The mind is the portion of the brain
that reasons on facts to come to logical conclusions.
The heart is the portion of the brain
that senses and expresses the emotions of what
it appreciates.
The conscience, if it exists, is in the
mind as the moral guiding principles of right
and wrong.
The will expresses the mind alone,
or the heart with the mind's assent,
directing action..
The mind must lead, or assent to the
sentiments of the heart, for the body to
carry out the deeds.
In the earthly man the heart leads in
seeking its desires, and the mind submits, providing
rational.
In the spiritual man the mind leads,
and the heart follows in appreciation.
We see the path of the worldly man and the
path of the spiritual man are exactly opposite
of each other. This is also identified
in the word of God.
1 Jn 2:15 - 17, 15 Do
not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father
is not in him. (16) For
all that is in the world; the lust of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life; is not of the Father
but is of the world. (17) And
the world is passing away, and the lust
of it; but he who does the will of God abides
forever.
We are not to love the world, nor the things
of the world. Love lies in the heart
of man. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh (all that we want to satisfy
all our fleshly cravings), the lust of the eye
(all that we want as our possessions just to
have them), and the pride of life (all that
we want of recognition, power, position, riches,
influence, and all that puts us above as many
of our fellow men as possible, all these also
lie as desires in the heart of man, not in his
mind. These also define the three
major categories of all sin. And
amazingly they define the first sin that entered
the world.
Gen 3:6, "So when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, that it
was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable
to make one wise, she took of its fruit and
ate."
When the woman saw that the tree was "good
for food" (the lust of the flesh),
and that it was "pleasant to the eyes"
(the lust of the eyes), and when she saw that
it could "make one wise", (the
pride of life), she "took of its fruit
and ate", and so sin entered in all
three categories. And all these were
sins from the heart. Her mind rationalized
the great benefit of this, and so submitted
to the heart, rather than insisting on going
to Adam, her appointed head, to get the proper
understanding. And Adam, seeing Eve
had already sinned, and presuming there was
no rectification possible, joined her knowingly
in the sin rather than live without her, and
so sin entered the whole world.
And not too long after that sin was very broad
in the world, as we read in
Gen 6:5 Then the LORD saw
that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
The sin had become great wickedness to the point
that every intent of the thoughts of man's heart
were only evil continually. Again
we see that all this sin was the express desire
of the heart. The mind of man was
evidently again submitting to the desires of
the heart. While that society ended
in a flood in which only eight were saved, evil
increased again as man expanded on the earth.
But also in God's due time, Jesus came upon
the earth and introduced a new way of life,
a more spiritual way as God had originally designed
for mankind. And this way is the
reverse of what man had come to learn in letting
the heart lead the mind. Jesus was
tempted by Satan the same three ways as was
Eve (Mt 4:1-11), in being tempted to turn bread
into stones (lust of the flesh); tempted to
rule Satan's kingdoms of the world (lust of
the eye); tempted to show his high position
by jumping from the temple to be protected by
the angels (pride of life). But in
all these things, Jesus overcame, choosing to
exercise His mind in quoting scripture back
to Satan, rather than consider the leadings
of Statan's temptations to His heart..
As Jesus showed us, the mind should lead and
the heart follow. This is also
in scripture for us.
Ro 12: 2 And do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that you may
prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God.
We are not to be conformed to the world in the
sense of being obedient to it in mind, or appreciative
of it in heart. We are rather to
be transformed (Greek - 'metamorphosis': as
the changing of a caterpillar to a butterfly;
a most dramatic and extensive change from one
life form to another; from bound to the earth
to free in the skies; from human mind and heart
to spiritual mind and heart). We
are to accomplish this by the renewing of our
mind. This means we must challenge
all the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom
we have, and replace it with the certain knowledge,
understanding, and wisdom of God. We
must retune the very liberal human conscience
to the very finely discerning conscience of
the New Man with the mind of Christ. And
we must bring the lusts and pride of life in
the heart and the body under the control of
this new mind, so that the whole body, mind,
heart, soul, and strength, are serving God only,
and the heart is expressing the appreciation
of this. We find that this process
brings us through developed and applied faith
to find that God's will for us is not only good,
and not only acceptable, but in time we realize
that it is indeed "perfect" for us,
and when we achieve that we want nothing else. We
have arrived at perfection and it provides all
the contentment which our heart seeks, and complete
peace in our lives. And our heart
then expresses its appreciation.
