Nurture the Transformational – Part 2

21 Nov Nurture the Transformational – Part 2

Moving from Checkers to Chess

Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective

We’re continuing our series: “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective.”

Unless we have an eternal perspective, viewing life as God does, we are playing checkers in life while God is playing chess. And, if that’s the case, two things are certain: (1) we will consistently make the wrong moves, and (2) we lose in the end. I’d like to help avoid that.

(If you would like a concise outline to help you keep your mind around the big picture as we move through the details, click here and we’ll send you one. It’s available at the end of this post also.)

Currently in our series on five steps to unleashing the power of an eternal perspective, we’re looking at the second issue involved in Step 5: You Must Nurture the Transformational.

Today we’ll look at Part 2: Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain.

Our brains don’t always work as well as we wish

Two senior couples were fellowshipping at the home of one of the couples. The men were in the living room and the women were in the kitchen. One of the men said to the other, “Last night we went to one of the best restaurants we have ever been to, and I had one of the best meals of my life!”

The other man said, “Wow! That’s amazing. What a statement! What’s the name of the restaurant?”

The first man said, “Well, it’s…  Uh… Let’s see…  Hmmmm. What’s the name of that red flower that has thorns?”

The other guy said, “Rose?!?”

The first guy said, “Yeah. That’s it.” Then he lifted his voice and shouted toward the kitchen, “Rose, what’s the name of that restaurant we went to last night?!?”

We laugh at the story, particularly because most of us can relate to not being able to recall the most fundamental things at times. We say something like, “My mind isn’t what it used to be.” or “Where’s my mind!?!”

But the question is, was that breakdown in the mind or in the brain?

When the Bible was written, they didn’t have a word for the brain. They used words like mind, heart, soul, and spirit. These words are not defined and are not used technically – meaning they don’t mean exactly the same thing every time they are used. So we have to determine from context what they mean.

 But 2000 years later, we can make a strong case for the fact that there is a difference between the brain and the mind.

There is a difference between the brain and the mind

When we die and go to heaven, look around and say, “Is this great, or what?!?” it isn’t the brain that is thinking that. The brain is back down there on earth. It’s the mind!

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “We prefer to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” When Paul is “absent from his body,” he is absent from his brain. When he is at home with the Lord, he is functioning mentally, not with his brain, but with his mind.

This is easy for Christians to understand and embrace. Only secular materialists who believe that nothing exists except whirling molecules have trouble with it, which includes many scientists.

But they are standing on vanishing ground. Scientific evidence is accumulating that makes that position almost impossible to maintain. For example, in a carefully documented study, a woman named Pam Reynolds  underwent a rare operation to remove a brain aneurysm so large that it could not be repaired using the standard neuro-surgical techniques.

During the surgery, her heart and brain were intentionally stopped to facilitate the operation. Her EEG was flatlined, proving no brain activity. Yet afterward, she described in specific detail the operation as it was going on, including who was in room, what they did and what they said (Sabom, M. (1998). Light and Death: One Doctor’s Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences. Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: Zondervan.).

This and other similar examples demonstrate the difference between the brain and the mind. As a result, more and more neuroscience is agreeing with the difference between the brain and the mind. I have books titled, From Brain to Mind , by James Zull, Mind, Brian & Education, by David Sousa, and Switch on Your Brain, by Caroline Leaf, all of which recognize the difference between the brain and the mind.

Christians have the mind of Christ

There is a difference between the brain and the mind, and it is a watershed issue for understanding the process of spiritual growth in the Christian life.

1 Corinthians 2:16, says, “We have the mind of Christ.”

While the Bible doesn’t define or explain that statement, we can easily conclude that we do not have the brain of Christ.

In Romans 7, Paul talks about the inner man and the outer man. The outer man is the physical body, including the brain, which is unredeemed and contaminated with sin. The inner man includes the mind which is redeemed and uncontaminated with sin (Romans 7:22-23).

Even Jesus kept increasing in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and men, we read in Luke 2:52. And in Hebrews 5:8, we read that Jesus “learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

We must not conclude from either of these passages that there was anything wrong with Jesus. But as our example, He was born as a child and grew to adulthood. In the process he learned things, he changed, he grew. Not from imperfect to perfect, but from infancy to adulthood.

We have the mind of Christ, and our Father wants us to grow in wisdom… and to learn obedience through the things which we suffer, as Jesus did.

The mind must transform the brain

So we have seen that there is a difference between the brain and the mind, and that we have the mind of Christ, which is capable of growing and learning and becoming more and more like Him.

Now we make our third point, that the mind must transform the brain. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Working this backward, we can see that we can be living demonstrations of the fact that God’s will is good and acceptable and perfect, but only if we are transformed. And we are transformed by the renewing of our mind.

That is why the Bible encourages us…

• to meditate on God’s word day and night (Psalm 1:12),
• to think only on good things (Philippians 4:8), and
• to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).

The great task of the Christian life is for the mind to send truth through the brain often enough that the brain begins to change and become more and more like the mind.

In her book, Switch On Your Brain, Dr. Carolyn leaf writes:

“A host of neuroscientists have shown how our thoughts have remarkable power to change the brain. By our thinking and choosing, we are redesigning the landscape of our brain.

“Our mind is designed to control the body, of which the brain is a part, not the other way around. We cannot control events and circumstances of life, but we can control our reactions. In fact, we can control our reactions to anything, and in doing so, we change our brains.”

Conclusion

So, in looking at the fifth step to unleashing the power of an eternal perspective, Nurture the Transformational, we see that the 2nd part of that step is we must use the mind to change the brain. As we do, we begin to change from the inside out, becoming more and more like Christ.

Next week, we’ll look at the 3rd issue in Nurturing the Transformational: You must repeat truth until it changes you. I look forward to seeing you then.

Get a Moving from Checkers to Chess At-a-Glance-Overview: Click Here

As we have been studying these concepts for quite some time (including in some prior blog series), I’m excited to now be connecting all the “moving parts” from those posts and combining them into a “spiritual game plan” in this “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ 5 Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective” series.

For an overview of the game plan, so you can see at a glance where we begin and where we’re headed, I’ve created an overview/outline you can download for free: Click Here

For the full discussion of each of the steps, begin with the first post in this series, Moving from Checkers to Chess, and then continue with the following posts thereafter.

In case you’re new here, below are two resources I’ve created for additional help in your Christian discipleship journey:

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