Renewal

UV 699/10,000 Heart-Mind-Life Renewal “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,” Mark 7 v 21 Jesus, the Master Psychologist knew the cause of all evil and crime begins in the hearts and minds of men. It begins as thoughts in the minds and desires in the heart. It is then externalized as sexual immorality, theft, crime, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. It is the evil that comes from inside us that makes us unclean or unrighteous and unacceptable to God. When desires of the heart combines with the thoughts of the mind, the evil is enacted or performed in real time. He established the intimate connectivity between heart, mind and life. The Spirit and the Word provide the templates to which our hearts and minds should conform. Jesus knew the root cause and He knew that He himself was the solution that God had placed before mankind to accept or reject. He criticized the Pharisees and High Priests of Israel for they were outwardly righteous and clean. Similarly, today we might appear outwardly righteous and clean but the Lord knows our hearts and minds. He wants change to happen from within us. The first thing is that we need to be aware of the evil desires that resides in our hearts summed up in the Word as the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and pride of life. He wants us to be aware of the evil thoughts that occur in our minds. These evil desires and thoughts lead up to bad decisions and actions or reactions. Once we identify the roots of all these evils in our hearts and minds, we must ask the Lord to send the Holy Spirit to cleanse us from within. The Lord creates in us a new heart and a capacity to think, feel and decide based on the truth and love He has imparted to us. Just as the lungs take in oxygen and pump out carbon dioxide and the heart pumps out oxygenated blood and pumps in deoxygenated blood back to the lungs to be renewed, we need to constantly renew our minds and hearts with the Word and the Spirit. We are transformed degree by degree into the likeness or image of God by renewing our minds in this manner. Prateep V Philip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ei16-y5o0