"THAT
YE MAY BE MINDFUL... " By
Steve Van Nattan Here
is a discussion I think will help us deal with our thinking processes under stress,
and it will answer the New Age version of spiritual thinking. FIRST-
I give you a "reasonable" discussion of "mindfulness"
from a Transcendental Meditation perspective. This is NOT the Bible way of thought
and mindfulness, but it will show you that there is an issue. I especially want
to get to you Pentecostals and Fundamental Baptists who operate at the emotional
and fluffy headed level of thought. This is making all of conservative Bible believers
look silly and obnoxious to worldly people who use their minds for purposes other
than feeling good. You better sit up and take notice folks:
MINDFULNESS-- TRANSCENDENTAL
MEDITATION STYLE
https://web.archive.org/web/20010627180218/http://mdmd.essortment.com/mindfulnesswhat_old.htm
When you experience mindfulness, you are in a moment of pure experience; you are
completely in tune with reality. But it is not the reality of your mind, which
Ian"t reality at all, but how you perceive reality. You are in tune with
the being of whatever it is that you are aware of. It"s kind of like seeing
out of the corner of your eye"you get a glimpse of something; you can"t
see it exactly, but you get an awareness that it is there. When you focus your
eyes, you lose your awareness, your perception of the object and you see it the
way you have been trained to see it"straight on as it is. Your mind perceives
it as it has been trained to perceive it"as a "car," or a "dog"
and what those symbols stand for. Mindfulness
is so fleeting that it is almost unobservable, especially to someone who has not
been trained to be mindful. You generally become mindful of an object or feeling
and before you even realize it, you have moved to your mind; you focus on perceiving
the object or feeling, recognizing that perception, naming it (such as "car"
or "love") and then getting involved in thinking about it. Your mind
takes control. The original mindfulness gets lost, and you forget it, especially
if you didn"t even know it occurred in the first place. That is the reason
many people meditate: it allows them to prolong that moment of awareness, of mindfulness.
Mindfulness
can help you reduce stress and enjoy life more. When you are mindful, you are
very cognizant about what is going on around you and how you feel about what is
going on around you. And when you are very aware of people, things, and situations,
you are able to make a skillful choice about how to respond. For example, if the
kids are all yelling at once and you are being mindful, the yelling doesn't cause
you to get angry and blow up at them. Instead you tend to feel calmer and are
able to focus on what is going on, in this case the yelling. When you are calm,
you tend to respond to the stress of the yelling by calming down the children
and getting to the bottom of the problem rather than yelling back at them. When
mindfulness is prolonged through meditation, you will find that your experience
is profoundly changed. However, you have to learn how to meditate and it takes
consistent practice to become mindful. Few people are constantly mindful; only
people like His Holiness the Dahli Lama have learned through extensive training
to be constantly mindful. But once you learn how to meditate and become mindful,
you will find that mindfulness can rally change your life. This
definition is very mystical, and it is pointedly associated with the Dahli Lama
who claims to be God. We thus conclude that the definition of the world as to
mindfulness is that it is a mystical religious experience. Since the source of
mindfulness is YOU, we conclude that it is, at best, self-worship. At worst, it
may well be possession by devils. SECOND-
Now, I want you to look at "mindfulness" from the Word of
God, King James Bible. We will look at the ways in which God is mindful, and then
the ways man is mindful, good and bad: GOD
IS MINDFUL Psalm
8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest
him? If
God is mindful of you, how can you not want to be mindful of him? Psalm
111:5 He hath given meat unto them that fear him: he will ever be mindful of his
covenant. Are
you mindful of your covenants or promises to God? Psalm
115:12 The LORD hath been mindful of us: he will bless us; he will bless the house
of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron.
Jeremiah 15:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before
me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and
let them go forth. MAN
IS MINDFUL 1
Chronicles 16:15 Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded
to a thousand generations; Are
you mindful of all the promises God has made to you? If not, it is simply because
you don't read your Bible enough.
Nehemiah 9:17
(Israel)
And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among
them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to
return to their bondage: but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not.
