All right, for the big surprise tonight is that we're actually starting on time. I was able to get my notes and everything ready, get situated so we could start at a good time today as far as actually being exactly on time. So I appreciate everyone who's here. I apologize to those who come in late because I've got you used to having to do that. I'll buy you a moment by just mentioning a couple of things. But anyways, I do appreciate everyone. I see that some are already here with Nick, Stefania, Rebecca, and even Zinia and Daniela. So I give my greetings to all of you and anyone else who come in for this study as well. I'm actually quite looking forward to this one just because it is something a little bit different. I see at least Micah is also here, so I'll give my greetings to him and Bronnie too. So we actually got a good number coming in so far. But this is what I'm a little bit interested to talk about just because this is one that I myself Have found a lot of preachers when they talk about this seem to not really have don't agree. I'll put it that way They don't there's a lot of different opinions about where the mind fits into all of this Because we understand the concept that wisdom is a matter of the heart that it proceeds. It's an ability more so than an education And so it's something interesting there But there's so much about the mind and all of this as well, and the capacity of thought. So it's something interesting I want to study. In fact, even in terms of trying to figure out which verse to start with, I didn't find a passage where it was just, okay, here's where we're going to start. This is what we're going to do. Instead, we're going to do this study just a little bit different. In fact, I don't know if maybe one verse comes from the book of Proverbs, What we're going to do instead is we're going to start at the beginning. We're going to go back to the first dimension and work our way through and try to get some definitions. There is one particular verse I really want to bring out, but I may keep going in order like what I intended and take my time to get there. So once again, I give my greetings to everybody, those who've made it in for the study. Let me bring up the wisdom chart real quick, just for anyone who's not familiar with it. Let me also note that if you see my office is starting very slowly to come together, eventually it's gonna be an actual office, but there's still almost no books on the bookshelf, just my Bible, that's all I need, but it's still, bookshelf looks a little bit nicer when there's some stuff on there, but we'll take care of that soon. So let me bring up that wisdom chart just to give everybody a little perspective real quick. Alright, so in the wisdom chart, which again is something I made is not some definitive. You have to abide by this kind of thing. This is something that I years ago was working on. The more I look at it, the more it seems like I feel like I lucked into some stuff here because some of it makes more sense now than it did when I first came up with this. I feel like God just really helped me to have a pretty good understanding of the concept as I was designing it. No, it's not any weird thing anybody else wants to make it out to be. It's just a chart. that this is the best design I could come up with as to how to illustrate the connection of these different things. So just to recap what we've been through, we've done a study of what all of these are in a very brief sense. We've talked about how the fear of the Lord and unbelief are the key contributors to what kind of heart you're going to have, as to where your heart is going to go, whether it's going to lead towards foolishness or wisdom. being that whether you see everything through the filter of God or whether you see everything through the filter of your own understanding is going to lean you towards foolishness or towards wisdom. So those are the main things we've talked about up to now. The heart is the heart of the matter. It's the thing that really determines all of this. And then in reality, the thing that determines that is whether you fear the Lord or whether you're channeled by unbelief. Whether you're somebody who tries to view things through your own understanding or through the eyes of God So that's a very simplified version of what we talked about across the three messages that have been part of this series prior to this I say the first one's kind of just a big introduction to everything So I encourage you to go back and check that out if you missed it and want to get introduced to all of this If you want to understand the heart and its connection to everything because that really is as I say the heart of the matter Or if you want to see the beginning of it all whether that's the fear of Lord or unbelief Then that was the last one of these we did so now we're just into the fourth one We're still very early in the study. We're going to talk about the mind so This is something again, I'm very interested to talk about just because it's something I hear a lot of preachers beliefs there. What they found in study about this, and there's very little consistency across it. Some people connected to being a part of your spirit. Some people put it as its own separate thing, even though we know her body, soul, and spirit. I've heard so many different kind of ideas. So before I get you mixed up with all of that, let's just get straight to the point of looking, what does the Bible actually say about this? And maybe I can address some of those ideas as we go through this. So let me take the wisdom chart down. So I'm not trying to work around that the whole time, and I can actually set straight. We're going to start at the beginning, the first time the word mind is ever used in the Bible, which is Genesis 23, 8. This is one of those words, it's so interesting for anybody who hasn't got on board with the idea of first mention, the law of first mention, which is that the idea that the first time a word is used in the Bible is where you're going to get your clearest understanding of what it means, or at least your best foundation, maybe I should say, for what it means. Sometimes you'll have a clearer definition later. But many times what you'll find is when a word is used in different ways, the first several times it's used, each time it's used, it's usually used in one of those ways. And so that's what you find with the word mind is that most of the different ways in which you can use the word appear across its first three or four uses. And so it's actually quite interesting to me in that regard that God doesn't just give you one and then the same definition over and over. He actually shows you that it's used differently in different passages just in the first few times it appears in the Bible. So let's start with Genesis 