book. That statement says, “Beware of what is on your mind. It is just but a premature action.” (I read this book in 1997, and this is a book I would recommend everyone to have on the shelve of his or her home library).
I have come to the conclusion that one of the greatest battles we will ever have to win is the battle of our mind. For us to harness our mind we will have to take deliberate decisions and actions that are obviously unpopular.
The mind is not the brain. In computer systems there is the hardware and the software. The software is the logical part and the hardware is the physical. The software part is the one that drives the hardware part. Small wonders that most of the softwares are called drivers while the hardwares are called drives.
In the same way the mind is logical part of the mental system of the human being. It is the one that drives the brain to process the thoughts that you are thinking right now.
In the Bible we find that human beings have five different kinds of minds. There is the natural mind, the reprobate mind, the carnal mind, the soulish mind and the spiritual mind. Let us go ahead and dig a little deeper as we endeavor to elaborate more on these different minds.
The natural mind is the one that everyone is initially born with. It develops by gaining information and making decisions upon the information it has garnered from the natural world. The tragic thing about this mind is that it cannot receive the spiritual things (1 Corinthians 2:14).
The reprobate mind is the basest kind of mind. It is given as a punishment to those who want to have their way. Somebody said that sin is man telling God “leave me alone. I want to go it my way”; and hell is God telling man “you can now have your way. There will be no more interference.” If that is the case, then the reprobate mind is having a little hell on your mind (Romans 1:28-32).
Carnal mind is the mind that dares to care about the things that are sensual more than the spiritual things. The whole issue about the carnal mind is that the actions it exhibits are mostly selfish and therefore childish. Its main concern revolves around “me, myself and I”. For example, I may be called upon to go and preach and I start arguing about how the people will take me because of some speech impediments, and I end up not going. Apostle Paul explained the confusion that revolves around the carnal mind in the service of God in Romans 7. Try counting the I, me, myself, my in that chapter, and you will get the point I am putting through. The problem with this mind is that it poses as an enemy to God and His affairs, including His blessings and His calling (Romans 8:6).
The most intricately cunning mind is the soulish mind. In Genesis 2:7 we deduce that the soul is the link between the body and the spirit. The soulish mind therefore tends to take the divine things and twist them to fit the selfish desires and/or use them for its gain. My heart goes out to those who are currently caught up in this shrewd mind. You may not be able to discern this mind, if it is in you, until you understand and come to embrace the fact that we have a battle between the will of God and our ambition, and the will of God is, actually to win us over to His mindset, which is the spiritual mind.
The spiritual mind is the mind of Christ. Philippians 2: 3-7 gives us some of the features of this mind. The first thing we find is humility, the second thing is concern for the other person and then we have submission.
This mind is also characterized with simplicity. This is portrayed by the way a person behaves when s/he is elevated to a place of higher responsibilities and where s/he is living in more prestige than before. Let us have a look at what the Bible says concerning this in 2 Corinthians 11:3. “…But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, so your thoughts should be corrupted from the simplicity due to Christ.”
This is a mind that chooses to trust God for anything and unquestioningly obeys His commands daily, not for its gain, but in the knowledge that by this it is glorifying Him, which is its main purpose. It is a mind that knows that it has power that is work within (Ephesians 1:19). It is also a mind of positive progress (2 Peter 1:5-7).
It is also the overcoming mind that was with Caleb and Joshua in Numbers 14. This mind muses something like this whenever the enemy takes control of the inheritance of the children of God: Can I ignore the giant sons of Anak and go on to possess the inheritance from my Father? The Lord has promised me victory concerning everything that is mine. Therefore I must deal with the enemy nice, fast and square and move on to take the inheritance. They don’t belong to him; they belong to me.
It is imperative to note that the mind operates like the computer processor. They say “Garbage In Garbage Out”. The Bible admonishes us to “set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.”(Colossians3:2, World English Bible). If we care to be feeding our mind our on the things that are true, honest, right, pure, lovely, virtuous, of good report and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8), we will win this battle.
In conclusion let us endeavor to have the spiritual mind, because only then will we be able to have full access of the mind of God through the Holy Spirit. The soulish and the carnal mind can only have partial access to the thoughts and plans of God, but for the spiritual, only God can limit the access according to His will. Let us do away with anything that defiles our mind, since it is Central Processing Unit of our whole being. In other words, watch out what you watch and think about what you think. It will help you manage and tame your tongue (James 3:2-12).
Remember that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7a).
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