The Power Of A Mindset

Last night I read about a woman named Lori Schneider. She was fifty-two years old when she climbed Mount Everest. That in it's self is an amazing feat but there is more to the story she had MS. Multiple sclerosis is a baffling autoimmune disorder that attacks the central nervous system and can lead to paralysis, vision loss, dementia, and death. So how could someone with MS climb Mount Everest? As I read her story I discovered her secret it was her mindset. “I stopped thinking of myself as a victim of MS,' Lori said,'I was a person with MS, a person first. The disease was not me.”

All day I had been meditating on Romans 8:6 “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” I was intrigued by the power of a mindset so I looked up the Greek word for mind and found the word phronema. It means, “The innermost, personal level of opinion; the inner perspective as it determines, regulating outward behavior,especially as it bears on the outward results” One mindset leads to death the other to life and peace.

As I read through the whole chapter I understand better why a mind that is set on the flesh is death. Having a mind set on the flesh comes from a life that is being lived according to the flesh. The chapter goes onto say that, “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.” So if I live my life according to my basic carnal desires then not only do I have a fleshly mindset but I also have a mind that is alien to God. The trajectory of a mind like this is death.

Lori was able to climb Mount Everest when she stopped thinking of herself as a victim of MS. She had to see herself not as the disease but as a person. MS creates a battlefield in the body. I often have a battlefield in my mind. “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law wagging war against the law of my mind ...” I can have my mind set on the Spirit because the Spirit of life set me free in Christ Jesus. I recognize I am weak but my weakness does not define me my relationship to the Spirit of Life defines me.

Lord Jesus thank You for people like Lori who help me understand that I don't have to be limited by my flesh. Thank You because when I can't change my mind the Spirit himself intercedes for me with groaning too deep for words. “And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit.”