Minds a Million Miles Away In Church

Minds a Million Miles Away In Church

by Carl Gustafson

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Father, we thank You again this morning for the privilege of being sons and daughters of the Most High God. And we come to present ourselves before You this morning, realizing our need to hear from You. We thank You for Your word as it comes forth from Your Spirit, knowing that Your word is cleansing and it causes there to be refreshing and encouragement in our hearts. And so we ask now, Father, in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, that there even at this very moment would come an anointing upon this service and upon these things that we’re about to share. We pray that Your word will go forth with clarity, with the anointing of Your Spirit, and that it would accomplish the purpose to which You have sent it. Father, we thank You for the Lordship of Jesus this morning, and we thank You that You’ve given us power and authority over every spirit contrary to Your Holy Spirit. And so we come right now, Father, in that name, the name of Jesus, and we command every spirit and everything contrary to Your Spirit to be bound and held in a position of subjection this morning. That nothing by any means would interfere with us receiving what You have for us. Lord, we lift up our minds now this morning, that they would be alert and sensitive and receptive to that which You want to impart to us.

And knowing that You’ve heard our prayer already, we give You the praise and the glory for answering this. And we already are anticipating what You’re going to do. For we ask it in the precious and mighty name of Jesus our Lord. Amen. All right. On Sunday, our very first time together, we shared the greatest of all commandments. And let me just read it with you if you’d like to turn to it. It’s in Matthew 22, verse 37. And we’ve been working our way through this greatest of commandments as we’re trying to interpret the Lordship of Christ into the practical areas in which we live. And let’s just read this again, though, and we’ll see that we have at least one more matter to deal with so we can complete this. Matthew chapter 22, verse 37. And Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind.” And on Sunday, we began to deal briefly with the matter of our hearts. That it’s our scriptural understanding that God would say that our whole heart is to be given to Him. And one of the things that God is purging in the body of Christ is the experience of the dilemma of what we’ll call a divided heart.

We love God with a portion of our heart, but we find that we have many other lovers that we court during the week. And so one of the encouragements of the Spirit nowadays is, purge yourself. Allow the Holy Spirit to purge you, that you might begin to experience singleness of heart and mind. And I trust that you share with me the burden, that the Lord would teach us how to love Him with an undivided heart. Then, yesterday we dealt in the area of the soul, specifically that of the will. We saw that to enter into God’s provision, one of the patterns that God has revealed to us is that He’ll give us a promise, followed by a principle, and then a problem, which is necessary oftentimes for us to go through the problem so we can enter into the fullness of God’s provision. And we saw at the end of yesterday’s message that one of the experiences that we share in that problem stage is that it apparently, our consciousness of God’s presence is withdrawn. God allows that to happen so that we are left with a simple choice of exercising our will in obedience to the Word of God. And so we see there that we’re to love God with all of our heart.

And we dealt with that. Love Him with all of your soul. Your soul, of course, is your will, your mind, your emotions, your intellect. And so we touched briefly on that yesterday. And then there’s a third aspect to this greatest of all commandments. And it’s one that I feel is extremely important today for the body of Christ to meditate on this and to work through the implications of this one. And that’s this. That we are to love the Lord Jesus Christ with all of our minds. And I want to share with you a message that I’ve been sharing now for about a year. I feel like it’s one of the most important messages the Lord has ever opened my eyes to. And it’s been a continual one that I’ve had to work through in my own individual life. And the title of the message is “The Battle of Our Minds.” The battle for the mind of the Christian today in his relationship with the Lord. Now, before we turn to a passage in Corinthians, I want to just share a little word formula or what have you that has been extremely helpful to me in understanding, again, one of the patterns that we recognize in life. And here’s how it goes. I want you just to write down on your notes the word character.

Would you? The word character. Now, the Latin word for character finds its root derivation from the plural word for the word habits. So I want you to write character dash habits. All right? The word character finds its root meaning or its root derivation from the plural of the Latin word for habits. So you have character habits. Now, after habits, I want you to put another dash and write the word decision. Now, what do we see in this little word formula? The sum total of your habits have created who you are today as an individual. You and I in our character are merely the sum total of all of our daily personal habits. All right? If you follow that. Our habits are those things which form our character. Our habits are formed by repeated decisions. Just think of any habit now that you have in your life, whether it’s a good one or a bad one. That habit did not automatically appear one day in your life. But we find that habits have been formed by repeated decisions. Repeated decisions then slowly but surely create habits in our lives. And then we as individuals become the sum total of all the various habits that we have. So I am, in effect today, the sum total of the result of all my repeated decisions which then yield into habits, and the habits lead into the formation of my character.

