Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday December 1, 2011

The scriptures emphasize the importance of developing and also surrendering the mind. Stretching the mind via study and submitting to the truth of scripture. This wonder is so easy to write I am surprised so few actually practice this key to successful living.

As I wrote the above a verse leaped into my mind. In my opinion this happened due the fact that I have studied and stored the verse in the gray matter. Paul instructed in Philippians 2:5 "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" The context informs that such a mind will be in submission to the will of the Father and thus concerned with harmony of mind with other Christians, with true love active in our mind and heart, that we will not be all about me, but will have an attitude described by Emerson as "considering every man our superior in that we may learn from him." We will care for the pain others are suffering along the way. Our reputation will not be a factor when contemplating doing the will of God but we will as William and Catherine Booth do God's will at all cost.

We are told by Nehemiah the great miracle of rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem was accomplished because the people "had a mind to work." Nehemiah 4:6.

For many years now I have been comforted and even energized by Isaiah 26:3:

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee."

A stayed or fixed mind is the truth here. The other night I was talking with a couple and one was troubled due to feeling depressed. It was admitted that when doing something that absolutely had to done, the focusing on the something relieved the depression while the intense concentration was active. A mind stayed on something will function better, so common sense demands that to function in a powerful way would involve fixing on something or someone who is stable, in this case the Lord.

When we are resisting the Lord in mind and heart we fall prey to all sorts of angst as our mind wanders from pillar to post or more accurately to the bills, to the car, to the mortgage and then to how terrible our government has become.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Associate Justice Supreme Court of the United States wrote: "The mind once expanded to the dimension of larger ideas, never returns to its original size." The practice in some religious circles of checking your mind at the door is foreign to God's teaching in the scripture.

James warned us of the folly of being of two minds when he wrote, James 1:8 "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Being double minded could be as wasteful as “having half a mind to…"

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2011 Use with credit

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