05 Oct How Can Neuroscience Guide Our Daily Walk With God?
Blog Series:
Renew Your Mind ~ Transform Your Life
In this blog series, as we have listed a long succession of beneficial principles we have learned about the Christian life from modern neuroscience, we now ask the question, “How can we use what we’ve learned from neuroscience to guide our daily walk with God?”
The answer is refreshingly clear. Even a short and obvious list has powerful implications for our daily walk with God. We’ll hearken back to quotes from Switch on Your Brain in previous blog posts to compile a strategic list of things we can do to use neurological principles in our daily walk with God.
Two important observations about using the principles of neuroscience in our daily Christian walk
One, this is nowhere near a complete list. It’s a fairly short, readily obvious list that can nevertheless jump start us in a fuller and richer experience of daily pursuing God.
Two, these are all things the Bible already tells us to do. We’re just compiling this list to make the point that the Bible tells us what to do – Neuroscience sheds light on why and how.
As a reminder, just a few of the instructions from the Bible regarding our mind that we’ve looked at in this series are: to think on truth (Philippians 4:8), to take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5), to transform our lives by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12 2). And, as Dr. Leaf said in her book, “When you understand the power of your thought life, you truly begin to get a glimpse of how important it is to take responsibility for what you’re thinking. God was so serious about us capturing our thoughts and renewing our minds that he gave us science as an encouragement” (p. 124).
Strategies from Neuroscience to Guide Our Daily Walk With God
- Make a commitment to daily time with God
“Self-directed neuroplasticity is a general description of the principle that deep thinking changes brain structure and function” (p. 130).
“You can change your brain with your mind and essentially renew your mind” (p. 25).
“We can control our reactions to anything, and in doing so, we change our brains. It is not easy; it is hard work, but it can be done through our thoughts and choices” (p. 25)
- Commit to at least 15 minutes a day
“Research has shown that 5 to 16 minutes a day of focused meditative capturing of thoughts… [with] intense, deep thinking activity [increases] the chances of a happier outlook on life” (p. 75).
“Your brain responds with a positive neurochemical rush and structural changes that will improve your intellect, health, and peace” (p. 39).
- Make Scripture the core of your daily time with God
“The primary success of capturing your thoughts will be to focus on God’s way first, not the world’s way. And science is showing that meditating on the elements of Jesus’ teachings rewires healthy new circuits in the brain” (p. 73).
“When we pray, when we catch our thoughts, when we memorize Scripture, we move into this deep meditative state” (p. 84).
- Include prayer and meditating
“When we direct our rest by introspection, self – reflection, and prayer; when we catch our thoughts; when we memorize Scripture; when we develop our mind intellectually, we… improve brain function as well as mind, body, and spiritual health” (p. 91).
“Regular meditators – by this I mean those who have adopted a disciplined and focused, reflecting thought life in which they bring all their thoughts into captivity – [have a brain which is] more active, growing more branches and integrating and linking thoughts, which translates as increased intelligence and wisdom and that wonderful feeling of peace” (p. 84).
- Guard your brain
“The subconscious mind is filled with the thoughts you have been building since you were in the womb, and they form the perceptual base from which you see life. Up to 99% of the decisions you make are based on what you have built into your subconscious mind. If a person’s subconscious mind is filled with negative, toxic trash, then that is what informs his or her decisions on a day-to-day basis, which means that a person will speak and act from that toxicity” (p. 133).
“The brain, far from being fixed in toxicity, can change even in the most challenging neurological situations” (p. 20).
- Nurture a plan to develop your mind intellectually
“Every morning when you wake up, new baby nerve cells have been born while you were sleeping that are there at your disposal to be used in tearing down toxic thoughts and rebuilding healthy thoughts” (p. 24).
“As we think, we change the physical nature of our brain. As we consciously direct our thinking, we can wire out toxic patterns of thinking and replace them with healthy thoughts. New thought networks grow. We increase our intelligence and bring healing to our brains, minds, and physical bodies” (p. 20).
- Feed your subconscious, and then wait for your subconscious to feed you.
“The subconscious mind is filled with the thoughts you have been building since you were in the womb, and they form the perceptual base from which you see life. Up to 99% of the decisions you make are based on what you have built into your subconscious mind” (p. 133).
“What you wire into your brain through thinking is stored in your nonconscious mind. The nonconscious mind is where 99.9% of our mind activity is. It is the root level that stores the thoughts with the emotions and perceptions, and it impacts the conscious mind and what we say and do” (p. 123).
“After a period of repeated thinking about a choice over and over, the new thought moves into the subconscious level, where it becomes part of our internal perception. It is at this level that we are deeply changed” (p. 128)
Conclusion
Again, it is important to remember that (1) this is not a complete list. It’s just a list of obvious implications of neuroscience to a Christian’s daily life, and (2) these are all things the Bible has already told us to do. Neuroscience just gives us additional information as to why and how.
As Dr. Leaf said, “God was so serious about us capturing our thoughts and renewing our minds that He gave us science as an encouragement.”
One additional factor that is important for us to remember is that the Holy Spirit guides and empowers this whole process. It is true that mental renewal processes work for non-Christians, but for Christians, the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures bring a divine presence and power that are not there for the non-Christian. We must have the Holy Spirit’s direct involvement in this process for it to fully work for Christians as God intended. I speak more completely to this fact in this blog post.
Next week, we will wrap up our series on mental renewal. I look forward to seeing you then.
In case you’re new here
This blog post is part of a series titled “Renew Your Mind, Transform Your Life”, introduced on January 5, 2021. As the series continues, each succeeding post will be added to and available in the blog archives at www.maxanders.com.
If you know anyone who you think might enjoy joining us in this study, please forward this blog to them and encourage them to go to my web site (www.maxanders.com) and sign up for the free video, “Master the Bible So Well That the Bible Masters You”, available there on the home page. This will put them on my regular mailing list and they’ll receive my weekly blogs on this subject.
In addition, I am creating a new online membership site, The Change Zone, that will provide information, strategies and resources to help motivated Christians renew their mind and transform their lives. If you would like to learn more about this and get updates to know when The Change Zone will be available, click here.
I look forward to going through this life-changing journey with you.
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