This is confirmed in James in 1:2-4 in which
the testing and providence of the Lord in our
lives, further develops faith in us, which also
introduces us to patience, and with faith growing
through patience we come to the point of perfection,
where we are complete, entire, and lacking in
nothing. And all this is the work
of the mind, followed by the appreciation of
the heart. Both working together
to bring us to and keep us in perfect peace!
We see then, that there is a very major difference
in how the earthly man pursues his life and
the way the spiritual (or new) man pursues his
life. Their method is different. Their
motive is different. And their goal
is different. Each can reach their
goal with their own method, but only one will
gain God's approval and eternal life.
Consider how you are living your life, and what
goals you are pursuing. Will your
life lead you to a temporary or a permanent
goal? Will your life lead you to
eternal life? We pray it will. Consider
some further scriptures on the mind and the
heart of the earthly man and the spiritual man.
Concerning the earthly man:
Human Mind:
Ro l:28 And even as they
did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a debased mind,
to do those things which are not fitting;
Because men would not obey God, God withdrew
His understanding from them, and the understanding
of man's mind became more and more depraved
(Gen 6:5). This led them to listen more to their
hearts.
Ro 7: 23 But I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my
mind, and bringing me into captivity to
the law of sin which is in my members.
The "law in my members" is the lust
and pride of life. These war against the understanding
and logic of my godly mind and seek to subdue
it to the lusts and pride of life. Without
the guidance of the holy spirit, this is exactly
what will happen.
Ro 8: 7 Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God; for it
is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed
can be.
The carnal mind is the fleshly mind, the mind
that follows and supports the desires of the
flesh and the eye, and pride. Such
a mind rejects the knowledge, understanding,
and wisdom of God, and is filled with submitting
to the pleasures the heart anticipates, and
it gladly serves the heart.
Human Heart:
Jer 17: 9, 10 "The
heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately
wicked; Who can know it?
I, the LORD, search the heart, I test
the mind, Even to give every man according
to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.
The heart is deceitful in the sense that it
can deceive the mind. The heart cannot
operate the body apart from the mind in which
resides the will which controls the actions
of the body. If the heart wants something
desperately enough it must convince the mind
to support its desires. If it cannot
do this easily, it often resorts to deception
by overemphasizing or falsely presenting a reward
the flesh will receive. But God searches
the heart for the motives of its desires, and
he tests the mind to see if it is seeking and
following His truths, and so leading rather
than following the heart.
Mt 12: 34, 35 "Brood
of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good
things? For out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaks. (35) "A
good man out of the good treasure of his heart
brings forth good things, and an evil man out
of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
The heart is the repository of sentiment, whether
it is of appreciation or of hatred. Whatever
fills the heart is what the mouth speaks. If
the heart is full of the appreciation of God,
this is what the mouth speaks. If
the heart is full of hatred, or strife, or anger,
or jealousy, or envy, this is what the mouth
speaks. The mind also speaks through
the mouth, but it can also remain silent. It
need not speak unless there is a cause. But
the heart that is overflowing with good or with
evil is hard pressed to not speak out what fills
it.
Concerning the spiritual man (the new
man):
Mind:
Isa 26: 3 You will keep him
in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed
on You, Because he trusts in You.