Isaiah 17:10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not
been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant
plants, and shalt set it with strange slips: Not
being mindful of God and his will in your life and thinking is a result of forgetting......
nothing else. Paul
is speaking
2 Timothy 1:4 Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I
may be filled with joy; Are
you mindful of the suffering of other Christians around you? Why not? God does
not pick and choose which Christians he will be mindful of. Hebrews
11:15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came
out, HOW
CAN WE BE MINDFUL IN HOLINESS? Philippians
2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being
in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made
in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. "Let"
implies that having the mind of Christ is based on free will. God gave man a will
in the Garden of Eden, and, in spite of the shark lawyer theologian John Calvin,
you still have a free will. This does not imply that God did not elect you to
salvation in eternity past, but he did give you a choice to confess Christ or
reject him. So, in the same manner, you are the one who must keep house in your
mind. That is done by LETTING the mind of Christ take over your mind. The rather
worn out catch phrase, "What would Jesus do," is very much implied here.
The way to learn the mind of Christ is to read the Gospels, and watch for the
thinking processes of Jesus. If you could not be bothered, then your mind will
be under your control or under the control of Satan. The Holy Spirit will also
teach you about mind control if you are listening.
Romans 15:6 That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among
you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. It
is possible to be in total agreement on issues of church fellowship and personal
relationships. If it was not possible, Paul misspoke in this passage, and that
is impossible under inspiration.
Philippians 1:27 Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ:
that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs,
that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith
of the gospel; Holy
rollin' and hollerin' to hear ourselves and get the warm fuzzies is not conducive
to bringing the one mind of Christ to control our fellowship. It takes conscious
use of the mind to come into unity with the mind of Christ. It also takes the
teaching of Bible texts other than sign gifts and healing in Pentecostalism, and
giving and soul winning in Fundamentalism. It also takes more that submitting
to the Fundamental Baptist Jack Boot preacher to be of one mind. Preachers often
do not seek one mind with the congregation..... they seek submission so that they
can dominate the mind of the members. That is totally wicked and at variance with
the text above.
1 Corinthians 2:15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all
things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who hath known the mind
of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. The
mind of Christ causes us to examine all things and say "Good" or "Evil."
We start with ourselves if we want the mind of Christ. Let
a man examine himself
1 Colossians 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so
let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. We
are so eager to examine each other, but examination starts with me first. Then,
we may go on to examine the mind of others to see if they line up with the mind
of Christ. This is how we "judge righteous judgment." THE
PROBLEM Romans
7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself
serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. This
is the problem with TM and the Dalai Lama. They are "mindful" in lust
for what they can get out of their mind control. You saw in the Romans text the
saint serves. This is also clearly the mind of Christ who was a servant in Philippians
2 above. The mind of the saint is conditioned to be "mindful" in order
to serve, first, Christ, and then others. THE
MIND OF CHRIST IN THE BELIEVER The
mind of Christ in you then controls your mouth:
Romans 15:6 That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify
God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among
you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. The
chain of command moves from Christ to us, not the reverse:
1 Corinthians 2:16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord,
that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. The
mindfulness of TM, the Dalai Lama and self-centered men, even in the local church,
is shaken easily by circumstances. Only by the aid of devils can a sinner ignore
his fears and conscience and pretend to be at peace with himself and the world.
This is done by emptying the mind, which Jesus never did.
2 Thessalonians 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by
word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Notice
next how that only a right way of thinking, which is in the model of Christ's
holiness, is approved of God:
1 Peter 1:13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be
sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ;
14 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves
according to the former lusts in your ignorance:
15 But as he which hath
called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Finally,
the TM crowd, and the Jackboot Fundamental Baptist preachers and their mindless
followers, may never rise above the flesh and self-love to the point of sanctified
mindfulness. Here is the ONLY way this is done:
1 Peter 4:1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us
in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered
in the flesh hath ceased from sin;
2 That he no longer should live the rest
of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. FOUR
WAYS TO LOSE CONTROL OF YOUR MIND 1.
