The Spiritualised Mind

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Romans 8:6 (NKJV)

The Greek word for "minded" is phronema, and its root, phronesis, concerns a person's mental disposition, thought patterns and mentality. Phronema therefore refers to one's mental inclination, the way one is disposed to think about things. This means that your mind can be patterned to think in a certain way about any subject or circumstance.

This is serious, because the Bible clearly reveals the consequences of a given mentality. If you are inclined to think carnally about life, in a worldly, fleshly, animal or unspiritual way, your life will meet with destruction and certain death. This is so because the natural world does not hold all the answers to life; according to God, most who live carnally are groping in the dark.

There are many things that happen to people in this world that cannot be explained naturally. The reality is that human beings are incapable of viewing life in any other way without the help of the Holy Spirit. This is what it means to be spiritually minded: to have one's mentality influenced by the Spirit of God. It is an attempt to understand God's perspective on every matter of life.

Thinking is important, but how you think is even more important, and according to the Word, this way of thinking guarantees life and peace. You want peace in your life, so develop a spiritual mentality about life. God is a Spirit, and He thinks spiritually. He said, "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts." God has thoughts, and if He has thoughts, He must have a mentality, a mindset, a way of processing things, and this is the mentality He wants us to have.

You may have heard people say, "Don't over-spiritualise things." That kind of thinking is carnal and fleshly. There is no such thing as over-spiritualising. There is, however, such a thing as over-religionising, and that is not the same. You can never over-spiritualise things if you are seeing them God's way. The Word of God is a window into God's thoughts, and the more you meditate on His Word and pray, the more your mind is spiritualised, and the more the Spirit of God touches your mind. This carries the promise of life and peace. Pursue it.

The spiritualisation of the soul is so important because a carnal mind cannot ascend freely into the heavenly places; it causes the spirit to become earthbound. But when the soul is free of all worldly and earthly attachment, the spirit can ascend to the highest realms in God.

The worldly mind, by contrast, brings the spirit down into the lower spheres of the spiritual world. Worldliness is a cancer that prevents the flight of the spirit; a worldly mind is the deadliest of spiritual diseases. It is only when the soul is fully spiritual that all the senses of the spirit can be opened.

Another spiritual resource that will help in this process of spiritualisation is speaking in tongues. Take time to pray in the Spirit every day, and soon enough you will begin to notice changes in your patterns of thinking.