"Have I Lost My Mind?"

I remember a familiar saying a long time ago that said, “Of all the things I’ve lost in life, I miss my mind the most.”  The first time I read that I laughed out loud, but now some twenty years later it’s not as funny as it used to be.  It’s starting to hit a nerve that wasn’t exposed when I was “younger”.  Let me explain.  The other day I came to work as I always do. When I got into my office I looked down at my feet and noticed I was wearing two different shoes.  The one on my right foot was a dress shoe, the one on my left foot was a sneaker.  I’ve put on mismatched socks before but never mismatched shoes.  Fortunately no one saw me except my wife (sadly to say).  I’m sure it’s not all that reassuring to see your husband, the father of your children walking around with two different shoes on. (unless he’s in a circus).   As I was driving back home to try my matching skills again, a phrase kept going over in my head , have I lost my mind?    How hard is it to put on two shoes that look the same? Who does that? should I be driving a car? I wonder how thick the walls are in those rubber rooms? Can you have visitors? Well, you get the point. On a brighter note, I’m happy to say that so far I have managed to avoid a repeat.  However, I’m not so worried about my socks matching anymore, now I just concentrate on getting the shoes right.  

The Bible has a great deal to say about the mind.  The mind is where we think, it’s where we reason, it’s where we remember. The mind is where we draw conclusions about life, God, other people and how we should live in this world.  The mind is where we determine how we will live and what or who we will live for. The mind is where we store facts, feelings, smells, events etc. The mind is where faith takes root, it’s where what we believe is stored.  It’s where we process the information we get bombarded with every day.  The Bible says our minds and our hearts are very closely connected.  “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.”

The Bible also says something else very important about the mind as well.  The mind of the person outside of Christ (the unbeliever or the natural man) has been tainted by sin.  It is not neutral when it comes to the things of God, when it comes to looking at life and it’s purpose and who it should be lived for. Let me give you some verses that underscore this.  

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”  Ephesians 4:17-18

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,  Romans 1:19-22 

There are many more verses we could consider but these drive home the point.  When we think about what these verses are saying about how we process information and how we reasoned before we came to Christ we see the wisdom in what we read in Proverbs 28:26 “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.”

To trust in our own mind is in some way a parallel to Proverbs 28:11.   The man who is wise in his own eyes is the man who trusts in his own mind.  To trust in your own mind, your own reasoning, your own conclusions, your own understanding, your own way of looking at life, death, religion, God the Bible is to understand these things with a mind polluted by sin.  The unregenerate mind is ignorant of God and His ways.  It is a mind darkened by the hardness of the heart.  

Proverbs says some very unflattering things about the fool in Proverbs 26:1-11.  But as bad as those things are and as hopeless as it seems for the fool,  Proverbs 26:12 talks about a person worse off than the fool. “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes, there is more hope for a fool than for him.”  Do you see a man trusting in his own mind there is more hope for a fool than for him.  This guy has everything figured out. He’s got all the answers. He’ not interested in facts his mind is made up.  His darkened heart is feeding his pride and his trust is in himself and he is blind to everything else - willfully so.  Romans 1:22  When you hear what some people are willing to believe, such as evolution, it is evident that their minds are operating in the dark.  It is not a man’s mind that causes him to deny God’s creation, God’s power, and God’s existence it is his morality.  Never forget that!

However, when a person comes to faith in Christ a glorious transformation takes place, they become new creatures in Christ.   People who love the Lord their God with all their soul, all their strength, and all their mind.

“to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,”  Ephesians 4:22-23 

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Romans 12:2-3 

The Christian is not a person who has lost his mind, he is a person who for the first time knows what it means to use his mind in the way, and for the purpose God intended.  God wants us to learn, to know, to think, to reason and draw conclusions but with minds informed and transformed by the Word of God.  Christians are not people who trust in their own minds.  Christians are people who are not leaning on their own understanding, they are trusting in the Lord.   Proverbs 3:5-6  The Christian is one who has as his final authoirty in life the Word of God not what is right in his own eyes.

David’s words to his son Solomon should still ring true today in the heart of every believer.  As you read these words note the phrases 

1 Chronicles 28:9  “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

KNOW the God of your father

Serve Him with a WHOLE HEART 

and a WILLING MIND

“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 

Jeremiah 17:10 “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

What are we filling our minds with?  Are our thoughts flowing from a mind saturated with God's Word or from a mind saturated with the ways and wisdom of this world?  How we think is evidenced by how we life.

Now I've got to go lay out my shoes for work tomorrow.