Cultivating a Spirit-Filled Mind

It produces a life of depression, a life of anxiety, a life of frustration, a life of irritation. Dr. Tony Evans counts up the cost of living by the flesh and explains how it can be one bill we don't have to pay. If we live according to the Spirit, you will live. You will get the abundant life Jesus promised. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans.

Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. The more we really get to know someone, the more it seems like we're getting into their head. Well, today Dr. Evans explains why that's exactly the way it works with God's Spirit in our heads.

Let's join him. There is a dreaded disease out there that I don't even like to think about because of its implications. It's Alzheimer's. Some of you have loved ones who have contracted this mind-deteriorating illness. And what you see is people painfully wasting away when the mind goes. When the mind goes, their capacity to live life, function in life, and maximize life dissipates with it. And it is a hurtful thing for which at this time there is no real definitive cure.

There is another disease out there. We might call it spiritual Alzheimer's. It is where the mind of Christians goes, and they find themselves incapable of living life as God designed it. Now, I'm talking about people who are really saved, really on their way to heaven but can't seem to make earth work, who claim the unsearchable riches of Christ but whose lives are marked by perpetual defeat rather than the thrill of victory. The promises of God they believe are real.

They just don't seem to work for them. I mean, Jesus made a staggering promise. It was, I have come to give you life and to give it to you more abundantly. He said, I've come to give you a different kind of life that would be lived at a different kind of level, and this different kind of life that's to be lived at this different kind of level is supposed to be normal, not exceptional. That is, it's not supposed to be for a select few of super saints. It's supposed to be available to every believer regardless of race or class or background. It is the abundant life, a life full of meaning and purpose and joy and victory.

What's wrong? Why do we regularly fail at enjoying the Christian life that we wind up enduring? Well, that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about a sickness that can be reversed.

Physical Alzheimer's, we don't have the key to that yet. Spiritual Alzheimer's is very reversible. Romans 8 was written by the Apostle Paul. I mean, he is the creme de la creme of Christianity. He is the definition of a Christian man.

He is the apex of spirituality, but it wasn't always that way. He was a man like you and me battling with getting victory. That's what chapter seven is about. Chapter seven, he talks about his struggle to break out of defeat and end the victory. Now, the reason that makes me feel good is that Apostle Paul struggled. And I know that a spiritual person can struggle until they discover the key to spiritual victory. Until he discovered this key that I'm getting ready to share with you to the victorious, abundant, meaningful, productive, exciting, exuberant Christian life, he was a man going in and out, back and forth, up and down, just like we do.

Let me show you what I mean. In chapter seven, he says, verse 15, for what I am doing, I do not understand. He says, I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. He said, the stuff I know I shouldn't be doing, the stuff I really don't want to do, but the stuff I wind up doing, he says, something is wrong with me.

And I don't understand this. And he's writing as a believer. He's writing as a follower of Christ, who's living in defeat. He says, verse 16, I do the very thing I don't want to do.

I'm agreeing with the law that the law is good. It's just that I'm not good. In fact, he gets downright depressed in verse 18. He says, I know that nothing good dwells in me. He says, the willing is present with me. I want to do right.

You ever been there? I want to do right, but the doing of it is not there. The good I want to do, verse 19, I don't do, but I practiced the very evil I don't want to do. Now, if you practice the evil that you want to do, well, now that may raise the question of whether you're a Christian, but if you practice the evil you don't want to do. He says, that's because there is a different principle, verse 21, operating within me.

I concur deep down where I really live that the law of God, the expectations of God, the guidelines of God, the rules of God, well, they're really good. But I got, verse 23, this different thing working in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of my members. And so he just screams out, like many of us, in utter frustration in verse 24, he says, all action, man that I am, who is going to deliver me from this yo-yo existence? Who's going to deliver me from wanting to do right on Sunday and going out and doing wrong on Monday? Who's going to deliver me from really wanting to live for God, love God, please God, make God happy and then going right out and falling on my face?

