I've have written in the past on the life of the mind. I cannot stress enough the importance for the Christian to develop the life of the mind. One very important aspect to note is the mind and the heart are not entirely separate entities. Often the Scriptures speak of the mind and the heart as one "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..." (Proverbs 23:7).
From any casual reading of the Scriptures we are struck with all of the admonitions to guard and protect our hearts. We are instructed over and over to pay attention to our thinking process,Jesus tells us that we are to love God with all our our minds (Luke 10:27). The Apostle Paul gives us a serious contrast between a mind that is patterned after our carnal appetites (death) and a mind that is set on the things of the Spirit of God (life)(Romans 8:6). One of my favorite texts is Paul's words in (Romans 12:2) where we are told not to conform to this world, but we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Think about that for a moment, Paul is telling us that if we live with renewed minds it will have a direct impact on the way we live out our lives in this world.
All wrong actions find their starting point first in wrong thoughts. The mind of the Christian is to be saturated with the wisdom and knowledge of God. We have many admonitions to mediate on God's word, the most well known is Joshua 1:8 where Joshua tells his people that that the law of God should be mediated on day and night.
Think about this for a second...there are only two kinds of minds or thinking processes. One is the carnal mind, the mind of the flesh, the mind that is at enmity with God, the mind that is dead spiritually. The other is the mind that has been made alive in Christ, the mind that has been renewed, the mind that is set on the things of God, the mind that is filled with the wisdom and knowledge of God.
The discipline for the Christian. The call of the Christian is to cultivate the life of the mind, to set his mind on the things of God. Paul even tells us specifically what to think on in Philippians 4:8 ( whatsoever is true, whatsoever is honest, whatsoever is just, whatsoever is pure, whatsoever is lovely).
The beauty of the Christian life is that all change is from the inside out, unlike the secular world where change can happen, but it is only outward change. The Christian change is wrought by the Spirit of God for the glory of God, the carnal mind can know nothing of this kind of change.
So Christian set your mind on the things of God. Make the meditation of God's word a daily habit and walk in a new and transformed way of thinking.
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