The Effect of the Mind on the Things of the Spirit

By Pastor S.E.G Miya

The mind has for a long time been construed as being alienated from the things of God and the day to day spiritual life of a believer. A human is spirit, soul and body. The spirit of a human cannot communicate with his or her body directly nor can the body communicate with the spirit directly. The soul links the two, forming a communication medium between them. The mind resides in the soul. The mind while residing in the soul, ascended with the soul when the soul usurped the authority of the spirit at its death through its separation from God when humans fell into sin in the Garden of Eden. The original authority that God had ordained for the spirit, soul and body was such that the spirit enjoyed the highest authority over the soul and the body, with the body having the least. The hierarchy of authority got confused at the fall of man into sin. The soul assumed the highest authority, below it came the spirit and last was the body.

When the spirit of a person is regenerated at salvation through faith in Jesus, the authority of the spirit over the soul and body is restored and God begins to communicate with it. He, through the Holy Spirit deposits His things to the spirit of His born-again child for conveyance to the mind which in turn instructs the body to implement them. The mind (inside the soul), having ruled over the spirit and body for a long time, finds it too difficult to take orders from the now regenerated spirit which has the things of God deposited into it by the Holy Spirit. It wants to continue to assess, reason, interpret, understand and approve things for the spirit as it had been doing, even the things of God it must convey from the now regenerated spirit to the body for implementation. In this way the things of God do not get to the body (for implementation). It ensures that the things it conveys to the body for execution are those it approves of. The mind rejects anything that it cannot assess, interpret, understand, reason or approve of. The mind is neither mandated nor equipped to approve the things of the Spirit because they are not intellectually discerned but are spiritual and are of spiritual origin. They are from God and do not need its approval. That the mind does not want to acknowledge its incapability to process the things of God, aggravates the situation.

There is a multitude of the things of God that have not taken place in the church and in the world; in the saints and through the saints, yet Jesus is coming back very soon; sooner than you can imagine. It is the mind that is standing in the way. God has however provided for the transformation of the natural nature of the mind so that it works harmoniously with and in full submission to the Holy Spirit, provided that the born-again child of God realizes the need and has the desire to have his or her mind renewed. The challenge facing every saint is: How far has my mind been renewed? Jesus is coming sooner than you can imagine. He wants to find all that He has deposited to your spirit through the Holy Spirit done to perfect completion. You can still use the short time left. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pastor S.E.G Miya
• Release date: Apr 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370968091

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THE EFFECT OF THE MIND ON THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT

PASTOR S.E.G. MIYA

DISCIPLES JESUS CHRIST MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL

Copyright © 2018 Pastor S.E.G Miya

Published by Pastor S.E.G Miya Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Author using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Katherine Evans for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

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Acknowledgements

I wish to extend my humble gratitude to the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ, who, by His immeasurable and indescribable grace, appointed me, even before He formed me in my mother’s womb, to write this book. Furthermore, I wish to profoundly thank the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, who, at all times, sat at my side telling me what to write and how to write it in order for this book to fulfil His will and accomplish His purpose. Jesus is coming soon. He is near, at the door. As for me, I was merely the hands used by the Holy Spirit to write this book. I further thank the author, the implementer and the accomplisher of the plan and the programme of the heavens and the earth; the author, the implementer and the accomplisher of the plan and the programme of eternity. I thank God the Father, who gave me the opportunity in a slot in this phase of His grand plan of eternity to express in writing what He had in Him even before the beginning of the beginning.

My sincere gratitude is further extended to my wife, the anointed servant of God, Pastor L.N. Miya. She has been supportive and prayerful from the beginning to the completion of this book. She was obedient to the will of the Holy Spirit when He directed me to stop working at the University of Zululand on 15 December 2010 so that I could embark on the work of the Lord full time. This gave me the time to become an able instrument in the hands of the Lord in writing this book.

In conclusion, I greatly thank you, the reader, for accepting the invitation of the Holy Spirit to read this book. In it, He has included many things, especially for you. God bless you richly as you read it. May His purpose in you and through you be accomplished, to His glory.

Preface

For a very long time, the concept has existed that the mind is separate from the spiritual life and activities of a believer. The long upheld belief has been that one’s spirit is the only one responsible for the spiritual phenomena and outcomes that occur in spiritual circles or environments. The mind has been assigned to a niche outside of the church or spiritual circles. It has been confined to the intellectual realm only. The truth, however, is that the mind has a specific and inevitably important role to play in the spiritual life of a believer, either supporting or hindering it.

The mind is one of the three components of the soul. One will recall that a human is a triune being, comprising the spirit, soul and body. The spirit constitutes the real and true person, who, after living in this world, passes on to eternity – to the kingdom of God through one’s faith in Jesus while living on earth. After death, the spirit passes on to hell if one did not believe in Jesus while on earth. The soul has three components: the will, mind and emotions. The spirit’s components are communion, intuition and conscience. The body enables the spirit and the soul to communicate with the physical world.

Chapter One identifies the role of the mind in the spiritual development and general life of a child of God and in the church in general. The mind is noted as being the agent responsible for the current state of the church, starting with that of the individual saint. The church has not yet become what it is supposed to be. The Holy Spirit who started the church on the day of Pentecost – in the company of about one hundred and twenty people in an upper room in Jerusalem – is the same as that active in the church now. However, the church is presently not performing as it did at its inception. The mind is responsible for weakening or enhancing the spirit, by either standing in the way of the Holy Spirit or submitting to Him wholeheartedly and faithfully, as the first church did.