Who's going to deliver me from making New Year's resolutions I can't keep? Who's going to deliver me from wanting to do the good and not doing it? Ever been there? The Christian who's caught in drugs has been there. The Christian who's caught on pornography over the internet has been there. Or any other form of immorality, the Christian is caught in this battle with what is going to break me out of this thing. I go to church, but I'm still trapped. I listen to Christian radio and I'm still trapped. I read Christian books and I'm still trapped.

Oh wretched man that I am, who's going to get me out of this? Which leads to verse 25. Thanks be to God. He discovered something. He found something.

That's what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you what he found. He said, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on the one hand I myself with my mind, with my mind, don't forget that, with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other hand with my flesh I'm serving the law of sin. He says it depends on what you're using that determines whether you have victory. He says with my mind I'm enjoying this new life.

With my flesh I'm falling flat on my face. Now that verse 25 introduces you and me to one of the most powerful sections of scripture in the Bible. This is a life transforming concept. We're going to try to make it as simple as possible for you and me, but also to help others understand how you live the Christian life, to get the life the Christian is supposed to have. Therefore of chapter 8 verse 1 is tied to the thank you of chapter 7 verse 25. He says, therefore there is right now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's some good news.

Why? For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. He says there are two laws operating and you got to understand them in order to make this thing work.

So follow me closely. He says there is a law of sin and death. Then there is a law of the Spirit. Which law you are operating by determines how you wind up.

Let's look at it this way. The law of sin and death, let's call it like the law of gravity. What does gravity do? Pull you down. No matter what you do, gravity is going to pull you down. You jump up, gravity says, come back here. And it's going to pull you down. And it's going to pull you down every time.

Isn't that what we do with our Christian life? We get all excited on Sunday and jump. I'm going to live for God before Monday comes, gravity then pulls you down.

You make New Year's resolutions, you jump even higher. Gravity says, uh-uh, come back here, pulls you down. That's the law of sin and death.

It always pulls you down no matter how high you jump. But he says there's another law. And he says this law overrides that law. He calls it the law of the Spirit.

And he says it sets you free from the law of sin and death. In other words, it overrides gravity. That is spiritual gravity, the gravitational pull of sin. It overrides it.

We've all been there. Gravity says what comes up must come down. However, when you get in an airplane, there's another law.

The law says what goes up must come down. But when you get in an airplane, the law of aerodynamics kicks in. It says if you move at a certain speed with a certain thrust, you will be able to climb out of gravity's pull and you will dictate to gravity, gravity will no longer dictate to you. When you're flying in an airplane, gravity hasn't stopped being gravitational.

It's just stopped being in control. Because the law of aerodynamics sets you free from the law of the pull of gravity. He says when you learn to operate, when I learn to operate, by the law of the Spirit, the reality, it doesn't disappear, but the reality of the law of sin and death which keeps pulling you down and me down to falling on our face, while it will still be operational, it will no longer be in control. So the question on the floor is give me that law because that law is the answer to my problems.

That law tells me how I can no longer be defeated as a way of life, but how I can live in perpetual victory. He says, verse 4, so that the requirements of the law, God's standards, might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. The problem of our defeat is that we're walking by the flesh, not by the Spirit. First of all, it involves a direction because when you're walking, you're going somewhere, okay? What's the direction of walking in the Spirit? It means you're walking toward Christ-likeness. The goal of walking in the Spirit is I want to think and act like Christ. If that's not your goal, you're not walking in the Spirit. That must be the precise goal or direction that you're headed. Not only does it involve a direction, it involves a dependency.

Why? Because when I walk, I put one foot in front of another foot, leaning all my weight on that leg for that step. So I have to rest on this leg to get me where I want to go. So walking in the Spirit not only involves a direction of Christ-likeness, it involves leaning on another power, not your own. It not only involves a direction and a dependency, but it involves a dedication. If you take one step, that's not called walking.

