There are many wars and rumors of wars. But the greatest war that humanity fights is the war between the fleshly mind and the Spirit. As Christians we still find ourselves in that war. But God has given us His Holy Spirit to help us win the war. He has the power to free us from the old mindsets that keep us from receiving the life that God wants us to have in Christ. By His power we can set our minds on the Spirit and be filled with His life and peace.

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Show Notes:

God has given us a wonderful physical body in which He intends to dwell. And our brain is a part of that physical body. So when we read, “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,” we are not talking about the physical brain itself. We are talking about the mental processes that we use our brains for. These mental processes are what the Scriptures refer to as the mind. And the scriptural understanding of the mind speaks to our ability to fix or set our mind on something. A term for this in English is mindset.

The Gospels show us how much our mindset can resist what God it trying to show us. People’s mindsets rejected what Christ was saying to such an extent that He became their enemy. He became someone who had to be done away with because He was challenging everything that to them was the truth. The disciples of Christ had the same mindsets rooted in their upbringing and traditions. But on the Day of Pentecost, one hundred twenty of them received power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. And the power of the Holy Spirit broke the mindsets that had held them in bondage.

It is a simple fact that our past conditioning produces mindsets that resist change. But we do not want to resist what God is speaking to us by the Spirit. Yeshua (Jesus) said, “My words are spirit and are life.” And the people who were resisting His Words were also resisting the life that God was imparting. It is the Spirit that gives life. The flesh accomplishes nothing. And we believe for the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome any areas where we are still resisting Him because our own minds have been set on the flesh. Lord, empower us to set our minds on the Spirit, which is where our life comes from.

Key Verses:

• Galatians 5:17–18. “The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”
• John 6:55–63. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.”
• John 14:6. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
• John 14:25. “The Holy Spirit … will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said.”
• 2 Corinthians 10:5. “We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
• 1 Corinthians 2:8–10. “God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.”
• Isaiah 43:19. “Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?”
• Acts 1:8. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”
• Romans 8:6–14. “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”
• 1 Corinthians 2:16. “We have the mind of Christ.”

Quotes:

• “It is possible for the mind to be conformed to the Spirit instead of being conformed to an old way of thinking that is battling against the Spirit.”
• “What is God trying to do? He is trying to take us completely out of the past. He is trying to take us into something new.”
• “We have the mind of Christ. And if we have the mind of Christ, then we are filled with the life of Christ and we know His ways. And we are going to move as the Christ in the earth.”

Takeaways:

1. There is a distinction between the physical brain and the mind that the Scriptures speak of, which is the way the brain is thinking and the mindset that has developed.
2. Science uses the mind to try to extend life. But Christ makes it very clear: it is the Spirit that gives life. Life does not come through the efforts of the mind; life comes to us through the Spirit.
3. The mind set on the flesh is death. We face the fact that we have a mindset that resists God, resulting in death. But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. God has given us His Holy Spirit to break us out of our old mindsets and enable us to set our minds on the Spirit, resulting in life.

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