Now, let’s add one more word at the end of that. And that’s this, that your thought life or the activity that goes on in your mind and in your daily thoughts are the beginnings of decisions. Before you’ll ever make a decision, there is a mental activity that goes on in the area of your thought life that begins to direct you toward making a decision. So then we’re going to start at the very, very beginning then of that word formula and deal right at the moment of when the thought is conceived. Because if we can go all the way to the beginning and begin to recognize the importance of our thought life, then the thought life will have an effect upon our decisions. Our decisions will have an effect upon the habits that we form. And then our habits, as they’re altered, will transform our character. All right? Now, let’s turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And let’s see the Apostle Paul as he begins to open up an area of life that many of us are aware is going on, but we’re not conscious of how important it is in our life as Christians. One lady asked me yesterday, and it was a very perceptive question, I think. We were dealing a great deal about problems and trials and temptations, and she asked me the question, how do you know when that trial or temptation is a result of God engineering it for our own benefit, or how do you know if it’s the work of the enemy and something that is to be resisted?

And that was a perceptive question. In other words, there are a two-fold thing going on in our lives. There are times when what we are experiencing is the activity of the enemy, and there is a clear message in Scripture that we are engaged today as Christians in a spiritual warfare. The Apostle Paul says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, and against wicked spirits in high places.” The Apostle Peter says, “Be not ignorant of Satan’s devices.” I think that’s a real word to the body of Christ. Even as we’re seeking to know the ways of God, I think we should also, as Christians, be alert and aware of the ways of the enemy. And so we need to recognize that there is a spiritual warfare. So my answer to her yesterday, and I’m not sure it was the best answer that could be given, was that it takes discernment to decide when this problem is something sent from God for your benefit, and when that particular difficulty may be the work of the enemy. I know there’s no clear way of telling you when it is one or the other. As we are sharing, one small word of knowledge, I think, came, and it was this, that one of the ways we can recognize the enemy’s work is that it is always divisive in nature.

It is always destructive, and it always has, as its impetus, to tear down. Now, God will allow me to go through many problems that He has designed or engineered for me, but I recognize in the midst of those that they’re revealing something positive that I need to see about myself. And so maybe one helpful hint on how to recognize the difference between the two. When you’re in the midst of a problem, and you realize that that problem is exposing some things you needed to know about yourself, that may very well be from God. Don’t resist that. But if you’re also in a circumstance where it looks like the enemy is at work and you recognize him by a divisive, destructive, tearing-down thing, then it may very well be that the enemy’s at work, and then we need to stand against him and resist him. You pray through that more. I’m not sure that’s a total answer, but it’s a partial one. And so we’re really dealing today with the opposite side, that area of spiritual warfare that we need to be aware of and we need to know how to deal with it effectively as Christians. Ephesians 6 is one scripture reference that deals with spiritual warfare, and you can check that out in your own study time.

Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 10, and let’s begin in verse 1. And I want to unfold this morning before you what I think is one of the most crucial areas of either victory or defeat in the life of a Christian. Your mind is the strategic area of battle in the area of spiritual warfare. Just jot that down in your notes. That is so important for you to know. The mind of the Christian is the strategic area of battle in this area of spiritual warfare. All right, let’s look now. 2 Corinthians 10, beginning in verse 1. Paul says, “By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you. I, Paul, who am timid when face to face with you, but bold when away. I beg you that when I come, I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world.” Verse 3. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. For the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we are to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Jesus Christ.”

Now let’s look at particularly verse 3 and verse 4. Paul says, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.” Most Christians are aware, or at least they’ve heard the terminology of the spirit warfare, but were we to ask what is the reality or to what degree have you really understood that at this very moment the air is filled with principalities and powers. That as Christians, as we’re walking with God’s Spirit, we are also engaged in a continual spiritual warfare against the heart and mind of every child of God. Now that’s not to alarm you and it’s not to scare you. I often hesitate to ever mention anything about spiritual warfare until we’ve had time to build a strong foundation about the Lordship and the power and the victory that we have in Jesus Christ. So please hear this. We are absolutely, totally conquerors through Jesus Christ. I am not in any way afraid of the enemy. I respect him though. See, there’s a difference. I hear some Christians treating Satan with disrespect. That’s wrong. You respect the enemy, but we also recognize that in Christ Jesus we are more than conquerors through Him who has saved us. So there is never a reason to be fearful about any discussion about spiritual warfare.

