The
mind of the believer and its place in a Christian's daily
life is a subject of great importance. It is important
because it is the key to power,and because the Word
of God gives
so much emphasis to it. In the world today there is a
tremendous battle for the mind of man: political parties,
advertising, the media in general are all clamouring for
our attention. It is not surprising, perhaps, to realize
that there is nothing new about this situation.
For example, in II Corinthians
we read:
The god of this age [that
is, Satan] has blinded the
minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God (II Corinthians 4:4
Here we are told clearly and
distinctly that the way Satan stops
people from becoming believers is by blinding their minds.
The evening meal was being served, and the
devil had already prompted Judas
Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus (John13:2).
The devil had
"put into the heart" (KJV), that is, the seat
of the personal life, the mind, of Judas Iscariot that
now was the time to betray Jesus. Satan works
on the minds of men and women to get his work done, to
achieve his purposes. Let us notice also the parable of
the sower and the seed:
Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes
and takes away the word from
their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved (Luke
8:12).
Here again the teaching is very
clear: it is Satan who
takes away the Word of God out of
the minds of
people to stop them believing. The word "heart"
is again used here of the seat of the personal life, the
mind. So we see that Satan works
on the minds of the unbelievers, either to confuse them
or to place in their minds wrong thoughts, or to get
their minds into a passive state so that they do not will
to believe
God's Word. Even
in the Garden of Eden, the mind of Eve was attacked by Satan.
But, I am afraid that just as
Eve was deceived by the serpent's
cunning, your minds may somehow
be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (II
Corinthians 11:3)
Satan was
able to influence Eve, first by suggesting she question
the integrity of the Word
of God, then to doubt it, and finally
to twist it around completely to the opposite meaning. Satan
deceived Eve; he did not attack her physically but, he
worked on her mind. God
reminds believers of this incident to warn us that
Satan will
attack us in the very same manner, that is, he will
attack our minds. Our minds do play a vital part in our
Christian life! God also
warns us here that the area of attack will be that of
"the simplicity that is in Christ" (KJV).
It logically follows then that Satan will
attempt to
complicate and confuse the truth of
the Word regarding
who we are and what God has
done for us in Christ.
There is ample evidence today that Satan is
succeeding in his endeavours, for most Christians are
bound in a works consciousness rather than a grace
consciousness. Few believe in the reality that Christ is
their life, that they are blessed with all spiritual
blessings, and are absolutely complete in Him. Satan
continues to attack "the simplicity that is in Christ".
In Ephesians, God gives
a similar warning:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth
by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of
teaching and by the cunning
and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming (Ephesians4:14).
God's plan
is for us to be mature, not to be minors
in understanding. One of the signs of being a child is to
be tossed to and fro by every outward circumstance, not
having that firm rock or solid understanding of who we
are in Christ Jesus. This
verse speaks of being "blown here and there
by every wind of teaching". Some believers are like
this. When one evangelist comes to town they are
convinced that their salvation is sure, but later when
they hear another evangelist they believe they will
retain their salvation only as long as they stay in
fellowship. One time they are sure that God has
provided for their every need and later they have half
nights of prayer for needs that God has
already been provided.
This tossing back and forth is not the normal Christian
life. God tells
us how Satan works
in this situation. He uses
the "cunning and craftiness of men in their
deceitful scheming". Deception originates in the
mind. Thus we see that Satan's
attack on the believer is almost identical to his
attack on the
unbeliever, for with both classes of people he works
on their minds. If he can
get the unbeliever to think about something else apart
from the Word of God, he
has accomplished his purpose. And if he can
deceive the believer into not walking on the basis of God's Word, then
God's kingdom is
hindered in its
advance and the believer does not enjoy his liberty in Christ nor
the more than abundant life. Obviously it is time that
believers get an understanding of what
God's Word
declares about the mind of a Christian.
In Matthew we have this record of Jesus
speaking to Satan:
Jesus
answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on
bread alone, but on every word that
comes from the mouth of God.'"
(Matthew4:4).The physical life must be sustained by
appropriate feeding, and so too the spiritual life. The
food is stated to be "every word that comes from the
mouth of God".
We must feed our minds with God's
Word.
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