Romans 8:6-8
“6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”

We’d like to think that we control our mind, but, it just doesn’t work that way. Why do you think things that you don’t want to think when you see someone who obviously defines a stereotype, or of the opposite sex, or has some debilitating deformity – walking by? Let’s face it, we’ve all caught ourselves there. Why? What drives or thoughts there? If we’re in control of our mind, we should be able to stop these thoughts from ever occurring, right? I’m sure you have your own examples, maybe even more graphic. I do.

Unfortunately, we do battle to control our mind. Sin is powerful. Sin is seductive. Sin is violent in its drive to control your mind. If you’ve ever seen porn, try to get those images out of your mind. You can’t erase them completely. That’s violence when you are forced to remember things you don’t want as part of your life anymore. We all have things, some grieved and healed, some still milestones around our neck, that we aren’t in control of. Long story short, we don’t control our mind.

So, is there an alternative? Yep, u betcha (I’m moving to WI soon, [not Montana, sorry Frank] so I’m practicing the language). The third part of God that we have here on earth to leverage – the Holy Spirit. V1 tells us that “the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death”. True. The mind, our mind, can be controlled, can be governed, by the Holy Spirit if we choose to go that way. It all depends on which realm we choose to live in. Do you choose the realm of flesh or the realm of God? Think about it, because your life is an indicator of the choice you’re making. Uff da, u betcha it’s true.

The Holy Spirit is life and joy. The flesh is death. I betcha see it in your own life. While on this earth, in this life, we’ll never be free of freshly desires, so we’ll never be completely free of being controlled by the flesh. We can be intentional in our march toward Christ likeness, calling the Holy Spirit to our aid, to our side, into our life. We can spend significantly more time in the Spirit than the flesh if we make that our desire, or goal, our reason for being. Lean into Him, ya hey dar, and live in joy.