A SOUND MIND

 

Read: II Timothy 1:6-8

 

There are those who insist that if a person is really born
again, it is impossible for him ever to have a sick mind:
who are convinced that all those who claim to be believers,
but whose minds are in torment, are really outside the
pale of God's grace. These comfortable ones, from the
dubious security of their own narrow minds, point to their
tormented brothers and sisters and say,

 

"If these people really believed in Jesus
Christ they wouldn't be in that shape".

 

This is just not so. Some of the holiest saints of God
who ever walked this earth have spent years of their lives,
as believers, in the borderlands of Hell.

 

There is a story by John Cournos in which a stranger in

monk's garb is welcomed one winter evening into the home

of a Russian peasant. As the stranger sits eating with

the family he hears a small child crying in another room.

"Is the little boy ill?", says the stranger.

"He's crying as if he were ill." (How did he know that

three-year-old cry was from a boy?)

"Yes", says the host. "Poor Vaska has been
crying all day long. The doctor's been here
and quieted him down for a bit. Now he's
crying again."

 

"Let me see the little one."

 

So the stranger enters the bedroom, lays his hand on the

child, prays in the name of Jesus, and the crying stops.

The child is healed - instantly.

 

An hour later, two attendants from a nearby asylum come

knocking on the door, find their escaped inmate wearing

monk's robes, and haul him away.

 

- God alone knows how many times this kind
of thing happens.

 

   - God alone knows how many men and women,
   charged with holy grace and healing virtue,
    are nevertheless, at times, of unsound mind.

 

Timothy, one of the most faithful and reliable fellow­
workers the apostle Paul ever had, was, from what we can
gather in Paul's letters, afflicted with a fearful mind.
Paul doubtless connected this fearful mind with Timothy's
"frequent ailments".

 

There are saints of God who will be reading this who are
truly born again, wonderfully used by the Master, and
yet know very well what it is to be oppressed of mind.

 

- Who know what it is to be hemmed in and
limited, not by circumstances, but by
mental anguish.

 

- Whose energies are sapped and drained by
inner torment.

 

Indeed, if we're honest, who of us could claim that we
never go through these valleys of anguish?

 

There are believers reading these words whose lives,

much of the time, are dominated by that same fearful

mind Timothy had.

 

- Anxiety about tomorrow.

- Worry about a million things that might happen.

- Dread that their friends might turn against them.
- Fear that perhaps behind all the smiles and

hugs and handshakes, nobody cares.

 

And there are believers who know what it is to have an
obsessed mind - one particular desire walks with you
day and night. Like a man who hasn't had food for a
long time. Even in his sleep he sees banquet tables
piled with roasts and steaks. Everything that happens
is seen in terms of food.

 

Even so, loneliness,

            lust,
hunger, thirst for recognition,

            can become an obsession,

can lay hold of our minds and torture them.

 

And there are believers who have cluttered minds. Even
among those who consider themselves to be radically

committed to Jesus Christ. They love Jesus, but their minds
are so busy doing so many things, exploring so many
possibilities, their vision of Jesus and His call gets
distorted all out of shape.

 

There are believers with embittered minds. Perhaps they've
managed to stop hating those who wronged them, but the
acrid smell of bitterness pervades the atmosphere wherever
they walk.

 

The tragedy is that many of us have resigned ourselves to
being this way all our lives.

 

"It's just one of those things."
"It's my temperament."

"This is the way I am."
"I can't help it."

 

The end of the age is speeding toward us faster than light.

 

- God is raising up a people to cover the
earth with the gospel for the last time.

 

- God is calling us to exercise ministries
of power and wisdom and bold utterance,

 

and we excuse ourselves by claiming we can't get our minds
together.

 

The message of the Spirit of God to us is that a troubled
mind is not necessary.

 

You don't have to walk around under that
cloud of dread.

 

You don't have to cringe before that obsession.

 

You don't have to be mentally scattered.

 

Bitterness does not need to consume your
thoughts. There is healing for our minds.

 

Paul doesn't scold Timothy for this mental thing he's
going through.

 

"What's the matter with you, Timothy? I
thought you were saved. And here you're
walking around in fear. You have a
nervous stomach. You're wish-washy, man.
If you don't buck up Timothy, you're going
to go to Hell!"

 

Paul knew too much about mental anguish himself to talk
like that. Paul took hold of Timothy where he was and
lifted him up.

 

Wherefore, I put thee in remembrance, that

thou stir up the gift of God that is in thee by

the putting on of my hands. For God hath not

given us the spirit of fear, but of power and

of love and of a sound mind.

 

Be not thou, therefore, ashamed of the testi-
mony of our Lord, nor of me, His prisoner;
but be thou partakers of the afflictions of
the gospel according to the power of God.

 

We see this all through Paul's writings.

 

Be not conformed to this world but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind.

 

Have this mind in you, which was also
in Christ Jesus.

 

We can have a mind which is so rooted and grounded in
the Father's will that nothing on earth,

nothing from the pit of Hell,

can shake it.

 

The writings of Paul are the writings of a man who had
found healing for his mind. Paul had found the mind
of Christ - a mind so saturated with the peace of God
that danger, privation, slander, ingratitude, persecution,

Loneliness, imprisonment, and physical pain could not

disorient it any more.

 

In his writings, Paul shares with us those things which
he knows from experience bring healing to the mind of
the believer.

 

1.  Fellowship with the Cross renews to us the mind of
Christ.

 

When I came to you, brethren, I did not come
proclaiming to you the testimony of God in
lofty words or wisdom. For I determined to
know nothing among you except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. And I was with you in
weakness and in fear and much trembling.

 

Paul came to Corinth a broken, troubled man. Things
weren't going too well. So he decides to put all the
sophisticated religious ideas and philosophical concepts
out of his head and to know only Jesus and His Cross, to
clear out of the way all the things that were getting
between him and the Crucified Lord. And immediately, into
Paul's weakness,

 

- a stream of power begins to flow once more,

- peace returns and rules right in the storm
center of all his problems.

 

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is not the health of the

daughter of my people recovered?

 

Because she has strayed from the Calvary,
the fountainhead of all healing.

Let her return to the Lamb of God who takes

away the sin of the world, and she will be healed.

 

Friends,

- Our only claim to sanity is the forgiveness
that flows from that cross.

 

- Our only doorway to the Kingdom of Light is
through the forgiveness that comes from Jesus'
death.

 

- Our only avenue to the Father is by that cross.

 

And if we are ever to know peace we'll have to take to
ourselves the mind of Him who hangs there.

 

Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God
did not count equality with God a thing to
be grasped. But emptied himself, taking
the form of a servant, being born in the
likeness of men.

 

And being found in human form, he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even
death on a cross.

 

Draw near to that Cross and you will find healing for
your mind.

 

2. Stirring up of the sift of the Holy Spirit renews
to us the mind of Christ.

 

Stir up the gift of God which is within
thee by the putting on of my hands. For
God hath not given us a spirit of fear,
but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

 

When the fire dies down and you want to renew it, what
do you do? You stir it up - and the flames spring
forth again.

 

When you find yourself taking your wife for granted,
don't wait for your wife to arouse your love - you
arouse it. You stir it up.

 

Even so, you have been given the same Spirit who came
upon Jesus at His baptism and inspired every word He
spoke and every deed He performed. The Spirit has been
given to you to keep you in continuous unbroken communion

with Jesus - even as He had communion with the Father.

 

But what do you do? You tuck the Spirit away in a
closet and go on living in the flesh.

 

- Open that closet!
- Stir up that gift!

- Start yielding to Him again!

 

- Pray in the Spirit,

- Worship God in the Spirit,

- Serve your brother in the Spirit,

- Walk in the Spirit,

 

and quickly the mind of Christ in you will come back to
life.

 

3. Child-like prayer renews to us the mind of Christ.

 

Have no anxiety about anything, but in
everything, by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known to God. And the peace of
God which passes all understanding will
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

 

When our mind is getting all tangled up in a problem, an
anxiety, threatened by some heavy cloud which has moved
in over our life, if we would only be the children of the
heavenly Father Jesus has made us to be, through His
blood, that cloud would go,

that anxiety would depart.

 

The Spirit is trying to teach us to say, "Abba! Father!",
as our Lord Himself did constantly, and we're forever
trying to be big shots instead of little children. No
wonder our minds get sick.

 

In everything, by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known to God.

 

4. Finally, concentration on Heaven renews to us the
mind of Christ.

 

Jesus was in this world for 33 1/2 years, but all that time
His mind was fixed on His Father in Heaven.

 

- When He picked up a loaf of bread, before

   He broke it, He lifted His eyes to Heaven

   and gave thanks.

 

- Before He called Lazarus forth from his
tomb, Jesus lifted His eyes to Heaven and
gave thanks.

 

- Early and late He was communing with Heaven.

 

His mind never once conformed itself to the mold of this
world - only to Heaven.

 

Daniel spent all his adult life in Babylon. He was a man
of rank in the court of the king. Yet, Daniel never for
one day forgot that his real citizenship was not in
Babylon at all. Three times a day Daniel went to his
room, opened the windows facing Jerusalem, got down on
his knees and prayed and gave thanks to the God of Israel.

 

So his mind remained clear amid all the threats and
dangers Daniel had to face.

 

Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed

by the renewing of your mind (as it looks
toward Heaven).

 

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek
the things that are above, where Christ is
seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds
on things above not on things that are on earth.

 

Our citizenship is in Heaven and from it we
await the Saviour.

 

As we draw near to the Father in prayer, let's ask for a
special kind of healing; healing of our minds.

 

God did not give us the spirit of fear, but
of power and of love and of a sound mind,

 

yea the mind of Christ.

 

May all the fever and anxiety, anguish, and bitterness
of these minds of flesh now give way to the peace of
God, as by the power of His Spirit the Father brings us
to the Cross and clothes us afresh in the mind of His Son.

 

(Pray as the Spirit leads you.)