Tuesday, February 13th, 2024
Last week, God highlighted a verse to me and it’s one of those ones that keeps echoing in my mind as I have gone about the last few days. Let’s look at the scripture and then break it down a little. Romans 8:6 says:
6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
I thoroughly enjoy black and white, easy to understand scriptures. Do this, get that; do the opposite of this, get the opposite of that. Too bad it’s not always as easy to live by this scripture.
Let’s take a look at the original Greek language for this verse. According to the Lexicon, the word carnally means the earthly nature of man apart from divine influence and therefore prone to sin and opposed to God. The word minded means what one has in mind, the thoughts and purposes. Spiritually is the Greek word “pneuma” and is translated as current of air or breath. This is the word used for the Holy Spirit. The last word I want to look at is peace. The Lexicon says: the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is. How about that translation? We went from one word to 29, but I absolutely love this visual. When I pray about having more peace in my life, this perfectly sums up the desire of my heart.
So, are the thoughts and purposes of our mind still prone to sin and centered on our earthly nature? Or do we move and flow with the Holy Spirit and experience the contentment and tranquility that this brings? I call scriptures like this a temperature check. If my thermometer says peace, hope and contentment then I know my mind is fully fixed on and attentive to Holy Spirit. If my thermometer says fear, hopelessness and discontent then I know my mind is focused on me and the lies the enemy is baiting me with.
So, what if we find ourselves on the carnal side of the thermometer? It’s truly as simple as repenting and then doing as it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5. We must take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. This is being spiritually minded. A few years ago, God gave me a simple visual to help me understand the importance of taking thoughts captive. Imagine a glass of crystal-clear water. Now, imagine putting one drop of red food coloring into that glass. That one drop disperses to every part of that glass and can never be separated. So it is with the lies that we allow past our mind-gate. If we allow that one thought of fear, anger or heaviness to linger we have given it permission to poison every part of our lives. But not all is lost, again comes the importance of repenting and allowing the blood of Jesus to make our glass crystal clean again.
Final Thoughts…
Let’s be done with giving our flesh and that roaring lion any control over our lives. I will be the first to admit how challenging this is. Being spiritually minded is not a path we stumble upon. We have to battle daily and often many times throughout the day to not be pulled back to that path of carnality. We must discover for ourselves that no matter how hard we try there will never be life and peace along that path. Our enemies know the exact thoughts that will trip us up and they will continue to use them as long as they work. It’s up to us to resist them and watch them flee. If we want life and peace, we must be willing to defend our mind against anything that is not Holy Spirit breathed.