Want a Healthy Body. It Starts in Your Mind – Here’s Why.

The health of your body is strongly connected to the health of your mind. And yet so many people want to dismiss good teaching on the subject of a sound mind. You know, I want you to know that it is so important that you have a strong and healthy mind. There is medical statistics out there that say that about 80% of all physical illnesses stem from a mind that is not healthy, a mind that is plagued and it's troubled. And so it's important for us to recognize if our minds have been troubled or not. You know, we're living in a fallen world and whether you recognize it or not, everybody from time to time is tempted to be anxious or fearful or depressed. You know, sometimes we're plagued with anxiety and we don't recognize it's anxiety because it'll come in the form of fear or dread. Sometimes we just dread doing something and we don't recognize it's because we're worrying about it. And really fear is a spirit from Satan. And so we don't want to be plagued by anxiety or sadness. You know, some people have waves of sadness or they have a loss of energy and they just think that's just me. But it could be a spirit of depression. But God wants his people free from anxiety and depression just as much as he wants us free from sickness, disease, and pain. And I think it's important for you to stay tuned today and hear how having a sound mind is actually going to help you live in health in your body. You know, we're going to read today from 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7. It says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So we see that God has given us the gift of a sound mind. Now God doesn't have a plan for us to have a mind that's chaotic or squirrely. You know, I hate to use that term. I'm just trying to be facetious. But sometimes you get around people and you can see their minds are not sound. And how do you know that? Because what you have in your mind eventually comes out through your mouth. And people can hear what you're thinking by what you say. Now let's look at this again from the Amplified Classic in 2 Timothy 1-7. It says, For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear. I like the terminology there that it's letting us know what this really does to a person. You know, a person who's in fear will cower to symptoms of sickness and disease. They'll cower to a spirit of heaviness instead of being like, you know, somebody that maybe has been tied down. I think of Samson from Samson and Delilah. They tried to tie him down with ropes. And every time he would awaken and Delilah would say, hey, the Philistines are upon you, he would immediately break those things loose. You know, you have to have the mentality of Samson that when that oppression comes on you or fear of something comes on you that, bless God, I'm breaking loose. I'm not cowering to that. But anyway, it says here, God has given us a spirit of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control. Now I love this translation because it reveals that there are actually four components of a sound and healthy mind. And we're going to discuss those components today. Now the first thing that we see is that a sound mind is calm. You know, you have to be willing to admit, examine your life and be willing to admit if perhaps you're not a calm person. Now let me also say this, just because you might have a calm disposition doesn't mean that you never have troubling thoughts. But it's far better to have a calm disposition than a troubled disposition. Some synonyms for the word calm are the words tranquil, peaceful, quiet, or unruffled. And really one of the primary definitions of the word calm is without hurried movement. Now I like that one because we're living in a day today where everybody's in a hurry, hurry, hurry, rushing all over the place. And you know, I live in the northern part of the United States and we've discovered this, northerners are always in a hurry. But if you go further south, they're more calm and relaxed and they act like they have all the time in the world. And that's probably a better way to live. You know, Jesus is our great example of a person who was never in a rush. And so since he's an example for our lives, we want to look at that. You know, when you study the Gospels, you will not find one place, and I charge you to try, you'll not find one place where Jesus moves in a hurry. Why? Because a person of faith doesn't have to be in a hurry. I'll tell you, you know your next steps, you know the outcome before it begins. Jesus actually said when the Spirit of Truth has come, he's going to show us things to come. So you're prepared for what's to come and you don't have to be rushing and frantic and anxious about it. You know, even at the news of Lazarus' death, Jesus didn't get rushed or hurried. He waited an additional two days before he went to Bethany and raised him from the dead. And really, he knew what he was going to do before he got there. But he wasn't concerned that Lazarus was dead. As a matter of fact, when he got there and he said to remove the stone, the people there, I believe it was Mary or Martha, said, you know, by now he stinks. It's been four days. In other words, what are you doing? Well, Jesus wasn't concerned about that because he knew that he was going to raise him from the dead. Now, if you find yourself always rushing in life, I want you to know it's a spirit of fear that's driving you. Fear of being late, fear of missing out on something. I don't know, I know this, that I suffered from being rushed all the time throughout too much of my life. I remember one time I was driving to church, and I'm kind of a fast-moving person naturally, and so I don't like slow traffic, I don't like to be slowed down. And one day I'm driving and I'm getting a little irritated because the people in front of me are going too slow. And you know, the Lord got my attention and said to me, even if you keep driving at the pace that you're going, you're going to be plenty early for church. So why is it that you feel like you're in a rush? And you know, I took note of that and I thought, yeah, why do I always feel like I'm being driven to rush? That is not the Spirit of God. If you feel like you're always being driven or forced to move, move, rush, rush, you're being driven by a wrong spirit, and you need to recognize that and you need to deal with that, put your foot on the neck of that and say, no more here. Now keep in mind this about the spirit of fear. It's something that can actually be felt. So even though you may not naturally be an anxious person, you will from time to time feel that spirit, because we're living in this fallen world, Satan's the god of this world system, and you're going to feel his presence at times. So God does not actually promise us that we're never going to feel anxious or feel rushed. But what I want to share with you today is that even if you feel those things, they don't have to stay and you don't have to yield to them. What God promises us is that we can remain calm in the midst of fearful situations. And that's important to note. Don't ever let pressure or fear drive you into making faulty decisions, for example. So you may feel that pressure. You may feel like, oh my God, oh my God, I've got to make a decision now, but you choose to not give in to that. You choose to get yourself into a calm state, and then you seek the Lord about what to do. Isaiah 28, 16 says this, He that believeth shall not make haste. So in other words, when you believe, when you're in a place of faith, you are not going to feel rushed or driven about anything in your life. You're not going to become panicky about situations. You're going to stay calm in the midst of anything that arises. So that's the first part. The first attribute of a sound mind. The second thing that we saw is that a sound mind is well-balanced. Now nobody is going to be able to stay well-balanced apart from the Word of God. I know there are people in the world that would disagree with this, but when you believe in Jesus Christ, you fully understand this, that the only words on this planet that are really well-balanced are the words of God. And people that don't have the Word of God, they make crazy decisions and do crazy things, and they get themselves into crazy problems. But thank God for the Word, because He keeps us well-balanced. So we take in His thoughts through studying, through meditating, through reading the Word, and the more we take in the Word, the more our minds become well-balanced. You know, a quality of life actually begins when we take on God's thoughts, because God's thoughts are the highest thoughts. And you know, the reason, think about this for a minute, the reason that Lucifer actually became Satan is because he got to the place where he thought his thoughts were higher and loftier than God's thoughts. Wow, was that a mistake. You know, his end was not a good ending because of that. And I want you to know that every time we place our thoughts above God's thoughts, we're doing the same thing that Lucifer did. You know, every time we decide to take matters into our own hands, every time we decide to believe a lie instead of God's words, we're actually taking our thoughts and placing them above God's thoughts. Now, I'm not suggesting that you're Satan, so don't misunderstand me, but what I'm saying is the very thing that got Lucifer in trouble, thinking his thoughts were better, embracing different thoughts, will get us into trouble if we don't embrace God's thoughts. You know, just like things didn't end well for Lucifer, they're not going to end well for us if we don't balance our thoughts with God's word. Now, 1 Peter 5, 8 from the Amplified Classics says this, Be well balanced. That's a good word. Be temperate and sober of mind. Be vigilant and cautious at all times, for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring in fierce hunger, seeking someone to seize upon and devour. I just want you to know, the more well-balanced your mind becomes by taking on God's thoughts, the more peaceful your life is going to become. Just like when we look at the life of Jesus. He only spoke what he heard the Father say. He only did what he saw the Father do. Therefore, he only had a life of peace. And even when he was hanging on the cross, we don't see that he was troubled in his mind about it. You know, even in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, he prayed earnestly, he sweat drops of blood, but he didn't run in terror from what he was about to face. And he was only able to do that because he had the word of God in abundance and he thought like God thought. Okay, a third thing that we see from the Amplified translation of 2 Timothy 1 is that a sound mind is disciplined. You know, true freedom comes from discipline. A lot of people live their lives with no discipline at all, and the end result is chaos. You know, all of us know that if you have no discipline, you're going to have wrong thinking. Wrong thinking leads to wrong believing. Wrong believing leads to wrong speaking and wrong results. And you know, in our society, let's face it, discipline has almost become a dirty word. People have cast off restraint and they want to be applauded for their undisciplined behavior. But if you study the lives of people that have discipline, you'll see that they have success in their lives. And people that have no discipline ultimately have no success. So discipline is very important. Now discipline can be defined as this, the practice of training to obey a code of behavior. It's developed by instructing, by educating, and by informing the mind in correct principles and habits. So what are we saying here? You can actually train your mind, discipline your mind, to respond in negative situations in a calm manner or with a spirit of faith. You know, I had to learn to do that. When I was younger, I didn't understand these principles. And so usually when troubling incidents would arise, even though I wasn't realizing what I was doing, I would react with racing thoughts. I would react like, oh my God, oh my God, what am I going to do? Moving around quickly, trying to find a solution, really almost panicking, but not in the sense of having a panic attack. And I had to learn to retrain myself that just because something negative is happening doesn't mean I have to go in panic mode. It doesn't mean that you have to race. You can train yourself to say, okay, this is a negative situation, but I don't have to respond to this with a driving force. I can stay calm. I can seek the Lord rather quickly in some cases about what is my response. What words should I be speaking? What is the solution for this? And know that God wants to give us the solution, and so we don't have to fear that we're not going to know what to do. So it's important that we discipline our minds because, again, without discipline, there is no success in life. And we want the outcome of everything to be a success. Now let's look at the fourth thing. A sound mind is self-controlled. Do you know that self-control is actually one of the nine fruit of the Spirit that's listed in Galatians chapter 5? So if you're a child of God, the Holy Spirit's come to live inside of you, and you have this self-control in you. You know, some people have thought, well, I just can't control myself. I just can't control my response. That's a lie. You surely can because you have the controlled one living on the inside of you. In Galatians chapter 5 and verse 24, it says, those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Now what this is saying is that we crucify the flesh. The flesh has two aspects. There are passions and there are desires. Now that word desire in the Greek actually means forbidden longings. I think anyone who's a Christian knows I need to crucify forbidden longings. But here's something that I think a lot of us overlook. The word passions in the Greek actually means an affliction or pain of the mind or emotions. Did you know, according to this verse, we're supposed to crucify wrong thoughts and wrong emotions that, even if they're painful emotions, we're supposed to crucify those. Emotions of fear, we're to crucify it. Emotions of being depressed or sad, we need to crucify those things. And according to Galatians 5, we have the ability to do that. It's by the power of the Holy Spirit. So we take those wrong thoughts captive. We take those wrong emotions and cast them out. We resist them. You know, when sadness tries to come over me, which all of us are going to have this because we live in this world. I want you to know, no matter how spiritual you become, you're not always going to be able to control the thoughts and the emotions that come at you. But you can control the outcome. So when a wave of sadness comes, I'll just say, no, you don't. I refuse to be sad. I refuse to be depressed. Or if a wave of fear tries to come or feelings of anxiety, you say, no, you don't. I refuse to have this anxiety in Jesus' name. You stand up to this because you have the authority to do it by the Holy Spirit in you. So I want to encourage you today. You've been given a sound mind by your Heavenly Father. It's a gift. If you're a child of God, it belongs to you. The Bible also says that we have the mind of Christ. The wisdom of God is formed within us. But you learn to yield to it step by step, day by day, by taking God's words and filling your heart with them in abundance. Then when these wrong emotions or thoughts come at you, you recognize it quickly and you resist it. You get in resistance mode. And you speak your faith out of your mouth. You say the scriptures to those things. And they will have to go from your life, I guarantee. This works. I've been doing it for a long time. And I'm just so thrilled that I can share these principles with you today. Please understand that when your mind is healthy, it's going to affect your body as well. And so this is the answer for healing in every realm. Hallelujah. Well, I want to thank you for joining me today. And if you were blessed, please remember to like and share this video. Also please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Until next time, I want to remind you that God has a purpose for your life, and it's so much greater than you know. God bless you.