Having a 'Good Mind' for year 2025 and beyond

 

It is the eve of the New Year 2025.

Two things are happening in most people’s minds. Reflection on how 2024 panned out and what 2025 would look like.

Either way, if you are reading this, you know you have to be thankful to God for this year. Why?, You are alive + you are healthy enough to read and understand these words.

Economically, some will argue that the outlook of the country in 2025 is looking brighter. Recently, the news of another refinery located in Warri beginning operations filled the airwaves. 125,000 barrels per day I hear. Perhaps, this may reduce the price of fuel, and reduce the cost of food and other life necessities. Or Not?! Am no expert.

If we cannot fully trust economics to cheer us up in 2025, thank God we have the word of God to give us a positive outlook for 2025.

We can trust that in 2025, our Heavenly Father is saying I will never leave you nor forsake you. He is also saying the thoughts He has for you are of good and not of evil, to take you to an expected end. Amen.

Many of us will spend the closing hours of 2024 in our churches, worshipping God and seeking His face for year 2025. This is great! If you don’t plan to do so, I encourage you to do so. God may choose to manifest through the ministers in your parish today and prophecies of blessings for 2025 will be pronounced. You don’t want to miss that now do you?

The job for me in today’s writing is to share how God is preparing me for 2025 and how to ensure that nothing He has planned for me in 2025 becomes null and void. Alright then, shall we:

Luk 11:33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. 

Luk 11:34  The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. 

Luk 11:35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. 

Luk 11:36 If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. 

We have discussed much in previous articles about being a light. But the warning that we must take note of is in Luke 11: 35

Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. 

Jesus said we must take heed, which means this is something we have to be intentional about. Our Father’s intention for us is much more than meeting our needs daily, He also wants us to be the light in this ever-darkening world. Herein we find altruistic and universal purpose for our lives.

So how do we become full of light only? Jesus said in verse 34:

The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. 

First, we must decipher the text.

What is the eye? The eye referred to here is not only the organ for seeing, but the mind of man that interprets the images that organ produces, which is sight. The quote "We see with our mind, and not our eyes" is often attributed to Paul Bach-y-Rita, a neuroscientist known for his work in sensory substitution and neuroplasticity. He emphasized the idea that our perception is shaped by our brain's interpretation of sensory information. By this we can formulate that: the eye = the mind.

Furthermore, what does it mean that the eye is single? Surely it means ‘good’ based on the second half of the sentence which is reflecting as the opposite of the first half of the sentence. By this we can formulate that: single = good.

When we substitute these parameters we get:

The light of the body is the mind: therefore when thine mind is good, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine mind is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. 

From this we can see that we need to focus on having a ‘good mind’ for our bodies to be full of light. But what does a good mind look like.

The human can be said to be a spirit, that has a soul (mind) and dwells in the body. In the new covenant, God gives us a new spirit (that is what we mean by being born-again). But, the mind and the body remain the same.

Eze 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

 

Heb_10:16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

When it comes to the mind, God says hey, I will write my laws on your mind. In other words, I will program your mind.

That’s why Apostle Paul said, Do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind.

When we had not consciously chose Christ to be our Lord and Saviour, we behaved as the world would, and our mind was coded or programmed with the culture of the world, which God considered evil. It is because of this programming that the Apostle Paul complained about his life before he became born again (remember he was a Jew, so he knew about God through the law of Moses):

Romans 7: 14-20

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

Now Paul was talking about how that although the law was on his mind, but sin was in his flesh and he found himself obeying the sin in his flesh. But lets bring this home, we who were once gentiles, did not have the law of Moses in our minds, rather we had the laws of evil of this world on our mind; which was our programming, we also had the same sin in our flesh that Paul talked about. Thus we needed the double cure – Born of the Water and the Spirit.

Romans 8 deals a lot with how being born of the Spirit dealt with the law of sin in our flesh. Verse 3 - 4 says: For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit.

In other words, I am learning to confess that:

“Jesus has condemned sin in my flesh” rather than say “the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” if I fall into any sin at all.

Saying revelation sentences like these is how we use words to change the programming of our minds from evil to good. As we read the bible, we are continually changing our minds into the mind like Jesus’ – He is our standard, no one else is.

And the Apostle Paul summarizes what a Christian mind which is full of light looks like in Romans chapter 12, let us begin to put these words into practice in year 2025:

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly, do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’. No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads’. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

To continue to have a good mind only, we must note these three things. But first we decipher what Jesus said in the book of gospel written by our favorite Apostle John chapter 5 verse 39 and 6 verse 33 – 40; 60 - 63.

5: 39 - 40

39 "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. 40 Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

6: 33 - 40

For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them,

 “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

...

6: 60 - 63

verse 60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" 61 But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

The three steps I am working with for now based on the scriptures above include:

1) Prayer: We ask our Father in heaven to help us have a mind that is good always. That is, we go to Jesus first in prayer before opening the scriptures.

2) Search the Scriptures: Read and study and meditate on the bible. Noting every insight/revelation that God gives you by the Holy Spirit.

3) Eat the Word (Insight/Revelation): We must continue to eat the words that Jesus gives to us by the Holy Spirit. By eating we mean we must speak them forth continually in the season the Lord gives them to us. By this we would not be hungry and thirsty for the things that are evil.

Finally, I will say a big thank you to you O Reader, for always reading my blog posts in this year 2024, ... and A fruitful 2025 for us all in Jesus name, Amen.