Guarding your mind is essential for Christians. If you renew your mind with the Word of God but don’t guard your mind and heart, the renewing process will have minimal or no effect. Although you have become a new creation in Christ, you will remain a spiritual baby. You will not grow up in the image of Christ and walk as a mature son of God (both males and females). How do you guard your mind and heart according to the Bible?
Your mind determines your speech and actions
Everything you say and do derives from your mind. The thoughts of your mind determines what you say and what you do. Therefore, the human mind is responsible for every word and action.
When you were the old creation (the old man), you had a carnal mind and lived like the world. The knowledge and wisdom of the world developed and controlled your mind. You believed everything the world said, because you believed in the carnal knowledge and wisdom of the world.
The world and the ruler of the world (the devil) controlled your mind and determined your speech and actions.
The spirit of this world ruled your mind and controlled your life and ensured that you kept walking after the flesh in sin; in rebellion against God and disobedience to His Word.
The old creation walks in the lusts and desires of the flesh and of the mind
And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others (Ephesians 2:1-3)
When you become born again in the spirit, your mind is still unrenewed. Your mind is still carnal (worldly). Therefore, you still think, speak and act like the world.
Although you have become a new creation in the spirit and the Father saved and delivered you from the power of darkness and death through Christ, and translated you into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, your mind is still the same.
Since your mind determines your speech and actions, it’s important to renew your mind with the Bible, as soon as possible.
Only by the renewing of your mind with the Word of God, your mind will line up with the Word of God, whereby God’s thoughts become your thoughts and His way becomes your way.
You shall have the mind of Christ and think the way God thinks and speak and do God’s will.
As long as you don’t have the mind of Christ you shall think like the world. As long as you think like the world, your actions will be the same as the world, and you’ll live like the world. You shall remain carnal and keep walking after the flesh in sin.
Renewing your mind with the Word of God, implies first of all, that you consider the Word of God as the truth. You believe the words of God and accept and apply His words to your life, and become a doer of the Word. As a doer of the Word, you walk by faith in the Word.
Christians should turn off the tap of the world
The more time you spend with God in His Word, the faster you’ll get to know Him and His will. Your mind will line up with His will and you shall do His will. But it doesn’t stop here. The next step is crucial, which is to guard your mind for the trash of the world.. It’s your job to guard your mind so that your mind won’t be defiled by the things of the world.
You can read and study the Bible and renew your mind with the Word of God. But if you don’t guard your mind and heart, and don’t close the tap of the world, then every word of God aka every spiritual seed that you plant into your spirit man, will take longer before it bears fruit or it will die.
You build your faith by believing the words of God, meditating on the words of God and guarding them, and making them your own by applying the words of God to your life.
When you apply the words of God to your life, you will walk according to the Word.
When you walk according to the Word, you will walk by faith after the Spirit.
Faith is not tangible and it’s not a science. As soon as something has been proven, then it’s no longer faith.
Faith is trusting the Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth and all there is within, and His Word. Because of your faith in His Word, you shall obey His words and keep His commandments. The commandments of God represent His will and show how His holy people should live.
The devil doesn’t want you to find out the truth
The devil doesn’t want you to renew your mind with the Truth; the Word of God. He doesn’t want you to find out the truth and walk as a son of God in obedience to God. Because that means that you become a danger to the devil and his kingdom.
That’s why the devil will do everything he can to disrupt this mind renewing process and destroy every seed. He tries to steal and destroy every word of God in your life, so that you won’t bear any fruit.
What happens when you don’t guard your mind?
Guarding your mind is essential and an ongoing process in your life. Guarding your mind will never stop! Every day, many dangers are lurking. Your job is to stay awake and guard your mind, and prevent your mind from being defiled by the world.
You have to guard your mind. Why? So that, no thought that opposes the Word of God enters your mind and becomes a stronghold of the devil in your mind.
The devil wants to possess your mind. Because the devil knows, that your mind determines your actions and controls your tongue.
The devil wants you to remain carnal. He wants you to keep living as the old creation with the evil Adamic nature that walks after the flesh in sin as the world.
That’s why it’s so important to turn off the tap of the world and guard your senses and your mind.
