Mind Control part 5
I think the biggest key to "mind control" is accepting that we really don't have any control. In fact, the harder we try to control our thoughts, the more out of control they get. The more we try NOT to think about something, the more we end up thinking about it. That's why I don't believe bringing our thoughts under captivity unto the obedience of Christ has anything to do with chasing thoughts. I always use the example of going to the bathroom. If you need to go to the bathroom, but you can't, and all you do is think about going--even if you're trying to think about NOT going--the harder it is to hold it. Because what you magnify is what manifests. What you feed is what grows. That's why the fight of the New Testament is the good fight of FAITH. Laying hold of the gift of eternal life that we've already been given. Not trying to get something we don't have, but receiving (by releasing) what we already do have! I guess what I'm trying to say is that the love of Christ controls us. Either we don't know that we have it, and we look for love in all the wrong places trying to get it. Or we know and believe that we DO have it, and we can't help but share it. So "control" is really about submission. (But that's the next Rant series, and I always try to not get ahead of myself.) In Star Wars Princess Leia tells Grand Moff Tarken something to the effect of, "The more you tighten your grip, the more things slip through your fingers." And that's pretty much true all of the time. The more we try to control things, in the sense of, "I give you a command and you better follow it or else," the more rebels we make. Remember that old saying, "Gimme a line and I'll cross it. Gimme a rule and I'll break it." That's the best nature. The unregenerated, carnal mind. It is enmity against God. It's not subject to His law, nor can it be. It took a second death and a new birth to bring us out of that legalistic, rule-based, man-centered, performance-based religion. The Ten Commandments (and the six hundred some odd laws that accompanied them) were unfollowable. Because they were external, and they demanded perfection without being able to produce perfection. But the New Commandment, the perfect law of liberty, is simply "receive and release." Love one another as Jesus loves you. That puts all of the emphasis exactly where it belongs: On Jesus. If Jesus doesn't love you, then you can't be expected to love anyone else. You can't give what you don't have. How could you? You don't have it. But because Jesus loves you more than anything in the universe... loves you so much that He would literally rather die than be without you... because of HIS love WE can love! Because He already gave us His mind--His Spirit, His heart--we can LET the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. We can give up that false sense of control. We can stop struggling to try to make things the way WE think they should be, and we can begin to experience things as they really are. In earth as it is in heaven. The days of heaven on earth. The Kingdom of God within us, bursting out through us. God's LOVE in us bursting out through us. Not because we're in control, but because He is. And because He does what He does in us, and through us, and as us. Because He is the head and we are the body, and together we are One. Not Jesus AND me, but Jesus AS me. His heart beating with love in my chest!