"RESPONDING LIKE JESUS"

MIND

750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers and Writers 429: Mind

According to an October 29, 1994, story from the Reuters news agency, a Chinese woman named Zhang Meihua began to suffer mysterious symptoms when she turned twenty. She was losing the ability to nimbly move her legs and arms. Doctors could not find the cause, and the symptoms continued.

Two decades passed, and Zhang began to also suffer from chronic headaches. Again she sought help from the doctors. This time a CAT scan and an X ray found the source of the woman’s mysterious symptoms. A rusty pin was lodged in her head. The head of the pin was outside the skull, and the shaft penetrated into her brain. Doctors performed surgery and successfully extracted the pin.

The Xinhua news agency reported the doctors expressed amazement that the woman “could live for so long a time with a rusty pin stuck in her brain.” After noting the position of the pin in her skull, they speculated that the pin had entered her skull sometime soon after birth and before her skull had hardened. Zhang, now fully recovered, said she “had no memory of being pierced by a pin in the head.”

Like the rusty pin in that woman’s brain, unwholesome thoughts, bad attitudes, and painful memories can lodge in our minds and cause chronic problems. God tells us to renew our minds.

TRANSFORMED

Romans 12:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

The Greek verb translated transformed is metamorphousthe- from which the English word “metamorphosis” is derived - meaning a total change from the inside out. The change is initiated in the mind. An ongoing process “keep on being transformed”

Mind- the control center of our attitudes, thoughts, feelings and actions

As our minds keeps on being made new by the spiritual input of God’s Word, prayer and Christian fellowship our lifestyles keeps on being transformed

We learn to forgive ourselves and others who wrong us. Matthew 6:12 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

CHRIST GETS IT

Our Lord gets it- He cares deeply about our mind, body and soul - and invites us to come to Him and learn of him- gentleness, humility and rest for our soul. In Matthew 11:29 beautifully stated by Sis. Marilyn last week.

Finally, Jesus so gets it - Mental Health that He introduce His disciples them to their “Heavenly Father’’and also to us who came to faith through the Spirit of God and the disciples testimonies.

Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in Heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

We do have a Father in Heaven who get it. care about our feeling, our health-mind body and soul. A heavenly Father who cares, love his children and can, able and willing to do all we can asked or think. Therefore we can put our trust in Him through faith in Jesus Christ.

PEACE

Do you want peace? not the absent of trouble but a calmness in the spirit? then keep your mind on God for He promise in Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep the mind that is dependent on you in perfect peace, for it is trusting in you.”