The mind that stays on the truths of God, and
which trusts in God for all understanding and
wisdom has also lived these truths and found
the beauty of them. Thus the heart
appreciates this, and the man can be in perfect
peace because there is no conflict between mind
and heart. Lack of peace is a conflict
between mind and heart.
Mk 12:30, 31 'And you shall
love the LORD your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your
mind, and with all your strength.'
This is the first commandment. (31) "And
the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other
commandment greater than these."
The highest commandment to love the LORD our
God, requires this love be of the mind, the
heart, the soul, and the strength. To
love God with all the mind requires that we
that we want to know all of God's will so that
we can obey it. To love God with
all the heart requires that we appreciate all
that He has done for us, and all that we know
that He will lead us to. To love
God with all the soul is to obey him with all
our being and means, holding nothing back. To
love god with all our strength is to put our
full energy into everything He asks of us, giving
it our full attention and effort. (Heb
11:6), God asks all of us, not just
part, and not just part-time.
Ro 14: 5 One person esteems one day
above another; another esteems every day alike.
Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.
Our knowledge, understanding, and wisdom need
be only what we prove to ourselves. It
is something in which each of us has to be fully
convinced in our own minds. It cannot
be proven to us by anyone else. Faith
is very personal to each person. While
we may agree with others on many things, we
only have it as our own faith through our own
proving in scripture and experience. Only
in this way can our faith have integrity in
understanding and in application. Scripture
agrees.
2 Tim 2;15, Be diligent to present
yourself approved to God, a worker who does
not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth.. 1
Thes 5:21 Test all things;
hold fast what is good. 1
Jn 4:1, Beloved, do not believe every
spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are
of God. Ro 14: 22 Do
you have faith? Have it to yourself before God.
Happy is he who does not condemn himself in
what he approves.
Phs 2:3, 5 Let nothing
be done through selfish ambition or conceit,
but in lowliness of mind let each esteem
others better than himself. (5) Let
this mind be in you which was also in Christ
Jesus,
Pride, rooted in selfishness, and lodged in
the heart, is the major enemy of the new man,
the spiritual man. It seeks always
its own will and way. And pride always
resides in the heart, for its basis is stronger
appreciation of self than of anyone else, including
God and Christ. As is usual in sinful
humans, the mind may support the heart it its
pride, but it does not hold it. But
for a Christian, pride is to not exist at all. The
heart is to have no preeminence in itself, and
most especially not in pride, for this is total
enmity with God. Rather the mind
is to control, and we are to have
lowliness of mind like Christ, who thought he
was in the form of God did not seek to be even
equal with Him, but lowered himself to be a
human, and when found acceptable as that, he
lowered himself even further and submitted to
the death of the cross. This is to
be the mind in us; the mind of Christ, so that
we submit fully to God, to the life of service
he has planned for us, even unto death. For
like Christ, our reward is not in this life
in any form, but only after we have successfully
lived this life in conformity to God's will,
can we find our reward in the future spiritual
life. Any who seek to hold onto this
life will loose it, and only those who loose
this life for Christ's sake will find their
life eternal in heaven with him. (Mt
10:39).
Titus 1: 15 To the pure
all things are pure, but to those who are defiled
and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even
their mind and conscience are defiled.
Those who live a life submitted to defilement
with the world and with not believing the word
and commandments of God for themselves, have
minds that are themselves defiled, and even
the conscience, the moral value gauge of the
mind is defiled, so that they can no longer
reason clearly. The mind can no longer
lead them to salvation. It is committed
to following the lusts and pride of the heart. Only
the mind that is pure in the knowledge and wisdom
of God (James 3:17, 18) can live a life in which
all is pure, for such a life is the sole decision
of the mind, with the full agreement of the
conscience, and with the deep appreciation of
the heart. Only such a life is lead
by God's spirit, and is found pleasing to God,
and will be kept in faith to eternal life.
Heart:
Psa 19: 14 Let the
words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength
and my Redeemer. Psa
139: 23 Search me, O God,
and know my heart; Try me, and know my
anxieties; (24) And see if there
is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the
way everlasting.
What beautiful concerns for the one who seeks
to please God. We saw before that
the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the
heart. And here the one who loves
God asks that He would help that all upon which
the heart meditates would be acceptable to God,
and if this is always so, then certainly all
the words the mouth speaks will also be acceptable
to God. This is not only a concern
for outward expression, but for inward purity
that no outward expression could ever be wrong. And
it is a concern to find any hidden evils and
identify them and root them out from the heart,
and to know any hidden concerns and overcome
them. And in the Christian, since
the heart follows the mind, a heart that is
pure indicates a mind that is also pure, and
thus the actions of the person will also be
as pure as the meditations of the heart. This
is really a plea that the heart be watched carefully
to never be in danger of running ahead of the
mind of Christ in us.
Psa 51:10 Create in
me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast
spirit within me.
This plea is much like the one above, but is
an earlier expression in the life of faith. It
knows that the cleanliness is not fully there
yet, and the spirit is not yet always stable
to keep the heart from falling back to its own
ways. So it pleads for assistance
to move always toward the cleanness (purity)
of heart, and to have the strength to keep progressing
and never fall back. It is a wise
plea, for it recognizes the potential deceitfulness
of the heart, and it knows that it needs assistance
and strength to overcome all deception.
Prov 3:5 Trust in the LORD
with all your heart, And lean not on your own
understanding; (6) In
all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall
direct your paths.
This speaks to the heart and to the mind. We
are to trust the Lord with ALL our heart, in
its meditations, in its desires, and in its
purity, and see that it is fully conformed to
God's will. And we are not to lean
on the understanding of our own minds, but to
have the mind of Christ that always fully trusted
God to lead him in all his words, and doings. This
is the plea to have God direct us every step
of our way, acknowledging always His lead and
His providence and taking these as the direction
in our life on a daily basis, rather than taking
our own lead in which we are sure to direct
ourselves out of His paths. How sad
it would be to create our own paths and our
own providences, rather than accepting His as
the daily rule for our lives. Remember
too the peace that comes with following the
Lord's leading in all things, as we reviewed
above. "Thou will keep him
in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." These
are two great guarantee scriptures of promise
for us. Why would we neglect these
and seek our own way. A true Christian
never would!
Prov 4:23: 23 Keep
your heart with all diligence, For out of it
spring the issues of life.
This is a strong scripture concerning our hearts. It
brings to mind the importance of the heart,
for out of it spring the issues of life. While
we have shown that the mind must lead the heart,
and therefore the mind is to be the primary
guiding force in our Christian lives, still
the heart plays the important role of confirming
the directions of the mind. For the
heart in the true and mature Christian express
the appreciation, joy, and thankfulness of the
Christian for all it has received from God,
including the way in which the mind is leading
it. And it expresses respect, honor,
and glory to God for all these things. If
such loving expressions are not forthcoming,
then the mind is not directing correctly, or
the heart is not in full accord, and the perfecting
of the Christian is not complete. Without
this completeness, eternal life will not be
gained. In this sense, the issues
of life lie in the heart, for the heart expression
is needed to give confirmation of the perfection
that is developed throughout in the sanctification
process. Therefore the heart must
be "kept" safe, or "guarded"
as in some translations, so that it achieves
the full expression that it should, and so that
it never falls back from this.
Conversely the human heart can never achieve
such expression as would be found acceptable
to God and glorifying to Him for it only seeks
its own pleasure, and so there could be no life
available to such. This would apply
equally to a prospective member of the bride
now or to any member of mankind in the coming
kingdom on earth.
Mt 6:21 "For where
your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
This is a strong principle. Whatever
is of greatest value to us is where our heart
is found expressing itself. The heart
is the sentiment of our being and it naturally
gravitates to what is of greatest value to us. In
sinful man the high things of God cannot be
known by the mind, so the heart leads the mind
to follow in lustful and prideful pleasures
to create the highest values it can perceive
for itself, and those which provide the greatest
reward it can imagine, that being to the senses
of pleasure, and to the position of power above
others, namely lusts and pride.
