Soul Detox – Thought Conditioners

THE NEW BIRTH CHANGES THE SPIRIT—RENEWING THE MIND CHANGES THE SOUL

 YOUR SOUL MUST PROSPER BEFORE YOUR LIFE WILL PROSPER

Hear, my son, and be wise, and direct your mind in the way of the Lord.  Proverbs 23:19

If you are wise, you will have a burning desire to “direct your mind in the way of the Lord.”  You will turn away from the influence of the world. As you consistently renew your mind in God’s Word, you will think the way your Father wants you to think. You will live your life the way your Father wants you to live. You will react to the conditions in the world the way your Father instructs you to react.

 The Soul Detox is more than simply increasing your biblical aptitude.  It’s getting God’s Word from the six inches between your ears to where the knowledge is absolutely settled in your heart.

In order for us to prosper as our Father wants us to prosper, our souls must prosper. In order for our souls to prosper, God’s Word must dominate our lives. God’s instructions to us must be the absolute center of our lives. Everything that we think and say and do must revolve around his instructions to us.

The greatest thing that you can invest in is the thing that has the greatest value.
And the asset that has the greatest value is your soul.

Your soul has more value than silver & gold so don’t spend your time investing your life and your energy into chasing money. Spend your time pursuing God.  Spend your time rightly diving the truth of His Word. Spend your time investing in your soul because your soul has greater value than the wealth of this world.  “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36

Abundant life has been provided! But you must possess it. It won’t fall on you like rain from the sky. Daily change is the life destined for every born-again Christian. If you aren’t willing to change, renew your mind and prosper your soul, you may live your whole life without receiving much of what God has provided for you. But if you are willing to change and begin renewing your mind to God’s Word, you can start living the abundant life that God has made available to those that believe.

God’s wish, will, and desire is that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul (your mind, will, and emotions) prospers. This is a law of God. He wants you to prosper and be healthy. God wants you to be a world overcomer. (1 John 5:5.)

God says the things you meditate on will decide whether you prosper
and have good success or struggle through life just trying to make a living.

Understanding that the soul is not the same as the spirit, you can see why it is possible to be a born-again Christian with a saved spirit but struggling in life because of an un-renewed soul. This is why in Romans 12:2 God tells every believer to be transformed by the renewing of their mind.

When you are born again, your spirit is instantly transformed into the image of God. The spirit is the part of you that takes on the nature of God. According to the Word, once that happens you should immediately start the process of changing your soul. The Bible calls it “renewing the mind.”

While your spirit is re-created instantly when you make Jesus the Lord of your life, your mind, which is part of the soul, must be changed through an ongoing process. It is not an instantaneous change. It takes commitment, determination and desire to bring it to pass. Making that change is called renewing the mind. And though it is the key to all Christian growth, most Christians do little of it because of a lack of knowledge or a lack of discipline.

Your spirit is already changed, and your body is basically your soul’s caboose. Whatever you think in your soul, your body will just go along for the ride. Therefore, it’s your mind i.e. your thoughts and your attitudes that determine whether you experience victory and the life of God in your spirit or the defeat and death of the fallen natural realm. Renewing your mind to the Word facilitates your transformation!

The more you know the Word, the more you conform to the image of Jesus. When you are born again, nothing is wrong with your spirit – the life of God is in there – but you are hindered from living a free and productive life by a soul (mind) that thinks like the world instead of like God.

Spiritual growth is determined by how much your soul is changed by the Word of God.

Your soul, which is what the Bible calls the mental-emotional part of you, didn’t automatically change when you received Jesus as Lord. It’s subject to change, but you have to renew your mind to experience change in your mind and emotions.

The Word has to be in your heart for it to begin to activate the life of God. You can’t just read it with your eyes and take a little truth into your brain. You have to put it deep down on the inside of you. You must meditate on the Word until it literally takes root in your heart. That’s when it will just start supernaturally producing.  The result will be lasting change – as long as we continue to abide in the Word.

Godly prosperity and health begin on the inside of your soul. Notice the phrase in 3 John 2 “as your soul prospers.” The outward, external health and prosperity seen by others is only an expression of a far greater health and prosperity inside of you.

When the mind has been renewed with the Word of God, the Spirit through the renewed mind can control the body. The soul (mind) will then take sides with the Spirit because it knows the Word. The soul / mind is renewed with the Word which will allow the Spirit to dominate.

If we want to experience transformation here in this life, our minds must be renewed. (Rom. 12:2)

God wants us to renew our minds because he wants to restore our souls – to make them “brand-new.”  We must get rid of our old ways of thinking and replace them with thoughts that align with the promises and instructions from God’s Word.

As believers in Christ, we are to conform to the image of God’s Son (Rom. 8:29). You and I ought to act just like Jesus. The only thing that stands in the way is our soul. Without a renewed mind, our faith walk will be compromised and we will not walk and act like Jesus.

The truth is, when you were born again, God put His power, anointing, victory, joy, peace—everything—in you in abundance. The only reason they aren’t manifest in your soul and body is your unrenewed mind. It’s not that God didn’t give it but that you’re still looking at and surrendered to the physical realm instead of His Word.

At the Second Coming of Christ, or when you die and go to Him, the change in your soul will be instantly completed. Then when the Lord returns, your spirit and soul will be reunited with your glorified body. At that time, all three will be perfect. But until then, the Christian life is renewing your mind and acknowledging the perfection already in your spirit so that your soul and physical body can experience the benefits of salvation.

If we don’t continually renew our minds, we leave them wide open to doubts, fears and anxieties about the worldly situations that surround us. Our souls cannot prosper unless our minds are under control and our minds won’t be under control unless we can cast out all negative imaginations and bring every one of our thoughts completely in line with the Word of God.

