13 Guard Your Mind

reprogramming exercise absolutely transformed her relationship with her husband. Consequently, he started relating to her differently. Why? Because she was relating to him differently. This can work for you as well. If you transform your thinking about a person, it can transform the health of your relationship with that person.

Good Intake

In the reprogramming process, we’ve also got to look at good reading, good viewing, and good listening. In other words, we need good intake. We could spend a lot of time looking at this area and its implications.

Read more. Don’t waste your time reading trite garbage. Read something worthwhile. Everywhere my dad went, he was always reading. He always had a small book handy, and if he had a few minutes to spare, he would pull it out and read it. My mom was the same way.

Consequently, my siblings and I are avid readers. Why? Because we saw this trait in our parents. They modeled good habits of reading the kinds of materials that edified and built us up.

There needs to be good viewing and good listening too. The eyes and ears are the windows and receptacles to the soul and spirit. You’ve got to be careful about what you watch and hear.

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The Bible teaches that there are two entities in this world seeking to influence our minds. God is seeking to influence us and fill our minds through His Word and the Holy Spirit (good intake). If He has control and can influence our mind, He will direct our behavior. Through all the things of this world, Satan is also trying to get the attention and allegiance of our mind. He knows that if he does, he will also influence and control our external behavior just like he did with Eve. Her wrong allegiance gave her the wrong thoughts. Thinking the wrong thoughts (bad intake) led to wrong action.

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Now then, after we have reprogrammed the mind, let’s talk about guarding the mind. Not only does it have to be deprogrammed and then reprogrammed, it must be maintained. I call this the maintenance dimension, guarding the mind, or mental maintenance. This is keeping yourself under the control and good intake of the Holy Spirit.

Paul said in Ephesians 5:18, “Do not get drunk on wine.” Why not? When you are drunk with wine, it leads to excess and to the poor behavior of a drunk person. Paul goes on to say, “Be filled with the Spirit.” It is the basic principle that whatever fills you, controls you. So, let God’s Holy Spirit fill you and control you. Then, you will be able to walk by the Spirit.

As a drunken man has the external behavior of drunkenness, a Spirit-filled man has the external behavior of the fruit of the Spirit. If we allow God’s Holy Spirit to fill us and thereby control us, then the fruit of the Spirit will typify our lives, as opposed to the works of the flesh. So, zealously and jealously guard your intake.

David asks the question in Psalm 119:9, “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.” If you want to keep your life

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pure, then put a guard up. The sentry, or guard, that God put in place for your eyes, ears, and mind is God’s Word. It is to be a filter that helps you only take in what is good and noble and pure and so forth, and reject what is bad.

Get Ready for Battle

Here is a final principle: The battle is always won or lost in the mind. If you win the battle and appropriate the victory that Christ has already won for you, you will have learned to bring your thoughts into obedience to Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul said, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

You will need the spiritual armor that Paul lists in Ephesians 6:13–17. It starts with the helmet of salvation. What does a helmet guard? It guards the head or the mind. There is also the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, sandals of peace, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit.

If you were to analyze the various parts of the armor that we Christians have, you will notice that all are defensive weapons except for one. The only offensive weapon we have is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. It is the sword that we use to cut away, destroy, and defend ourselves from all onslaughts by the evil one.

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This is precisely what Jesus used when He was tempted by Satan. He didn’t answer back except with God’s Word. He said, “It is written . . . it is written . . . it is written.” And three times He cut the ground right out from under Satan. So, how can you guard your ways? By putting on spiritual armor.

As Saint Augustine said many centuries ago, “You can’t keep birds from flying over your head.” He means that you cannot keep thoughts from coming into your mind. You can control them by controlling your thinking and your reading and your viewing. But Satan will still try to slip them in from time to time. They’re like the birds flying over your head. You can’t keep it from happening, but you can keep them from setting up housekeeping in your hair! This is what 2 Corinthians 10:5 is saying: take every thought captive to obey Christ.

Picture the ugliest vulture or buzzard that your mind can conjure up. Can you picture it flying nearby? It comes with one of those thoughts and tries to literally land and build a nest on your head. In your mind, imagine this ugly bird coming down and trying to take up permanent residence there. Then, see yourself pull out a sword, which is God’s Word, and reach up and jab him hard. I guarantee you he’ll go airborne.

This is why Paul says we must take every thought captive to obey Christ. You can’t control the thoughts that come into your mind, but you can control how long they stay there. You can control what you do with them

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after they land—whether you allow the old vulture to sit there or whether you get rid of him.

Transformed

In closing, let’s read 2 Corinthians 3:18 (nasb). Paul is alluding to how Moses put a veil on when he came down from the mountain. He had just seen God and was shining brightly. Paul says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

The word beholding is in the present tense in the Greek. Anything that is in the present tense in Greek is a continuous action. Paul didn’t say that we should glance at Jesus and then turn away—although that’s what most of us do. He said we continually behold the glory of the Lord. It’s a dynamic, never-changing singleness of focus, locking in on Jesus Christ and beholding the glory of the Lord. We will be changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another.

The word here in the Greek for transformed is the word metamorpho, from which we obviously get the word metamorphosis. We say that a tadpole goes through metamorphosis and changes into a bullfrog. What Paul is saying here is that if we fix our attention on Jesus Christ through His Word and His Spirit, He

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will keep our attention on Himself. As we continuously behold Him, we will go through constant spiritual metamorphosis from one degree of glory to another. We will be changed into His likeness.

The metamorphosis of the mind is an internal change. The carnal mind doesn’t want to behold Jesus. It wants to behold the world. But the more you behold Christ, the more you are metamorphosed, the more you are changed and transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another.

As we become transfixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, let us daily appropriate and integrate God’s Word so that we are changed. As the message of a famous hymn shares, may we turn our eyes on Jesus and look full in His wonderful face. Then, the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. He will transform us into His image from one degree of glory to another—and for the glory of God.

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