That's a step. Walking is continuous. It becomes a way of life. That's why it calls it walking in the Spirit.

In other words, it becomes a way of life. See, here's what we do. What we do is we come to church and get fired up about walking in the Spirit. We leave church and then we keep walking in the flesh. You say, how do I do this again?

Real simple. You share God's point of view on a subject. That's the mind of the Spirit. You decide that you want to respond to that view as Christ would respond to that view.

Well, now you're walking in the right direction. Then you say, Holy Spirit, my body is dead, so my body's not going to want to do this. My body has been used to not doing this for years. I've been looking at this pornography for ten years. My body, my eyes are not going to just shut down off of this pornography.

I've been struggling with homosexuality for twenty-five years. My body's not going to just shut down and stop it. Why? Because my body is dead.

It's under control of something else. But I was told I got an engine inside. And since I want to share Christ's view on the subject, I want to respond like Christ would respond.

I'm looking to you to give me, the engine, the power to take this vehicle, this old dilapidated car up this hill that I have never been able to climb on my own. That's a call for a resurrection. And He says it's the same Spirit that got Jesus up on Easter. Same Spirit.

And He says He can also raise up your mortal bodies. That is, not let you live based on your flesh and humanity. And isn't that how so many of us are living for so long? Sometimes it's with bad attitudes. We live angry. We live mad. We live evil. And it's become a way of life. And then we justify, I'm supposed, I've got a reason to be angry.

And we justify it. Or habits or addictions. He says, you need more than a counseling session. You need a resurrection. You must share the divine viewpoint. You must decide you want to respond as though Christ would respond to that viewpoint. And then you call on the Holy Spirit to turn the engine over.

And now the engine revs up and you have power to drive what you used to try to push. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with a look at how we can have what he calls our own private Easter. But first, I wanted to let you know that today's message is the start of a series Tony's bringing your way called Life in the Spirit. It's an eight-lesson collection focusing on what happens when you not only have God near you, but in you. Few Christians really understand how to tap into the power, peace, and presence of God through the Spirit.

But we'd like to change that for you today. Visit us right away at tonyevans.org. Make a donation toward this ministry and we'll say thanks by sending you the complete Life in the Spirit series on both CD and digital download. And as a special bonus, we'll include a copy of Tony's powerful book called The Fire That Ignites. In it, he explains how God's Holy Spirit enabled the disciples to become bold martyrs who changed the world and how that same power today can transform you from a spiritual sleepwalker into a wide-awake witness able to make a real difference. Don't put it off because this special double offer will only be available for a limited time. Visit us at tonyevans.org or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Tony, we'll come back with more of today's study right after this. With the new Lois Evans Legacy Bible Study, Seasons of a Woman's Life, Crystal Hurst and Priscilla Shire take their mother's classic book and expand it into a life-changing Bible study and DVD series to help you through the varying seasons of every woman's life, including times of growth. Knowing that often our growth is going to require us to be uncomfortable. It's going to require us to do things we haven't done before, that we're going to be stretched beyond our own capacity and to be open to that, because that's a part of how God takes us from one season to another.

Ask for your copy when you give to the Urban Alternative today. You can find out more about the Seasons of a Woman's Life Bible Study package at tonyevans.org. And now back to Dr. Evans. So then, brethren, see, you're talking to Christians. We are under obligation not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, for if we live according to the flesh, you must die. But if you live by the Spirit, you are putting to death the deeds of the flesh and you will live. What does he mean by die?

He's not talking about your non-functioning in a human body. He's talking about spiritual death. What does spiritual death mean? It means separation from God. What does separation from God produce? It produces a life of depression, a life of anxiety, a life of frustration, a life of irritation. It produces a life of addiction.

It produces all the killing elements of life. In other words, God is so far away that you won't see any of His activity working in your life. You're dead spiritually. So we got dead husbands and we got dead wives. We got dead children. We got dead believers. We got dead attitudes. We got dead this. We got dead that. How come we got all these people going to heaven who are totally dead on earth?

