Episode 62: Which Mind Are You Using?

Jacob Paul: Welcome to the truth and love podcast with your hosts Kimberly Faith and John Mack. The truth and love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.

Kimberly Faith: Dad, I’m very excited about this podcast.

John McLarty: Well, I’m excited about all of our podcasts, but this is especially good.

Kimberly Faith: I think it’s pivotal. We’re talking about number one, today’s podcast is how to know your mind. And of course, is in the context of human design. We’ve studied body, soul, and spirit. And then the second podcast is how to bring your mind under control.

John McLarty: Two very good topics. Yeah. Very relevant.

Kimberly Faith: I think it’s very relevant because I think we have a crisis in our world and I was just pulling some stats. One in five US adults experience mental illness

John McLarty: every Interesting.

Kimberly Faith: One billion people worldwide live, according to the WHO in a mental health condition, under a mental health diagnosis. One in three, according to the CDC, high school students, US high school students relates poor mental health most of the time.

John McLarty: Interesting. And there’s a real need. Counseling sessions are probably going out the roof.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, yeah. I didn’t look up those stats, but you know, and we know this from even our own family in our own struggle, you know, it’s with the inundation of mind pollution, just to put it, you know, quite bluntly in our world, we as Christians sometimes don’t even know our own mind. And so, it’s so funny that even in our church groups, this has come up the same time it’s come up in my personal study about the mind and adding this to a facet of our human design study because it’s so critical to understand. It actually came up because somebody asked me during one of the Bible concept study, well, if we have body, soul, and spirit, where does the mind fit in? And so I think it’s a legitimate question.

You know

John McLarty: And anxiety levels appear to be also going off the charts in our culture.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And I think that’s kind of bundled with this whole mental health crisis. You typically see one with the other person who has a mental health crisis is typically living a lot of anxiety.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And so kind of our key scripture

John McLarty: Very relevant topic. Yeah. How to know your mind.

Kimberly Faith: How to know your mind. And do you know your mind?

John McLarty: Understanding the mind.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And one of the things this study has done for me and these two lessons has done for me is to really, when I start feeling anxiety or sadness or fear, I really have kind of stepped back and applied some of the lessons that the Lord has put in my life through studying this and it’s really working. People don’t think that maybe someone like me suffers from anxiety or depression or fear, but we all do. We all are suffering.

John McLarty: We all do and it’s interesting that by understanding this topic, there’s the potential, if we’ll use it, for a remedy to our anxiety.

Kimberly Faith: We have a definite remedy.

John McLarty: Yes.

Kimberly Faith: The scripture gives us a definite remedy. And so, you know, kind of let’s start with Romans eight:five-eight. And I really wanna read this with some purpose if you don’t mind if I read it.

John McLarty: No, go ahead.

Kimberly Faith: It says, For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. I just wanna note that we’re going to talk about two different minds and the carnal mind being one and the spiritual mind being another. But to think with your carnal mind, we’ll explain what that is in a little bit, puts us at odds with God.

We’re enemies of God.

John McLarty: And I love the part of that verse that says, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. So to be spiritually minded brings peace. And that’s a real, you might say tracker, barometer, measure, metric. Right. Are we in a good place in our mind?

Do we have peace?

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. No, I know. I think that’s and that’s kind of

John McLarty: the I love that in that verse.

Kimberly Faith: That’s kind of the key really. The key is number one, we’re talking about, you know, do you even know your own mind? Because I think we get so used to the same ruts we thought in for years that we don’t even recognize what mind we’re thinking with. Right? And, but we can know that because we can measure it by our peace or lack thereof.

John McLarty: And the Word of God provides a lot of insight actually which into the is where we’re going in this podcast.

Kimberly Faith: Right. So just by way of orienting people, this is, you know, in our concept study on human design, we talk about we’re designed with the body, soul and spirit. Dad, why don’t you just give us a little short recap on what that means?

