Romans 8:6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death; but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. (ESV)
Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on You! (NLT)
I had gone to bed feeling inexplicably discouraged, but couldn’t pinpoint the reason why. I woke up in the middle of the night and the Lord began to reveal some things to me. He showed me that the reason for my discouragement was due to the things I’d been filling my mind with.
I had been watching too much TV for one thing which always results in feeling like a pathetic couch potato. Not only that, but the programs I’d been watching only exacerbated my feelings of unrest – I must confess that I have a weakness for crime investigation shows.
As I was praying, I began to realize how absurd it is for me to fill my mind with killings, hatred, violence, crime scenes, etc. and expect to walk in His joy and peace. (In my mind, the jury is still out about whether or not I need to give up ALL my Investigation Discovery TV time, but the verdict is certainly in about binge watching it until I’m convinced that there’s a perp hiding in every park and a scoundrel stalking in every shadow.
Why do we think that we can fill our heads with the world’s garbage and believe that we can still function in God’s spiritual attributes, such as joy and peace?
It bears noting that our minds are bent toward the flesh, just naturally. So, it will take a conscious effort to keep them on the spirit rather than the flesh.
When Romans 8:6 says that to set our minds on the flesh is death, it does not mean physical death. Death in this sense means spiritual deadness. You cannot focus on fleshly (worldly) things and stay spiritually alive.
In The Economy of God, page 151, Witness Lee describes in detail the feelings of death. They include the following: emptiness, darkness, uneasiness, weakness, and depression, oppression, or suppression.
We’ve all experienced these negative feelings of death in our Christian life.
For example, let’s say we begin to read the news online. At first, we feel fine. After a while, we go from one link to the next, reading all kinds of things. The Lord may speak to us, “Stop,” but we ignore Him and keep going. We start to feel empty, dark,and uneasy within. As we continue to set our mind on the flesh, cooperating with and going along with our flesh, the feeling of death increases.
Source: Bibles for America, Death Verses Life and Peace in Romans 8:6
When I read this, I was shocked at how accurately it describes the downward spiral of my emotions as I binge watch investigation shows! I always begin to feel empty and dark. Honestly, I don’t know how homicide detectives do it. While I’m sure it’s very rewarding to catch the bad guys, how can you get up of the morning and look forward to your job knowing what’s waiting for you at the office? (And we think our Monday’s are tough to face.) I guess it takes a special type of person to be able to do that day in and day out.
Let’s get some important definitions out of the way:
The death that comes as a result of setting our minds on the flesh manifests itself in the form of emptiness, darkness, uneasiness, weakness, and depression, etc. Basically, it’s responsible for producing all the BAD/negative feelings and attitudes that afflict our human mind and emotions.
The flesh is merely the nature that we had before accepting Jesus. And it’s still very much ALIVE. It’s the part of us that seeks self-gratification. It CAN lead us into sin, but even more subtlety it can simply lead us away from the things of God and the life He wants for us. It’s the unrenewed mind and it’s constantly vying for our focus.
Imagine that life is like a rowboat in a stream; if we stop rowing, we will naturally drift downstream without any effort at all. Now, I’m not saying that being a Christian is a hard, laborious journey (it’s not), but merely that we will have to constantly monitor our minds and thoughts in order to STAY on course with the path that leads to the abundant life Jesus has for us!
The spirit is pretty self-explanatory. It is our spirit joined with His Spirit and to be spiritually minded is to stay focused on God and in constant communion with Him. Now, this does NOT mean that we stay in our closet praying 24-hours a day; it simply means that we learn how to live in His presence. We continually seek Him – in our boat scenario, we’re constantly rowing toward God instead of floating through life lead by our own base desires.
The life and peace that Paul talks about is a result of setting our mind on God and our walk with Him – the abundant life that Jesus talked about in John10:10. It’s the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23 – joy, peace, love,etc. To put it simply, living in God’s presence produces the GOOD/positive feelings and attitudes that we all desire to experience in life.
Psalm 16:11 …in Thy presence is fullness of joy…pleasures forevermore.
As we practice living in His presence, we will become increasingly better at it.
