Chapter 2 – A Vital Necessity

I am double-minded. Schizophrenically so. I can be of one mind and the next instant be of another. The example is always: You attend church on Sunday morning, but no sooner are you with your family for brunch afterwards, than the sinful nature takes over.

I say that is being kind. Who doesn’t sit in the pew during the sermon and think double-minded thoughts: she should NOT wear that to church; is he drinking coffee? Well I haven’t seen them for a long time; he wants us to take notes again? Don’t forget to stop and get gas on the way home.

When your gas tank is low, it is a “vital necessity” to stop at the gas station and buy gas else you not make it all the way home. If your library book is overdue, it is a “vital necessity” to find it and get it to the library else you will be fined. You cannot make pancakes for breakfast without eggs – it is a “vital necessity” to get some or your children will be disappointed.

Those are a little silly. You are having chest pains. You think you are having a heart attack. It is a VITAL NECESSITY that you seek medical attention else you might die.

Unfortunately, we don’t consider the health of our spiritual life to be a “vital necessity”. It gets worse and worse without our immediate and direct attention. Today’s complaint about the length of the sermon becomes next week’s decision to sleep in on Sunday morning. I didn’t go last week and I don’t think I want to go this week either.

How about your mind? You are what you think. You have positive thoughts and you live positively. You have negative thoughts and you live a negative life. A healthy mind bears healthy fruit. A diseased mind bears diseased fruit.

How can I love God whom I cannot see, when I cannot love the person right in front of me? How can I love the person right in front of me if I cannot love myself?

It is a vital necessity that I change the way I think. I need to take back my mind. It does not belong to the Devil. I belong to Christ – purchased and won. I am worth the battle.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
Romans 8:5 (ESV)