Out of Your Mind – Having the Mind of Christ – Part 2

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Out Of Your Mind – Having the Mind of Christ 
Dealing with Unbelief (PART 2) – by Ose Burnett

Scripture focus: Psalm 95
1 O COME, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights and strength of the hills are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and supplication].
7 For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice, [Heb. 3:7-11.]
Harden not your hearts as at Meribah and as at Massah in the day of temptation in the wilderness, [Exod. 17:1-7; Num. 20:1-13; Deut. 6:16.]
9 When your fathers tried My patience and tested Me, proved Me, and saw My work [of judgment].
10 Forty years long was I grieved and disgusted with that generation, and I said, It is a people that do err in their hearts, and they do not approve, acknowledge, or regard My ways.
11 Wherefore I swore in My wrath that they would not enter My rest [the land of promise]. [Heb. 4:3-11.]

7Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts, as [happened] in the rebellion [of Israel] and their provocation and embitterment [of Me] in the day of testing in the wilderness,
9Where your fathers tried [My patience] and tested [My forbearance] and found I stood their test, and they saw My works for forty years.
10 And so I was provoked (displeased and sorely grieved) with that generation, and said, They always err and are led astray in their hearts, and they have not perceived or recognized My ways and become progressively better and more experimentally and intimately acquainted with them.
11 Accordingly, I swore in My wrath and indignation, They shall not enter into My rest. [Ps. 95:7-11.]
12 [Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God.
13 But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him].
14 For we have become fellows with Christ (the Messiah) and share in all He has for us, if only we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation [in virtue of which we are believers] firm and unshaken to the end.
15 Then while it is [still] called Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion [in the desert, when the people provoked and irritated and embittered God against them]. [Ps. 95:7, 8.]
16 For who were they who heard and yet were rebellious and provoked [Him]? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was He irritated and provoked and grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dismembered bodies were strewn and left in the desert?
18 And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [who had not listened to His word and who refused to be compliant or be persuaded]?
19So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out]. [Num. 14:1-35.]
A. BLINDED MINDS

2 Cor. 4:3-4: But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Our minds are blinded because of unbelief. It not only happens to the unsaved; many times, it happens to those who are saved. Their unbelief in certain areas of their heart causes blindness.

Enemies of faith are:

  • Doubt
  • Unbelief
  • Disbelief
  • Questioning
  • Reasoning
  • Wavering
  • Indecision
  • Confusion
  • Fear
  • A hardened heart

Cognate: 4645 sklērýnō – properly, to harden; become inflexible (literally “dried out”); (figuratively) obstinately stubborn, resisting what God says is right. See 4642 (sklēros).

  • Deaf and Dumb spirits; mind-binding spirits are spirits that afflict those who struggle with unbelief:
  • Consistent Struggle with Doubt and Unbelief – John 8:43, 47

“Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word…He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

Those that deal with mental issues such as schizophrenia, deal with a divided mind.
Split- mind

Schizo- “divided”
Phrenia – “mind”

Our minds are divided between two opinions. When we do not fully trust, we are unstable in our ways.

“Being a double-minded man, unstable and restless in all his ways [in everything he thinks feels or desires]. [For being as he is] a man of two minds [hesitating, dubious, irresolute] he is unstable] and unreliable  and uncertain about everything [he thinks, feels, desires].” James 1:7-8

  • We must have the mind of Christ to fight these mindsets that are unbelieving and ungodly.
  • The only way to renew the mind and be delivered from strongholds is through the knowledge And belief in the Word of God, and God Himself.
  • There are weapons we can use to combat unbelief. 

Psalm 95

  1. Joyful praise -James first deals with STAYING IN JOY when you are going through trials. It’s interesting that Psalm 95 starts off with singing JOYFULLY to the Lord, and shouting JOYFULLY to the Rock of our salvation (vs. 1).
  2. Declaring who God is. We are to give thanks to the Lord in songs and declare WHO He IS (vs. 2-5)
  3. It is imperative to know HIS ways. [12] Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’[13] Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.Consider too that this nation is your people.” (Ex 33:12–13)(Moses, Exodus 33:12-13

1. The Blood of Jesus cleanses the conscience (Hebrews 9:13-14)

2. Jesus’s sacrifice not only dealt with the sin, but its consequences.

3. The Law is now written in our hearts (1 Peter 2:24, Romans 10:9-10)

4. Faith comes by hearing and believing God’s report (vs 17)

What causes unbelief? The hardness of your heart (Jeremiah 6:10, Hebrews 3:12-13)

  1. Unbelief – Double Mindedness – hardness of heart
  2. Your mind stuck in this will never receive the fullness of God.

Romans 12:1-3 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

1 I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.
2 Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]. Romans 12:1-2 AMPC

21Assuming that you have really heard Him and been taught by Him, as [all] Truth is in Jesus [embodied and personified in Him],
22 Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion;
23And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude],
24 And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:21-24

2 Corinthians 10:5
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

You must renew your mind with the Word of God AND believe what He says.

Philippians 4:8-9
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Romans 8:6
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

Titus 1:15
To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

2 Corinthians 4:4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 

Study References:
Study of the Word Faith: http://internetbiblecollege.net/lessons/hebrew%20words%20for%20faith.htm#_ftn4

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