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“For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
How do you become spiritually minded? Fill your mind with thoughts that are true about spiritual realities. For example, when you are feeling sad, you can begin to meditate on the idea that the joy of the Lord is your strength. Once that becomes a reality in your heart, your experience will change, and joy will replace sadness.
There is plenty of instruction in scripture on what and how to think. In any situation you face in life, there is a promise related to your spiritual existence. The external status may not change, but your inner man and the state of your life don't have to be swayed by those external circumstances.
It's not just positive thinking; it's about changing your thoughts and feelings to match what God says is possible, rather than embracing the physical circumstance. As you hold God's promise, specifically his Word concerning that promise, it can and will manifest into your life.
The Word of God is alive. The Word of God planted in a believing heart can and will produce joy, peace, healing, righteousness, transformation, and any other aspect of abundant life that Jesus died for you to have.
Intentional Spiritual Mindfulness
We can use Romans chapter 8 as an exercise in spiritual mindfulness. Just before Paul writes the masterful words in the chapter, Paul paints a beautiful picture of the relationship we are now in with God.
Romans 7:1 Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2 For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3 So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress, even if she marries another man. 4 Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5 For when we lived according to the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death. 6 But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
The Apostle Paul uses marriage to illustrate how we are no longer under the law and are now under grace because we died to the Law in Christ. Not only are we dead to the law, we now live in the new way of the spirit.
What does that mean? In this new way of living, our old sin nature was removed, and we were given a new nature through Christ. We now have a new heart, and God placed his spirit in us. He currently leads us by his Spirit in our inner man, rather than externally through rules and laws. God's spirit in us is transforming us into the image of Christ as it leads and guides us into truth.
The spirit of God is inside every believer, seeking to transform and lead us, but we must renew our minds and allow ourselves to be transformed and led. Becoming spiritually minded is the same thing as renewing our minds. We are to renew our minds, or change our thoughts, to align with what is now spiritually true of ourselves, now that we are living by this new way of the spirit.
Romans chapter 8 is a great place to gather good spiritual truth to change your thoughts and develop spiritual mindfulness. I will list a few passages from Romans 8 that contain spiritual truths.
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the righteous standard of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
This is a large selection at the very beginning of the chapter. You can read and think about these passages to shape your self-image. As you begin to believe about yourself the things listed in these verses, an incredible something happens. Your heart becomes receptive to these truths and allows them to change you. This is how the living Word of God changes you. Hold it in your heart and mind until you believe it to be true of you. The Word in your heart will then begin to change you.
9 You, however, are controlled not by the flesh but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.
This is fantastic news. Did you know you are no longer controlled by your natural desires (the flesh)? You might say, "I wish that were true." You might be thinking about all the mistakes you've made and continue to make. If you struggle with an addiction or compulsive behavior, you might think your flesh controls you. But that's not true of your spirit.
In your spirit, you are in control. In your spirit, you only desire righteousness. In your spiritual identity, you only want what God wants for you. So how do you bridge the gap and begin to live from the desires of your spirit rather than the desires of your flesh? You must take the time to meditate on spiritual truth until that aspect of yourself is more real than the carnal self that still likes sin.
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
You are God's child. When you take time to own the identity of a child of God, especially in the face of failure and temptation, your identity in him becomes a source of power for you. You are no longer someone who naturally desires sin because you are a child of God, and God's kids only want God's ways in their lives.
17 And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.
Not only are you a child of God, but you are also an heir of God. God has brought you into his family, and he has given you the same inheritance he gave Jesus. If you believed and experienced that, how would that change your prayer life? How would that change your choices? How would that affect how you handle money and all of your resources?
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. 27 And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
God's spirit is in you, searching your heart, helping you in areas you are weak. The spirit of God will also pray for you, through you, when you don't know how to pray. You can agree with God's prayers in you by speaking out of your spirit in a language that is unknown to you. When you don't know what to pray, praying with your spirit is a secret weapon that God gave you. Using that gift is another way to cultivate spiritual mindfulness.
I want to encourage you to work through Romans 8 on your own. You can even rephrase the passages that speak of your spiritual identity into the first person and speak those out loud. You do not speak that thing out to make them true; you speak them out because that's who you already are. And that's the point, to persuade your mind and heart that you are this spiritual being that Paul describes in chapter 8.
The payoff is life, for to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Do you want abundant life and peace that life's circumstances can not shake? Cultivate spiritual mindfulness and watch your life reflect spiritual truth.
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