Life and Peace

 

To be spiritually minded is life and peace.

—Romans 8:6 

And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

—1 John 5:4 (NKJV)

 

 

Whatever is from God overcomes the world. Your faith is from God (Romans 12:3), and it has the power to overcome anything that comes against it. Exercising the faith that you have received from God is a deliberate choice you make. When you continually choose to trust God’s Word over what you feel or think, your mind is renewed by His truth. When you receive the Word of God as truth, you believe it, and it works effectively in your life (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

 

 When what you are taught takes root and grows in your heart, it becomes the foundation for your life. If it is the truth of God's Word you that receive, it speaks of life and peace. If it is not what His truth teaches, it speaks of death. Wrong teaching is an obstruction to believing the Word of God. To believe, you must know God's truth. 

 

“For to be carnally minded is death,” (Romans 8:6a, NKJV).

 

Any belief that is based on what you feel comes from your natural mind—what you sense and your emotions. Living by your feelings is detrimental to believing the Word of God. If you experience something that is a disappointment or a disillusionment, emotions overwhelm your heart. When your emotions and what you sense tell you that God’s Word isn’t working, then you begin to doubt. When you give in to doubt, you give in to defeat. You judge God’s truth with your feelings. When those feelings dominate your thoughts instead of faith in God’s Word, you are carnal—worldly—naturally minded. 

 

“But to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6b, NKJV)

 

Don’t allow your emotions to mold your mind and what you believe. Renewing your mind with the Word is essential to overcome your feelings and believe that the Word of God is true (Romans 12:2). When you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you into God’s truth (John 16:13), you renew your mind to believe and prepare your heart to receive. Being spiritually minded means you act and react out of the truth of God’s Word no matter how you feel. Thinking on things that God says are true and just and pure and lovely and are of a good report brings peace. (Philippians 4:8-9). When your mind is focused on God—when it is governed by the Spirit, you experience God’s goodness and His peace (Isaiah 26:3).

 

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:13-14).

 

God’s truth is only understood spiritually. The natural man lives by what he senses and cannot understand the things of God. A man who is ruled by his feelings believes one way one day and another way the next. A double-minded man is unstable in all His ways (James 1:8). His opinion changes based on how he feels. When you are double-minded, you have not decided in your heart what you really believe. But when you allow the Word of God to take root and grow in your heart, you experience transformation. A heart change from unbelieving to believing only takes place when you trust and do not doubt the truth of God’s Word.

 

Not believing the truth of God's Word holds us back from receiving from Him. To help us grow spiritually, the Holy Spirit meets us where we are in our faith and encourages us to believe in His truth. And as we are transformed by the revealed truth of God’s Word, feelings are easier to control. We can walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7) We can believe because we know Jesus has given us victory. 

 

The Holy Spirit wants you to experience victory in every area of your life. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). When you hear and know God’s truth, it sets you free (John 8:32). When you exercise faith by choosing to believe God’s truth over what your emotions tell you is true, you overcome doubt. 

 

We might be flawed in our natural ability to discern the things of God, but through the Holy Spirit, we receive understanding. When we surrender our feelings and seek God, the Holy Spirit guides us into His truth (John 16:13).

 

Choose to set your mind on the things of the Spirit. Believe in God’s Word over how you feel. Be spiritually minded, and receive life and peace. You have the mind of Christ and the Holy Spirit within you so you can know without a doubt and believe (1 Corinthians 2:11-12,16).

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

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