Your Spiritual Address: Moving Into a Peaceful Mindset

Following the concept of the last post on “A Fixer-Upper Mind Renovation,” I want to talk about finding true peace of mind as a Christian. I opened up my Bible App this morning and returned to an Oswald Chambers devotional about peace. The verse it referenced was 1 John 1:6-7 which says,

“If we claim we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live in the truth.”

Boom. Let’s chew on that.

Where your thoughts and heart live is where you really reside. In light, or in darkness. In truth or in lies. We cannot be in two places at once. We’re either living alone in the dark, out of fellowship with God, or together with others and Him in the light.

Our home is in the mind. Where we go with our thoughts determines where we live and with whom we live.

Walking in the darkness is a lonely, unclear, and mind-numbing reality to live in, and to say we’re in a relationship with God while we’re there is like saying we live at one address when we don’t live there at all.

Here’s a prayer I prayed after realizing my guilt. Feel free to pray along.

God, forgive me for claiming to have fellowship with You and continuing to walk to in the dark. Forgive me for lying saying I’m right walking with You in the light when my thoughts have been all sin and darkness.

I invite You into the home of my heart and mind, and ask You to be Lord and change my thoughts, motives and behaviors to match Yours in the light. Light it up! Come in and show me where I’m dirty and in need of renovation.

Come dine with me. I’ll serve you. Let’s sit and talk, fellowship in Your light. Bring Your bread of life to feast on and I’ll try to find some fish like Peter and the disciples did in John 21. 🙂

Help me put You first in my mind and heart so You can shine Your light through me. Be Lord again today in my life.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

The next devotional in the series by Chambers tags onto that thought too. In it, he says, “Before the Spirit of God can bring peace of mind, He has to clear out the rubbish, and before He can do that He has to give us an idea of what rubbish there is.”

Huh. So that concept of Christ coming to live in us and dwell in our hearts and minds correlates with the peace we want. And before there can be peace and a unifying vision, we have to let Him help show us where that “stinkin’ thinkin'” as Pastor Brad Hoefs says, is coming from.

I wonder if Jesus came into my mind and heart and were to take a long look around, inspecting my mindset as if a home, and told me what issues there were going on. My first thought is that for a carpenter, He’d probably have the foundation set on the stone slab already, since He is my Lord. And I’d probably have some construction done. But at this point, would there be any lights on? Would He have room to walk around? What would He see and say? I think He’d surmise there was a lot of work to be done.

And as a married woman, what about my thoughts would reflect that I was living with my husband? Do I think and put a place in my heart for him? Does I let him come into my thoughts and space in my heart and mind without reserve? We are “one” after all.

Let the renovations continue!