The Battle for your Mind
I was listening to a Messianic Jewish Rabbi, who was going over the Wilderness Sanctuary, and he was directing our thoughts and minds to every miniscule component and how they all represented the Messiah Jesus Christ, thus pointing us to the sacrifice at Calvary, John 1:29 “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” But to officiate the sacrifice, firstly you need to have a Temple/Sanctuary with an appropriate altar. The important point is this from Exodus 25:8 “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.” Israel was to provide all the material, and then to make the sanctuary, and then God would move right on in and live there, tabernacle, abide. Individually we are to make a “Sanctuary” where God can live right within us.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Here Paul reminds us that we are to prepare ourselves to become a “Sanctuary,” and then to ever keep it pure and undefiled. Now scripture has a subtill concept, that Adam and Eve created in their own image, in the image of the parents created they children, just like Jesus the creator created and formed Adam and Eve, so these first parents created, and your parents created, and you created your own children and so the generations have continued. Paul draws our thoughts to a “Sanctuary” that is fit for the Holy Spirit and for God to inhabit and to tabernacle within us. Revelation 21:1-5 MSG “I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea. I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband. I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”
Matthew 26:61 “And said, This [fellow] said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.” 1 Corinthians 3:17 “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which [temple] ye are.” Copper = God and Holiness, Tin = Sin, but Brass is an alloy of copper and tin, God and Sin, Jesus became sin for us, just as the molecules of copper are joined to tin, so Jesus is able to comprehend our every situation, then he can carefully remove the tin of sin, and we become the pure gold of God, and God only. Moses anointed all the newly created pieces of furniture in the Sanctuary, making them holy to God, God came in, examined everything, and then moved right on in. Exodus 28:41 “And thou shalt put them upon Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him; and shalt anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office.” Revelation 1:6 “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him [be] glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” This gives us the concept that God gave his “Holy Spirit,” to everybody, all those that accept and repent, then the Holy Spirit comes in, the pure olive oil of God, anoints us, sanctifies us, thus setting us apart for a Holy Function, of being kings and priests unto God. [Revelation 1:6]
So rages “The Battle for your mind,” who and what controls your thoughts, passion and attention, what gets you excited, and therefore controls you, that passion therefore is what is seated in your “Temple?” Paul found people that had installed the wrong power in their temple bodies, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 “Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” There is a “Fake and Counterfeit,” and this power was enthroned, the true God was sidelined, and that person was heading to perdition. 2 Timothy 3:5 “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”
Matthew 2:43-45 “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth [it] empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last [state] of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” There is a “Battle for your mind,” and this person allowed the wrong power in, and it was unto his eternal destruction.
2 Peter 2:20-21 “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known [it], to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”
2 Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in [them]; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Mark 7:20-23 “And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”There is a “Battle for your Mind,” but with the support of the rescuing “Army of God,” with God as your immediate help, God in us the hope of Glory, then evil can rant and rave outside, but we have real peace within, and the invader is forever repelled and defeated. Who then has your mind, and who will win “The Battle for your mind?”