Remember that your feelings, attitudes and moods will always bear the fruit of whatever it is you are feeding your mind! What goes into your mind will eventually reach your heart and be reproduced there. Like taking a picture with a camera, your mind and heart is like the film that captures those images and your moods and emotions can only reflect and develop what you have focused on.
I ran across an interesting scripture that I think further illustrates my point about spiritual death.
Psalms 115
4Their idols are merely things of silver and gold,
shaped by human hands.
5 They have mouths but cannot speak,
and eyes but cannot see.
6 They have ears but cannot hear,
and noses but cannot smell.
7 They have hands but cannot feel,
and feet but cannot walk,
and throats but cannot make a sound.
8 And those who make idols are just like them,
as are all who trust in them.
This Psalm tells us that people who worship idols are just like their idols (believe it or not, we have just as many idols as they did in the OT). Our idols are not statues of goats or cows, etc. but we idolize them just as much. They consist of things like money, power, sensual pleasures, popularity, our hobbies and entertainment, etc. (ouch!… now that stepped all over my gumshoe addiction).
Addiction – that’s a good word to describe the flesh. Jesus said your heart will be wherever your treasure lies (Matt. 6:21). Whatever we treasure is our idol. So where is your mind? THAT is your treasure. If we treasure anything or anyone more than God, that’s our addiction, our idol. If it’s not God, it cannot fulfill you and it cannot produce life and peace.
I asked the Lord to reveal to me what this passage from Psalms 115 means and He showed me that the people who worship idols are just like them because they are dead inside – there is no LIFE in them!
There is no real life outside of God – outside of His presence! Yes, we may be physically living and breathing, but we are not experiencing LIFE! You may have a pulse, but I dare say, you have no peace.
Every moment that we are not rowing toward God, we are slowly, subtly drifting away from His presence. Like gravity pulls objects back down to Earth – our human nature will always gravitate toward pleasing ourselves. And the idol we struggle with the most is the one staring back at us from the bathroom mirror. Because no matter what handle we put on it: money, power, popularity, pleasure, etc. it all boils down to one thing – what makes ME feel good!
Yet, the more we bow down to THAT god, the emptier, darker, more depressed, and lifeless we become. It’s a lie and deception right out of the pit of Hell. And it’s nothing new, it was man’s very first deception. Eve took the fruit and ate it because she thought it could give her something that God hadn’t. And if you will remember, they were driven from God’s presence that very day.
God had told them that if they ate of that tree, it would cost them their lives. “Ah, but they didn’t lose their lives,” you say. Actually, it did cost them LIFE because real life is found only in His presence. They didn’t physically die, but they died to experiencing real life – in the presence of God!
When you can give up your life pursuit of pleasing yourself to follow Jesus to the cross and say, “not my will Father,but Yours” then you are well on your way to finding real life. And that journey starts each morning, every day for the rest of your life.
And it goes something like this:
“Good morning Father, please direct my every thought today. Show me how to live every moment of it with You. I want to walk with Your hand in mine. Let Your desires be my desires. Help me to love You with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength as Your word says. I know that You will never leave me nor forsake me. Thank You for giving me LIFE in Your presence today. In Jesus’ name.”
Adam and Eve had lost the ability to walk with God after choosing their own will instead of His (thinking they knew best what would make them happy). But Jesus has given us back the blessed ability to walk intimately with our Father once again. But because sin is still a part of this world and we are still bound to our human nature, we must continually fight the temptation to walk without Him, thinking that WE know best what will make us happy.
When we begin live in His presence each day, we will find ourselves losing sight of the things we always thought would bring us contentment. Our focus shifts from US to HIM and somehow pursuing our own happiness ceases to be a priority as His love becomes a reality.
It’s like a divine black hole – everything else that previously seemed so important to our happiness is forever swallowed-up and engulfed in His love!
Oh yes, and about that Investigation Discovery addiction, the jury has reconvened and we have a verdict:
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are LOVELY, whatsoever things are of a good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on THESE things.
I came to the conclusion after one particularly restless night of bad dreams that I did not need (or want) all that UNLOVELY stuff running around in my head.
Another verse comes to mind:
Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…
No thanks, I would rather not train my mind to think like a criminal. If we think on darkness, we become DARK.
And if the light that is in thee be darkness, how GREAT is that darkness! Matthew 6:23