Why? Because we live according to the flesh. We go to church according to the Spirit, but then we live according to the flesh.

And he says when you live according to the flesh, you not might die, you must die because you're at odds with God, you're enemies with God, and God wants to stay as far from you as He can get to protect His holiness. If we live according to the Spirit, you will live. You will get the abundant life Jesus promised. Now let me explain the abundant life. The abundant life does not mean a life without problems.

That's heaven. The abundant life means a life where the problems don't control you, where you don't live under the circumstances. You walk on water. You don't drown in water. Jesus says, in this world you will have tribulation. But then He said, be of good cheer. Grin anyway, because guess what? I've overcome it. I've overcome the discouragement of your singlehood. I've overcome the discouragement of your bad marriage. I've overcome the discouragement of your financial situation. I've overcome the discouragement of your attitudes and actions. I have overcome that.

The problem is when you leave church, you go back to that old flesh. You go back to the human view. You want to know what everybody else thinks. You want to know what the TV thinks. You want to know what the newspaper thinks. You want to know what the magazine thinks. You want to know what 2020 thinks.

You want to know what everybody thinks but me. Well then let them raise you from the dead. To have the mind of Christ is to share the viewpoint of God with a goal of responding like Christ, and then the Holy Spirit is turned on so that now you can call upon Him to drive this car out of this ditch. Life.

You get life. Isn't that what He says in verse 6? For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mindset on the Spirit is life and peace. Ooh, anybody looking for some peace?

Come on, man. You can go a long way if you got some peace in your life. You know what? The reason why we don't have peace is because we're looking for it out there. Jesus was asleep in a storm.

Peace is calm regardless of stormy weather. Life. Let's use life as an acrostic. What do you get when Jesus gives you life because you set your mind on the Spirit, which means you walk in the Spirit? You get L-I-F-E. First thing you get, L, love. Love. What manner of love is this that the Father has bestowed upon us?

That we should be called the sons of God. You feel loved. A lot of us are struggling with feeling loved. We weren't loved by a mama.

We weren't loved by a daddy. We don't have friends who love us. We don't have relationships who love us, and we feel all alone. You shouldn't feel that alone if you are knowing you're loved by God. But because you don't feel that love, because that love seems so far away, you don't seem to have life. I, intimacy.

You get intimacy with life. You remember those 3D movies? You go to the movie and they give you those glasses. And when they give you those glasses, the thing came off the screen and looked like it was sitting right in front of your face. And then you just reach out and grab it, but you really couldn't grab anything because it really wasn't there.

It was just taking the image off the screen and giving it another dimension so it looked like it was sitting right in front of your face. And you just reach out and grab it, not because it was there, but it was there because it was seen so close. For many of us, God is on the screen out there. He way out there in the heavens. We know He created the sun, the stars, the moon, the universe.

He way out there. Yeah, I believe in God. I love God. But when it comes to a 3D experience, He don't seem close enough to touch us. He seems way out there somewhere, and we got to piggyback off of somebody else's testimony.

We got to get excited about somebody else being close to God because we don't know what it feels like because our mind has not been set on the Spirit so that He's not hostile toward us, so that He feels free to snuggle up and be intimate. F, freedom. You know what He said in verse one and two? He said the law of the Spirit sets you free. Freedom. What does freedom mean? Letting you out of your jail, letting you out of the prison that's been holding you hostage all these years, the prison of discouragement, the prison of anxiety, the prison of addictions, the prison, whatever is holding you hostage. But you know what?

I've discovered something. You can get so used to being in jail, you think that's the only home you have. Actor James Dutton, you know, was in prison. You know, he became a big movie star, but actor James Dutton was in prison, and they asked, how did you survive in prison to become a big star like this? When you got let out of prison, you became, you went from a prisoner to a major motion picture star.

