Episode 63: How to Engage the Mind of Christ

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: Well, that is good to be back talking about the mind again.

John McLarty: Yes, it is. The mind is an interesting thing Very interesting. To think

Kimberly Faith: And when you think you know it, you don’t. Now we talked a lot about, do you even know your mind? Last podcast we talked about- What

John McLarty: is the mind?

Kimberly Faith: What is the mind, right? So, it’s so interesting that we need to understand, and I need to understand this, and I say we, I mean to include myself in this, that we cannot have peace if our mind has become a playground for the enemy. Right. And we’ve learned by studying God’s Word that the purpose that God gives humanity is to glorify Him. That’s our purpose.

And we do that, we manifest that in many different ways. It’s through the great commission, making disciples, evangelism, how we raise our families, how we work. People call it lifestyle evangelism. I like to call it lifestyle discipleship, right? How you live, but everything flows from our mind.

It flows from which mind are we going to choose to operate under.

John McLarty: It’s kind of the battleground area.

Kimberly Faith: It really is. And we talked about how we can know our mind is by knowing whether we live in peace and satisfaction, whether joy and peace and really love are our overall prevalent experience or whether it’s anxiety and selfishness and pride and really the contrast between the fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh in Galatians chapter five is a great way to know.

John McLarty: It’s very stark. Very stark contrast.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, it’s very good way to measure which mind we’re living under.

John McLarty: Because we talked about how Christians

Kimberly Faith: can waste the gift of the mind of Christ by living, by choosing to live in the carnal mind. And man, how many times have you chosen to do that? I I know I’ve chosen to do that. Every week I choose, I make As that

John McLarty: we pointed out last time, if you think you’re there, you’re not. Right. Because it’s a daily, minute by minute. The mind of the flesh is so tricky, so devious.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: You can think you’re doing a good thing, but you’re actually just doing it for selfish reasons.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And so today we want to talk about kind of understanding the battlefield and strategies for winning. I mean, that’s kind of the way I

John McLarty: would

Kimberly Faith: summarize this podcast. And just

John McLarty: to kind of follow-up, just to summarize a little bit the last podcast on the mind, being a battlefield, And just to understand, there’s the mind of the flesh, which is the natural man. So all people not born again just have the mind of the flesh. Then if you’re born again, you have the mind of Christ, you’re a new creature, that part of you, your soul, soul, spirit. But you have the mind, so there’s these opposing minds, the mind of Christ, the mind of the flesh, but then there’s this interface that takes place, in the it’s in your mind, but it’s almost like your will. So it’s hard to even it’s hard to just put it into a perfect model.

Well, I could Because you have your mind thinking about Some part of you is getting input from the mind of the flesh and getting input from the mind of Christ. Right. And it’s kind of making the decision which one to listen to.

Kimberly Faith: I like this. And that’s happening our- All the time.

John McLarty: In our thinking too. In real time. In our kind of quote mind.

Kimberly Faith: Right. I think about which radio you’re tuned to, what’s stationed. You can tune into the spirit or you can tune into the flesh. Right. But the difference is the flesh never goes away and it’s always this static.

It’s always trying to rip the dial out of your hand, you know? I don’t want anyone that’s listening to think that just because an evil thought comes into consciousness, that that is sin. It’s only what you do with it. When you have that thought, like maybe a really nice looking guy goes through by my window, half clothed, like the other day I was in my office, that happened. And I was like, my first instinct was, wow, you know, because the flesh is just looking at what the And flesh looks then putting this into practice, you know, of the strategies is number one, recognizing when the enemy has penetrated the wall.

And then two, was taking that thought captive. And so what I did instead of going down that rabbit trail of, wow, I wonder where he’s going, wonder who he is, wonder, wow, it looked really good. And perpetuating more thoughts, The Bible says, Take every thought captive. So I was like, Okay, Lord, I’m gonna put this to test. I’m taking this thought captive, now what do I do?

And he’s like, How about you pray for that guy? And I was like, Well, that’s a great idea.

John McLarty: And that’s a good strategy. Right. So the thought comes there and it’s not just that you don’t put it into action, like, Oh, I’ll go chase after this guy. Right. But to even dwell on it.

Right. But to have that countermeasure, like, Oh, I’m not even going to dwell on whatever But like, I need to pray for him.

Kimberly Faith: It’s good. You just can’t take it captive. You’ve got to put something else there.

John McLarty: Something else there. Yeah, you can’t just dwell on.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. Great point. I kind of want to just, know, we’re talking about the We’ve got to frame the battle, right? That’s kind of the first strategy is we have to frame the battlefield.

What is If we don’t understand who our enemy is, we don’t understand what the battlefield looks like, that’s What we just mentioned was this, it’s a facet of the battlefield, what comes in through our eyes, right? But I wanna read it out of Galatians chapter five, because it makes Paul just makes it so clear. He says, and this is verse 13, verse 16, I say, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh for the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to the other. So describing, we have this battle, it’s all the time.

And as long as our flesh is alive, it’s the battle we’re gonna have. And he says, but if you are led by the spirit, you have one life. If you are led by the flesh, you have another, you have other fruit. And he talks about the works of the flesh. And he, I mean, he just puts them out there, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, hatred, variance, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunken, I mean, all these things that are miserable, they’re miserable life.

But then he goes on to say, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

John McLarty: That’s an excellent contrast of the

Kimberly Faith: two minds. That’s right.

John McLarty: Mind of the flesh versus of Christ.

Kimberly Faith: So if you’re wondering what you’re operating under, all you gotta do is measure yourself by the scripture, you know?

John McLarty: Your joy, your love, peace, your gentleness, meekness, your Your

Kimberly Faith: general satisfaction that your life is meaningful. That if like, again, I hate to keep bringing up this memorial service, but it was such a rich memorial service for the life of Emile Fantas. You know, that his son, Jacob, gave this amazing memorial to his dad to honor his father. And he read off

John McLarty: It was really good.

Kimberly Faith: He read off, he began by reading off the fruit of the spirit and said, This was my dad.

John McLarty: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: What a great tribute, you know?

John McLarty: Great testimony to be remembered for the fruits of the spirit. That’s right. Seen in your life. That’s right. Talked about, preached about, taught in a Bible study, but lived out.

A true testament to

Kimberly Faith: the mind of Christ. Yes. And so framing the battlefield, like understanding the mind is where we begin to win or lose this spiritual warfare. We teach the concepts, we teach this segment called spiritual warfare, but it starts in the mind.

John McLarty: And I can kind of think of I’m just having another analogy of that aspect of the mind where the battlefield is. That’s the ebb and flow of might say the frontline of a battle. You’ve got all this backup on one side, which is the mind of Christ, which is like, say, one side of a warfare. The other’s the flesh, but this battle of the mind is that front line, who’s prevailing. Yes.

And there’s an ebb and flow.

Kimberly Faith: That’s good. Yeah. And who you feed prevails.

John McLarty: Yes. I mean, really. Yeah. The army that’s better supplied will win.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, that’s so good, dad. And you know what’s we talked about this in the first podcast about the mind, but the enemy’s strategy is always deceive, distract, distort, hide the truth, you know Attempt. Attempt, feed the flesh, give us little moments of, I don’t know, endorphin release, whatever you want to call it, you know? And who we place in control matters. It matters for eternity.

You know, I think about again, the way Jacob described his dad, that that place was packed out with people who knew this man who represented love, joy, peace, you know, I think they called a smile, it was a patented smile, you know, And you contrast, going back to the question we asked in the first podcast, you know, we have this priceless mind of Christ that as born again believer, we get to choose, so why don’t we choose it? In part, it’s because we’ve never experienced it, I think.

John McLarty: You don’t understand its Right,

Kimberly Faith: right. It’s kind of like kids. You know, when I was a teenager, I did not understand the value of a relationship with you and mom. Now, as an adult, I treasure that. All I wanted to do was get different parents when I was a teenager sometimes, you know?

It’s like

John McLarty: Get away from the ones

Kimberly Faith: you had. Yeah, it’s like, they always have so many rules. I wasn’t appreciating or experiencing what I could have had if I’d just been in submission to what you all you guys didn’t have bad stuff planned for me, I thought

John McLarty: And that’s a great analogy because God is a God of peace and loving kindness. Right. He wants good things for us. And not the, as we say often, prosperity gospel, but a good life, a rich life, a meaningful life. One where at the end of it, you would have, you know, that’s not our only purpose, but a memorial service where people would say, yes, that was a godly woman.

Yes, that was a godly man. And there’s this legacy of they saw Jesus in this person.

Kimberly Faith: A 100%. It’s so I mean, we got to record two of our last songs with Emil playing the violin and just his presence was, it was just peaceful. And to bring that into the room is so powerful and that you leave people with something better than when they came. And if you contrast scrolling through social media, how do you feel? What is your soul feeling after I call it doom scrolling?

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: You don’t feel satisfied, you feel anxious, you feel hungry, you feel, you know, whatever. But if you’re pursuing God’s presence And the thing about God’s presence that I don’t wanna make any mistake about this because the thing I’ve discovered is there are a lot of Christians who do a lot of Bible study and a lot of devotional time and a lot of group studies and they’re taking it in, but they’re not giving it out. And the very essence of God’s love, I have been very challenged by this because I do a lot of studying with people and a lot of teaching, but unless it’s going in and coming out, we’re not experiencing love, we’re experiencing or joy really, because you can’t keep joy to yourself, it has to be shared. You can’t keep God’s love to yourself, it has to be shared.

John McLarty: And the perfect example of that was Jesus himself.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Didn’t just have this holier than thou, I’m going to spend most of my time in the cave meditating. He was very busy serving others, but having, you know, I’m sure it was just a fulfilling experience to be around Jesus. Yes. Not just boring lectures, but very lively, very

Kimberly Faith: intriguing. Oh, I’m sure. Mean, think about it, he invented this So piece of I’m sure he had way deeper humor than most of us do because not only did he know his disciples, in the time he spent them, but he knew them before time began.

John McLarty: I’m sure He was telling jokes to and about His disciples that

Kimberly Faith: they They probably didn’t understand. Something to look forward to, the heaven stand up comedy, right? Is Jesus joking with me? Right, right. But it’s really, I mean, we all are concerned about where’s my life gonna go?

What’s my future? What am I going to do that’s gonna matter? And this is why this study is so important because what we decide to do with our minds today, that is going to determine what our life becomes. Because what we decide, whichever mind we decide to think with is going to determine everything that’s important to us.

John McLarty: And it kind of starts with number one, being born again. So we’re talking about the battle here for the born Christian warfare, but the battle of the mind and the rewarding life that it can bring.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. So let’s kind of dig into some of these. Let’s just talk about some of the biblical commands for learning to have the mind of Christ. Okay. And starting with Luke ten twenty seven, which Jesus was saying, You need to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.

Right?

John McLarty: And that is such a challenging thought. I mean, we just throw that out with all of your heart, soul, and mind. Of course, we know that the born again nature does that, but that mind, that place our thoughts exit, you know? Right. This pop up into our mind.

To love the Lord thy God with all, let’s just say your mind. Right. All your thoughts are thinking about God. That’s number one, I say impossible, just in the flesh. But it’s, it’s a goal.

You have to have goals. And then that kind of comes from your heart. And we said this in the earlier podcast, our flesh does not want that. So that needs to be a prayer because we just can’t get there through rigorous, you might say self righteous discipline. I’m just going to make my mind think righteous thoughts all the time.

It’s really a yielding to the mind of God.

Kimberly Faith: Kind of like a marriage. If you said, I’m going to love mom with all my mind and I’m going to do it no matter what, and I’m going to do all these things that she loves, but you really weren’t doing it because you loved her. It would be totally different Right,

John McLarty: it be, yes. It’d be shallow.

Kimberly Faith: It’d be shallow and Not fulfilling.

John McLarty: Not fulfilling. And not sustainable.

Kimberly Faith: Yes, that’s right. Because if we’re doing it so we can check the box, it’s a selfish motivation. Whereas if we’re doing it because we truly love the Lord and have so much desire to please him because what he did for us, I mean, even that seems selfish, but the mind of Christ lets us flip that switch and think with His mind, which is love. So we don’t have to worry about our human motivation because we’re not using human motivation, we’re using our spiritual motivation, which is His love.

John McLarty: So when I think that phrase, love God with all your mind, I think of letting the mind of Christ rule our life and putting away the flesh. And again, not that anybody, especially us, can ever be even close to perfection, but it’s like losing it’s like not gaining weight. It’s a continual battle. Yes. It’s a lifetime battle, except for some people that have this incredible metabolism that can

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, well, whatever.

John McLarty: But for most people

Kimberly Faith: Not us.

John McLarty: But it’s this heart to want the mind of Christ to rule.

Kimberly Faith: And that heart comes from him. That’s right. No credit to anybody. Going back to our initial discussion about this, this about following a bunch of rules, it’s about surrendering a Not not surrender self righteousness. Right.

John McLarty: It’s about letting God’s righteousness through our born again nature, which he gets the credit for, have control of our life, so what? So we can be blessed. Yeah. So it’s like you said, why wouldn’t we want that? Right.

And I think what you said is key, one thing is on different levels, we haven’t experienced it.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. We have our carnal grooves are so deeply cut. The ways of thinking in the flesh are so deeply cut into our psyche, our habits, our discipline, that we default to that. And to switch that to defaulting to the mind of Christ is truly a work in progress. And I think about so some of these strategies are just consistency, right?

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: The goal is to love God with all your mind, but these strategies like I think about Deuteronomy chapter six, where God was commanding he said, Hero is with the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. And these words, which I command you today shall be in your heart. And this is how you do it. You teach them to your children.

You talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, bind them as a sign to your hand. They’ll be as frontless between your eyes. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. God’s saying, look, make my word central and my word is Jesus. You know, he explains that in John chapter one, that Jesus is the word and he’ll take over.

Like you said, the supply line that you feed is gonna be the one

John McLarty: that wins the war. Heard the battle,

Kimberly Faith: the war. So some practical things, you know, we can do. And some of these are just really things that God has been showing me is don’t start my morning on social media. Don’t start my morning thinking about the office. Start my morning with God in his word.

John McLarty: His word and prayer. I’ll just tell a little story. Our associate pastor, Pat Briney, when he first moved to Arkansas, he just wanted to serve God. He had this heart we’re talking about. He was born again.

And he studied what we’re talking about right now, the battle of the mind. And he decided that he did not trust just the random thoughts that would spring up into his mind. He didn’t trust them as being correct about anything, like the way to go, what to do that day. So he just permeated his life with the Word of God. He read it, he listened to it everywhere he drove.

And he said after about, you know, he’s an extreme guy. He does things to the nth degree.

Kimberly Faith: He

John McLarty: does. He said after five years, he began to trust his thoughts could be in align with the Word of God. And that’s just an extreme example, but he just wanted to saturate his mind with the Word of God. And then he began to feel like, starting every morning with the word, with prayer, he wanted that to really soak in. So that’s what his mind was keep your mind stayed on Jehovah.

That’s what he was attempting to do, but in a very real disciplined way. And I just thought that was very interesting.

Kimberly Faith: That’s such a good thanks for sharing that. That’s a great example because it really does it’s so interesting how in the garden, right, where Eve was in perfection, no sin nature, you know? Right. And yet, you know, Paul in second Corinthians eleven:three says, I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

John McLarty: Very good.

Kimberly Faith: You know, it’s like, mind is it’s the front line. We think that, oh, well, you know, if we’re doom scrolling, it’s not a big deal. If we’re filling our mind with this reel or even just, you know, maybe even just reading something that is otherwise considered news, but has a lot of opinions in it that are just mean spirited, you know? It’s one thing to watch the news, but it’s, you know, you’ve got talking heads on it doesn’t matter what side of aisle you’re on, there’s a lot of mean spirited stuff.

John McLarty: Right, and you can be influenced. Right. You know, just this bombardment of one perspective, you know, continual of this.

Kimberly Faith: Well, we know that we know when we’ve been feeding the wrong mind by how we react on the other side, by becoming anxious, depleted, feeling fearful.

John McLarty: Depressed.

Kimberly Faith: Depressed. And Paul warns us about walking in the futility of our mind. Christ’s mind is not futile. It’s not anxious. It does not produce fear.

His he is love and his Joy. Joy. That’s right. He’s the prince The prince of peace.

John McLarty: Prince of peace.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And so this this is the That’s a great gauge

John McLarty: to ask ourselves. Right. What’s our peace level?

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah, because every It’s our anxiety level. Everything that controls our mind shapes our life. And this is why it’s so important. And we talk about Romans chapter 12, verse one and two, where Paul says, Present your bodies a living sacrifice.

And that’s saying, okay, I’m not gonna watch this on television. Maybe the crime drama shows are really giving you a bad mind. You’re not putting in the mind of Christ because everything has an influence on us. It really does. And I don’t think I quite realized how much of the stuff I was putting in my mind that just would seem pretty benign.

There were custom in it. There’s maybe no violence in it. It was nothing is benign. There’s always Jesus said, You’re either for me or against me. It either expires your soul to praise God or it doesn’t.

John McLarty: And the spirit has a way of letting us know.

Kimberly Faith: Right, right. And then

John McLarty: you even think about stuff, I mean, just it could be something as harmless as, let’s just say, at the Andy Griffith Show or I Love Lucy’s, but that’s all you do, rather than spend time in the scripture, trying to reach out to others, spend time in prayer. So even I know what you’re saying, crime shows and this all yeah, they can get pretty gruesome.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes.

John McLarty: Within our mind. Right. But even just Even just entertainment. Yeah. Mindless entertainment.

Exactly. It can be a waste of time. Think that Not I there’s anything wrong with an occasional I Love Lucy.

Kimberly Faith: It’s supposed to be the Chocolate Factory one. No. I think that there’s a difference. God wants us to enjoy our life, but even entertainment and distraction can become an enemy in the mind of Christ. Right?

John McLarty: The distraction.

Kimberly Faith: I think, you know, when we’re talking about loving God with all of our mind, this is not an emotional thing or just it’s discipline to say, I want you to be center stage. If I’m supposed to be taking the recently widowed lady to dinner instead of watching I Love Lucy, that’s what I need to do. This is a discipline. Then like Pat Briney, it’s also an intellectual discipline. I’m gonna fill my mind with scripture.

You know, when you fill your mind with scripture, you pray with the mind of Christ then because your mind is filled with His Word.

John McLarty: When you think of prayer, thought about what He did and I just I’m picking up the Bible here for our listeners to know. This is the mind of God. This is direct access to thinking of God. Amazing. This is the Bible, reading the Bible.

Kimberly Faith: It’s so remarkable. You know, we think about the great minds that have lived in the past and how much we’d like to study these, like the Einstein, the great minds, inventors. But God has said, No, I made those inventors. Guess what? I’ve written my mind down for you to see it, at least as much as I’m going to reveal to you.

And if we even spent you know, 50% of our life diligently pursuing the study of God’s word to know his mind, you know, I am reminded of the verses that talk about how God uses the weak to confound the mighty. Know, he uses the ones that people think are not real bright to bring to light the wisdom that’s so far beyond what they could even be expected to know. He used the fishermen.

John McLarty: Yeah, I was thinking of the disciples.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, right.

John McLarty: We’re examples of that.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. So loving God with all of our mind, that is the goal. And so some of the strategies are immersing ourselves in God’s Word, right? Have to a quiet time is important first thing in the morning, having that time with God to reset from I mean, think about when you sleep, who’s in charge? Who knows?

You know? I’ve had great dreams where I felt like, you know, I was connecting with God and then not so great dreams, not so great sleep, you know?

John McLarty: I just had this thought, Kim, of this idea of renewing your mind, Romans twelve two. So we’re renewing our mind and kind of permeating it with God’s word. I just had this thought of our body renews itself, our cells are reproducing and it’s based on what we’re feeding it.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, that’s good, dad.

John McLarty: If feeding it sugar, garbage, our cells are kind of reproducing in an unhealthy way. Crippled. They’re crippled. Yeah. But if we’re feeding it nutrition and protein, we’re renewing our body, but with proper input.

Kimberly Faith: Is I just thought of that spiritually. On point, that’s on point. So another strategy, and I’ve actually we’ve kind of touched on this one a little bit in the first podcast about this, take every thought captive. Second Corinthians 10 talks about in verses three through five talks about that. We’re testing our thoughts against God’s truth and pulling And if it doesn’t measure up, like the example I used, you know, I’ll just use a different example.

I was laying in bed this morning and I was thinking about a good friend of mine who had This person had left a church, a good church, because this person had been offended and kind of had spread the poison a bit. And as a result, other people, this person was very well respected, had also left this good Bible believing church. And I was thinking about that and I started I’ve started losing my joy. I started being angry. I started being And I thought about this strategy, take every thought captive.

I said, wait a minute, I’m losing my peace, God. I’m gonna take this thought I had this mental picture of taking that thought out of my brain, tying it up with some chains and putting it outside of my thinking process. And then again, this was at the Lord, I said, Lord, I’m taking this captive, give To me

John McLarty: replace it with.

Kimberly Faith: And he know, God When we talked about how Paul said that we, the simplicity that is in Christ, you know, was so, it was so rich. Says, well, now you can pray for that person, you know? Now you’re free of that thought that is at enmity with me. Now you can engage my mind to pray for that person and to pray for those other people. And so that’s what I did.

And guess what? I went back to sleep because I was tired.

John McLarty: And one of the triggers to that is we can forgive others because Christ forgave us. I think you’ve talked before, this mountain of debt that we owe for Christ.

Kimberly Faith: Right, our 5,000,000,000.

John McLarty: Our 5,000,000,000, and can we forgive somebody for $5

Kimberly Faith: Right, right.

John McLarty: But forgiveness is the key to freeing our minds from that captivity to the negative thinking. Yeah. But replace it with something that’s very important to replace it with something positive. That positive is praying for somebody, praying for God to take a wrong and turn it to a right.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. No. And then when we’re filling ourselves with the Word, then the Word gives us the words to pray for that person. You know, we start praying. We recognize that our warfare is not my war the warfare is not against this person.

It’s not against flesh and blood. It’s against principalities and powers.

John McLarty: In high places.

Kimberly Faith: And we can start praying with God’s perspective because we have the mind of Christ. We had that huge, just momentous podcast on God’s perspective. That was just, that was riveting for me, the thoughts that God was just like, Hey, you wanna have my perspective? Guess what? I’m gonna give it to you if you want it.

And kind of using that example, how, when Elijah’s servant couldn’t see the army of God, we can have that perspective that this person who is bitter is bound up in chains in a dungeon and we want So then we start praying, Lord, set them free. Show them the door. Show them the door’s wide open and that they can be free. That’s a really effective prayer instead of, Oh Lord, just show them they’re wrong. But you start having this imagination like God does.

I think when we ask the Lord to help us, we discipline ourselves to take captive of thoughts we know don’t shine the light, they aren’t measuring up, and then we ask God to replace those. My experience has been in nine times out of 10, that’s prayer. Or sending somebody a text or calling them to encourage them, something along those lines.

John McLarty: Replace the negative thought with an action or a prayer or with the truth from the Word of God.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Well, Ephesians four thirty two says, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as in Christ, God forgave And that’s what you were talking about. We ask the Lord to take captive that thought and then replace it with something better, It’s always Him and His love.

John McLarty: And we get our peace back.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right. Know, it’s not a one off, it’s over and over and over again because our flesh is constantly It’s like our flesh is a big vacuum, sucking up all the evil stuff around us.

John McLarty: Screaming at us.

Kimberly Faith: Screaming at us, demanding its way, wanting this diaper changed, you know? And we have to ask the Lord, we have to cast every care on him and say, Lord,

John McLarty: I can’t handle all this. You’ve got to take this for me. And even when we do that, it’s the mind of Christ within us that he gave us to the born again nature.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Another strategy too is, and these all kind of tie together, Romans twelve:two talks about, we’d read this earlier about being transformed by the renewing of our mind, but we talked about how we avoid, we have to avoid conforming to the world. You know, that’s obedience, right? Filling our mind with God’s Word, but we’re not obeying it, what’s the point?

John McLarty: Yeah, renewing our mind with His Word, with prayer, with service.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, I mean, it’s in But I think if we have faithful quiet time in prayer, but it doesn’t translate into obedience.

John McLarty: Right, service and following Him.

Kimberly Faith: Right. I mean, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

John McLarty: No, those have to tie together. I think we mentioned it earlier. You can’t just have input, input, input, and there’s no output.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Well, I just want to read Romans 12 because I think this is so important in this process where Paul said, first of all, he’s just he’s talking to believers and he’s, I beseech you, brethren. I beg you. I beg you, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And then you will prove that is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

John McLarty: So there’s several steps there. There’s our sacrifice. So we’re to give up as best we can. It’s like we said, a lifelong struggle against the flesh. And then strive to be the renewing of our mind, which is this battle we’re talking about.

Kimberly Faith: And you think about the living sacrifice part of that. I remember reading that quite a while ago and just thinking, Oh, life is such a sacrifice and serving the Lord is a I have to sacrifice all these things that I enjoy. But the bottom line is we serve at some altar. Everybody serves at some altar and the altars of false gods are far more

John McLarty: I think there’s no song, You’ve

Kimberly Faith: got to serve somebody. Right, right. Bob Dylan’s, his road to Christianity, I don’t know what I’m just saying that was a song he did. But I think that when we understand that our body and our soul is going to be a living sacrifice on some altar and there’s nobody at no other altar where the God that we serve died for us and gave so much for us. And when Paul’s saying, this is a reasonable sacrifice, he gave everything for us.

So we don’t have to act like this is some big drudgery because it’s not. Because the sacrifice that we give to the false gods is what’s going to you know, for worshiping our work and for worshiping our children, worshiping our relationships, that’s a harsh, disappointing, failed

John McLarty: God. And a sign of that is where do we spend

Kimberly Faith: our time? Right. What are we worshiping? Right, right, right. What do we think about the most?

What do we dream about the most? What do we hope for the most? And that determines who our God is and what our So religion Paul’s just saying, Hey, you know, this is a reasonable sacrifice. And the result is that we’re gonna have fruit. We’re gonna have fruit, holy fruit, and it’s gonna be satisfying, you know?

So again, there’s no exhaustive list, these things we’re talking about, I don’t know what you think, but do you think that it’s also helpful to identify your consistently unhealthy thought patterns and then make a plan to change them.

John McLarty: That’s really key because you can take an unhealthy thought pattern and just it really glides up with taking everything, every thought captive to Christ. But it’s to notice what an unhealthy thought is. And then, well, like you’ve mentioned before, that robs you of your peace.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And then you can identify that. You might say put it in the trash, throw it out, the You can’t and then replace it with something else.

Kimberly Faith: But it’s kind of like So identify and replace. You used the dieting analogy earlier. If you know that you have a tendency to eat a lot of sweets and you’re trying to lose weight, then you just need to get rid of sweets. Maybe reward yourself with healthier sweets or healthier You have to change that thought process though, but that also requires us you know, we have to learn to I think get a new addiction is a good way. Christ is the only addiction, God’s presence is the only addiction that will ever give us complete satisfaction, and never kill us.

So that, I don’t know. You have any other strategies that you want to talk about?

John McLarty: Well, I think the first says, Iron sharpeneth iron. I think another key to thinking properly is Lynn and I have been going to the same church for forty nine years And we think of going to church, it’s like a tune up.

Kimberly Faith: That’s a good thing.

John McLarty: If you wait till your car is breaking down, it’s probably not a good idea.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And I’m not saying every service is like, oh, that was life changing, but it’s like you’re getting tweaked.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And so just being around God’s people, encouraged by God’s people, maybe the message that you heard that morning or not, And you’re getting these corrections like, Oh, the most important thing is souls. Right. Not my broken hot water heater.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Or not this person offended me. So being around God’s people, and then in the concepts, about specifically a church that God has added us to, where it’s for the perfection of the saints, for the work of the ministry. Right. And to me that helps renew your mind. Right.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. That’s part of your environment.

John McLarty: Because you see other people experiencing what you’re experiencing.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And it’s kind of like if you were in the military service, you’re deployed and you’re by yourself. How far are you going to get into the enemy of winning the battle when you’re by yourself? You need people and you need a tribe. You need a unit.

You need to have that.

John McLarty: I think God knows that.

Kimberly Faith: Yes, yes.

John McLarty: And we’re to be encouraged by others. Right. And then a large part of it is we’re to be an encouragement to others.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I think we get as much growth or maybe more out of being the encourager the teacher and the discipler as we get from being on the receiving end. Because like when I used to coach volleyball, I became a much better player when I had to coach because I had

John McLarty: to think through the mechanics and teach it. Then you have to demonstrate it and boy, then you have to

Kimberly Faith: be good at it, right? Yeah. And so when you’re in a church environment and you’re not serving actively, you’re not really getting the benefit of becoming satisfied in Christ and renewing your mind and becoming more Christ like.

John McLarty: And I’ve heard the example of somebody says, Well, I’m not getting anything out

Kimberly Faith: of church.

John McLarty: And then a comeback is, we’ll go to church and try to find somebody that you’re going to give encouragement to. And then that turns out that’s encouraging to you.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good analogy. Well, I kind of want to wrap this up with kind of this idea that we talked about, and I think this was in a Bible study that was at a house and I think actually at church, but the story of Nehemiah and how Nehemiah was repairing the walls of Jerusalem. Jerusalem. And this analogy is We’ve talked about these different strategies for renewing our mind, but kind of like this last thing, one of the last things we talked about was identifying unhealthy thought patterns and making a plan to change them. Need to identify the place where we have weaknesses in our firewalls, you know, and make a plan to prepare for the enemy’s attacks because that’s where the enemy’s gonna attack us.

John McLarty: And we need that wall.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And so what does that look like?

John McLarty: Well, just to sum this whole picture up, because we studied that it’s Nehemiah, the rebuilding of the wall, but when Lynn and I went back and read Nehemiah and Ezra, first they rebuilt the temple. They’d been sent to captivity. So this was coming back from captivity. They first got permission from a king to rebuild the temple. So that’s interesting.

Kind of Building God’s house first. God’s house first. And then we even comparing the if the wall is our mind, then the temple is where God resides. So that’s the born again nature. That’s good.

First, rebuilt the temple. Then Ezra, they found the word of God in the process of rebuilding the temple. And Ezra read it, all the people repented, so they established worship again. And then after they had the place where God resides, they established godly living, the worship, then they got permission to rebuild the wall. So that was to protect what we have.

Interesting. So it’s just this beautiful analogy of we’re born again. Yeah. So we have a soul that will can never lose its salvation. Right.

But we need to establish godly patterns in our life. Mhmm. But then there’s this this wall of kind of this battle of the mind. Mhmm. Because there’s the fiery darts, the wicked coming in.

There’s attacks. Right. They had to build the wall with a sword in one hand and then maybe a trowel in

Kimberly Faith: the other.

John McLarty: Right. So they’re working on the wall, but being protected, protecting themselves from the enemy. Yeah. So this is perfect analogy. So much, Brian.

But the wall being the mind.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. That’s what we’re talking about. It’s like a warrior ethos. Yeah. You know, you you need to approach life that you know we are we cannot be asleep at the wheel.

We cannot be asleep as if the enemy is not gonna try to pierce the wall, he is. And, you know, in first Peter one three, it says to gird up the loins of your mind.

John McLarty: Perfect.

Kimberly Faith: You know, that really

John McLarty: a perfect phrase.

Kimberly Faith: It’s a discipline. Yeah. You know, and and it’s kinda like, you know, when I used to play competitive sports, we didn’t go into a game lackadaisically. No.

John McLarty: We were we were we were stoked.

Kimberly Faith: We were ready. Like, oh, yeah. This you know, they have a six foot six girl over here. She’s gonna, you know, she’s gonna hit down the line because she’s you know, we’ve studied her. We watched her film.

John McLarty: Right? Know your enemy. Know his tactics.

Kimberly Faith: Know their tactics. I’m ready. And we know that this is gonna be a mismatch on the block because I’m only five foot eight. And so it’ll be we’re gonna strategize with soft blocks, so her hit will come up and somebody’s gonna be prepared to get it out. We’re gonna give you the line.

So Libero, get on the line deep. And, you know, so there was a whole strategy that went into that. And I think that it’s so important that if we know we have a problem with lust or if we know we have a problem with prayerlessness or if we know we have a problem with faithfulness to church, or if we know we think we can’t talk to people because we’re shy. Whatever it is, know that problem exists and then build a strategy. The Lord will show you a strategy.

Wants to. He’s dying to.

John McLarty: He wants us to be successful. Absolutely. Absolutely. His idea was we’re doing his work. Right.

The great commission.

Kimberly Faith: And, you know, kind of just going back to, what we talked about, that the whole hallmark of a person controlled by the mind of Christ is peace. Peace is not the absence of trouble, but rather Christ’s presence ruling in our life and not our carnal mind.

John McLarty: That’s a good point. So peace is not the absence of trouble. Right. I was just thinking maybe your sports analogy, you know your other side, your opposition. And this idea of just unexpected trouble, I’ve just thought about that.

And it’s in a game it’s one of the most unexpected things is like a bad call from the referee. Yes. That has nothing to do with the strength of the other team. You studied everything, then the referee just makes a bad call. Right.

And that can take all the wind out of a team. So true. And they net they don’t recover from it. Or they go like, you know what? That was a bad call, but we’re still gonna give it our best.

Kimberly Faith: An unexpected play by the enemy.

John McLarty: Exactly.

Kimberly Faith: You know? And and what’s what’s what I I have thought about this and, you know, I I remember being just completely blindsided by the enemy on just I’m not gonna share it because it’s very personal, but I mean, I had never had I didn’t think I had a crack in my wall in this particular area before and blindsided by my own. And then I fell for it. I was so angry. I was like, I’m never falling for that again.

I am never I’m gonna be ready. That comes out again Here’s what I’m gonna do if that comes out again. And this is the way we need to think, we’re warriors. We’re in the spirit. We can’t be babies on the battlefield.

Right. And man, on the flip side, why would we wanna be? Why would we wanna miss out on even one opportunity? Eternity is forever. Someday we are gonna stand before Jesus and we’re gonna give account for the life that we lived.

And how marvelous beyond description is it gonna be to stand before him and say, I did all I could do for you, you know? And I fought the good fight. I just think about that. I think that’s, I want to have that kind of life, but it starts in the mind every day.

