A Spirit-filled Mind

A Spirit-Filled Mind

Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Ephesians 4:23

PERHAPS YOU’VE NOTICED a fascinating phenomenon in your own wandering thoughts—the ability to have deep spiritual insights and inspirations one moment and the tendency to completely undo them the next. Our thought patterns are a contorted web of trails, some leading to wonderful places and others to barren wastelands. Mentally and emotionally, we are mixed bags, capable of spiritual heights and unspiritual depths almost simultaneously. It’s hard for faith to flourish in such an environment—every time it reaches toward the light and begins to emerge, the rocks and thorns of our internal wilderness seem to assert their supremacy again. Neuroscientists tell us that new thought patterns and habits face such obstacles, and they last only through persistence, repetition, and necessity. If we are going to think in new ways and reach greater heights of faith, we will need a thorough spiritual transformation.

But if the key to nurturing seeds of faith is being immersed in the Holy Spirit, growing in fellowship with him, and being saturated in the glories and gifts of his presence, then we have to learn to notice our thoughts and attitudes that compete with him. It is impossible to think spiritual things consistently while also holding on to unspiritual thought patterns. We inevitably have impulses that contradict the Spirit’s nature from time to time, but we can’t afford to nurture those contradictions. As much as possible, our minds need to merge with his. What goes on in our heads needs to match the flow of his wisdom, power, and love. We can’t afford to entertain the lies and distractions—anything the Spirit hasn’t inspired—in our inward lives.

Let your thoughts become pure—not with some hyperspiritual definition of purity so common in medieval deprivations or puritanical admonitions (after all, God has given us some wonderful physical and material gifts), but with a single focus on the Spirit’s influence in your life. Embrace both the fullness of God’s yes to abundant life and his no to everything that steals, kills, and destroys. In fact, if your yes is big enough, then your no to all competitors becomes easy. Dive fully into fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Embrace his influence, and your thoughts and attitudes will turn toward faith in every corner of your life.

May the mind of Christ my Savior live in me from day to day.