John McLarty: Well, we all think of ourselves, obviously, I look at you, you look at me and we see each other’s body. So we clearly have a body, this body of flesh, and it has this thing in it, in our heads called the brain. And that’s where we think thoughts. But another aspect clearly shown by the Word of God is that the real essence of us is our soul. So we have a soul, we have a spiritual component to us.

In essence, the real us. It’s the part of us that will last for eternity, even though we will have a new body, but this body will return to the dust of the earth. And then part of that soul, that spiritual mechanism is a spirit. I think of the soul as this central part of us. And then the soul, through the body, through our physical eyes, our physical ears, we can interact with the physical world, experience it, hear it, see a beautiful sunset.

And you’ve heard of people saying that they see a beautiful sunset and it touches their soul. How does that happen? Well, through the physical body, we see something beautiful or hear beautiful music. I mean

Kimberly Faith: And moves us soul.

John McLarty: Soul music. That’s a good phrase that’s kind of correctly used. Oh, that’s feeding my soul, good music, even good food. And there’s a truth to that. The soul is satisfied.

And then through our spirit, which is kind of a parallel to the body, we have a spirit that is tuned into God, the spiritual world.

Kimberly Faith: Or can be.

John McLarty: Or can be. Right. A spiritual world, either satanic or God.

Kimberly Faith: Right. It’s one or the other.

John McLarty: Or it’s one or the other. But it’s a mechanism that allows our soul, that central part of us, to interact with the spiritual world.

Kimberly Faith: So when we talk about the body-

John McLarty: It’s complex, but that really helps if people understand I’m not just a body with my brain that’s thinking, oh, I’m hungry. I must go get something to eat. And that’s all there is to life. If that’s all there is to life, it’s pretty pitiful.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I description makes me think about Psalms 13nine 14 where the Psalmist says, I will praise thee for I am wonderfully I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well. Our soul knows that we were created for a divine purpose, that we’re marvelously made. And we know, think about it, all the things that even mankind has invented, using the, just unlocking the marvel of God’s design that He’s given us. I’m not gonna pretend to explain how the organ, the brain, which is our organic part of us, right?

And the mind Interface. Interface. But we know the Bible, and this is one of the things where I talk about, the Bible makes it very clear that we have the option when we are born again, we have received Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, to think with the mind of Christ. That is so profound.

John McLarty: It is.

Kimberly Faith: Or like we just read in Romans, we can be limited to the carnal mind. And you know, when the Bible says that the natural man receives not the things of God, in the podcast, Robert Creech, an interview with Robert Creech, one of the things he said was, you know, I just read the Bible for years and it didn’t make any sense to me. That’s because he was not born again and he was not, as you said, his spirit was not made alive in Christ to be able to understand the word, which is Jesus, right? According to John one.

John McLarty: Right. And that’s very interesting. So along the same lines, our spirit sin brings death. So that spiritual part of us that can be attuned to God dies under God when we sin, the law of sin and death, the soul that sinneth it shall die. So we’d lose that contact with God.

So yeah, the natural man in that non born again state, we’d lose that communication with God. And that’s where it’s so interesting because that spirit though still can interact with the spiritual realm, but only the dark side of the spiritual realm.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Only connected to the dark web. And then

John McLarty: by being born again, which is fully explained in another podcast, by being born again, the spirit is quickened, which is an old English word for made alive.

Kimberly Faith: And

John McLarty: then that lifeline, that communication, it’s like the phone lines reconnected to God. And that’s why salvation is so explosive. It’s like, Oh my goodness, now I understand the Bible. You flip the It makes sense.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, yeah. You plugged in. Yeah. So kind of came up with this kind of in moving forward with this idea about, you know, which, do you know your mind? You know, do you know your own mind?

I don’t know if this was in discussion or how this came up with, I kind of divided our mind, the carnal mind and the spiritual mind into this analogy of having two operating systems, two potential operating systems from which we, you know, we store memories, we gather reasoning, we imagine, we commune with God or don’t commune with God. We dream all the things that are important, we love, right? All these things that our soul does, that it does based on which mind we choose.