But for the mind that can know the high things
of God, there is another path to be taken. And
the lead in this must be taken by the mind,
for only the mind can gain the knowledge, the
understanding, and the wisdom, and set the course
of the moral compass of the conscience. With
the mind leading, and the heart forced to abandon
its earthly pleasures, the heart slowly comes
to appreciate the higher values that the mind
first understands. And the heart
slowly sees not only the worth of these, but
also the higher pleasures of joy, peace, and
contentment of these. And it comes
also to appreciate the God who has provided
all these and made them available to the mind. In
this way, the heart comes to express the appreciation
it has for the way the mind is working out the
will of God in the body and the life, and the
heart now following, more beautifully expresses
these highest appreciations than it ever could
express any thing of the earth. Such
earthly things have become like trash by comparison. And
the heart that reaches this high plane, no longer
wants to return to any lower place, and is then
permanently captivated with the love and appreciation
of God, and finally that heart is 'given' to
God as in Prov 23:26 "My son, give me
your heart, And let your eyes observe my ways",
and then the Christian has reached perfection. The
treasure has been found. The mind
is content. The conscience is content. The
heart is content. The soul of the
Christian is content. And God is
content. Full peace and perfection
exist between the creator and the creature. Eternal
life can begin.
1 Tim 1:5 Now the purpose
of the commandment is love from a pure
heart, from a good conscience, and
from sincere faith,
This scripture brings a new and wonderful connection
of four most fundamental aspects of Christian
development through sanctification. They
are love (agape; God's perfect will), a pure
heart (sentiment of appreciation), a good conscience
(the moral compass of the mind, defined by all
of God's principles), and faith (the basis of
our relationship with God) from which and upon
which this path of sanctification progresses.
Without going into a complete proving, agape
love is "the perfect will of God for everyone". It
is God's desire that all men would be sanctified;
made holy or perfect; (1 Thes 4:3). God
Himself IS agape (1 Jn 4:8, 16). In
1 Jn 5:3 we read, "For this is
the love of God, that we keep His commandments." And
in Jn 14:21, 23, 24, Jesus says, "He
who has My commandments and keeps them, it is
he who loves Me. And he who loves
Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love
him and manifest Myself to him." (23) Jesus
answered and said to him, "If anyone
loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father
will love him, and We will come to him and
make Our home with him. (24) "He
who does not love Me does not keep My words;
and the word which you hear is not Mine but
the Father's who sent Me."
All these words 'love' are from agape. This
as we all know is also the highest commandment
we are given. We must love God. We
must love those in the world. We
must love our brethren. We must love
our enemies. The original verb in
all these commandments is the Greek word 'agapao'
meaning that we must DO the perfect will of
the father for everyone. While all
other types of love reside in the heart, whether
of the spiritual or the earthly type, agape
love alone resides in the mind. For
it is a need of the intellect to
understand what agape asks of us, and it is
a decision of the will to carry out the doing
of God's perfect will in our own lives, and
towards others. This is a love for
the perfect righteousness that is God's will,
and it is factual, not sentimental. But
its possession results in a joy, pleasure, and
peace such as no other love can give. It
is the highest of all loves.
In our text scripture of 1 Tim 1:5, this 'agape
love' of doing the Father's perfect will, must
come from a 'pure heart', that is a pure appreciation
of what the love will accomplish for the others. It
must come also from a 'good conscience', the
moral compass of the mind which identifies the
principles God uses to bring His perfect will
to everyone. And it must come from
a 'sincere faith'.
Faith is all God brings us to know of Himself,
His Son, His plan for mankind, and our part
in it, including the character changes that
must occur within us and in our lives. We
must have all this, and then fully live it as
the focus our lives to be sincere and faithful
in what God has revealed to us, and to which
He holds us responsible.