23. In verse 8 because that's the first one it says that he communed with them saying if it be your mind That I should bury my dead out of my sight hear me and entreat me Entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar. So the way Abraham's using it here as he's talking As he's meeting here and he's make sure I'm not getting my timeline messed up when I say Abraham here. But the way it's being used here and the discussion is that, yeah, Abraham, sorry, my Bible wasn't loaded properly for me to get the context. But Abraham's talking here as this is the burial for Sarah. Yeah, there we go. But anyways, he's talking here and he's discussing what's going to happen. He says, if you're, you know, you're thinking your mindset, you know, what you have in mind, uh... is for me to bring my dad and i said to you let's talk about this uh... and so You see, with that one use, you actually encapsulate a lot of the ideas of what the word means, but primarily it's talking about the mindset here. Somebody having this train of thought, this thing that they're considering or thinking about. And none of this is gonna be deep or profound in the beginning, so give me a little bit to build to my point, because this is pretty basic. I mean, we should already have that thought of what the word mind means in the first place, that mind of it. Then the next one would be Genesis 26, 35. And this, I have to give you a little context for that, it's gonna be really strange. It says in verse 34, Esau was 40 years old when he took to wife Judith, the daughter of Berei the Hittite, and Bashamath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite. which were a grief of mind to Isaac and to Rebecca. Now, what the verse is saying is that it was a burden to them, that he married Hittites. He went away from what he knew he ought to do. He went into heathen nations to find wives, and it was a burden to his parents. It was a grief of mind to them. There was not a good relationship there in the family. You can understand exactly what that means. Everybody's seen that at some point that a child marries one of the, your son, daughter, somebody marries someone who's a grief to the parents because they just don't live up to what they wanted of their child. So in this particular case, that's what Esau did. His wife's were a grief to his parents. But the way it's expressed is to say it was a grief to their mind, which means that it's something it was like a burden that weighed inside of their mind, inside of their thoughts, inside of their thinking. So that gives you another way in which it's kind of used. Then actually I'm gonna jump, well, let's do Leviticus 24 since we're doing the first several. It says, and they put him inward that the mind of the Lord might be showed them. So in this particular case, it's showing you what God is thinking, what God's thought process and everything is, which is very similar to the Genesis 23. That's why I was getting ready to skip it, but I'll give it just for context. Number 1628 says, and Moses said, hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works where I have not done them of my own mind, which was not means to say it was not my plan. It was not my thinking. It was not my desire to do this. So you're getting a little bit of a foundation of what the mind is in terms of how the Bible uses the word, what it means throughout the Bible, so as to mean someone's way of thinking, their plan, their desire, so forth, that that's what it means when God says the mind. Now, when we talk about the mind in regard to wisdom and knowledge and all of this, we say we relate it more to knowledge, but there's a reason for that. It's because one other aspect of the mind which is one we start to see, is that it is a place of remembrance. In fact, the most common phrase wherein you find the word mind is, let's see, I had it here. to bring it to mind, or there's different variations to come into mind, to cast into mind. But yeah, Jeremiah is where you really start to see coming up. It says in Jeremiah and Isaiah, many times it says that it cometh to mind or come into mind. And then the cast into mind would be over in Luke when Mary's thinking about, or as it says in another passage, she's pondered in her heart, which we'll get to that and why that matters in a little bit. But Ezekiel talks about cometh into mind. Anyways, in all of those passages where you have these cometh into mind statements, which is, again, the most common use of the word mind, it's usually in that kind of phrase, cometh into mind, or comes into mind, or came into mind, or let's say something a little bit different, cast into mind. Most of the time the word mind is used in the Bible, which is, I think, 92 verses, 95 times. Of those 95 times the word is used, the majority of them are a statement where something came into somebody's mind. So this is where you see the thing that makes it unique, and it's part of wisdom, and where it relates to wisdom, and where it relates to all of this, is it is a place of remembrance. It's the place where we store information. It's the place where we take the things that we've been taught, or the things we've experienced, and we store those in the mind. And I don't want to get into science, because, of course, we want to base all of our doctrine off the Bible. Scientifically, we know that we understand It's an absence of memory and all of that and how that you have. It's a very weird and complex system, how your memory works. But essentially, it's like how you have your computer, the hard drive that has all the information there. And that hard drive also does more than just hold information. It determines a lot about what your computer is and does. The mind is very similar for you in that same set. Now, in that sense, this is easy to teach in the sense that where the mind plays into knowledge, Is very easy because where it plays into knowledge is knowledge is what you know, it is the information you have received either through experience or education. So the easiest thing I can teach you tonight, if you don't already understand, this is your ability to retain information, which is part of your mind that. as that is where you retain information, that's where you store and that's your, you know, your databanks, where all that stuff is at. That part is easy. You know, if you don't have a lot of education, then let's bring the chart back up real quick. If you don't have a lot of education, your mind has not been taught a lot of things. then you're gonna lean into being simple because you just haven't been taught. There's not a lot of information to retain if you haven't been taught. That's what it means to be simple. Now, simple can also mean, in the way it's used in the Bible, it can also speak to the idea of someone who doesn't have a capacity to learn, like someone who has a mental disability or something of that nature, or it can just mean as completely inoffensively as possible, someone who just doesn't have a lot of education or experience at this point. So you have the simple in this case. as being someone who hasn't been taught a lot. You have someone who's knowledgeable on the other side and someone who has been taught. Now that can be through education. It could be that they sit in a classroom and they learn these things, or it can be through experience. It can be that throughout life they've lived through a lot of things or they've lived through a long time. And because of that, they received a lot of information and the mind has stored that information up, which means they are knowledgeable. Without storing up information, the mind is going to be simple. And that's really, I mean, that actually almost makes sense all by itself, just in the definition of the word. Something that doesn't have a lot of defining things to it, defining characteristics is simple. So a mind that, let's say, is a little less wrinkly, it doesn't have as many folds in it, it doesn't have as much information there. A mind with a little less details, a little less information is going to be simple. It's going to be blank. It's going to be something that doesn't have a lot going for it. But a mind that has more information, that it has more there. There's more detail. There's more things. It's more interesting. It's not simple anymore. So that's the easiest part of all of this. And normally to teach this lesson, that would be what I would talk about because of the fact that that is in relation to your capacity of knowledge. It's that's what the mind has to do with it. But the more I've studied this over the years, the thing that has become more and more interesting to me is where does the mind fit into who you are? Because physically your brain is where you store information and that would be part of your body. But your mind is not limited to your body. You know, you think about this, I really hate to even use this example, because it's a very tragic event going on right now. But Lori and I know someone who their body is They're in a coma right now, and so their mind and their body are working, let's say, almost separately at this point, you know, that they're in a place where there's some brain activity, but the body is not allowing that to be expressed outwardly. And I don't want to get into that because it is such a sensitive area, but it's probably the best way to express what I'm trying to say. is that the mind, even though, yes, the brain is where physically all this stuff is stored, the mind is not limited to just the physical side of you. I mean, your body can be broken down pretty bad. People have had parts of their brain cut out and all this kind of stuff. And I understand that the Let's say metaphysical side of that, you know, the more disconnected, spiritual, soulful, whatever you want to call it, side of your thinking does have dependency upon the brain itself. Because if a brain is damaged, you start to lose the capacity to do those things. So you lose some of your capacity to retain information. Even with age, as the brain ages, we lose some of our capacity to retain information. So there's certainly a physical aspect of your mind. There is a physical part of it in the sense that it literally, you know, derives stability from that. Whereas when it comes to the soul, it's completely disconnected from that. I mean, yes, if the body dies, the soul and the body separate, but your soul in the full sense of what it is, it's not, you know, we say heart, but we don't mean the organ that pumps blood through your body when we say heart. When we talk about the heart of this regard, we're talking about your soul, or at least some part of your soul, which again, we'll get to. We're getting to the part that I find most interesting. We're just having to lay some foundation. But when it comes to the mind itself, there is a physical aspect because it does require, I mean, someone's brain can cease and their life still exists. My point is, if you're trying to say it's completely disconnected, like soul, that there's an issue with that because there is a point in which somebody can be, you know, their body and life can still continue. Their soul still functions, but the mind is gone. I mean, I guess all time, I can use all timers without being offensive or dementia. Uh, because it's not, I mean, it's a very sensitive subject. A lot of us know people. I watched my great grandmother, even my grandmother go through that. It is something that I know the tragedy of it But you see in that that a lot of times somebody who has dementia the mind goes But it actually allows space for the soul to be seen a little bit more To see the heart of that person. There's a lady here in our city again that her husband died not so long ago, and I went to go see her I was talking to her and When I was talking with her, she was speaking to me about her husband, that while he was alive throughout his lifetime, he was never a very spiritual person in terms of just singing hymns and making a joyful noise to the Lord. He went to church, he was faithful, you knew he loved God, he read his Bible, but to be outwardly expressive of that, you never really saw it. That was something that was hidden down inside of who he was. But when the dementia set in and he began to lose the control of his mind, and that began to deteriorate. Suddenly, this man began to just you hear him just quoting verses to himself as you sit and watching TV, you'd be singing hymns and it was like. All this stuff that was hidden down inside of his heart was now coming out as to who he was. In fact, one of the scariest things about dementia for some people may be that that part of you you try to hide the most deep down in the heart is what might come out as you start to lose control through the mind there. And so, I guess that is just to say, I don't want to get sidetracked, I don't want to get too distracted. But that's just to show that the mind does have a connection to the physical side of things, but it's not limited to the physical side of things. It is something deeper than just your body, because it does contain thought, it contains will, it contains a lot of stuff like that. So then another argument people make about what the mind is or another point people bring out is they connect it to the spirit. And a lot of that comes from Romans 8 and 7. In fact, I even have some verses from there written down, whereas maybe I can read some of those just so I'm not skipping over and giving you scripture for what we're talking about. I don't want this to be just a talk about stuff. I want to make sure you use Bible in all of it. So Romans 7, verse 23, It says, 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. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. Now right there, the way he's presenting this is more so concerning an idea of willpower, like your will, like my desire with my mind, with my thinking, with what I'm choosing and wanting to do. I want to serve the law of God. I want to do what's right in the eyes of God. But my flesh and the nature of my flesh is I want to do, or it wants to do, I should say, the things that appeal to the flesh and wants to live in sin. And every Christian knows what that is. It's that war within our members. that there's within our mind, there's a desire to serve God, and within our flesh, a desire to serve sin. And so because of that, because most of that we think about that in spiritual terms, most of us then would relate that as saying, okay, within the mind is part of the spirit. Now, Even continuing beyond that into Romans 8, you find a similar thing, but this one's where it shows you where it's not necessarily that the mind is part of the spirit. Romans 8, 5 says, for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is the intimacy against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Now, what he's teaching there, the fact that you can be carnally minded or spiritually minded shows you that the intention here is not to say that the mind is unique to the Spirit either. It's to say that the mind can be Submit it to the spirit because to be carnally minded is to be like how we tell someone to mind their manners is to be kept in thought that this is the way of thinking. This is the wheel that we have and the behavior that we've set for ourselves. So to be carnally minded means that I have set myself in a carnal mindset and I'm going to be carnally behaved and carnally thinking and everything about me is going to be carnal. And that really does sound like the spirit because the part of you that really defines what you are is the spirit. However, the fact that there is a carnal mind and a spiritual mind means that it's not uniquely part of your spirit, I guess is what I'm trying to say in this. is that you can set your thinking in a carnal way or you can set your thinking in a spiritual way so that you obey the spiritual side of things or the carnal side of things. That doesn't mean that the mind is uniquely part of the spirit. Now, the one that really complicates things even more is Matthew 22, 37. And this is one that really is gonna be complicated, so I hope I haven't lost you yet, because if I've lost you in what I've talked about so far, you really are in for it. Matthew 22, 37. Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Now, I'll add to this Mark 12 20, where he adds not just our heart, our soul, and our mind, but also our might, our strength. He adds to that that we'll serve God in all of our strength as well. Now, There's a few things to consider. One is the heart and soul are usually used synonymously throughout the Bible. In fact, it's actually kind of strange that they're given here like it's a list because normally when you have a list, it means all those things on the list are different things. Like when you have a list of the different types of anger, what we know what that is, is that each anger has a different, a slightly different definition. Yes, they all proceed forth from a similar space, but wrath has a little bit of a different definition. You know, fury, or well, fury, not necessarily, because fury is part of wrath, I guess. But my point is that each type of anger, even though it's maybe a little bit hard sometimes to define those little differences, the fact that they're in a list together is usually to indicate that there is some degree of difference between them. However, the word heart and the word soul are used typically synonymously. You find that the soul is the inward part of you. That's who you are. Now, for anyone who doesn't know, you have the three parts, the body, the flesh, this physical side of who you are. That's the part that lives and dies. You have the spirit we've already talked about is the innermost part of who you are. That's the part that connects to God, allows you to relate to God, to understand spiritual things. I mean, all this kind of stuff. Now, spiritually, you're more than spiritually dead because you're dead and trespassing the sin. It's not until you're made alive in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. And there's a whole lesson in all of that. I'm trying to simplify it, but I think I'm making it worse. But the spirit is to make it as simple as possible. The part of you that really is like the core principle of who you are. Like if you could boil down what your defining characteristic is, that's usually going to come forth from your spirit. Now, in terms of like your behavior and everything. So. then the soul is the part of you that is your thoughts, your emotions, your desires, all of that part of you. So what's interesting, again, to say this is that usually the heart or the soul are used synonymously. Usually, if God says heart, we understand that he means to love God with all your soul. If he says soul, we understand that includes the heart. Now, where they're not entirely synonymous, maybe, and this is something to consider, The heart is usually the seed of emotions. It's the seed of our desires. It's that part of us. What's interesting to me is in the statement, there seems to be potential for indicating that these things are, let's say, pockets of what your soul is. Now, the only issue to me in terms of the language is the fact that soul is in the middle of the list, and you'd think it would start the list if the other parts were going to be the individual members that make it up. But the reason why I would add to that is because might being on the list is the idea of will, like our willpower is something people often associate with the spirit. But I think that's because of a backwards way of thinking it to some degree. It's not that they're completely wrong, but the problem is because those spirit determines you are like, you know, you have someone like Daniel who has a more excellent spirit and it just keeps him in a certain mindset and a certain attitude and a certain behavior. throughout his life, no matter what happens. It's a governing principle of who he is to have that excellent spirit. So then it's easy to relate that as also being his will, when in reality, his will is being shaped by his spirit in that case. And we understand the principles of how the body, soul, and spirit connect is what happens in the spirit will always radiate out into the soul and forth to the body as it grows stronger like that. I really think I'm picking this hard. The principle then would be that when it comes to your might, as this case, he's not talking about your physical