Loosing the Mind

The word “loose” means to set free or release. God wants to unentangle our minds from the thoughts that entangle us and cause us to become vulnerable to enter the traps of Satan.  

God has been speaking to me about the renewal of the mind and what it means to truly renew our minds and walk in victory. I want to start by reading Romans 12:1-3:

“I beseech you, therefore, brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed (which means to make a drastic change in form, appearance, or character) by the RENEWING OF YOUR MIND, that ye may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, NOT TO THINK OF HIMSELF MORE HIGHLY THAN HE OUGHT TO THINK, but THINK SOBERLY.”

The Word says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The word renew means resume (an activity after an interruption). The Holy Spirit reminded me that God had a plan to have fellowship with us always. It was His desire that we mirror Him, and according to Genesis 1:26, He wanted us to have dominion over the earth. God’s plan was interrupted in the Garden by Satan when he convinced Eve in Genesis 3:5 that if she eats the fruit from the tree, her eyes will be opened, and she would become a god, knowing good and evil. As a result, there was an immediate separation from God. This is what I saw: Satan appealed to her mind, saying why should you settle to be a child of God when you can become a god? I believe here is where the narcissistic seed was birthed. Now God is saying that He needs to break the independent spirit off us and restore us back to true fellowship with Him again, but it has to start with a true renewal of the mind. We must think like God but not try to become a god. The Holy Spirit showed me that there are mindsets that make us stand as gods in our lives: Religious mindset, philosopher's mindset, self-righteous mindset, judgmental mindset, carnal mindset, and a prideful mindset.  

Growing up, I struggled with all these mindsets. I gave my life to God then became religious. I became closed minded to moves of God that did not come out of my denomination. I thought, “Well, maybe I can go to bible school, so I can teach people to live according to the Word,” but that filled me with the philosopher’s mindset, which caused me to become self-righteous because I knew so much about the Bible that no one could tell me anything, so that made me become very judgmental. I would listen to people preach and silently correct them. I would say things like, “Nope, that is not the Word of God,” which was carnal and prideful. I wasn’t being transformed by God. I was becoming a god. It wasn’t until I started coming to HOT that I realized what were you doing? What were you really going after? I was going after what my mind thought was righteous. I was mimicking my favorite preachers instead of being led by the Holy Spirit for true freedom. But, thank God He never gives up on us. He is giving me a chance to renew my mind.

I started asking God “How do I renew my mind?” and He gave me a simple but powerful revelation. He said in order to renew your mind you need to do the complete opposite of what you are feeling in a heated or controversial moment. Go against every principle you learned from the world and from bible school. Give up the protection tactics because they are killing you. You tear down my walls of protection to build your own, and that is why when an attack comes you fall prey to it really fast because Satan will never respond to your wall of defense. He only backs down when he sees mine.

Here are a few examples of what it looks like to renew your mind. If you get into an argument with someone and you usually shut down and stop responding, do the complete opposite. Go talk to the person and settle it. Or if you are being corrected and you usually defend and deflect, just do the complete opposite. Speak to your mind. Tell your mind, “Nope, we are not going there today.” Instead, ask for clarification and try to understand where the other person is coming from, and if you can’t understand them, take it straight to God. Or if you usually rebel when things don’t go your way, fight against it, tell Satan NO and face whatever the challenge is. In order to transform, we have to condition our minds to do what the will of the Father wants to do at that moment. I'm not saying renewing your mind will be an overnight deliverance. This will take much disciple and discernment, but we must change the way we think.

Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brother and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.” When the enemy wants us to get ugly in our flesh, we have to stop and think. Is this true? Is this noble? Is this right? Is this pure? Is this admirable? And not in a religious way. But this is what God wants out of us. He is calling us to a greater level in our minds. He is stopping the interruption of the thoughts that entangle us and take us out. The Holy Spirit wants to KILL everything that goes against the knowledge of God.  According to 2 Corinthians 10:5, demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

God said to take every thought captive and MAKE it obedient. That means telling your thoughts, “NO, we are not doing that. We are aligning with God and what is God saying about this situation. What does HE want me to do? Not what my flesh is pushing me to do or say. We serve notice to our minds today for a renewal of apostolic thinking. We will think like the Father. We will not conform to this world, nor will we conform to our rebellious thoughts.”

Let’s look at Ephesians 4:17-32:

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,”

• God does not want us to be like the other gentiles who are high-minded, ministering out of knowledge but not a relationship. Their lips speak of what they learned in bible school, but their hearts are still enslaved to sin. Just like Shane said in one of his posts, “Beware of the one that knows the Bible but doesn't know Jesus.”  

“Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:”

• No matter what our minds say, the truth is only in what Jesus has to say. This is why he said in verse 22:  

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;”

• Our old man will convince us that the old ways of reacting are still okay, but that is a lie from the pit of Hell. Our old man has been governed by Satan himself. So, the old man is full of envy, jealousy, lust, manipulation, unrighteous anger, competition, lying, deception, and the list goes on. But God has a plan to deliver us from these things, and it's in verse 23.

 “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;”

• A renewed mind is the only thing that will keep us. When our minds are renewed, we will walk and talk like Jesus. When our minds are renewed, we will discern properly according to the Word of God and not our emotions, without wavering. It goes on to say:

“And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.”

• We give place to the devil when we are doing things according to our own minds. We welcome a tormenting spirit in. Instead, we need to submit our minds back to God and resist the devil. Then he has to flee. Stop giving Satan your mind. Sometimes we do this unaware. We speak too fast. Sometimes we don’t realize we are being Satan’s ventriloquist, and he has his hand right in our backs, spitting venom about our brothers and sisters.

“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”

• This goes back to what I was saying earlier. Do the complete opposite of what you would normally do because it is a testament to God’s goodness.

“And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”

Following your mind and not the Holy Spirit grieves Him. Loose your mind. Let go of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking. It is not helping our growth in the Spirit. Loose your mind from old covenant agreements with your past. Loose your mind from what happened to you when you were a child that traumatized you. Forgive those who hurt you, just as Christ has forgiven you. Jesus is here right now to renew our minds.

 By: Shatera Chaffa