John McLarty: Right. Right? So that’s a good analogy because people can relate to computers and operating systems. But picture your computer and say you have two operating systems loaded and they actually compete with each other, kind of an AI war going on in your computer. And somehow you’re an interface as to which one has an advantage or not.

Which one use? Which one Yeah, do you

Kimberly Faith: know. And it’s so crazy because if you break it down, the old, I’m just gonna call OS, operating system, is at enmity with God.

John McLarty: It’s the flesh.

Kimberly Faith: We are limited to our human reasoning. Right. You know, our human faith in what we can see, what we can experience. We are limited by our fleshly experiences because the only information gathering is coming through the fleshly side And of

John McLarty: pride, self fulfillment, self glory, because I want what I want

Kimberly Faith: now. Fear.

John McLarty: Yes. Right. And fear, anxiety.

Kimberly Faith: And what’s crazy is that, you know, people who have not been born again are limited to that. They’re limited because their spirit has not been quickened in Christ. They don’t have the option to download the mind of Christ because that OS doesn’t even exist in their mind. It’s not even installed.

John McLarty: Right, it’s not installed. In their computer. It’s not downloaded.

Kimberly Faith: But we talk about then the other OS, which is the spiritual mind, the mind of Christ. At salvation, like you pointed out, it is installed. This mind is able to discern spiritual truth and understand things like real love, like the fruit of the spirit, right? Love, joy, peace. Really, you know, I had a lady ask me today, she said, we were having dinner and she said, Do you think it’s possible for a Christian?

I mean, she said, Do you think it’s possible for someone to really love unless they’ve been born again? And I said, well, I said, if you’re talking about love that equates to selflessness, complete selflessness like what Jesus did, I don’t think so because we’re limited in our nature to what the flesh allows us to be. And we aren’t plugged in. Aren’t even connected to Christ who is love.

John McLarty: Right. Well, think of the verse, two Corinthians five seventeen, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, so you’ve been born again, you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, he is a new creature. And that’s literally a new creature, that born again soul, and then that quickened spirit. It’s literally, we have that system downloaded when And that it’s instantaneous, even though it’s kind of a new babe in Christ that needs to grow, but it’s there. Right.

It’s all there.

Kimberly Faith: It installs.

John McLarty: Yes.

Kimberly Faith: And I’ll ask, we talked about this in Romans about how, be spiritually minded is life and peace. As born again believers, the evidence that we are operating under the mind of Christ is peace. It’s peace and it’s satisfaction. It’s not fear, it’s not anxiety, it’s not living in pride. This is, you said it earlier and you’re a 100% right.

John McLarty: Yeah, Romans five, yeah. And then in Romans eight:five-eight, it was to be spiritually minded is life. And that’s great, new life. But with that is this peace.

Kimberly Faith: Right. I think it’s something that I actually was kind of focus grouping this part of the study with one of my groups that I The Bible study groups that I facilitate. And I said, and I know this is totally Spirit led. I said, Think about this, every one of us in this room is born again and we have the opportunity to plug into the mind of Christ. And isn’t it true that the mind of Christ is a terrible thing to waste?

John McLarty: That’s again, the mind is a terrible thing to waste, but more correctly, the mind of Christ is a terrible thing to waste.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And so the Bible gives us all kinds of portraits of the mind too. This is what’s so neat about the Bible in this particular subject that I never really recognized until I started kind of doing a deep dive into the mind. But the Bible identifies all kinds of minds and that we can have that were examples from the scripture. Like in Nehemiah, the ready mind, right?

They were ready, they were unified to focus on And God’s we’re gonna talk about that some more in the second podcast on this. The double mind in James one:eight, right? Torn between what? Faith and doubt. Right.

Right? What are a couple more of them, dad, we talked about?

