So, What Do YOU Think? -- Part One

"Thinking of oneself as the collective result of life's experiences is an exercise of carnalmindedness."

Proverbs 23:7 says, "As a man thinketh, so is he." So, my question to you is, "WHAT are YOU thinking?" As a matter of fact, let me come a little bit closer to you: "What do YOU think about YOURSELF?"

Our lives are filled with incidents and accidents that, in more cases than we probably care to admit, have shaped how we see ourselves. In our minds, so many of us are victims of our circumstances because the "me" we see tends to be the one we've perceived through our five senses. And if we go ahead and admit it, over the years we've come to know and understand so much about ourselves in this fashion. But THIS IS NOT the will of GOD for us, His redeemed.

Thinking of oneself as the collective result of life's experiences is an exercise of CARNALMINDEDNESS, at best. It's worldly and doing so indicates that one is walking in the flesh. That's right: solely perceiving oneself--OR ANYTHING, for that matter--through the five senses is considered walking in the flesh.

GOD did not offer salvation to us just so we could die in hope that we will go to heaven. Heaven is a benefit of the new birth, the quickening of our dead spirits. Now that we've been made alive in the realm of the Spirit, that's the realm through which we are to perceive ALL things. It's no spooky, hocus pocus stuff: we've been designed to function in the spirit realm because WE ARE spirits.

We are spirits, who possess our souls (minds, will and emotions) and live in a body (flesh). This physical world in which we live (Earth) requires a body that experiences and makes sense of the environment around us through the five senses. From the time of our birth, we come to understand this environment through the sense faculties.

Now that we've been translated into the Kingdom of GOD's dear son, we can say that we're IN this world but not OF this world (see Colossians 1:13; John 8:23-24; John 18:36). We've actually experienced the resurrection within because our once dead spirit man has been raised to new life. And in accomplishing this, we've now been re-calibrated, if you will, when it comes to HOW we live. Before, we perceived everything by our senses (the flesh) and those perceptions governed our souls (minds, will and emotions). BUT NOW, we can perceive everything by the spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:9-10), just as GOD does and created us to do, so that our souls (minds, will and emotions) would be governed by the Holy Spirit, who then would be able to govern our flesh.

Be sure to check out Part 2...