Romans 8:5-6
I can choose where my thought life will center, and that principle is crucial for me to understand as a Christian. As a follower of Jesus, I want all of the good in Jesus... His love, His mercy, His intolerance of religious hypocrisy, His friendship with the marginalized, and His winsome joy to be known in me. But to live such a life, led by the Spirit of God to display Jesus, requires an internal commitment. It is what Paul says is to “set the mind.” It is a choice to think as the Holy Spirit leads. And that is not an esoteric, fuzzy process.
To choose to set my mind on the Spirit means that I reject much of my natural internal thought process as unreliable. That’s really, really hard to do. It also means that I must internalize what the Spirit says I must be, and the vast sum of those thoughts are found in Holy Scripture. It isn’t impressionistic. It is propositional. It is found in the clear words on the pages of the Word of God which is inspired of the Spirit of God so the people of God can in this life do the will of God! So I must let the Spirit lead me to and through the Bible so that my thoughts can be transformed, my mind might be renewed, and my thoughts, attitudes, and actions can then be arranged in a way that the “things of the Spirit” dominate my life.
My first instinct though is to think and live by the flesh... to think and act out of self-interest. But I must reject that. I must ask of my thoughts, attitudes, and actions: 1) “What does God say about this in His Word?” And 2) “How did Jesus deal with this?” And the answers from scripture to those two questions will then start to frame how I should properly think. And from those thoughts, I can make my active choices in a Spirit led way. And then a new thing will change in me as the Holy Spirit of God brings promised life and peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment