Welcome to Waymaker Church! We are so excited to have you join us today! We exist to Encounter, Live for, and Advance the Kingdom of God!

Over the past two weeks, we have been in a series entitled “Jesus our Healer” where we have been looking at how Jesus brings healing to the total man.

We began by looking at how Jesus heals the heart of man, which is composed of the soul and spirit, encompassing the entirety of our emotional nature and understanding.

I shared with you that if we do not find healing in the inner man through Christ, no amount of external behavior changes will compensate for a wounded or sin-filled heart.

This is why we must give attention to the condition of our inner man, as it is instructed in Proverbs 4:23: “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.”

The initial key to healing the inner man is to draw near to Jesus. Every person must individually choose the way of surrender through salvation.

The result of salvation is new life in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

This gift of salvation comes with the greatest gift of all, the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit in the inner man will illuminate and address every fractured aspect of our inner being, where through the word, He first reveals, and then he heals.

The Holy Spirit is given to us to help us. John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

Today, I want to look at how Jesus heals the mind of man. Where the mind goes, the man follows. Our thoughts and mental focus create an inner narrative that directly influences our actions, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

The battlefield of the believer is the mind. Our lives move in the direction of our dominant thoughts. So, what we choose to dwell on, we empower. Let me give you a few examples from the word.

In Exodus 14:11-12, the Israelites have come to the moment of the Red Sea crossing. Although free from Egypt outwardly, they were not free from Egypt inwardly.

Exodus 14:11–12 “Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”

Again in Exodus 16:3 “And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

They still saw themselves as slaves. Do you know the result of their thought life? They spent 40 years in a place that should have only taken 11 days to navigate.
In Numbers 13:32-33, we see the result of their thought life. Moses sends 12 spies into the promise land to spy it out. Ten of the twelve spies come back with a negative report. This report stemmed from their internal narrative.

Numbers 13:32–33 “And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.””

Our thoughts are like a steering wheel that turns us towards an outcome or destination. So, the principle here is that we must choose wisely what we will dwell on.

Futility is defined here as uselessness, as a consequence of being purposeless or incapable of producing results. The unrenewed mind lacks the capacity for spiritual change.

The passage tells us that we are to renew our minds with the truth found in Jesus. Jesus is the Word made flesh, John 1:14. The word understood and applied helps us to put off our former conduct, and the old man who grows corrupt through deceitful lusts.

We must understand that we have the authority to choose what we think about. We have the capacity to reject wrong thinking and replace it with the word of God. This is an active guarding of the mind.

Active guarding means we give careful attention to what we watch, listen to, and meditate on. Why? Our inputs determine our outputs. If I have toxic inputs, I will have toxic outputs. If I have wholesome, good inputs, I will have good outputs. Philippians 4:8 gives a filter for godly thinking.

The key that heals the mind of man is the word of God. God’s word is what transforms your thought life. Meditating on the scripture is what renews the mind
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Biblical meditation is about engaging with the scripture not just by reading, but by reflecting, pondering, and internalizing its meaning. It is about taking time to slow down and focus, allowing God’s word to speak to your heart and mind.

Meditating on the word is our first line of defense on the battlefield because the enemy looks to target your thoughts first by planting lies, doubts, and fears. When these thoughts come, we must take them captive with the word 2 Corinthians 10:5.

If we believe the lie, we will empower the liar and walk down the road of spiritual bondage, but if we combat the lie with the truth of God’s word, we will walk in victory.

The process of renewing the mind is not a one-time battle. It is a lifelong discipline. We must learn perseverance in redirecting our thoughts. If we persevere, we will see transformation over time.

At times, combating the thoughts of the enemy can seem overwhelming, but God’s grace is sufficient for us. He will do His part; we must simply stay the course by faith.