Right Mind part 1
What you think, or what you believe, is so important. Because what you believe defines your reality. At least in the sense of the believing the truth--that you are God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased--versus believing the lie--that you have to do in order to be. I'm not saying you can, for example, believe that you're a millionaire and then check your bank account. I'm saying that what you believe about your IDENTITY affects everything in your REALITY. If you believe you're a sinner, and that God is mad at you, then you're going to act like a guilty man who is trying to avoid punishment and you're going to run FROM God instead of running TO Him. But--you know what? Let me get my Scripture out. Matthew 5:15, "And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid." A demon possessed man, a man who heard voices (or, if I can say it this way, listened to the world screaming at him), had an experience with Jesus. And then, like that--like a light being switched on--he was in his right mind. He wasn't running around like a chicken with it's head cut off anymore. He wasn't trying to be someone he wasn't anymore. He wasn't ripping his clothes and tearing things apart. He was sitting. Resting. Clothed. I once heard a preacher teach an amazing message about how he was, in fact, CLOTHED in his right mind. Like the woman in Revelation who was clothed with the sun. But here's the key: Listening to the world, to circumstances, to the voices that shout at you and try to define you by piling things up on you and hiding your true identity... that's no way to live. But listening to Jesus, the still small voice of the Holy Spirit deep inside that takes you by the hand and leads and guides you into all truth... testifying of your TRUE identity by testifying of Jesus... that's how we partake of the divine nature. That's how we let the mind of Christ--that's already IN us--BE in us. I like to use this passage because it really kind of brings it into focus, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:1-3). And I really like the idea of setting your AFFECTION on things above. The phrase, "Set your affection" is number 5426 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "to exercise the mind, that is, entertain or have a sentiment or opinion; by implication to be mentally disposed. To interest oneself in." Focus on. Have an opinion about. Active participation in the things above. The heavenly things. The Spiritual realm. And to me, affection has a connotation of liking something. Not, "I love everybody because I have to," kind of grudgingly faking it until I make it. But simply being in my right mind. Knowing how loved I am--and how GOOD it is to be loved the way I am--and sharing that love because it's too good to keep to myself. Not loving people but at the same time not liking them. That seems DOUBLE minded to me. And a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. But liking everyone that I love... and loving everyone as I am loved!