If you open the tap of the world then through your senses, your mind will be defiled by the wisdom, knowledge, and spirits of this world.
As a result of not guarding your mind, the words of God will be affected and destroyed in your mind. You shall remain the old man and be led and controlled by the spirits of this world.
The words of the world will make you doubt the words of God
You shall doubt the words of God and certain things that are written in the Bible; the Word of God. Maybe, you shall consider them ridiculous and old fashion. That’s because the Word of God is a spiritual Book that reveals God’s Kingdom and His will. The Bible exposes the lies of the devil that are considered the truth by the natural man that belongs to the world.
Although the natural world and its wisdom (science) change all the time, God’s Kingdom and His Word that reigns will never change but will always remain the same.
Godly knowledge and wisdom oppose worldly knowledge and wisdom. God’s wisdom will always strive against the wisdom of the world and vice versa. But it’s up to you, whom you will listen to and obey and serve: the Word or the world?
It’s important that you guard your sensory channels and be careful what you look at, what you read, and to whom you listen. You have to be careful with whom you spend your time and how you spend your time.
The attacks of the devil on the human mind
The devil wants to keep you in his kingdom. The devil has great power in the media and entertainment industry. He uses these resources to enter the mind and through the mind enter the lives of people.
The devil enters the mind through television programs, series, documentaries, movies, commercials, music, gaming, newspapers, magazines, books, social media, and so on.
When you spend a lot of time watching television, and watching (comedy) series and programs, that contain cohabitation, (premarital) sex, fornication, adultery, divorce, homosexuality, rebellion, lying, cursing, drugs, crime, suicide, violence and combat sports, suicide, murder, sickness, disease, idolatry, magic, witchcraft, sorcery, spirits, zombies, etc. then eventually you will consider all these things as normal.
The more you feed your flesh, the weaker your spirit becomes
The more you feed your mind with these things, the stronger your flesh and the weaker your spirit becomes. The Bible considers these things as sin; things that oppose the will of God. But by watching these things, you shall become indifferent towards sin.
You shall consider these sins as normal and eventually you shall tolerate sin and accept sin.
In addition to that, you should not forget, that you will also be a partaker of these sins, by watching these people committing them. And that’s not all!
The spirits behind these sins will enter your life and will cause a lot of trouble and misery in your life. Even if it wasn’t your intention, you watched and therefore be a partaker. That’s why it’s so important to guard your mind!
Be careful about what you listen to
Music is also a powerful weapon of the devil that he uses to enter the mind of people. Through all kinds of music, inspired by the kingdom of the devil (the darkness), he deceives many people and occupies their minds.
Once the devil entered the mind of people, he will execute his destruction plan. This is mainly done by negative and depressive feelings that also cause rebellion.
Through certain sounds and melodies that delight the mind, pleasant feelings are unleashed and by repeating them over and over again, people get into a trance. But these pleasant feelings won’t last long.
The melodies and lyrics do their job in the mind of the people and bring them into an unhappy state.
Their mind will be overwhelmed with dark depressive negative unclean thoughts, which they can’t control.
They feel unhappy, and unloved, and will drown themselves in self-pity.
In order to combat these negative feelings and thoughts, they shall listen to music again so that the pleasant feelings will return. And so they’ll become addicted to music and can’t live without music. They constantly need to feed their ears and minds with music.
Even Christian music can have a negative influence on the mind and life of people. Music works in the soul and manipulates the soul and not the spirit. You can sing spiritual songs from your heart and spirit to the Lord, but that goes from the inside out and not from the outside in.
Guard your mind for books
There are many people, who can spend hours reading their favorite books. They read one book after the other, while they can hardly read the Bible for 10 minutes. They feed their mind with every word they read. Then they transfer the words into images and store them in their mind.
There’s hardly any book, that doesn’t contain fantasies, lies, misery, mistreatment, depression, sexual content, adultery, fornication, divorce, violence, drugs, crime, witchcraft, magic, sickness, mental problems, etc.
Through these (fictional) books the mind will be conformed to the world and possessed by the world. They’ll get a twisted mind that doesn’t correspond with reality.