Distractions The
average America spends 47% of his time not paying attention to what he is doing.
Thus, three questions..... What
are you doing right now? Where
is your mind? Are you happy with your thoughts right now? Are you focused on what
you are doing, or is your mind coming and going to other things?
2.
Loneliness 76%
of Americans admit to being lonely. Research shows that loneliness is twice as
potent in causing early death than obesity. So, dieting, but making no effort
to be with other Christians, is more deadly than the fat you shed. Do
you feel abandoned? If so, when is the last time you spoke to your Father in Heaven,
your best friend? When is the last time you went looking for a Christian friend
to spend time with? And, texting and email do not count.
3.
Telling yourself stories. Do
you spend a lot of time talking in your mind about things that bother you or threaten
you? If Christ really had control of your mind, how many of those stories would
end up sounding silly? Do you go to sleep chattering in you mind about fearful
things? Are
you in and out of depression? Do you need new stories to tell yourself? Have you
tried to let Jesus and the Word of God inspire your mind so that stories from
outside of you dominate? Do you read books that take your mind to new ideas and
places that feel better than where you are now?
4.
Do you know why you are here? Have
you learned from Christ what he wants you to be doing? Are you content with what
he wants for you? A sure way to lose control of your mind is to just drift along
with no objective. This can happen when people are very busy, but they don't have
any idea what they want to accomplish in life. Drifting
is fun if you do it in a car on ice, but in life drifting can affect our peace
of mind so badly that it also affects our physical well being. If you are older,
and if you have no purpose in life, you are twice as likely to die within five
years than your friend who is fully motivated in life. What does Jesus want you
to do for him and his people and your family? HOW
TO FIX A DULL MIND Philippians
2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Your
model for a healthy mind is Jesus Christ. To learn what that is like means you
must spend time reading the Word of God and in prayer with him every day. I cannot
fix your mind, nor can your pastor. Only Jesus can heal a dull mind. FIRST-
Do you ever read a book, or even the Bible, and after several minutes you suddenly
realize you have not learned one thing from reading. That moment you catch yourself
with a wandering mind is the key to curing your mind. The sooner you catch your
mind when wandering, the more you will learn to control your thoughts. SECOND-
Do you have friends with whom you connect mentally? These are the people God wants
to use to heal your mind. Just be sure they are born again and not living in rebellious
sin. THIRD-
Do you generally see life as threatening and dangerous? If so, you have let the
world and the devil haunt your mind and turn you into a cynic. Read about Jesus.
He knew he was going to the cross, but watch him with the woman at the well. He
clearly expected her to do the right thing, or he would not have bothered with
her. Mentally, what do you expect from life? Jeremiah
29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts
of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Finally,
what do you expect from life on down the road? FOURTH-
What DO you expect from God? Do you need to make a total adjustment mentally as
to what you expect from life? Here
is David, as man tormented by adversaries much of the time, talking about what
he expected from God: Psalms
23:1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh
me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's
sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest
my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. Who
does your mind tell you is following you..... goodness and mercy or the boogie
man? Who you see following you determines the total health of your mind and spirit.
I
have tried to help you with Bible based mindfulness. Think about the questions
I asked, and see what God is telling you. Get into the Word of God more, and spend
time in prayer with him. Do you have a prayer list of needs of other Christians
you can pray for? Praying for other Christians and family members will do wonders
to get your mind our of the mullygrubs and on to happier themes. I
told the people at my pharmacy that I was praying for them that God would deliver
them from Covid, They at once warmed to that and thanked me. I remind them that
I am still praying for them. Because of that, I learned that one of the ladies
there speaks very warmly of her faith in Christ. No
one wants to suffer, and most saints in this Laodicean age will do anything to
make sure they don't suffer. Thus, they make certain their thinking follows the
mediocre path, and they are never "mindful" of life and other saints
in the model of Christ. There is no shortcut to a sound mind. This is why there
are so many "Christian" shrinks. What
are YOU going to do with your mind? Is Christ your example, or are you mostly
coasting mentally all the time? BACK
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