It often surprised me as Christians that we don’t spend more time dealing in this matter. In other words, if you were going off to battle and you were engaged in a particular army, the first thing that you would do as a young private is you would learn about your commanding officer. You would learn who he is, what he’s like, and the kind of commandments he gives you. You would learn the kind of weapons that you have at your disposal. You would learn all the various things that have been given to you to experience that warfare. And then if that commanding officer is worth his salt, the next thing he’s going to begin to teach you is the nature of your enemy. If you don’t understand your enemy, you’ll constantly be fooled. And he’ll be pulling one over on you. And I think the same thing is true as Christians. Our first priority is to learn about the Father. To learn about who He is. What He’s made available. Who we are in Christ. But then the Father also wants us to be made aware of who our enemy is. And so what we’re trying to expose this morning is one of the strategic areas that the enemy has tried to get a hold of the life of God’s children.

And it’s in the area of the mind. So, verse 3. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.” Verse 4. “For the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” Now, what is a stronghold? A stronghold gives us the mental picture of a fortress. Paul is saying there that there is a fortress called our minds which needs to be stormed, and it needs to be taken away from the enemy. And at all costs, it needs to be defended for those who are residing there. There is a stronghold, the scripture says, that finds its residence in our minds. Now, here’s what we’re going to say this morning. The mind is the key area in which the enemy is trying to get a foothold into the life of the Christian. How does the enemy attack us? What is his processes? What avenues does he try to get into? And I want to suggest before you that it’s the mind that is the one area that if he can get control of my thought life, if he can get my mind to wander, and let me just, let me just go back a minute and ask you this.

Just be very, very honest. Don’t respond verbally, but listen carefully to this description and see if in any way you can identify with some of what I’m sharing. Now, I realize this week at CFO is a blessed week, and God puts us like in a beautiful, holy bubble, and a lot of the things we struggle with back home, they seem so far, so distant from us, and I’m rejoicing in that. And that just encourages me all the more that we need community back home as much as we need it here at CFO. But I’m also not naive to think that once we get back home, everything is going to continue exactly like it is here, unless God has blessed us with this kind of experience all the time. And I realize that one of the problems most of us are going to face when we get back is that many of us have undisciplined thought lives. We have an undisciplined mind, and I realize that if our minds are not disciplined by the Spirit, much of what you’ve learned here will instantly be taken away. That’s how subtle the enemy is. Listen to this description. Are any of you ever troubled by seemingly uncontrollable thoughts? Do any of you ever have imaginations that seem to run rampant?

You almost cannot even seem to control these vivid imaginations that go, some of them cause fear, some of them cause anxiety, but you seem at times, in your personal life back home, to be gripped by powerful imaginations that are almost beyond your control? Do any of you ever have problems with impure pictures or impure thoughts that seem to bombard your mind? You feel horrible about them, you don’t know where they come from, but your mind seems to be plagued by constant barrage of impure pictures.

Do any of you ever suffer from wanderings of your mind? You don’t even realize it, but you’re sitting somewhere, and suddenly it dawns on you that for the last 10 or 15 minutes you’ve almost lost control of your thought life, your mind has wandered, your thoughts have strayed off, and that is what I call the danger of a passive mind, and we’ll get to that later. Do any of you ever have problems with your power of concentration? Right now during this message, some of your minds are wandering. Get it back in there. Yeah. Yeah. Did you know, one of the most common things that we are facing in our corporate churches is, as the word of God is going forth, the enemy has learned to help Christians’ minds to wander. Isn’t that right, brother? Yeah. You’re preaching the word of God, and I can tell who’s listening. You think we don’t know anything here behind the pulpit? What I could tell you. It’s obvious, it’s very obvious who is intent on what’s coming forth, and who has allowed their mind to drift and wander off about what they’re going to do after lunch, or what they’re going to eat, or this, that, and the other. The enemy has learned to keep the minds of Christians wandering during services. Now as Christians, we learn how to look very intent, and we’re looking right at the pastor, but our mind’s a million miles away. Right? Sure it is. Anybody but me ever had that experience? Yeah, be honest. Sure you have. And that’s one of the things that I think helped me understand. How is it possible for spirit-filled Christians to hear teaching after teaching after teaching, and yet it never seems to filter down? And the Lord revealed to me one day, most of them never hear what’s being spoken. They’re hearing messages, they’re giving mental assent to it, but the enemy has so caused their mind to be undisciplined that many Christians do not even hear, really, what’s being presented in teachings. So right now, even for the rest of this message, you are going to have an opportunity to already put in practice what we’re sharing.