John McLarty: The deceived mind. That’s Acts five. Ananias and Sapphira believed their own lies. I think of the blinded mind too, out of two Corinthians four:four.

Kimberly Faith: You know, it’s funny what you said about Ananias and Svira. I think the worst lies that we believe are the ones that we tell ourselves. You know?

John McLarty: That’s true.

Kimberly Faith: I mean, we can get to thinking that, you know, making any kind of thing that we want that’s wrong, right. And we live with a deceived mind. As And I don’t know if Ananias and Sapphira were born again or not, the Bible doesn’t really tell us that. But we know like King David was born again and look how he deceived himself, took the prophet Nathan to get his mind back on track and say, Look, man, you have murdered and killed and taken another man’s wife. You justified it in your own eyes.

He clearly had deceived himself.

John McLarty: The mind of the flesh is very devious, very deceptive, very persistent. It convinces us that something that we’re doing or have done that was wrong actually was right or justified.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Justified sin.

John McLarty: Justified sin.

Kimberly Faith: Justified lies, right?

John McLarty: Justified bitterness. Justified resentment.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: Justified I’m I’m legitimately been offended.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And, you know, that’s where we see it really very, very frequently within Christian circles. You know, a person says, well, this person in the church offended me and I there there’s just no coming back from this. There’s, you know, well, you know, that’s really not what the Bible teaches us. The Bible teaches us that we’re supposed to forgive.

And if the other person doesn’t doesn’t decides not to to unify with us, that is between them and God.

John McLarty: Yeah. There’s a verse that we won’t look at look it up, but it’s in Psalms, and it says something about when I have thy perfect peace, nothing shall offend me. Think Psalms are Proverbs.

Kimberly Faith: Right. That’s right.

John McLarty: When I have thy perfect peace, that’s a paraphrase, nothing shall offend me.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. That’s good, dad. I’m glad you brought that up. So kind of moving forward a little bit, you know, one of the things that the Lord impressed on me when I was studying this was that the mental state, knowing our mental state and controlling our mind is less about us taking control and more about us surrendering to God’s ways and His will.

John McLarty: To yielding. But it’s a decision to yield.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And then, but yielding to the Lord’s will. So it’s kind of interesting. This is just occurring to me. When we yield to God and something good happens, we really can’t take credit for it. No.

There’s no room for pride there. We’ve just yielded to God and he’s done it. Right. Yeah. That’s kind of interesting.

But our flesh is so prideful. We might do that. And then something good happens. And then our flesh wants to jump back on stage. You’re like, oh, look what I did.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Our pride is so sneaky. It’s so sneaky. And and, you know, we’ve talked you you mentioned this earlier that that the the we know that we have the mind of God when we have peace. And I just think about one of my favorite scriptures, Isaiah 20 six:three, where it says, You will keep him in perfect peace.

His mind is stayed

John McLarty: on him. Stayed.

Kimberly Faith: We make that choice to anchor ourselves in God’s presence and in His ways and His truth, which leads us to having the mind of Christ despite the chaos. We don’t have to We’re not choosing We’re always gonna have the chaos and the problems and the tumultuous things around us, but we’re deliberately and intentionally and continuously developing a love relationship with God. And then our peace transcends our circumstances. And so instead of living in this mental health crisis or this crisis of anxiety constantly where we can’t sleep, we have all these problems. We add to our problems.

God’s like, Nope, I’m gonna take care of it. And, you know, when we talk about the, you know, in the next podcast about how to take control of your mind, it really comes back to surrender. It really does. You know, surrendering every area of

John McLarty: our

Kimberly Faith: life. And really, you think about I think about this question. This is another thing that came up in our Bible study. If we have the mind, the choice to have the mind of God, which let’s just talk about that first. What what is what how does the scripture describe the mind of God?

John McLarty: Well, I think this is a really important distinction for people to know, and we we can only know this this fact, this status, but from the word of God.