Books can be very dangerous. For example, when someone loves reading romantic novels, and spend hours a day reading novels, then this person shall consider the content and the romantic storylines as reality.
The person shall create an unreal image of love, marriage, and family life. Because of this false interception, the person can experience problems in life. That’s because the reality and the truth don’t correspond with the perfect fictional image that the person created by reading all these books.
If the person wants to lead a normal and happy life, then the person shall have to destroy all these strongholds; all these lies with the truth. This can only be done with the Word of God.
Therefore, the person needs to renew the mind with what the Bible says about love, marriage, and family life.
Guard your mind against false doctrines
But the devil not only works through the media and entertainment industry to keep people in bondage. The devil also uses carnal preachers and other church leaders, who still love the world and the works of the flesh, and can’t let go of it. They mix the Word of God with the natural knowledge and wisdom of the world and preach another gospel.
They are often charismatic and eloquent speakers that preach wonderful sermons. What they preach seems pious, promising and hopeful until the storms come into the lives of Christians and they are overwhelmed and can’t hardly stand.
The reason why they can’t hardly stand against these storms and become a prisoner of their circumstances, is that they haven’t been spiritually prepared in the church. They have listened to messages that only promise prosperity instead of hardships. They haven’t been taught how to deal with the storms in life and how to stand.
Therefore, be careful and guard your mind against false doctrines that oppose the Word of God and lead to apostacy and lascivious lives in sin. Don’t just take and accept any doctrine that is preached, but always check if the doctrine lines up with the Word of God. (Read also: The wolves in sheep’s clothing who wreak havoc).
Don’t live like the world, but live like the Word
Through all these resources the devil tries to make the believers and followers of Jesus Christ lukewarm. The devil tries to keep Christians away from the Bible and prayer and their relationship with the Father.
As soon as the devil enters their mind, he ensures that they become lukewarm and indifferent towards sin, and world-like, so that they live like the world.
The devil makes sure, that Christians fall asleep spiritually, and become passive in spiritual warfare. So that, he can continue his destructive work in humanity.
However, the Bible says to not be conformed to this world and live like the world. But to be transformed by the renewing of your mind with the Word of God. So that, you become like the Word, and live like the Word; Jesus Christ.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God (Romans 12:2)
If you feed the flesh you will bear the fruit of the flesh
When you feed your mind with the things of the world, you will feed your flesh. You can’t feed your spirit with the things of this world, that’s impossible. What is flesh is flesh and what is Spirit is Spirit.
When you don’t guard your mind but feed your mind with worldly things and set your mind on the things of this world, then your thoughts, feelings and emotions, shall direct your life. You shall be controlled by the flesh, instead of the Spirit, and be tossed to and fro. You shall not be happy and experience an emptiness in your life.
The things that are lacking in your life shall become your point of focus. The more you focus on your lack, the more miserable you become. This can lead to depression or even suicide.
Many Christians are not happy and walk around with feelings of depression and suicidal thoughts that eventually lead to suicide.
Stay in the Word and experience the peace of God
But if you renew your mind with the Word of God and guard your mind, you’ll stay in the Word. As long as you stay in the Word, you shall first of all experience peace. This peace is the peace of God that passes all understanding.
You shall not only experience peace, but you shall be happy, joyful, and satisfied. Because your life is hid in Christ. You trust in the Lord with all your heart and keep your mind on Him. You know that He wants the best for your life.
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee (Isaiah 26:3)
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7)
When you are not happy and don’t experience peace in your mind, but are constantly tortured and overwhelmed by depressive or fearful thoughts and anxieties, then it’s important to examine how and where you spend your time.
Do you spend your time in the Bible and in prayer? Or do you spend your time in the world on the things of the world?
Do you feed your mind with the words of God or do you feed your mind with television, movies, games, books, magazines, (social) media, etc.?
You are responsible for the fruit in your life
The Bible says, that if you are risen with Christ, you should seek those things which are above, where Jesus Christ is seated.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth (Colossians 3:1-2).
But you also have a choice to seek those things, which are upon this earth, and are of the world.
You are responsible for the choices you make in your life, and no one else. You decide what fruit you will bear in your life.
‘Be the salt of the earth’
