S04 Ep44 The Battlefield of the Mind in the War Over Your Soul

Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and to point men to their God-assigned roles. Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr.

Welcome to Man Talk. It's good to see you again, Roy. Good to see you, Will Hardy.

Always good to see you. Praise the Lord. You know, we were talking last show in reference to Battle of the Mind and, you know, we want to continue talking about that because the mind, I think, is important and, you know, you're going to give some statistical things around how the brain works and things like this. So let's go to chapter number 12 and verses 1 through 3, and that's a common scripture verse of scripture.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to the world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind. So the mind, Roy, is in everything that we do, everything we think, everything we say. It's all mind-driven.

Why? Because that's where the battle is. And we, again, the battle is for the mind, but the war is for your soul.

Yes. For the spirit, right? For the soul. Because, see, the soul, that's where the mind, the will and the emotions are. Those are the things, that's part of the soul.

Those are things that the enemy wants to control. He wants to control your mind, your will and your emotions. So if he has those three things, then he can dictate to you those thoughts. And a thought is a silent word.

It's a silent word. That's good. And so when he starts putting those thoughts there, now all of a sudden the thoughts start turning into words and it's like, okay, is it pleasing to you? Is this something I should be putting in my inward spirit or should I be rejecting it? You know, Will, for me personally, there's times that I get in that thought process or stuff comes in and, you know, if I don't take it captive, like we were talking about in the previous show, if I don't take it captive for the Lord, it'll sit there and just manifest and just fester.

Absolutely. And then it continues to, and the enemy's just feeding on it. And it's just, as we talked about previously, you go down a path that you never should be in the middle of as a follower of Christ.

But it's easy to get there. And to your point, the enemy's fighting for our soul, which is our hard wire, right? That's where it all started in our soul when we were first born.

That's who we identify as. And that's as the spirit man stays high, the soul man stays low, right? So the spirit man is what God has got in us and filling us. But if we don't keep the spirit fed, spirit inside of us fed properly, then the soul starts to rise up, right? And that's where the enemy's battling because he knows if he gets in that soul side of us, then he can win if we're not careful. Absolutely.

At least win the battle, but not the war. And see, and I mean, that goes back to Genesis where we were talking about God, you know, when he formed man from the dust of the ground, that's the body. He breathed into man's nostrils.

That's the spirit. Man became a living soul. So there's the triunity of man right there, you know, right there in the verse.

And so when when you were looking at the talking about the Adrian Rogers, you know, the broadcast there. You had mentioned Genesis Chapter six, six and verse five. And I think you said take it through seven to finish our conversation with it. Exactly. And that has to do when when the Lord God saw he looked down and he saw the wickedness of man was greatly increasing on the earth and that every intent. Now, notice this intent of the thoughts of the heart.

Now, let's stop right there. Intent of the thoughts of the heart. So man had an intention based on the thoughts that he was given from the heart. Now, the heart, when you talk about the heart, the heart is that subconscious area of the mind. So when we say heart, we're talking about the heart being able to think.

Why? Because as a man thinks in his heart, so that's right. So is he or that's who he is. So that's who he becomes.

He becomes who he is. So we have to consider all of what we say, see and hear. Because those are the three things that get us in trouble when we see it and we hear it, when we say it, as it comes out of us. That's the thing that's going to condemn us.

Yes. And in verse six, it said the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth and his heart was deeply troubled. I mean, think about the level of disappointment and the level of wickedness across the earth in order for God to be at that point. And every, every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was evil.

Every inclination. Wow. That's a lot of deterioration.

It is. And it's not it's not like when God created man, that was a bad thing because everything God made was good. You know, so but what troubled God was the fact that man would not put their faith and trust in him to do those things that he had created man to do. That man, because he gave man a will and he didn't want man to be a robot and he gave him that freedom to choose. God said this, this will I'm going to give you so that you will have the ability to do what is right or what is wrong.

Right. God is not going to force his self on us to do those things that are right. And he certainly is not going to force us himself on us to do what is wrong because he's a God that is a good God.

And there is no evil or nothing bad that can come from his essence. So if you're listening to the program and we're talking about this battle of the mind, we're talking about the wickedness that man has demonstrated throughout time. Right.

After the fall from from the garden with the relationship, be encouraged to know that everybody struggles with with these these issues. Right, Will. So that what we've got to know is that God can pull us through this if we're continuing to feed the spirit side of our life versus the soul side. So this goes back to the disciplines, right? Reading, prayer, learning what the word says and then applying it in your life. And when you have these thoughts pulling scripture back in to go against any of these these freewill thoughts that pop into your mind.

Let's see. And I think that's why God gave us a will, too, because in that in that will is your ability to do what you want to do or what God wants you to do. So and we talked about this again during the breakfast, is that a will that God gave you, it could be it's a good thing because God gave it.

Number one. Now, the bad thing about it is that you can go against God's will and do your own will. And this is why Jesus said that everything that he did, he did because he has seen the father do it. Everything that he said, it was because those are the things his father wanted him. It's OK, Will.

Well, his father wanted him to hear. Amen, Will. Amen. Well, you know, it's when we're going through these things, sometimes Holy Spirit just drops in on us.

