27 Aug You Are What You Eat (Mentally)
A few years back, our neighbors got an Old English Sheepdog puppy. It was the most adorable little gray and white ball of fur you have ever seen. It romped and played and wagged where it’s tail should have been, and was a full-blown number 10 on the puppy “Cute Scale.”
They kept Daisy in their house for the most part, and I didn’t see her for months after that. One day as I was driving home, I looked into our neighbor’s yard, and there stood this huge, hulking gray and white canine mammoth lumbering through the yard.
Because the last time I had seen the puppy it was a small size, and the next time I saw it, it was a big size. It was as though Daisy had suddenly “poofed” from a little puppy into a big dog.
I was flabbergasted! This dog was now probably 40 pounds heavier than when I saw it last. My first thought was, “How in the world did that puppy get so huge?” My next thought was, “Where did all the bulk come from?”
And right on the heels of that question was the thought, “from dog food bags.” As we know, nothing comes from nothing. That 40 pounds of bulk came from dog food bags. The puppy ate dog food, it’s body digested it, assimilated it – molecularly rearranging it – turning it into dog.
It was the most dramatic example I had ever seen in demonstrating the fact that we become what we put into our bodies.
Our brain becomes like what we feed it
The same is true with our brains. In five years, or ten, or twenty, our brains will be much more than they are now. And everything that our brains become will come out of a great 21stcentury “information-food bag.”
Everything that comes into our brains is assimilated, mentally processed, and evaluated, either consciously or (more likely) subconsciously. We decide what is true and false, good and bad, important and unimportant… and then all that information shapes our intellect, our emotions and our will. Simply: it determines who we become!
So, just as dog owners want to choose their dog food bags carefully, because their dogs will become what they eat, so we must choose carefully what we allow into our minds from the great 21stcentury “information-food bag,” because we will become what we “eat” mentally.
The Bible teaches us that we should not feed our minds bad food:
- We should guard against deceptive philosophies and principles of the world (Colossians 2:8)
- We should guard ourselves from mental sin as well as overt sin. (Matthew 5:27-28)
- We should take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
The Bible teaches that we should feed our minds good food:
- We should meditate on Scripture and use it to shape our values (Psalm 1:1-3)
- We should cultivate an eternal perspective, so we will live according to heaven’s values and not earth’s. (Colossians 3:1-3)
- We should renew our minds daily so that we will not “lose heart.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
Mental renewal is the key to life transformation
In support of this idea, Romans 12:2 is perhaps the most complete statement about the value of managing what we allow into our minds:
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
When we work that passage backward, we 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 will only be transformed as our minds are renewed.
Conclusion
Revelation 2:23 says, “I am the one who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.”
This tells us, of course, that the Lord knows everything we are thinking. Therefore, we should keep our thoughts pleasing to him.
Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
This summary statement captures the essence of all that is at stake.
So, these and other passages give powerful biblical testimony to the fact that the mind is the key to everything. It is the battlefield of the Christian life.
It is the mind that the Lord wants to be given to Him: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).
And it is the mind that Satan tries to deceive and blind: “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…” (1 Timothy 4:1).
But as we feed our minds the truth, our minds can be renewed, our lives can be transformed, and we can be living examples of the fact that God’s will is good and acceptable and perfect.
If you haven’t done so yet, signup to download my free video Master The Bible So Well That the Bible Masers You for some strategic help in feeding your mind the good food of Scripture.
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