Kimberly Faith: Mhmm.

John McLarty: Because who can know your own mind? If you’re just trying to analyze your own mind, like, where a thought comes into your

Kimberly Faith: mind. Right.

John McLarty: And you go, where did that come from?

Kimberly Faith: Mhmm.

John McLarty: The thought could be I mean, you can put a thought in my mind. Right. It

Kimberly Faith: can come from anywhere.

John McLarty: Yeah. TV can put a thought in my mind.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So to have this idea that the born again nature, that we have the mind of Christ, that we have we’re we have this new creature inside of us. So if this terrible thought comes into our mind, you might say the forefront of our mind, we know from the scriptures that is coming from my flesh. That’s not coming from the spirit of God. Christ would not think that.

Kimberly Faith: That’s what did.

John McLarty: That popped into my mind, and then Satan’s the great accuser and can beat us over the head with that. Like, oh, how can you even be saved? Blah blah blah. Right. But what people need to know is that the flesh is still very much alive.

The brain, the physical matter up here is actually part of the flesh. And it’s continually thinking like, I’m hungry. I’m cold. I’m whatever.

Kimberly Faith: I’m tired.

John McLarty: I’m tired.

Kimberly Faith: Serve me. Yeah. I want.

John McLarty: And it’s never going to stop. Right. It can be put under control. It’s like, oh, I have a thought to go to the refrigerator to get something to eat. Right.

And it’s midnight.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And then I said, well, that’s- That’s not right. That’s not right. So we can set that thought aside, but it still pops up. It’s just coming from our flesh. So Satan can really get a lot of victory in people by accusing them of, well, how could that where did that thought come from if you’re saved?

Yeah. But the mind of Christ is there, so it’s kinda like which which one do we want to control? So it’s good to understand that I’m thinking the forefront of our mind can come from different sources.

Kimberly Faith: It’s collecting information from everywhere. Right? Really bring up something that I hadn’t thought of, and that is how can you know your own mind? Well, in the flesh, you really can’t.

John McLarty: You can’t.

Kimberly Faith: But when you have the spirit, when you have the mind of Christ dwelling in your soul and spirit, then you have the light, you have the mirror to look in and say, Oh, that’s not right, or this is right, or to give us a difference between light and darkness.

John McLarty: Right, and you have the Word of God-

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: We need to compare that to.

Kimberly Faith: Yes, and He actually gives it to us in writing. So that’s an excellent point.

John McLarty: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto Yeah. My

Kimberly Faith: Psalms one nineteen, of course, tells all the benefits of God’s Word. And so when our mind is, when we are given the option to have the mind of Christ, you know, I just wanna kind of go through some of these things like Isaiah 55 says, God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, so are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. But then it tells us we you know, you can have my thoughts. You can have I mean, and I’m not going say that I can think like God, but we have the ability to tap into his thoughts and to understand them.

And we can’t understand the infinite mind of

John McLarty: Christ. Yeah. And actually through us having the mind of Christ, it says, let others see Jesus in you. And that can happen. So we can show the love of Jesus to others.

And the beauty of it, it’s not coming obviously from our flesh. But you think, why would I love somebody that just did something hateful to me? That’s not of the flesh.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Well, that’s that’s the mind of Christ. Right. And he gets the credit.

Kimberly Faith: Well

John McLarty: That that’s our born again nature.

Kimberly Faith: It’s it’s thinking about the mind of God, you know, and how his wisdom and purity and purpose is so far above ours. I also think about His thoughts towards us. You know, when Jeremiah says that His thoughts of us are for peace and not evil to give us a future and a hope. And, you know, if you think about someone who loves you as much as God loves us, so much that He died for us. And then He says, and by the way, I’m not telling you to think with the new mind I’ve given you because I wanna make you miserable, but because I have this great purpose for you.

