“…But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.”-{Romans 8:6}
WHY is it important that the Mind Be Ruled By The SPIRIT?
Because the first and greatest commandment says,” He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”-{Luke 10:27}. Why is it important that the MIND be ruled, controlled by the Holy Spirit? So that we can love God, intelligently, accurately, and not end up with creating a “god” of our own imagination as did the people whom He delivered and they made an image of a golden calf and said this is “God” who delivered us. They created a dumb idol, that could not move, speak, and needed them to help move it. It was useless, sinful, dishonoring the One true God. It gave credit to something other than God. It took away from His Glory. That is stealing, what is rightly belonging to Him and attributing it to something or someone else!
Don’t touch His Glory. Don’t Take His Glory, but Do Tell of His Glory!
Idolatry is placing something or someone else in His place! Also remember that the Scripture teaches behind every idol is a demon. “No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons. ” -{1 Cor 10:20}.“…we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.”-{1 Cor 8:4}
If we are to love Him we must THINK RIGHTLY, TRUTHFULLY about Him which is revealed where? His Word. If we are to love our neighbor, how will we know how to? It is revealed in His WORD. For example, there are over fifty verses on what we are to be to “one another” as Christians. How we should think and treat one another. For example it teaches we are to “accept one another; bear one another’s burdens; care for one another; be devoted to one another, encourage one another; forgive one another, honor one another, be kind to one another, love one another, prefer one another…” etc. And for our enemies it teaches we are to bless them, do good, pray for them… and we learn from HIS WORD not to return evil for evil but instead return with good. How would we know how to love if our MINDS are not being renewed by the Spirit of God through His means the Word of God? How would we know the revealed will of God if not through the WORD OF GOD! – {Read Rom 12:1-3}. How would we know what is acceptable worship to God if not through the Word of God which is HIS WORD. How could we understand apart from the Spirit of God residing in us as our Teacher, Reminding us when we forget, inspiring and empowering us to desire and do His will and to what end? “…. for HIS GOOD PLEASURE”-{Read Phil 2:13}.
If we did not have the Spirit of God and the WORD of God we would be like the lost, heathen, bowing down to idols and honoring them as though they were God, we would be blasphemers, idolaters. Perhaps today, it may not be a stone, or a golden calf, it maybe prestige, fame, materialism that a person bows down to. It can be a religious system and that is all it is, “man-made” but not reality, not the one True and Living GOD… and so we come to His WORD THAT we may KNOW THE GOD WHOSE WORD IT IS and Love Him, truthfully, accurately, with all our being and that includes what we THINK RIGHTFULLY about Him. And how do we know what to THINK of Him? He has revealed Himself through His Word,” And beginning with Moses and ALL the prophets He revealed himself in ALL the SCRIPTURE.” -{Read Luke 24:27}.
THINK RIGHT– {READ PHIL 4:8}
DO RIGHT -{PHIL 4:9}
“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is LIFE AND PEACE,” – {Rom 8;6}.
“THE MIND SETS,”– {Phroenema} – means “Think, Have a Mind Set.” It is speaking of the inclination of the mind, includes the understanding and will. It speaks of the thought patterns of the mind. It speaks of setting, fixing the focus, intent of the thought life on something, fixated, and the continual pattern of thinking. The word “Phroenema” is used 4 time in the New Testament and all in Romans 8. Verses 2, 6, 8, 27.
Note in Romans 8:2 there are two minds, two focus’s, one on the flesh is death, the other focus’s on the Spirit is Life and Peace! The pattern of the mind dominated, fixed, controlled, pattern of thinking without God is sinful, selfish, rebellious towards God, deceived and deceitful, without the ability or desire for God, His Word, spiritual truth. When it speaks of the “mind of the flesh” the mind without God, it is not speaking about the inability to understand how to read, do math, or such things, it is referring to spiritual realities, spiritual truth, The Word of God puts it this way, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”- {1 Cor 2:14}… “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.”-{Phil 3:18-19}; Their lives produce ” The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”-{Gal 5:19-21}
Compare that to the Life where the Holy Spirit resides and Presides produces…” But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”-{Gal 5:22-23}
That which Dominates, controls the mind will either lead to Death or life and Peace, and the Difference? Is the Holy Spirit who alone can transform our thinking, attitudes, actions and what a result He produces, “Life and Peace” versus the sinful alternative of setting our mind on the flesh, the sinful desires, lusts that is death!
WHY is it important that the Mind Be Ruled By The SPIRIT?
- – So that we know how to think right about Him in order to love Him. Guard your mind, Renew your mind! “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.”-{ Rom 12;2}…
2.- and also it leads to LIFE and PEACE! –
“Amplified Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever]. “- {Romans 8:6}- (Amplified Bible – Lockman)
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” -{Luke 10:27}
SETTING YOUR MIND ON THE SPIRIT PRODUCES
LOVE
LIFE
PEACE