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Devotions > Mind and Media

Renewing your mind
2 Feb 2012

 

If you are a believer living in America you live under a constant barrage of media propaganda telling you that you are independent and you should become more independent in order to do whatever your heart desires.    This persistent input from the media of this world, this prolific message, is filled with lies.   Though we may be in the process of renewing our minds, it seems that most of us have ingested some part of the message:  we are the Captain of our ship and the master of our soul.

But what is the truth?   The truth is that we are not our own.  We have been purchased.  We are actually slaves. 

19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. -
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NASB77)

Paul further defines our position:

You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for by Christ]; then do not yield yourselves up to become [in your own estimation] slaves to men [but consider yourselves slaves to Christ].”  -   1 Corinthians 7:23 (AMP)

In truth we are becoming slaves to something or someone.  It is our innate nature; we cannot escape it.   Perhaps a description for a slave might be helpful.  For our purposes a slave is one who worships and serves without reservation.    We will worship and serve something or someone.   And the something or someone we will worship and serve will always be that to which we are most closely linked, mentally, and emotionally.    

Of course all slaves do not worship their master.   However the slaves we are discussing are those that are slaves without initial compulsion.   To serve the world or to serve the Savior are both optional.  However our options are limited.   We will choose to worship and serve the world or we will worship and serve our Savior.   There are no other options.

Have you considered that perhaps the model prayer which the Lord taught to His disciples and by His Spirit to us is a prayer designed for a slave?   The slave’s first priority is worship.   Our Father in heaven Hallowed be Thy Name.   The slave’s second priority is to serve his King.  Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.   Only after these two important slave-like priorities does the Lord direct us to request our daily bread to request His forgiveness and our protection from the evil one.    Jesus knew these provisions would be critical it order for the slave to continue to worship and serve another day.  Jesus had no doubt that we are designed to be His slaves, to worship and serve our King.  

 Paul also instructed us to test and prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God by being transformed be the renewing of our minds.    It seems there is a prerequisite course required for the renewing of our mind.   Could it be that this course is the offering of ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God?   This is starting to  sound a lot like becoming a slave.

This world’s system, under the strategic direction of Satan, is on a no holds barred mission to seduce us into its system of slavery to the independence of ME.   Of course his strategy is launched with the empty promise of becoming a king with complete and comprehensive independence.   Satan desires that we would become so independent that we do not need anything or anyone, not even God.  If we arrive near this point we find the binding chains of the conformance to the things of this world drawing us ever more tightly to a smaller and more confining kingdom where emptiness is the only thing that reigns.

Many years ago in a home bible study the question was presented to the group ‘are you willing to submit to the will of God?”   One of the participants responded to this question:   “I am willing to become willing.” He went on to transparently share that he would need the intervention of God to draw him to this level of commitment.    To choose to push out the sights and sounds of the media seduction of this world is without doubt an arena where most of us need the power of God to assist.   However God usually moves after we become willing to move or at least become willing to become willing.

Much of our lack of prayer these days is no doubt due to the time and emotional energy we spend absorbing the media messages and entertainment [ with its strategic messaging ] planned in the war room of our arch enemy to conform our minds to this world’s system.    If we are to actively engage in the renewal of our minds we must take definite steps to eliminate the input that draws us toward the love of this world and self while intentionally increasing our input of material and information that will be actively promote the renewing of our mind.

Independence is opposed to humility.  Independence is opposed to serving. Independence is opposed to prayer.   Independence is opposed to God.   Today our Nation is desperately in need of prayer.  It is desperately in need of humble folk who will seek the face of God in prayer and commit to repentance from sin.  

 Isaiah 66:1-2 (NASB)
1 Thus says the LORD, "Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest?
2 "For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being," declares the LORD. "But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.

Will you consider this challenge?   For one week maintain a media fast.   For every hour that you would normally consume media, replace it with 30 minutes of reading God’s word and 30 minutes in prayer for a revival awaking in our Nation.    Pray that God will rend the heavens and come down in power. 

Jeff Williams