MAKE UP YOUR MIND
We spent our first season of Upward Training considering how we can
love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We looked at how to love the Lord with each
of these aspects of our being. Your
feedback was overwhelming: our focus on
loving Him with all our minds was the most impactful, the most obviously
relevant, of the four. So we will take
the month of January to re-open this focus on loving the Lord with all our
minds, which we will call Make Up Your
Mind. We will learn how to “fix” and
“feed” our minds, to knock down strongholds in our thinking and bring every
thought captive to obedience to Christ (1 Corinthians 10:5), and to be “transformed by the renewing of our
minds” (Romans 12:2).
One important reality regarding
mind renewal…it is much more than an intellectual exercise, far more than
knowing the right facts. It is an
intensely spiritual issue, a matter of serious spiritual warfare. During this month we are emphasizing two
spiritual disciplines to help us engage in the battle for our minds: fasting
and prayer.
We are encouraging our First Baptist
family to consider January 6-27th to be a special season of fasting, prayer and
alignment with the mind of Christ.
Fasting
Douglass Rumford, in his book Soul Shaping, has very helpful
insights into the role of fasting in spiritual growth:
Fasting could be called the italics of
the spiritual life; it adds emphasis to other activities we may already be
pursuing, such as prayer or repentance or discerning God’s purpose
for us (or, as in our case, renewing our thought life.) It brings a
sense of urgency and earnestness to anything else we are undertaking.[i]
Think about our minds. How often do we know in our heads what is
true but struggle to actually live by the truth. We often wonder why mind renewal doesn’t
always “take.” Could it be that some breakthrough comes by prayer and
fasting? Not as a magic formula, but simply as a way to bring spiritual
truth to life, to “italicize” it.
A resource on fasting will be provided the next
few weeks explaining the whys and hows of fasting for spiritual transformation.
Prayer
We encourage you to also pray
specifically for the renewing of our minds during this time. Below is a daily prayer process.
*Start by praying Psalm 139:23-24
as a prayer of searching…
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious
thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.
Father, I confess that my thinking has
been anxious, hurtful and worldly in the following ways:______________________________________________________
*Then pray the following…
Father, please help me not to love
this world or the things of this world. Empower
me through the Spirit to grasp the magnitude of your love,
to aim my mind toward heavenly things,
and to fix on what is true, right, and consistent with my high calling in
Christ.
Then read Philippians 4:8: 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever
is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about
such things.
Pray this every day starting
January 6th, and it would be outstanding to find a prayer partner to
share this prayer emphasis with. It is
not necessary to pray this together every day, but to simply be praying this
same thing for yourselves and each other, and communicate regularly as you are
praying this for one another.