But note, the scripture refers to the "purpose"
of the commandment. From this we
understand that while the commandment is to
agape love; the purpose of the commandment is
that these four traits be developed in us. The
agape love, the pure heart, the good conscience,
and the sincere faith must be worked out in
us even as each of them develops their own fruitage
in us. We see that these are inter-dependent
in that they only work perfectly in unison with
each other, and all to the bringing of God's
perfect will in us, and in our ability to bring
it to others. This agape love will
only be real, complete, and perfected when it
comes from a pure heart, a good conscience,
and a sincere faith. Without them,
the love itself cannot be perfect.
As we seek to more and more perfectly obey this
commandment we develop these other traits also. When
we realize the inter-relationship between them,
we can work the more clearly and diligently
to bring our lives into conformity with these
so they can be the more quickly developed in
us. How wonderful it is when the
Father reveals these deeper truths to us, so
that we can more quickly and more sincerely
serve Him.
Heb 4:12 For the word
of God is living and powerful, and sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the
division of soul and spirit, and
of joints and marrow, and is a discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
The word of God is of course the inspired word
that we have in the bible. It is
this that will divide our soul from our spirit,
and our joints from the marrow. The
soul is our entire being, and the spirit is
what motivates us in our lives. We
used to be under the spirit of the world or
the flesh. But now we are to be under
God's holy spirit. And this spirit
should direct the use of our being, separating
it from what formerly motivated us.
Our joints, symbolically, are what give us flexibility
in our support system. This support
system is our faith, and the joints what give
us flexibility to apply ourselves to our given
tasks. Whereas the old faith
structure, whether of the "law" or
of the world or flesh, appeared inflexible,
and written in specific requirements and unable
to accomplish any good, this new faith we follow
is written in the spirit of God's principles,
and thus gives us a motive and a goal, but not
any specific formula for accomplishment. It
is left to be flexible to best fit the need
of the circumstances. The marrow
in the bone is what produces the 'blood' that
gives life to our being, including our support
structure. This is as the spirit
of God which gives us understanding, not only
of the many technical details of faith that
provide the framework of our being (the bones),
but also gives us direction in applying this
faith in the most profitable way to ourselves
and to others, through the joint system that
permits our physical action in the world..
It is also by this word that we are to find
the way to identify the thoughts and intents
of our own heart. God can read the
thoughts and intentions of our heart at any
time. But we have more difficulty
with this ourselves, though we need to see ourselves
as He does so that we will not be deceived. This
in fact is "godliness".. This
scripture gives us confidence that we can come
to the point where we will be able to read these
things in ourselves, and from this understanding
then be able to bring ourselves more into conformity
to the will and purposes of God.
So the source of all our direction is to be
the word of God, revealed to us by his holy
spirit, and applied to all the providences with
which He brings us into contact. These
providences challenge our understanding of what
to do. The answers are found in the
word in the principles of righteousness. Then
the method of application of the solution is
also provided in scripture in the principles
of teaching the mind and heart how to approach
others to cause them to want to hear and draw
closer to God. As Paul said, "I
have become all things to all men, that I might
by all means save some." (1
Cor 9:22). So we too are to do.
We pray we have stated enough of the scriptures
to give a clear understanding of how the Christian
must grow and develop in mind, including conscience
and will in order to control his life, his body,
his heart, and live as God intends him to live
to reach His perfect will. With this
the heart too will learn and express appreciation
to God.
General admonishment scriptures
Here are some additional scriptures that point
out some of the characteristics and attitudes
that will be in the Christian's life as a result
of the mind being in control. All
these ask obedience. It is up to
the mind to agree and have the will obey. These
are given without comment, as all can see how
the mind must be involved in pursuing these
admonishments and bringing them to fruition
in our lives so the heart can rejoice at their
appreciation.