And so if we’re miserable, it’s clear that we need to dig deeper and push deeper into the mind of Christ in order to endure. I mean, are bad things that happen. I mean, people die, People have cancer. It’s not that we’re gonna be yippity yay yay over that, but it’s a difference when we go through that with the mind of Christ, which says there is an eternal purpose that can be worked in this evil. And, you know, I also think of what the Paul the apostle Paul said in Romans 11, he said, Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.

You know, God says, you can tap into my imagination. You’re not gonna get the whole thing, but you can tap into it. You know, it’s like, it’s kinda like if, know, you were an athlete being trained by the greatest athlete of all times. You may not have the ability of that athlete, but you are, he’s saying, Hey, I’m going to give you all my insight. You do with it what you can.

John McLarty: Yeah. I think that’s really I’m just looking at that you quoted Jeremiah 2nine 11, His thoughts toward us are peace and that God wants us to have peace. He talked about kind of winning the souls of America or Christians. There’s a lie that God doesn’t want us to have peace. He wants us to have misery.

And by following him is going to be this terrible life. But He has loving kindness towards us that brings us peace.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. What we tap into when we knowingly pursue the mind of Christ is an imagination that’s bigger than ours. You know, reason that’s greater than ours, discernment that is that transcends human understanding. But apart from that, we’re trapped in our own flesh, rebellion. We’re enslaved to the impulses of the flesh.

Even the love that we think we can give is tainted by a desire to have it somehow be self satisfying. Then God says, you know, not only am I gonna give you eternal life, but I’m gonna give you the ability to live out this life for my glory by tapping into my mind. And it’s gonna be greater than you can ask for and greater than you ever imagined.

John McLarty: Right, the abundant life.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. You know, before we kinda shut it down here, I’d like to just kinda have a real brief discussion about how we In the first concept, we talk about the poles of influence, our source of truth and contrasting what secular humanism reduces the mind to versus biblical Christianity. And think about that for a minute. What are your thoughts on that?

John McLarty: Well, if you just think in terms of secular humanism, atheism, evolution, it’s just like we’re just these biological creatures and we’re just here for survival and for our own comfort. And so that’s selfishness, self survival. It just reduces us to I I even think a lot of animals are better off than humans that are deceived about their spiritual purpose. Because they’re kind of innately, like our podcast on the bees, They’re kind of doing their bee thing and they’re pretty happy unless they’re under attack. And humans that have lost that sense of purpose that are just reduced to, I’m just this animal and I need to survive in this world.

How pathetic, how that sad they’re missing out, that they have a soul. There’s so much more. And just think about this. If you’re just, you might say, just hardcore atheist, How can you explain the soul? Because people, we all have souls and there’s that soul yearning for, I mean, a beautiful sunset, a beautiful taste, a beautiful piece of music.

In that pure animal instinct that triggers this joy of the soul?

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, I think that secular humanism can explain some about how the brain works, right? How the mind behaves, but it can’t address why it exists or what its purpose is and why do we have morality? Why beyond just selfishness? Why do we have, isn’t love just an illusion? Isn’t free will really just an illusion?

And the Bible kind of affirms what Romans chapter one says, and that we were created, we know there’s something more than the here and now. We know that we were created for an amazing purpose. And, you know, so I think, you know, kind of wrapping this up that we need to think about, we need to identify, are we operating under the carnal mind? And is that where we are trapped? Have we ever been under the mind of Christ?

Have we ever felt peace? Like the kind of peace that just takes you to a place that you’ve never been before.

John McLarty: Past is understanding.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And if you’ve never experienced that kind of peace, then consider whether you have been born again. But if you are born again and you’re sure of that, then, you know, analyze your own peace, you know, and hold up the qualities from the mind of God against what you’re actually experiencing. And, you know, this applies to all of us. I mean, look, I’m not sitting here saying I got the mind of Christ all the time because I don’t.

I don’t wake up with the mind of Christ sometimes. I’m like, God, I got nothing. And, you know, and especially in today’s world where really the first thing we do when we get out of bed is jump on our phones on social media. Oh, and then you start getting distracted and worried and tempted or anxious and whatever happens, right? And God has really been teaching me through this study.

