Spiritual Disciplines 1 - Setting the Mind

“…Spend your time and energy in the exercise of keeping spiritually fit. Bodily exercise is all right, but spiritual exercise is much more important and is a tonic for all you do. So exercise yourself spiritually, and practice being a better Christian because that will help you not only now in this life, but in the next life too.” 1 Tim 4:7-9 TLB

God provides the power of transformation into Christ-likeness but we must engage in certain spiritual disciplines to out-work what God has done - We must train ourselves to be Godly.

It is in this ‘Training to be Godly’ that we discover there is a difference between being a Believer of Christ and a disciple of Christ.
 
•    This is what it sounds like when Jesus is calling people to believe in Him:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16-17 NKJV

•    But ‘Discipleship preaching’ sounds different to ‘Believer preaching’. Discipleship preaching sounds like this:

"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Matt 16:24-25 NKJV

“And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:27-28  NKJV

So for obvious reasons not all believers in Jesus go on to be disciples of Jesus.  Disciples are on a quest to be like Jesus and so they carry His Cross.  They embrace everyday opportunities for training in Godliness.

The discipline of setting our mind on the things of God is the discipline of focusing our attention on where God IS for us instead of going to where He ISN’T.

According to Romans 8:5-6, we access the life & peace of God through the spiritual practice of shifting our awareness.

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Col 3:2-3 NIV

And in this next verse we see this spiritual discipline working in the negative:

“Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’” Matt 16:23 NIV

Life & peace are the fruit of the Spirit and when we are in the Spirit everything of the Spirit is there, and when we are operating out of our sinful nature everything of that nature is also there.

God’s love, joy, peace are right where we left them, we just shifted out of the awareness that brings their reality into our reality.

SO IT’S THE ‘DISCIPLINE OF SHIFTING’ THAT BECOMES YOUR SPIRITUAL TRAINING!

And what are some of the primary ways that God gives us to shift our awareness onto where He is for us?
-    Prayer, reading your Bible, worship, being in the company of other believers & hearing God’s word preached.

We can flip, flop between the influence of our sinful nature and our spirit with the same speed it takes to shift our awareness.

“But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” James 1:5-8

•    It was this double-mindedness that had Peter receiving a revelation from heaven one minute then being rebuked for having his mind on the things of men the next minute.

Our problem is not that we don’t believe– our discipline is to stay in the right mind
•    The mind of the spirit is where faith is.
•    The mind of the flesh is where doubt and fear is.
•    Your emotions are a physical manifestation of your thoughts, so negative emotions are a flashing   red light to tell you you’ve drifted into godless thinking.

If you want something to become a part of your reality - put your attention on it, if you don’t want it to be your reality - take your attention away from it.