And Brother Will, you could tell he's moved by that very thought, the things his father wanted him to hear. And that should be our heart's desire. We should really desire to hear what it is that God wants us to hear. And I think that sometimes we don't get quiet enough.

We're too busy and everything we're doing, we've got too many distractions with telephones, social media, all the distractions at work. And this is just a great opportunity for us to take a moment to say, you know, it's good to get quiet before God and just hear the things he wants you to hear. But the only way to do that is to get quiet and to really be in the word and to pray and seek his face in that moment. And I know that we've all had trials in our life and we've all had opportunities that have come at us in terms of really difficult times.

But during those times, we knew who to turn to. And I think what's important about this is even in the non-difficult times when things are going well, we should pursue him even more during that time than we are when things are difficult. And it's just real important that we be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit's doing in our life. And Will's being very sensitive and knowing exactly when God's speaking to him.

And we just thank Will for his heart. And, you know, Roy, I tell you, when I think about all of the times that as a church, we have disappointed the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, that that moves me in in everything he went through, he went through for us and then for us to withdraw ourselves from him or to do anything that's going to bring shame to his name. You know, it that that moves me because if it doesn't shake you up internally to really fully understand the impact of what Jesus Christ went through, then we need to do a self-examination of ourselves that should move you beyond any other thing in this natural life.

Because the things that we go through in this natural life are pale. They're pale, Roy, in comparison to what Jesus Christ did. And I think when we look at it with that heart of understanding and believing and empathy, then we will have a different view of how we walk, what we hear, what we see, what we say. All of those things that we normally go through today and we allow to enter in, they'll be stopped by the word of God because the Spirit will send to the mind and say, this is unholy, it's ungodly. The direction you're going is not pleasing to God. You are actually taking what God has said and it's almost like we just step on it when we are disobedient.

And that is displeasing to the Lord God. You know, as you were talking about that sensitivity piece and that we should be doing a self-examination if we don't feel that. I think in watching people, Will, it sure seems these days that we've lost that ability. As a whole, I think we've become so numb. Even as followers of Christ at times, I think we've become so numb with all that's going on in the world that we've accepted that things are just the way they are and we've lost some of that sensitivity. And I think it's a great prayer for each of us that God would restore the sensitivity and the love that He had for us, that He would restore it in us for others and position it so that we recognize it at a whole different level.

When you have those moments when the Holy Spirit moves on your heart and on your mind, you know without a doubt, you know because you know because you know that He's just sat down right on top of us and just said, I love you, Will. I love you, Roy. I'm carrying you through it all.

And I have nothing but the best plan for you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Roy, we'll take just a few minutes to remind our listening audience about the bowl meeting that comes up every second Saturday. And that's at the other campus. The crossing on Pecan Lane? Yes.

In Kernersville. And we check out the also the events from the website tawcmm.com for all of the events that's coming up and that you can be a part of this ministry. It's a dynamic ministry. It's something that God gave Roy in a vision and we just thank God for him listening to the call. And so we just want to extend out to you if you're under the sound of our voice today. And we thank each and every one of you for listening to the broadcast. But Roy, getting back to what we were saying in reference to the mind, I think it's an area that we need to place a lot of emphasis on.

I agree. Because we are not really getting the full impact on what we are allowing to come in our mind. And I'm just reminded, you know, we just went through a time of election. And I think about all of the comments that I heard from individuals and they were warring at each other. People living in the same neighborhood, going to the same church, visiting the same supermarket on a daily basis. And how just topics divide people.

Yes, oh boy. How we're taking that and not allowing the Spirit of God to filter some of the things that we're hearing. And sometimes when you hear someone say something and they're in a fit of rage, sometimes we just need to walk away.

Yeah, don't even respond. And that's the bigger and better man, Roy. The person who simply walks away and says, look, I'm not going to allow these things to enter into my inward spirit. I'm going to be a bigger and better man because I'm rising above these things. And I am not going to allow myself to get down into the valley and tread around in the weeds. Amen. Well, that is the thing that we all should be doing. But unfortunately, we get looped into it and get sucked into the conversation. And I go back to what you and I have talked about for years, Will, what you've always been great about encouraging people is look at these things through the biblical lens. And if you just don't need to be in the middle of it, if people want to argue about secular issues, you just need to withdraw and pull out and just say, hey, brother, this is a topic we don't need to discuss. I'll pray for you.

I ask that you pray for me and we'll love you. And let's move on. Amen. Walk away from it.

Because the more we the more we dwell, the more we become entangled in the things of this world. And again, that's that's just not a pretty thing in the end. I agree, Will. Well, to the end of another show, folks, we just thank you so much for joining us. We hope that you are having just an absolutely wonderful week and continue to pray for our country and pray for the people that have just gone through hurricanes again. And we just thank you so much for being a part of it.

We love you, folks. As we conclude today's show, TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian men's ministry, are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home, communities, churches and work environment. Check us out at our Web site for upcoming events and regular scheduled meetings. Don't forget to send us an email for topics that you would like us to visit in the future. Thank you for joining us today on Man Talk. Visit us at TAWCMM.com