strength. He is talking about that drive, that strength to do something. You just see sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't. Sometimes the desire, the strength to do stuff is drained out of you, and other times you have it. You have might to go do stuff. So without discussing what the mind is in this statement, essentially what he would be saying is that entirety of who you are in terms of your emotions and your desires serve God or love God. with the entirety of who you are in terms of your might, your will and your drive to do things, your motivations and all of that serve God. And then I think the mind in this case seems to be related more to the soul, as he's saying that with all your thoughts and that inner dialogue of who you are, love God. So it's all love God. You love God with your strength, with all the strength you have, love God with that strength, inner strength, with all the desires and emotions and all you have within you, love God with all your inner thinking. Because again, that's what the mind is going to really come to. Your mind is your ability to call back and remember information. It's your ability to mull over and consider. Now, this is even about to get one step more complicated, though. So if I've got you on board for this, prepared for me to potentially give you a place to get off the you to jump ship if you're not completely on board. So to me it would seem that in these places where we're given this great commandment to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength. that he has given you a perspective of how that inner part of who you are to love God with all of that. Now, some people would look at it separate. Some people would look at it and saying that you are to love God with your strength, representing the physical strength that the mind is going to represent the spirit and heart and soul are going to represent the soul. Now, that's fine if somebody sees it that way. I'm not going to fight with them about that because there's such a fine line between how all this stuff connects that it would be hard to argue with somebody either side. Like, whether you agree with me or disagree with me, you're going to have a hard time arguing either way. Because it's a very fine line, but we're trying to get an understanding right now of what is, where does the mind fit into all this? Is it part of my soul? Is it part of my spirit? Is it a uniquely physical part of who I am? And we know it's not uniquely physical, even though it is affected by the physical side of you. We see that it's affected by the spiritual side of you because your will and that part of your mind, you know, that you're as how your mind did, what you're going to serve is very much affected by the spiritual side of you. And then we see at the very least, if it's not part of your soul, it's at least affected by your soul. Because we see that what I'm going to bring out now is the Bible also talks about thinking about things in our heart. There is Proverbs 23, seven, for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Matthew 9, four, Jesus talking to people about thinking evil thoughts in their heart, because he knows what they're thinking in their hearts, and he catches them in it. Isaiah 10, seven, talks about thinking in the heart. So there's many verses, talks about thinking in the heart, that you think with your heart. Now, it would be easy to write that off and say that, you know, there is emotional decisions and, you know, mental decisions, what we call logical decisions, where you take information and use it to make a decision. Now, the truth is, though, the problem is that also falls some degree with wisdom and your ability to make decisions with information and not with emotion. We'll see that as we get more into defining wisdom. I don't think that's what the distinction is here in terms of thinking with the heart of thinking with the mind. I think there is some of that, but I think in reality. The idea is that these things are connected. The mind, the heart, and the soul. It's all part of who you are and they're very much connected together. Now obviously the fact that God talks about them differently means they're not the same thing. We know that the heart should be part of the soul and it would seem that the mind also at least has some part of what it is in your soul. Uh, as again, also part of it's in the physical side and part of it's in the spiritual side. In fact, maybe this is where all 3 of these things connect. If we're just going to be honest, but when we look at the mind and its relation to these things, it is the place where you do. It is the place where you can think about that information where you can set your desire, your wheel. I guess you can say of what you're going to do where you determine a lot of what you're who you are. You said a lot of that in your mind and you see that's the way the word is used for the most part. It's someone is has a mindset that they're minded to do something or someone's bringing information into their mind. So. A lot of the way the word used is like that. Our mind is something that according to Romans 12 can be renewed. It can be refreshed. We can change the way our mind thinks and the way it works and the way it processes information. Romans 14, 5 says, let every man be persuaded of his own mind. Where he's talking about that some of us believe one thing's wrong and some believe it's good. And he says, don't, you know, don't just follow what I say, or what somebody else says, you think about these things and convince yourself. So, it is where we mull over and consider information, whereas at the same time. Mary, in one place, we're told that she casts forth this information in her heart, which means she brings it up and thinks about it in her mind. But at the same time, it also tells us that she ponders in her heart the information about the birth of Jesus. So you see there's a connection where the information seems to be stored in the mind And that somewhere in the connection between the mind and the heart is where we then process that information. And that's where it gets complicated. The idea that you restore the information here, that's easy now. Where that relates to the heart is when he says, for example, my word of I hid in my heart is, yes, there's a mental remembrance of something, but you can mentally remember information. Like, for example, you can quote to me that word of I hid in my heart that I might not say that against God without actually having an understanding of what that means in your heart. So that's the difference between just having it here and having it here. Here is that I know what it says. Here is that I understand what it says. That's the differences. Now, for me, as we try to tie this up and make it a little less complicated, get