John McLarty: It’s a battle in the mind. Yeah. And Satan is he’s been at this a long time.

Kimberly Faith: He sure has.

John McLarty: To deceive, blindside us. You know, what you just said, when we’re blindsided, one of the signs that we’re being blindsided is that either anger

Kimberly Faith: or

John McLarty: offense, or I’m going to show that old so and so and not go around them anymore or whatever. Right. But that’s not joy and peace.

Kimberly Faith: It’s not.

John McLarty: And loving kindness. The fruits of the spirit, that’s the measuring tool.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Measuring stuff. So just to be clear, when I was angry, I wasn’t angry at a person, I was angry that I had been fooled, that I had been deceived, that I had taken the bait, so to speak, and fallen for

John McLarty: So angry at yourself

Kimberly Faith: and I was falling for angry at my flesh and at the enemy getting me on that one, but the answer isn’t to remain angry, the answer is to now fool me once and he’s not going to fool me twice. And the thing is I see in my own life is I’ve spent so much of my Christian life being deceived by the same thing over and over and over and And over those areas of my life, I have, you know, as I’ve grown as a Christian, I’ve asked the Lord, I want you to give me a strategy for stopping this because it’s robbing me of my peace. It’s robbing me of my joy. It’s robbing me of eternal blessings. And I want to change.

I mean, goes back to that question, why don’t we want to live in the mind of Christ? It’s not because it’s not better, it is better. It’s because we haven’t experienced it to the degree that we can. But when we do, man, there’s just once you have the best, you don’t ever want go back.

John McLarty: And really, lot of this podcast is those tools to manage the attacks, to keep the wall, the mind strengthened and ready for the attacks, and able to not only withhold, withstand, but to go forward.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And here’s the thing, you know

John McLarty: Not just hole up in your fortress,

Kimberly Faith: I’ve but kind of set in my application of this study, I’ve kind of made myself a list of these tools. And just because when you get a lot of tools at one time and you haven’t used them all, sometimes it’s hard to remember which tools to use for what, right? So when I feel that peace gauge dropping, I look at those tools and say, okay, God, what can I do? What tool do I need to repair this breach? Right?

And it’s really interesting. I mean, there’s some go tos, like prayer is a go to, reading the scripture is a Taking go the thought captive, that’s a go to. And the more I’ve cut the grooves in my mind to have the mind of Christ and enjoy the peace of his presence, the more those tools become easier to use.

John McLarty: One of them I think of is thankfulness. We can be kind of feeling sorry for ourself, you know, something has blindsided us and might just be, you know, like a flat tire. Right. But we have so much to be thankful for.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, yeah. Of being Or maybe somebody offended us or Right. It’s kind of like that attitude of once we have adversity thinking about this is a gift, know, that I did have a flat tire. And thankfully I made it here. It was in the dark and I should have never made it here really.

And I kept saying, Lord, you know, that first dread, Oh, what am I gonna do? You know, not good at buying tires. I’m not good at any of this stuff, this type of stuff. And immediately the Lord was like, wait a minute. Remember, this is an opportunity.

This is an opportunity for somebody else or for you to maybe give glory to me. And so, you know what? I was like, okay, God, you’re right. Let me give glory to you on Facebook by saying thankful, thankful, thankful that God allowed me to make it to a safe place with a huge piece of metal in my tire and I didn’t have a blowout. Give glory to God.

Then then God gave another opportunity to have somebody else assist me in getting A

John McLarty: very nice person.

Kimberly Faith: A very nice my brother. Yes.

John McLarty: And he got a blessing out of being a help.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And that is such a prime example of us being able to take captive our thought and use what enemy means for evil and let God turn it into good.

John McLarty: That’s the thankfulness, refocusing on God’s perspective. How can this bad? Is this seemingly bad thing being used for a good thing?

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And so it’s I’m just I’m very excited about this study. I’m actually integrating this into my into the concepts and the human design. Think it’s just going to continue to grow.

John McLarty: Yeah. A lot of these are mental exercises and not just in a cold, you know, like just terrible exercise. It’s growing closer to God, letting him give the answer, trusting in him, being

Kimberly Faith: It’s thankful to completely deferring to him.

John McLarty: And then understanding his love. I think a big key to me is his loving kindness.

Kimberly Faith: Is better than I think all

John McLarty: have had an impression of God as just even in a great church, but of just rules and regulations and just performance And over God wants us to really serve him out of a pure heart that he gives us

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty: But to let that loose. Let it loose. Let the let the new man rule. Love old man aside.

Kimberly Faith: Control getting control of your mind is about letting the spirit of God loose. Yeah. And that’s great. That’s a great way to end this, dad.

John McLarty: Well, this is a this has really been a practical podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna keep putting

Kimberly Faith: it into practice because I I I

John McLarty: do go back and review it. With these tools for renewal, that’s that’s good. Absolutely.

Jacob Paul: You’ve been listening to the truth and love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mack. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us at gofaithstrong.com.