July 19th, 2014
HINTS ABOUT THE MIND – by Jessie Penn-Lewis
The strategic value of the ‘mind’, both to God and to Satan, is very great, for the following, among many other, reasons:
The mind, or understanding, is the vehicle through which the Holy Spirit, residing in the regenerate human spirit, reveals the knowledge of God to the redeemed man.
If the mind is clogged, passive, ‘blank’, uncontrollable, driven, fevered, irritated, or in any other abnormal condition, how can the ‘eye of the understanding’ be ‘filled with light’ and receive wisdom and insight in the full knowledge of God given by the Holy Spirit?
If the mind is filled with mental conceptions of truth, or with theories, prejudices, thoughts which have found lodgment apart from volition, reason, or examination, how can the Spirit of Truth reveal the things of God, and the truth of God as set forth in the written Word of God, to the understanding?
The mind, or understanding, stands between the spirit and the body as a transmitter of what comes from either. This is shown clearly in Romans 8v5-6, where the mind is described as being dominated by the ‘flesh’ or by the ‘spirit’.
The Spirit of God may dwell in the spirit, and not find outlet and expression if the mind is blocked or clogged in any way, for the spirit needs the mind for the transmission of light, as well as for the reception of spiritual knowledge of God.
The mind, or understanding, is the detective, so to speak, of the whole man. The ‘spirit of man is the candle of the Lord’, and the spirit needs the ‘understanding’ for expression, or perception, of what is revealed to it. The mind, enlightened by the Spirit of God and the Word of God, should be able to examine everything that is presented to it, and know whether it is truth or error (1 Corinthians 2v15). The renewed mind is therefore the perceptive faculty for discerning between good and evil (Hebrews 5v14). A ‘blank’ mind, whether induced or not, makes the man mindless a non-intelligent and irresponsible being, just as a darkened mind makes the man deceived, and unable to see clearly what he is doing, or where he is going.
The Holy Spirit needs the ‘understanding’ to fill it with the light of the knowledge of God; but the spirits of evil desire to displace the mind, or reason, from its place or else so inflame or exalt the ‘imagination’ until it overpowers the ‘understanding’. When the latter occurs, the believer is kept in a realm of phantasy over earthly, or even spiritual, things, and he lives in an unreal world, in which he is blinded to the true facts of life.
A large majority of Christians have never discovered their need of a renewed mind, and never asked themselves why their minds are subject to uncontrollable thoughts, imaginations, objectionable pictures, lapses of memory, unaccountable prejudices, intermittent concentration, heaviness, sluggishness, heat, or fever. They are in normal health, and would not dream of going to a doctor about these things, for it only means that they have no control of their minds, even in the small things of life. But let them ask themselves the question, ‘Who controls my mind? Is it in my own control? Is it in God’s control? If neither, then who controls in?’
When the truth dawns upon the child of God that his mind has never been fully set free from the power of the god of this world, he finds that the weapons he must wield for ‘casting down’ the exalted imaginations and bringing the thoughts into captivity, must be divine and not carnal. He discovers that no process of ‘resolution’ or ‘memory’, or mind training, will set him free, and that the mind and imagination are held by supernatural power beyond the reach of carnal weapons to destroy.
The central helm of the ship of man is the will. It is the seat of government through which God governs His redeemed subject. It must control the mind and choose what shall enter it or go out.
The renewal of the mind can alone come about through the entry of Truth. Each wrong thought placed in the mind by the enemy, and by which he holds the mind as his fortress, must be cast down as it is unveiled, and displaced by truth, until the entire spirit of the mind is renewed. (Ephesians 4v23).
The casting down of the exalted imaginations, and the removal of countless reasonings, not reason, may be done very quickly, or the battle may rage for a prolonged period. In some souls not one sentence of Divine Truth can penetrate without a battle, such as confusion in the mind, prejudiced thoughts, rebellious thoughts, and an unreasoned and unreasonable disturbance over what should, and would be, easily and calmly considered, if the mind was free to act without the interference of the enemy.
Let believers test themselves here. Why do they have unreasoning ‘opposition’ to what they have not carefully and prayerfully set themselves to understand? Does not the renewed mind ‘examine all things’? (2 Corinthains 2v15-16, 1 Corinthians 14v20).
Taking the mind out of the control of the god of this world, does not merely mean having all that is in the mind brought under the volition of the believer, as a tumultuous rabble of contrary elements compelled to obey a central authority. It means a renewal of the mind, whereby it is brought into such harmony with the Holy Spirit that it is filled with light instead of darkness, clearness of understanding instead of confusion, the ‘imagination’ purified and controlled, the reason liberated to work in normal ease, all in subjection to the Word of God, and the obedience of Christ (Colossians 1v9).
It is such a mind that is guarded by the peace of God, through an unceasing spirit of prayer, such a mind that is quickly obedient to God, as the believer deliberately turns away from all that would hinder its being filled with light, and chooses that it shall be occupied with things that are true, honourable, just, pure and lovely, and of good report (Philippians 4v6-8).
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