You need to take your mind and get it under control of my mind instead of just defaulting to what you’ve been doing for years, which is thinking in the carnal mind,

John McLarty: Yeah. So there’s kind of a summary here that somebody that’s not been born again, they’re only in the mind of the flesh. And then you have to ask yourself, how’s that working out for me? Is my life full of peace? What’s my anxiety level?

And you can’t have perfect peace without God because that’s not how we’re designed.

Kimberly Faith: But

John McLarty: then if you’ve been born again, but you’re living in fear and anxiety and lack of fulfillment, then you kind of have to question which mind, the mind of my flesh or this born again nature, the bind of Christ, which one is responsible for how I’m living my life?

Kimberly Faith: Right. And that measure of peace and also the measure of satisfaction, I mean, which is the Bible equates with joy, right? Is a good measure. Like if you were to die today, are you satisfied that you have done everything you can do to make your life matter? How will you Like we attended a memorial service yesterday, amazing Christian guy.

Right. And everybody knew him, knew that he had the love of God in him and he couldn’t hide it.

John McLarty: His brother wrote a song about him. He was a godly man. So that came out loud and clear. When you think about even how we’re living our life, I just don’t want to misrepresent. A Christian can be living a great life and living for God, but their flesh is ever present.

And so it’s kind of a continual battle.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. I mean, I call it sleeping with the enemy because we have three enemies. We have the flesh, which is we never get rid of it until we’re dead. You know, we have the Satan, which is clearly identified and then we have this world culture. And the question is, who’s gonna control your mind?

And so back to my question I was gonna ask earlier that we kind of Before we talked about the mind of God, the question I asked, you know, one of my Bible study groups was, okay, so if the mind of God is so great and we have the option to use it, why don’t we?

John McLarty: That’s a great

Kimberly Faith: question. I mean, think about it. You’ve got choices every day. Well, gosh, am I gonna sit in traffic for an hour? Am I gonna take this other way that takes me out of the traffic?

No brainer, right? Am I going to eat dirt for dinner or am I going to eat a steak? Oh, no brainer. We get the mind of Christ that gives us peace and we’ve got the mind of the flesh that fights against the Prince of Peace.

John McLarty: And I think one of the answers to that is something our pastor, Brother Brian Disney, has said, is that the flesh is screaming at us. It’s just Like a toddler. Screaming at

Kimberly Faith: Two year old toddler, yes.

John McLarty: Demanding our attention.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And the voice of God, that inner man, that born again, the mind of Christ, is this still small And we have to want to listen to that to So tune into it’s kind of this discipline, this exercise, this what’s our heart. You know something else, Kim, it’s what are our habits?

Kimberly Faith: I think that there’s-

John McLarty: Through the weeks and months and years, what are our habits To keep putting the flesh aside or just giving to the flesh? Like, I’m just a carnal Christian and that’s the way I’m going to be. It’s like, know, somebody that’s not in shape physically. They’re just like, that’s just the way I’m gonna be forever.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. So the answer to that question, really, there’s varied answers, from my experience, I’ll tell you my answer about why for so many years I have chosen to live with a carnal mind as a born again believer versus the mind of Christ. Number one reason in my life and by in my experience is because I didn’t know how wonderful it was to live in the mind of Christ. Was like, kind of like what C. S.

Lewis talked about how a child grew up in the ghetto, had never been to the ocean.

John McLarty: That’s a good example.

Kimberly Faith: He may have seen the ocean in a picture, but never experienced the beauty of the ocean. So why would he long for the ocean when he’s never experienced it?

John McLarty: And,

Kimberly Faith: you know, lived in the ghetto of the carnal mind for so long, even as a born again Christian, I had no idea what it was like to experience the amazing presence of God by using His mind as my central operating system. And so all the things you’ve said come into play, discipline. You have to discipline yourself through that because like you said, it’s a two year old toddler screaming at you every morning when you get out of bed. But when you’ve had the best, there’s really no question of wanting more of it.