a coherent thought out of all of this, I think that your ability to process information is in a very similar thing. that the mind is where you know information and somewhere in the wires that connect between the heart and the mind is where you go from knowing what it says to understanding what it says. To knowing information to understanding because you think about it here and you think about it here. You ponder it here and you ponder it here. You bring it forth from memory here and you ponder it here. Or you write it down here and you think about it here. But regardless, there is this connection between the heart and the mind that is very well established in the Bible. It's very complicated. The mind itself is such a complicated subject because you see its connections to the body, the soul and the spirit. And yet throughout all of this, there's no clear distinction as to which one of those it uniquely belongs to. It has connection to all of them. and it's such a complex thing and yet the thing that's even more interesting is the Bible doesn't give it nearly the importance that we think it would in terms of defining it. Most of what the Bible says about the mind is don't walk in the vanity of your minds. Don't be like the Gentiles who see this world with a vain mindset, who think that it's all about living for the day and don't regard God. So change the way you think. Renew your mind and learn to think in the way that God would have you to think, which very much lines up with what we've talked about with wisdom and how wisdom changes the heart. So God's saying the same way that wisdom changes your heart. You need God's word to be poured into your mind and fill your mind up with the word of God so that you can refresh your mind and renew your mind in a very similar way. So the reality of the mind and it's part and all of this is that it is the databanks. It's where you store the information that you'll receive. Everything that I've told you today, if you keep it with you, it's because you've stored it in your mind. And if you understand it and they can use it in life, it's because you've then been able to transfer, not just having it stored away here, but being able to use it here in the heart. So that is, I guess, the relation where knowledge and the part of the mind come in is you take the information I give you stored in your mind, where wisdom and understanding is, is you then take that information, you understand what it means, and then you understand how to apply that knowledge, how you can use that knowledge as the understanding and then the wisdom. The wisdom is then taking it once you know what it means, once you understand what it means and applying it in your life. using it. That's where you see they all start to connect. And to me, that's as complicated as I've made it throughout the discussion, so that I'm not surprised that I lost a couple of people along the way if I watch the view count. As complicated as I've made it, it does seem to be a natural and simple fault there, that if I retain the information here, And I understand it here, then from here, I also can apply it in my life in the way that I talk, think, act, my decisions and everything. So the minds part of this is that it is the place where we, first of all, store information. And then through its connection to the heart, we can take that information and understand it better and use it and apply it to our lives. If you take it a little bit deeper, it is the place where we set our way, we set our goals, we set our path, we set our mindset and we choose what we're going to do. It's where we remember things and think about things and so forth. So I'll go ahead at this moment. I'll take it and open up for a little bit for some questions, because there's probably some room for questions on this. I see Nick's even posted one already. So let me take a second to read that. I have to read it instead of trying to paraphrase. It says, Our beliefs give us a sound mind, but we keep making the same mistakes. Is that caused by bad spirits? The reality is, the reason why we keep making the same mistakes goes back to Romans 6 and Romans 7, the idea of how the word mind is used, which is to be mind dead. To be carnally minded means that my mind, my way of thinking, and all of this is submitting, whether I always want it to or not, submitting to a certain mindset, to a certain way of thinking. So like, you know, we say it almost backwards today. We say it backwards in the sense we say mind your manners. Whereas the way the Bible is using the term in Romans 7 and 8 would be to say to be manner minded, meaning that my actions and everything I do is governed by my desire to be well mannered. The way the Bible is presenting it in Romans 7 and 8 is that you have two parts of you. There is a part of you that your will and your desires wants to be spiritually minded. You want to have it so that you're governed by the spiritual side of you. But the problem is you have a flesh and while your spirit is redeemed, it's been made alive through Christ. Your flesh is not. Your flesh still has sinful nature. You still have desires and you can be through the sanctification that comes through feeding on God's word and being strong in God's word. You can get victory over that kind of stuff, but The flesh is always going to wait for you to get weak and try to fight back. So that's why we don't have to live in defeat. We don't have to always keep making the same mistakes or beat by the same things. But the reality of the matter is that because the flesh is minded that way, we are so many times governed by the desires of the flesh. I mean, you think about this. How many times you've been tempted with something? And when you first start the process of temptation, you think to yourself and think, I don't have to do this. I shouldn't do this. It's not right for me to do this. And for a moment, you've convinced yourself not to do this. That's the spiritually minded part of this. In my mind, I want to obey the spirit. But then suddenly the desires just seem to keep growing. It's like I talked myself out of it. I thought, but yet for some reason, the desire within my flesh is still there and it gets stronger. It's like an appetite in that sense that, you know, you, you tell yourself, I'm not so hungry. I can wait a little while, but yet for some reason, your stomach's growling anyways. Uh, and so as the appetite grows, or as you get more hungry and that calls, uh, eventually you stop thinking on the spiritual side of things, or you stop using your mind and you start following the flesh. And again, that's just another wrinkle in terms of how all this stuff is together, where it's a little bit complicated when you get to that point. But in terms of bad spirits, it's not really about good spirits, bad spirits, any