And that is by God’s grace and by the enablement of the Holy Spirit to let your mind be disciplined on the Word of God coming forth. And that’s a tremendous discipline that needs to be there. Power of concentration. Are you ever obsessed with prejudices that seem to flood into your mind? Or judgments, and your mind seems to be a foreign territory. You know what you want to feel, but your mind seems to be captured with all kinds of things. Another area that I find very few people talk about, but it’s an area that often plagues people. How many of you have ever had bad dreams? And there is an experience in your life where you are constantly bombarded with bad dreams. You pray about it, you go to bed at night, you read your Bible, but your dreams seem to be so polluted, you wake up and you feel miserable because your whole subconscious thought life during your dreams has revealed ugly things and you wake up defeated. All right? These are all evidences of warfare in the area of our minds. And if any one of those areas has touched home, the good news is that you can be absolutely and totally set free from those areas. For years, I had troubles with bad dreams.

I would wake up and I would feel so depressed, I would feel demoralized because I said, “Lord, those dreams are not of me. I didn’t want to think those things, I didn’t want to dream them,” but still, it was something constantly a part of me. One day, I woke up to the fact that I could take authority over my mind. I realized that through the power of Jesus Christ, I could be set free. And from this day, hardly ever, and it’s 1%, do I ever have problems with dreams. Jesus has set me free in that area. And He can set you free. And we’re going to believe God for that. Now, let me just say this as an aside. Not only is it in deeply spiritual terms are our minds being bombarded, and I could really take a whole hour to spend time in this area. But brothers and sisters, we need to be aware that every aspect of life outside of the kingdom is under the power of the God of this world. And I want you, and I’m not trying to be an alarmist or a pessimist or sound overreactionary in this, but I want you to be aware that every day of your lives, your minds are being bombarded by demonic stimuli.

Do you believe that? Every single hour of every waking day, the potential for the enemy to get a foothold in is constantly after your minds. Now, very quickly, let me just say one other word about this thing about the passive mind. I passed over it maybe too quickly.

I have noticed, it isn’t many people, but there are those who have a problem with daydreaming. May I suggest in all love this morning, that is not something to be played with. Because when the enemy can be most real is when you just relax that mind of yours and just let it drift off. Dear Christian friend, God wants your mind to be disciplined. And if you are prone to daydreaming and wandering of your mind, would you just submit that area this morning to the Lord and say, “Father, help me to bring that thought life back. Help me to bring my mind into the discipline of the Holy Spirit.” That’s why this whole concept of Eastern meditation is not Christian. What they are teaching us in Eastern meditation is that you are to allow your mind to drift and to go blank and then just to zero in on one little thing. That is absolutely demonic. Because when the mind of the Christian becomes lax, that’s when the enemy will attack. Meditation in the Christian sense is meditating upon the goodness and the love of God the Father and allowing Jesus Christ to be revealed to us. Allowing your mind to go blank is not Christian meditation. All right? So we need to guard against wandering, daydreaming kind of thoughts.

And many of us have been plagued at some time or another with that. Pray that the Lord would bring that back under discipline. Many of you are experiencing personal habits in your life. And I know some of you squirm when we mention these things. But I need to be honest with you. Many young people that I counsel with, one of the main problems of their life is masturbation. And I have discovered that if I can instruct that young person that the beginning of all those habits that grip their lives, it begins in the area of your thought life. If you can keep your thought life under the discipline and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, many of these habits that young people and adults have been bound to for years will suddenly disappear. Your thought life is where everything has its origin. And that’s why you must ask the Father, by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, to be disciplined in the area of your thoughts. Let’s look at two scriptures and then we’ll close to show you that we’re on the right track with this. Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 5. Paul says, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”

You see, one of the evidences that I am Spirit-filled is that my mind is set upon spiritual things and not upon carnal things. For the mind, in verse 6, “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” Praise God. Did you hear that? That was Romans 8, verse 5 and verse 6. Look in Ephesians chapter 4. We are encouraged by the Apostle Paul to be off with the old man, to put off the old man. Listen in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 22. He says, “You are taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds.” Okay? Paul is saying, “Put off that old way of thinking. Put off that old form of thought processes and put on the new mind, the mind which is formed through Jesus Christ.”