John McLarty: Yeah, the discipline is based on, that’s a great point, an underlying want to. Like someone that just is going to say, go on a diet or go to the gym, January 1 resolutions, but they really have to want to.

Kimberly Faith: Right, right.

John McLarty: It Then they’ll start discipline. And then the more you do it, the more you, Hey, I’m losing weight. I’m getting in shape. It’s like, I’m liking this. But if you don’t have that kind of firm mind to go that direction, that want to.

Kimberly Faith: And I think God gives us that want to when we want to want to.

John McLarty: That’s very true. We don’t even get credit for that. But when we, yes, when we express that heart, Lord, here’s my heart. Give me the want to. Give me the kind of that daily repentance, which is having God’s desires.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. You know, one of the prayers that is probably my most often prayer first thing in the morning is, Lord, help me want you. You know. And that is a pathetic prayer in so many levels, but it’s such a real prayer because I know my flesh. I know that it wants what it wants, but I want my soul to win.

I want the mind of Christ to win. I wanna have the heart of Christ and I think that when God understands that, it’s like when one of my kids was younger and this child just seemed to be in misery all the time for a period of just like several months of their life, you know? And one day, you know, this child came to me and says, Mommy, I don’t wanna be angry or I think upset all the time. I don’t wanna be mean. That’s what this child said.

And I was like, Well, you don’t have to be. And if you want mommy’s help, I’m glad to help you with that. And so I did. That’s why God, He’s saying, you know, you don’t have to live in misery and fighting against me. But if you are asking for my help, I’m going to do it.

That’s been my experience is that when we ask for God to give us the mind of Christ, He’s so gracious.

John McLarty: He wants to

Jacob Paul: do it.

Kimberly Faith: He wants to do it. So what we’re going to It do

John McLarty: says, you know, the one verse that says, If you seek wisdom, ask of God. Right. But I’m thinking just as kind of a wrap up or a segue here, I’m thinking about what’s, what’s There’s this phrase kind of popular today, top of mind, what’s on the top of your mind? And that, just to understand this for Christians, is that you have this dual mind or operating system. One’s the flesh, one’s the spirit of Christ through your born again nature.

What’s at the top? What comes to your mind? And then what controls your actions? Not only in any given day, but any given second. And that’s kind of where this tug of war is.

And then you get into kind of your heart’s desire like you’re talking about, is wanting, Lord, I want you to serve you. I want to have that abundant life. And really, I want to help others.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I think for me it’s I want

John McLarty: to be have a ministry.

Kimberly Faith: I want to be in your presence because from His presence flows life. And that would be life for me, life for others. And His presence is the well that produces the fruit.

John McLarty: And when I think about helping others, I think about the life of Jesus, what did He do? He went around serving others. Right. Cause He had the mind of God. Right.

He is God.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, He is God.

John McLarty: But He was our example, but that’s a good That should motivate us to want to be like Him.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, absolutely. And so I think just to wrap up, you know, this idea of, first of all, you need to know your own mind and you can know that. You can know your own mind if you are a born again believer and all you have to do is look at your peace and your joy. Where’s your gauge? And if you feel like you’re not maxing those out, then this is kind of for you.

It’s been for me. It’s gonna be for me for the rest of my life, I think. And so next time, next podcast, we’re gonna talk about, you know, how to get control of your mind and have the mind of Christ. And control is a funny word. You know, it’s who’s gonna control your mind more than anything.

And this idea that we’re not going to be able to stop all the thoughts that come into our mind, but we can control what we do with them.

John McLarty: We can yield to them or put them aside.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: So some how tos.

Kimberly Faith: Some how tos. Some strategies. That’s right. It’s been good, dad.

John McLarty: It’s been great. Are

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