Chapter Two discusses the nature of the mind. This is important for the purpose of understanding why the mind does what it does. The nature of the natural mind is explored in order to identify which properties the devil takes advantage of to accomplish his evil purposes through a believer. These properties of the mind are responsible for the mind’s failure to submit to the Holy Spirit and, inevitably, the failure to do God’s will under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It is for this reason that the mind must be renewed (Rom. 12: 2) if it is to become a faithful agent in the fulfilment of God’s will. The renewal of the mind refers to the direct, conscious and purposeful rejection of the inherent properties of the natural mind and the resultant behaviour, as well as their replacement with a progressive infusion of and re-alignment with the character of the Holy Spirit, which is the character of Jesus.

The properties and character of the mind are explored in Chapter Three. Here, one can observe the mind in action and examine how its characteristics translate into actions. It is further shown how its actions hinder the things of the Holy Spirit. The right mind, the standard mind and the ideal mind, which is useful in the performance of the will of God, is explored in Chapter Four. Here, the standard mind, which is in tune with the things of the Holy Spirit and is not intrinsically selfish, instead faithfully submitting to the will of God, has been identified as being modelled on Jesus’ mind when He was on earth.

Chapter Five sheds light on the steps that a child of God, whether newly born or an anointed servant of God, needs to take in order to acquire the mind of Jesus. For a long time, the saints assumed the mind to be an unimportant factor in the success of achieving godly things. The mind is of vital importance – the successful implementation of what the spirit receives from the Holy Spirit depends upon the character of the mind. The mind is the pump that pumps the will of God, which the Holy Spirit deposits in it, to the world, with the view of extending the kingdom of God and ensuring that His will is done on earth, as in heaven.

Scripture references

Unless otherwise stated, all scripture references in this book are from The Revised Standard Version.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Mind – The Agent At Work

Chapter 2 The Nature Of The Mind

Chapter 3 The Mind In Action – The Works Of The Mind

Chapter 4 The Right Mind – The Mind Of Jesus

Chapter 5 How To Acquire The Mind Of Jesus

Chapter 1

The Mind –

The Agent At Work

In these days, the last days, God is in the last chapter of His preparation of His church, which Jesus Christ is coming to fetch very soon. There have been many chapters thus far. We know that the first chapter started in the upper room, on the day of Pentecost, in Jerusalem. Jesus is preparing a church that He will come fetch on the appointed day, the day of His return. To this end, we must look closely at the condition of the church because we are in a critical era. We need to be the church that Jesus wants to meet with when He comes again, the church He had in mind before the earth was made; even before the beginning of the beginning; before He created the heavens and the earth. God is not a God who is satisfied with things that are nearly accomplished. God is a perfect God. He does and expects perfect things that conform to His perfect standards. For this reason, when Jesus was about to leave this earth after He had risen from the dead, He did not say that He would appoint another person or high priest to build the church on the foundation He had laid; instead, He sent the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew God’s desires and how the church should be built or developed to perfectly conform to the one God purposed in Himself before He created the heavens and the earth. This truth is echoed in 1 Corinthians 2: 10, which clearly states that the Spirit searches the mind of God. Furthermore, Jesus knew that He wanted to develop a church that is like Him. Jesus was therefore aware that no other person, irrespective of his or her authority on the things of God, whether a high priest or church authority, would be able to prepare a church that would be fashioned in His image, but that the Holy Spirit, who searches the mind of God and who fully understands and knows what God wants (as He is the third person of the Godhead), would. Now is the time to perfect the church.

Let us consider the first day of the church, the day of Pentecost. We are going to examine things chronologically, moving from its inception to the present. We notice that things happened differently in the first church. The movement of God took place differently. Let us take the example of Annania and Safira (Acts 5: 1 – 11). These two people, who were married, lied to Simon Peter, a disciple of Jesus. Peter told them the truth: that they were not lying to a man, but to the Holy Spirit. They therefore died immediately. Annania died first and three hours later, his wife Safira died.

Surprisingly, there are still people who lie to the servants of God, in the same way Annania and Safira lied to Peter, the apostle. They even say more terrible things than Annania and Safira did, yet nothing happens to them. They often repeat the same bad behaviour, but what happened to Annania and Safira does not happen to them. They continue to lie and say terrible things to and about the anointed servants of God and nothing happens to them. What is the problem? What has happened?

Let us look at another example: that of a born-again child of God. Let us take the case of a saint who was born-again some 15 years ago. When you look at the substance of the work he or she has done for the Lord or at his or her progress in salvation or knowledge of the Lord, you realise that he or she has actually only done about three months’ work for the Lord. The same scenario is evident in the church today. The church is about 2000 years old now. The actual duration of spiritual accomplishments of the church may be estimated at fifty years. What is the problem? What is putting the brakes on the wheels of the gospel wagon or hindering the progress of God’s will and purpose for the church?

We know that there are prophecies in the Word of God and that things have been predestined to take place in these last days, but we have not yet seen them happening in the way that they should have. What is the problem? An appropriate example is illustrated by the following scripture.

Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father

(John 14: 12).

There are millions of born-again children of God on earth. The world would not be in the condition it is in today if we all applied the message in the above scripture to ourselves. The promise Jesus gave to the believers is true. Jesus is the truth. The power to do the said works is in us – not only in heaven with Jesus – in every saint that has believed in and given his or her life to Jesus. What is the problem? What prevents the things that should be taking place in and through the church from happening? It is not that good and great things of God are not taking place. They do, but they happen at a level below that at which the church should be operating, when you consider the immeasurably great power at its disposal. What is responsible for the church’s delay in the optimum performance of these promises?

Many years ago, a woman visited our church. First-time visitors would be welcomed by the church and they would get the chance to meet the congregants. When it was this woman’s turn to introduce herself to the congregation, she related a vision she had experienced a while ago about Jesus coming to fetch His church.

The woman said that Jesus showed her the trumpet being sounded by