Proverbs says it this way. Listen to this. This is extremely profound in its wisdom. The book of Proverbs reads this. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Isn’t that something? Do you see how important this is that we grasp this? As you think in your heart, so you will become. You spend your mind thinking on pornographic pictures, then it’s only a matter of time, my dear brother, until that thing will grip your mind. I have brothers saying, “I’ve got problems with lustful thinking.” The first question I ask them is, “What kind of junk do you put before your eyes?” If you’ve got magazines at home, get rid of them. If you go to movies that are junky, stay out of them. Don’t come to me with your lustful problems unless you’re willing to do your part. All right? Now, once we’ve done that, then we can put on the new mind, which is Christ Jesus. We don’t have to mess with all that kind of problem. All right? So as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is, or so he becomes. Fellas, let me give you another hint. Ladies, I suppose you need to be included in this. Maybe not to the same degree. Job chapter 31, verse 1. Job said this, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at any girl.”

Fellas, mark that one down. Job chapter 31, verse 1. Yeah, let’s be honest, man. Now, come on. The eyes is where much of it begins. If your eyes are undisciplined during the day, watch out for your evening thought life because it’ll be messed up. So Job says, “Listen, I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully upon a woman.” And I believe there are many of you here who are suffering from just that thing. You have been undisciplined in your use of your eyes. This morning, it would be honoring to God to say, “Father, by Your grace, I covenant with You never to look upon a woman with a lustful heart, by Your grace.” All right? Let’s look at Romans 12, 1 and 2, and then we’ll have to close. Our time is up. Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and verse 2.

Paul says this, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship.” I love this new translation there. “Holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Listen to verse 2. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Amen. What we need today in the body of Christ is to have renewed minds after the Holy Spirit. How do you get your mind renewed? By every day coming before the Father in your quiet time and saying, “Father God, cleanse my mind of all the pollution that the world has put in it. Lord, take away every thought that is contrary to Your kingdom. Lord, wash me and purify and cleanse my mind.” And then as you come before the Scripture, say, “Father, allow the written word to so permeate my mind that my mind will begin to be renewed after God’s Spirit.” And then as I begin to experience a renewed mind, then look what happens in the last part of that verse. “Then you will be able to test and to approve what God’s will is.” You know why some Christians have problems finding out what God’s will for their life is?

Because their mind is undisciplined. Their mind has not yet been renewed by God’s Spirit. And so every time they have to make a decision, they get all confused and all cluttered. One of the ways to learn to easily discover God’s will is to have your mind renewed daily by the written word of God. And then your mind begins to think in terms of God’s mind. And it becomes very, very, at least easier to determine God’s will. Let me close by saying this. Some of you with your pencil and paper, either maybe write this down in a notebook. I’ve written it down in the back of my little New Testament at home. I wrote a covenant before the Lord the first time I was challenged with this. And it went something like this. “Father,” and I just wrote the date. What is today? The 20th of June? 20th? Write down. 6-20-79. And I just wrote in the back of my Bible, “Father, from this day on, I commit myself through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to live a life of mental purity.” Let me repeat that in case you would want to make this covenant before the Lord. We’re not promising God. We’re just making a covenant of the desire of our heart. “Father, this day, I commit myself through the enabling power of Your Holy Spirit to live a life of mental purity.

By God’s grace, I give You my thought life so that it will reflect the Lordship of Jesus Christ.” All right. “Father, this day, I commit myself through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to live a life of mental purity. By Your grace, I want my thought life to reflect the Lordship of Jesus Christ.” Amen. Let’s do this. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer. And I realize that this may have revealed some things that are causing you some uncomfort now. Any one of the brothers on the Council Ring, any one of the speakers, Brother Tommy, Brother Jimmy, me, myself, would be more than happy to share with some of you. Maybe some of you have been plagued about a certain area of captivity in your thought life. And you just want another brother to pray with you and let us agree with you that God would give you victory in that area. And I am praying today all through the camp that there will be ministry in this area of our thought lives that we can be totally free to allow our minds to reflect the Lordship of Jesus. Let’s commit this to the Lord. Father, we thank You again for Your word. And we pray that this word now will have its full effect upon our hearts and lives and that it will go forth and bear much fruit and that the fruit that it bears will remain and be constant in nature.

So Lord, we glorify You now. Allow Your word to have its full impact upon our hearts and we give You praise in Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless. Thanks for the extra minutes.