of that kind of stuff. Now, there is one place where that's true, and I'll get to that. But it's more so about the fact that unless we are well-fed and well-prepared spiritually for the fight that I'm talking about, that you have two sides of you, one that wants to serve God, one that wants to serve the flesh. Unless you're well-prepared for that fight, you're always gonna have that fight very hard, and you're gonna lose it more than you like to admit. Because it's a fight, and we don't give it the attention we should. If you had somebody waiting outside your door to beat you up every time you walk outside, you'd probably be doing some weightlifting, some boxing training, something inside. but we don't consider that our flesh is waiting to beat you up every time you do anything. Anytime you do whatever it is that can lead you on the path of temptation, your flesh is waiting to beat you up. But we live a life where we're not really physically preparing for that fight. There's a reason why the Bible talks about spiritual warfare. It's more than what we tend to give credit to. Now, where the bad spirit side of it comes in to where that's not an entirely wrong statement to say that there is some connection to bad spirit is that people can have, for example, an angry spirit. So as to say that your spirit, that part of you that is very defining to who you are. Well, Daniel had an excellent spirit, but other people in the Bible have had like a furious spirit or angry spirit. And what that does is it shows shapes them into the kind of person. Now, again, you can change that part of who you are. God can help you to change that. You're not going to do it in your own power, but God can help you to change who you are on that level. It's not that you have to stay that way. But with the idea of the, the furious and the, the wrathful and all this kind of stuff, and those people who have that angry spirit about them, where people have a bitter spirit about them, as you notice, it affects everything about it. Somebody who has a bitter spirit, it can be the most beautiful day you've ever seen in your life. Everything can be going perfect. And they're still like, you ask them how they're doing. It's like, well, yeah, I've been better or. Well, it's like you were if you ever watched Weenie the Pooh cartoons And I just I thought of it because I was getting ready to slip into my your impression. You know, oh Well, I guess nobody cares about me today, you know that kind of thing We all know some we all know people like that people who it doesn't matter everything in the world can be right and They're still gonna have like you ask them. How are you doing? It's like well, you know, I don't know. It's just it's okay I mean I'm alive I guess that kind of mentality and Whereas you see another side of that, I mean, we laugh out, somebody asked me about Ken's, I don't know, Lori was, somebody asked Lori how she's doing the other day, she says, strong, like Ken would say. And it's almost infectious, the spirit that he had, because Ken had that spirit, that he was just, even a bad day, you ask him how he's doing, he's, I'm strong, you know, he had an excellent spirit in that sense, that he was always happy about stuff. Whereas there's other people, and no, Safania, I'm not thinking about Eli, even though you're asking. He's asking that in the comments. So no, that's not who I'm thinking of when I say somebody with a negative. There's far, far better examples of that. But there's plenty of people who have just that spirit about them where everything can be right and nothing's still good enough. Or there's people who you see, they have an angry spirit about them and everything makes them mad. You can give them what they want and they still get mad because nothing satisfies them. You see people who have like a greedy spirit about them or an envious spirit where all they see is what you have and money and stuff and everything about who they are is determined by that. They don't have the capacity to notice that they've got more money than you've probably ever had in your whole life. but all they can see is that you have on your plate, you know, uh, one more piece, one more care, you know, small carrot than what they have. Uh, because it really just shapes and determines who you are, that spiritual side, that spirit, not the spiritual to be confused with the spiritual, like relating to God, but that spirit of who you are. Now, to what Gail is talking about with the renewing of the mind and reminding yourself of God's word, remembering his word, that all falls into, when I say sanctification, that's a simplified word for what you're talking about, is that the process of sanctification for the Christian is the renewing of the mind. It is filling yourself up with God's word. It's getting it here and here. It's memorizing what it says with the knowledge, understanding what it says with the heart and with wisdom, so that by hiding God's word in your heart that way and keeping it close and near and dear to you, you have the ability to access it and use it and help yourself in whatever you're facing. Excuse me. So with that in mind, when I say sanctification most time, what I mean is that that idea of being able to have God's word hidden and stored away within you, having it in the mind so that you have the information, having it in the heart so that you have the application of it so that you can use it. That's more so what I mean when I talk about sanctification. It's the idea of being well-fed and spiritually strengthened through not just God's word, but through spiritual things. Sanctification really has a lot to do. It's a deeper word than this, but if I give you a surface level definition, it really comes down to the idea of being spiritually healthy. It's the idea of being right spiritually and healthy spiritually and all of these kind of things. So that would contain with it the ideas of any of those things that help you spiritually. So of course, all that stuff about God's word, prayer, time with other believers, going out and serving God in ministry, giving gospel, all that kind of stuff is going to sanctify you and help you. Even in some cases, even if it's just because it keeps you from spending your time and other stuff. But that's the thing. The more time we spend with God and with his people and in his word and prayer and service, the more time we spend in all of that, the stronger we get spiritually. Just like more time you spend running, exercising, gym, whatever, the better off you're going to be physically, you know, so forth emotional. There's different ways and stuff. I'll get into that. But. The sanctified part of it is, you know, the more time we spend in the spiritual things, the things that are going to strengthen us spiritually, then the easier it is going to be to resist the flesh. And also just to be honest in a very simple way, the more time you spend in all that, the less time you have for the things of the flesh. But just add one more note to that. The other side of it is that everything you do feeds you one way or another. It's either going to feed the carnal nature, the fleshly nature, or it's going to feed the spiritual nature. So every decision, everything you're doing feeds one or the other. Where it gets really hard is that even stuff that's not bad will feed you carnally. Because if you're feeding the flesh, that's going to affect you carnally. If you're feeding the soul, it's going to affect you carnally. So, you know, sitting down, reading a good book, relaxing and, you know, just trying to blow off some steam and release some stress is going to feed you carnally. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's going to feed you carnally. you know, setting down eating a good meal, going running, exercising, any of that kind of stuff that you're doing for the physical side of you, it's going to feed you carnally. And it's sad, but it's part of how we are. It's part of our nature and the way we're made. And because of that, because the stuff you do without even thinking a lot of times will feed you carnally, to be spiritually fit and ready for the fight means that you have to put in the extra effort to feed yourself spiritually. And that's why your flesh doesn't want it. I mean, your flesh doesn't want you to read the Bible. It doesn't want you to pray. It doesn't want you to go to church. It doesn't want you to fellowship with others. It doesn't want you to go out and give the gospel. It's averse to any of those things because it's the opposite of what it wants. It wants carnal feeding. It wants you to sit down and watch a little more TV. It wants you to look at things or do things or think things or whatever you shouldn't. It wants all of that. but it doesn't want the spiritual because it is averse to that. There's two very unique and different natures to who you are and you have to resist those. And even I think that still illustrates the point I was making that to say the mind is uniquely part of the spirit would then kind of miss the point because why would my spirit enjoy thinking about bad stuff? You know, why would it enjoy thinking about fleshly things or why would enjoy thinking about things that are just not even wrong, but just not spiritual? like, you know, planning what I'm going to do tomorrow or thinking about, you know, how to fix something or whatever. You know, these are things like I can relax myself to sleep thinking about how, you know, if I had, you know, if I had time, I would do this and this and this. You know, we can all do that. So it's just not uniquely part of the spirit of who you are in that regard. It's not uniquely a spiritual thing, I guess we should say it that way. All right, I think that's covered questions. I didn't see any new questions coming in. It seems like everybody's actually kind of on the same page of thinking. I hope what I said answered people's questions and I didn't misread what anybody was asking or jump over any questions or anything like that. I hope it all made sense. uh... but uh... we're i think cover most everything pretty well i appreciate one step around for the study this long uh... i thought this could be a pretty simple and short one until i really started preparing my notes and then i decided to tackle some stuff that as you saw going through this i am in no way considering myself to be an expert on the metaphysics and all of that and what the mind is uh... the mind is a very complicated concept in the bible more than what people give it credit for And I don't blame the average preacher for not giving it the full credit it deserves and how complicated it is, because you have to study it a lot to start to see that. To start to see, like, if you define it as just being this or this, well, it's not until you really put some time in the study, you're going to see where that doesn't work. You can't put it just in that one box. So that's why I don't fault anybody who who doesn't see it as a more complicated subject than what they do. But anyways, I appreciate your time. Thank you for being part of the study. I'm glad for all of you stuck around for we had a good number throughout and I appreciate the interaction responses from everyone. I remind you tomorrow we're in Hebrews chapter one still really going to be probably getting into more with the inheritance that Christ has as the only begotten son. We define what that means last week, the only begotten son. So if you want to know what that means, then go back and listen to last Wednesday night's message. Then of course, I remind everybody on Saturday that For Saturday, there is no Q&A or anything like that this week, no live stream at all, because I'll be preaching for the men's conference at Calvary Baptist Church in Malmes. So again, if any fellow want to go with me who hasn't already arranged a seat, I still have at least one more seat, maybe two more seats in my car. So might be welcome to come with us if they want to. And then, for tomorrow night's fun. He was asking who's cooking as Nick said, Lori's cooking tomorrow. Still need somebody to sign up for next Wednesday night and the next one. I think after that we're taking care of for a little while tomorrow night on Wednesday. It's always that the live stream starts around 7 45. Now Facebook has some issues right now. It seems like that they're not putting the post up until we actually go live. They're supposed to put it up prior to that. Sometimes I think they do, sometimes they don't. So if you don't see it, don't worry. Around 7.45 to 7.50, somewhere in that five minute window, we will go live and you'll be able to find it. Just refresh from time to time and you'll catch it. But the live stream doesn't start till then because we don't live stream the prayer service. So the prayer service is from 7 to 7.45, or we try to cut off around 7.45. I don't like to stop people in the middle of a prayer, so sometimes it goes a little bit long. But that window is not live stream because I consider it to be a much more private time and a more intimate time. We spend it in prayer with God. But the singing and the Bible study are from 745 until around 830, 845 is what it's supposed to be. Every once in a while I get a little long winded on those nights. Uh, then, uh, also for those who are coming to the meal that starts at six. Uh, so for anyone who wants to come eat with us, that's from six, not 6 45, we start putting things up. So you need to be there before then, if you want to eat. All right. Thank you again, everyone. Uh, there's your information for the rest of the week, I guess. All right. Hope you have a good evening.