Mat 6:31-34 "Therefore do not
worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or
'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall
we wear?' (32) "For
after all these things the Gentiles seek. For
your heavenly Father knows that you need
all these things. (33) "But
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added to you. (34) "Therefore
do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow
will worry about its own things. Sufficient
for the day is its own trouble.
2 Tim 2:15 , Be diligent to present
yourself approved to God, a worker who does
not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the
word of truth.
1 Thes 5:21, Test
all things; hold fast what is good.
Ro 6: 13 And do not present
your members as instruments of unrighteousness
to sin, but present yourselves to God as being
alive from the dead, and your members as instruments
of righteousness to God.
Col 3:12-17, Therefore,
as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on
tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness,
longsuffering; (13) bearing
with one another, and forgiving one another,
if anyone has a complaint against another; even
as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. (14) But
above all these things put on love, which is
the bond of perfection. (15) And
let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to
which also you were called in one body; and
be thankful. (16) Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all
wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (17) And
whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the
name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God
the Father through Him.
2 Cor 13: 5 Examine yourselves
as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.
Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ
is in you?;
1 Cor 9:26, 27, Therefore I run thus:
not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one
who beats the air. (27) But
I discipline my body and bring it into subjection,
lest, when I have preached to others, I myself
should become disqualified.
Phs 3:13, 14, Brethren,
I do not count myself to have apprehended; but
one thing I do, forgetting those things which
are behind and reaching forward to those things
which are ahead,
(14) I press toward the goal for
the prize of the upward call of God in Christ
Jesus.
Jn 13:34, 35, "A new commandment
I give to you, that you love (agapao) one another;
as I have loved (agapao) you, that
you also love (agapao) one another. (35) "By
this all will know that you are My disciples,
if you have love(agape) for one another."
James 5:19, 20, Brethren, if anyone
among you wanders from the truth, and someone
turns him back, (20) let
him know that he who turns a sinner from the
error of his way will save a soul from death
and cover a multitude of sins.
Heb 10:24, And let us consider
one another in order to stir up love and good
works,
2 Tim 2:24-26, And a servant of the
Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all,
able to teach, patient, (25) in
humility correcting those who are in opposition,
if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so
that they may know the truth, (26) and
that they may come to their senses and escape
the snare of the devil, having been taken captive
by him to do his will.
Gal 6:10, Therefore, as we have opportunity,
let us do good to all, especially to those who
are of the household of faith.
Mt 5:44, 48 But I say to
you, love your enemies, bless those who curse
you, do good to those who hate you, and pray
for those who spitefully use you and persecute
you, (48) "Therefore
you shall be perfect, just as your Father in
heaven is perfect.
Phs 1: 9-11, And
this I pray, that your love may abound still
more and more in knowledge and all discernment, (10) that
you may approve the things that are excellent,
that you may be sincere and without offense
till the day of Christ, (11) being
filled with the fruits of righteousness which
are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise
of God.
Phs 4:8 Finally, brethren,
whatever things are true, whatever things are
noble, whatever things are just, whatever things
are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever
things are of good report, if there is any virtue
and if there is anything praiseworthy; meditate
on these things.
Summary.
We have entered a race to be Christ's bride. We
can no longer think or live as does the world. We
must no longer be led by the earthly heart,
but by the spiritual mind, directed by God's
holy spirit, and work out His agape love in
us; His perfect will for us and for all mankind. We
must bring our mind and body under His control. We
must perfect our conscience. We must
accept and fulfill all providences which He
permits in our life. We must be sincerely
and diligently faithful in all things. We
must want this life to be in us for it to happen,
and we must prosecute it diligently to achieve
it. Only then can the heart learn
to rejoice in what has been God's good, acceptable,
and perfect will worked out in us, His agape
love. And only then can we have access
to the eternal life promised to us. May
God be with us all in this endeavor, to His
own glory and praise forever.
