Wednesday, January 14 Devo:

VICTORY IS AT THE BRINK OF WHAT YOU THINK

Pastor Harry Rhau

The GPS location for the war between The Spirit and your flesh has always been and will always be your mind. Paul makes this clear to us in Romans 12 when he urges believers to be transformed and not conformed to this world by way of mind renewal.

In the world of Neuroscience and Psychology they have coined the term metacognition which simply put is to “think about your thinking.” It is understanding and controlling your own thought processes, including planning, monitoring, and evaluating your learning and problem-solving.

I want to focus on the monitoring portion of this definition. It is a fresh term, but the practice is nothing new. Believers have been instructed to do this since our precious scriptures have been written. During this fast you’ll have a great advantage of giving your spirit dominance over your body and soul(mind). We have shifted the favor over to the winning side but how can we maintain this victory that we have in Christ Jesus.

Paul says something captivating in 2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV) when he writes We demolish arguments and every pretension(assumption) that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. This is a powerful statement but what does it mean to “take every thought captive”?

I’d like you to imagine your mind as a fancy nightclub that everyone wants access. Any great nightclub always has strong men at the door monitoring who gets in. They’re called bouncers. Your mind has this same mechanism with thoughts, but we often are ignorant of this function. We often leave the velvet rope unhooked and when thoughts come in, they wreak havoc on our walk with the Lord. Thoughts become impulses and the latter become actions that separate us from God rather than draw us close. Not everything we think is true.

How can we filter what gets into our mind? Paul again gives great advice to the Philippian church when he says in Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things".

Who and what have you been letting into the “nightclub” of your mind lately? If it doesn’t pass the Philippians 4:8 test it doesn’t get in and it doesn’t get to reign over you. If you want to break cycles during this fast I encourage you to employ a new bouncer to work security at the forefront of your mind. Make sure those thoughts pass the PH 4:8 test and if they don’t, MAKE THEM OBEDIENT TO CHRIST.

God bless you.