If our minds are properly renewed, we will decide what we are going to think
about. We will refuse to let any external situation control our thought process.

The transforming change that God desires for His children starts in our spirits when we are born again. The change, however, must continue in the soul realm if we are going to accomplish all that God has for us. Notice that Romans 12:2 says we reach the perfect will of God only as we renew our minds.

If you obey your Father’s instructions to renew your mind and prosper your soul, you will be able to successfully pass the tests that the trials of life will bring upon you. You will be much better equipped to handle adversity if you work hard each day at studying God’s Word. You will learn how to control your emotions when you face adversity.  “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul” (Psalm 19:7)

If you desire certain kingdom fruit in your marriage, relationships, finances, health, emotions – whatever it is – take the seeds (promises in God’s Word that speak about those specific things) and plant them in your life. If you will give this seed the proper nourishment, (continue in faith – believe the Word, meditate the Word, speak God’s promises; reject fear and doubt) then it’s inevitable that you will prosper your soul and reap the fruit you desire.

We must believe that what’s inside us – not circumstances outside us – controls our lives

Many people are trying to take a shortcut. They keep their mind in the gutter, exposing themselves to all the things of the world. They allow the sewage of this world to flow through them, but they want the results that God produces. They think, if I just pray and ask, I can receive. There’s more to it than just praying and believing. You must also cooperate with God’s spiritual laws. God operates through us when we get our heart and mind stayed upon Him.

For many, the Bible and church are perceived as religious traditions that aren’t a part of the real world and their daily lifestyles. So there must be some major adjustments in their thinking to get started in the process of prospering the soul.

Many Christians have been taught that if they just read their Bibles, pray and go to church regularly, they will become “stronger” Christians. But it’s too bad we never examined the fruit of that thinking. The fact is, multitudes of people have done these things all their lives and they are still in bondage – they aren’t living joyful and productive lives in Christ.

Romans 12:2 clearly shows us there is more to Christian living than what many think. It is possible to read the Bible, pray and go to church and yet never renew your mind. The person who sins all week but is a faithful church attender proves that. The pastor who preaches great sermons but is eventually caught in adultery proves that. Renewing the mind is so much more than going through religious motions. It is an intentional and ongoing effort to prosper the soul.

Walk by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit, not your own power and might!
Tap into the creator of the entire universe and mind of Christ vs. relying on your own intellect!

Every problem, weakness or difficulty you have could be solved immediately if you could know the mind of God. But it takes effort, dedication and faithfulness to renew your mind. Mind renewal is not like the new birth. It is a process and doesn’t come overnight. Though your spirit is renewed and transformed, your soul must be saved. Saved from what? From the world’s influence and thinking.

This takes conscious effort. If you are just going to give God a couple of hours a week, your mind will not be renewed. The Word won’t be implanted in you. You might know it with your head, but it’s the engrafted Word in your soul that changes you.

The devil has been defeated! Jesus is Lord! So why do we still struggle sometimes? The answer 
is right between our ears! It is our thinking that paves the way for victory or defeat in our lives.

The reason God is so concerned with the sanctification or purifying and renewal of your soul is that without it, you will be constantly controlled by your fleshly desires.

A prosperous soul is one that hears and chooses to follow the spirit man. The Bible promises that as we do that, we will prosper and live in health in every realm of life. This prosperity is not an extravagant lust for money or material things. It is having your needs met and enough abundance to be a blessing to those around you.

Only when we have heard, received and renewed our minds to the Word of God is the truth in us. This is the foundation for a prosperous soul.

We must accept God’s Word as the highest and the final authority. It is higher than religious traditions, church decrees, family and cultural traditions and every other order of life. God has exalted His Word even above His name. (Ps. 138:2.) Heaven and earth will pass away, but the Word of God will stand forever.

When your spirit says, “I want to pray for thirty minutes and seek the Lord this morning,” your flesh may object and claim, “I’d rather stay in bed and watch TV.”  You must understand that your soul is the controller and it has the final say.  Your soul will determine which one you’re going to follow. The Christian with an unrenewed mind will follow the flesh; the Christian with a prospered soul will go with the leading of his spirit.

“Busyness” is not conducive to a relationship with the Lord.  It is not conducive to doing the spiritual disciplines necessary to renew the mind and prosper the soul. There needs to be a balance in life, but most people aren’t walking in it. Most of us are far too occupied with things other than God and his Word. If you were to ask the average person how they’re doing, the majority of their responses would center around how busy they are.

This process of prospering the soul requires making time in the Word a top priority and putting
other reading, sports talk, social media, TV and other non-productive distractions on the back burner.

Every Christian is responsible for his or her own maturity and freedom in Christ. Nobody can make you want to change and grow and pursue this process of prospering the soul. That’s your decision and daily responsibility. Thankfully, however, none of us walks through the disciplines of personal transformation and freedom alone. The indwelling Christ is eagerly willing to walk with us each step of the way.

If you don’t have faith for God’s blessing in your life right now, keep planting the seeds of the Word in your heart until you get it! After all, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

Deposit an abundance of God’s Word in your heart today. Find time to hear the Word, meditate on the Word and talk the Word. Guard your heart— and let the wisdom of God’s Word overflow out of your spirit!

Read, study, meditate, listen to podcasts, watch videos of good, faith-filled teaching EVERY DAY until God’s Word is more real to you than the circumstances or adversity you are confronting. Keep on keeping on until, like Abraham, you stagger not at the promise of God through unbelief but grow strong in faith as you give praise and glory to God!

Renew your mind – redeem your thinking – prosper your soul – revolutionize your life