Sunday, January 5, 2014

Make Up Your Mind

   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:  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. 



[i] Douglas Rumford, Soulshaping, pg. 287

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