I just made available a new 4x9 rack card titled "Setting Your Mind" that I hope you will find helpful. I have inserted the text on the back of the card below since the graphic on the web may be hard to read. These cards are designed as discipleship follow-up resources; of course, they can simple be used as personal reminders of the truth they attempt to describe. As long as these cards can help some of you in whatever way God leads, that's good enough for me. Have a great week. --Vernon
--------------------------Back of the Setting Your Mind Rack Card-------------------------------------
Setting our mind on things above can be a challenge in the world in which we live, especially when so many “voices” bombard our daily thinking. As the diagram suggests, we should be mindful what input we allow into our thinking (easier said than done)! Of course, I do not advocate living in a cave, but in an age of nearly unlimited information and entertainment outlets we should be wise regarding what we choose to read, watch and listen (not in a legalistic way, just common sense...creating artificial rules is not the key to victorious living). Since we can’t really stop all the input, we should focus our attention on what we can do in the area of our thoughts. At a very high level our mind and brain will take most of the raw input and catalog, draw inferences, build relationships and store it for further processing. Some thoughts we simply dismiss; others we pause and take time to process and the rest we accept as true (they are consistent with our current belief system). All of these pass through filters we’ve developed over time. Many are filtered through conclusions developed in our growing up years (these personal, social and cultural filters are like assumptions we rarely question but perhaps should). Some thoughts run through our religious filter that supposedly keeps us on the straight and narrow (God, however, might be walking on a completely different path). Filters aren’t necessarily bad, in fact, they are universal and are an outgrowth of our belief system. The question is, “what are YOU believing?” and more importantly, “is it TRUE?” Our thoughts can be very powerful and may trigger emotional responses that reinforce our thinking in the current direction of an emotional storm...we get caught up and unable to escape the fast current. Emotions can also settle into emotional states and spiral downward in a seemingly endless cycle of emotional defeat. Emotions are not bad, they simply respond to our thinking and are a vital part of God’s creation. What thoughts are driving your emotions? Are they true? Setting our mind on things above is the idea of thinking from God’s perspective, not our own fleshly point of view. As we align our belief system with the Truth of God’s Word and trust the Spirit of God to guide our thinking we better filter this enormous input, calm many of the emotional storms and make behavior choices consistent with the righteous person we are in Christ!
“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,” (Romans 8:6)
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
(Romans 12:2)
“and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:32)