How did you do that? He said, it's real simple. I never let that cell become home. He said other people were decorating their walls.

I wouldn't decorate my wall. This ain't home. So I was living there, but I knew that I would never get comfortable here because this ain't home. Some of us have been in prison so long, it's home.

And we are POWs. We're prisoners of war, and we say, well, I've always lived in prison. I've been in prison. My mama was in prison.

My grandmama was in prison. So I guess prison is the place I'm supposed to be. He who the son sets free is free indeed.

He wants to release you from prison, but by means of the Spirit, not by means of the flesh so that no flesh will glory. E, empowerment. You will no longer be limited to the earth's ability. You will no longer be limited to what your physical frame is limited to.

You will no longer be earthbound. The Bible says not simply that you are an overcomer. The Bible says you are more than an overcomer. You're not supposed to be just making it. You're not supposed to be just getting by. You're not supposed to be, I'm I. You're not supposed to be just that. He says you are more than conquerors to him who loved you and gave himself. You're supposed to be riding high.

Why? Because the Holy Spirit empowers what he connects with. Second Corinthians 4, 10 simply says that the life of Christ might be manifested in your mortal bodies. How do you do it? It's real simple.

Let me say it again. You share the viewpoint of God on a subject. When you face a subject, you say, what is God's viewpoint? Now, you won't be only opening your Bibles on Sunday. Now you'll have a reading open on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or maybe twice on Thursday, because I want to see the supernatural resurrection on this matter, so I'm going to do everything I can to discover God's viewpoint about it. Then I'm going to make the conscious decision to respond like Christ would respond to that viewpoint. Then I'm going to call on the Holy Spirit to give me the engine power and to turn this motor over to take me there.

Guess what you just did? You shared the viewpoint of God. That's the Father. You want to be like Christ.

That's the Son. You call on the Spirit. That's the Holy Ghost. So now you got the Trinity wrapping up that thing.

Trinity has now joined forces to get you up out the grave. You know when you go to the carnival or something, they sell balloons, right? Balloons are filled with air or helium. But when you fill them with helium, they're all up here. They're all up here in the air.

You know, if you let them babies go, they fly right out of the roof or right outside and they open and they just keep going. When you go to purchase them, they're tied down. They've got the ability to go high, but they keep being tied down.

It's not that they can't go high. It's that they've been tied down. Some of you are feeling this. Some of you are feeling God's Holy Spirit blowing your life up with helium. You feel like, yeah, yeah, I'm ready to go. I'm going to make it. God is going to deliver me.

But you're going to walk out this building being tied to the flesh. And so it wants to take off, but it can't go nowhere because you're going to leave God's viewpoint, go to man's viewpoint, and you're going to see that balloon just staying around here, not going anywhere. What God wants is to have a group of resurrected people who have been supernaturally given the Spirit of God, who share the viewpoint of God, because they want to respond like Christ.

And then you'll see what a resurrection feels like when you get your own private Easter. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about the kind of life we can experience when we cultivate a Spirit-filled mind. And the place to begin that is to start with a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

If you're not sure what that means, Dr. Evans would like to help you cut through the confusion by explaining it in clear, simple terms. Just visit tonyevans.org and follow the link that says Jesus. You'll find everything you need to know, including some free resources that can help you in your Spirit-filled journey. Again, that's tonyevans.org. And just a reminder, the message you heard today is part of Tony's current series, Life in the Spirit.

As I mentioned earlier, it's available right now along with his corresponding book about God's Holy Spirit, The Fire That Ignites. We'll send them both to you as our thank you gift when you make a donation toward keeping this broadcast coming your way each day. Be sure to visit us at tonyevans.org to make the arrangements before time runs out. Or call us at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our friendly team members assist with your request.

Again, 1-800-800-3222. God wants to energize us to live life by His power. And next time, Dr. Evans will explain how we can get closer to God's Spirit, which naturally moves us farther from any chaos we've been living in. I hope you'll join us. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.