Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
Becky had a dream in which the river of life was covered with books. She burst through the books and got into the river, but she realized it was polluted and immediately got out. I believe the books speak of the knowledge of man. God is not against knowledge; He is against knowledge apart from Him. We have to remember there were two trees in the garden. One was the tree of knowledge and the other the tree of life.
It is important to understand that the Bible tells us the fall of man begins in our intellect (Rom. 1:21). The Greek word used for mind in this particular verse is dialogismos, the reasoning or intellectual part of our minds. When we stop honoring God and being thankful with our intellect, our reasoning becomes futile, which means without purpose. Our thinking is cut off from our purpose in God. This leads to the eyes of our heart being darkened. A dark heart cannot perceive spiritual reality and cannot respond to the desires and affections of the Lord.
The outcome is our entire mind becomes depraved and our desires and affections become perverted (Rom. 1:28). The Greek word for mind in this verse is nous, the whole of the mind – the intellect, emotions and imagination. Our minds are suppose to house an attitude of gratefulness and thoughts that honor God, but are unable to because they are constantly being bombarded with toxic thoughts, emotions and pictures that are so readily available through the mass media such as TV, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Websites, etc. (Understand I am not saying these things are evil, but they can become tools of evil).
I believe the Lord was showing Becky that some of the activities of the popular culture that so occupy our minds has covered over and in some cases polluted the river of life in many sincere believers and as a consequence they have a very difficult time responding to the desires and affections of the Lord because it looks like foolishness to them as the Bible says it will (1 Cor. 2:14). We are clearly told that we will become what we put our minds on (2 Cor. 3:18). Since the average person has approximately 30,000 thoughts per day, we should be careful how much of the popular culture we allow to occupy our thinking.
The Bible gives us an answer, really a weapon to effectively deal with this flood of wickedness that is being poured out upon us (Rev. 12:15). It is the renewed mind. Paul said, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Rom. 12:2. That is your nous; your entire mind has to be renewed.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
Here is the great thing about our mind; God has given us access to a renewed mind that has the ability to control what enters it and what we think about. That is what a sound mind in this verse means in the Greek, it is a disciplined mind that has control of its boundaries. We have been deceived into thinking we cannot do anything about what goes on in our mind. Arm yourself with the knowledge that God has given you a powerful mind and start using it.
Make a practical choice to give the Lord some of the time you are spending in the popular culture and get before His presence and His living word will wash your mind of the toxins (Eph. 5:26) and you will discover Him weaving His thoughts, feelings, and images into your mind – I promise you this works.
What are you thinking about?
Many Blessings, BW