GOD’S THOUGHTS IN YOU - Nourishing our mind with good and godly ideas, images, information, and the ability to think creates our vision (recall the VIM - Vision-Intention-Means structure). From these, we intend to be formed so that God is a constant presence in our mind, crowding out false ideas, destructive images, misinformation about God, and crooked beliefs.
As for means, certain tried and true disciplines aid us in the transformation of our thought life toward the mind of Christ. We cannot transform our ideas, images, information, or thought processes into Christlikeness by direct effort, but we can adopt certain practices that indirectly will have that effect.
The most obvious thing we can do is draw certain key portions of Scripture into our mind and make them a part of the permanent fixtures of thought. This is the primary discipline for the thought life. We need to know these passages like the back of our hand, and a good way to do that is to memorize them and then constantly turn them over in our mind as we go through the events and circumstances of our lives (see Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1).
The desired effect will not be realized by focusing on isolated verses but will come as we ingest passages such as Romans 5:1-8 or 8:1-15, 1 Corinthians 13, or Colossians 3:1-17. When we take these into our mind, our mind will become filled with the light of God himself. You might say, “I can’t memorize like that.” I assure you, you certainly can. God made your mind for it, and he will help you. He really wants you to do this. As you choose to give your time and energy to the renovation of your mind (intend it), it will happen! (Earlier posts are here: https://restfuljourney.blogspot.com/
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