Engaged

1 Thessalonians 5:¹⁷ “Pray without ceasing. Pray at all times. Never stop praying. Make your life a prayer.” (ESV/GNT/NLT/TPT)

To make the most of your life, to have mental metamorphosis, to enjoy consistent mental health the first thing is, Do Not Believe Everything You THINK. The second thing is, Guard Your Mind Against GARBAGE. Proverbs 15:¹⁴ “A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash.” Are you feeding on trash? There are three main types of brain food. The first is toxic food and we looked at examples of toxic food yesterday. The second type of brain food is junk food. Junk food is not necessarily toxic but is not very useful. It has some value but considering the amount and the space it takes, is not very useful. Take typical junk food, for example, you can get some carbohydrates, you can get some proteins, you can get some calories. But you are getting more things that you do not need than the things that you need – junk food.

A classic example is if all you do is watch movies – junk food. There is nothing wrong with movies. I am not saying if you watch movies you are going to hell. But your life cannot be defined by the movies you watch. If your main source of instruction on how to deal with family issues is from movies, you are going to be in trouble. If your main source of instruction on love, romance, and relationships is the movies – trouble. Yes, there is some value in movies, but it is junk food. The music you listen to; some music is junk food. I am not saying all music is junk; some you get some value from. But considering the amount of time and resources it takes up in you, it is junk food.

The third type of brain food is healthy food. Healthy food nourishes your mind and helps you become better and stronger in the direction that God has called you to go. Psalm 101:3 “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless…” (ESV). Check what are you consuming (feeding your mind), worthless material or worthy material? In addition to being deliberate about what you feed your mind. There are two other things I am going to share with you that I found useful in guarding my mind against garbage. The first is Conversational Prayer. Yes, you pray in the morning and at night. Yes, you have designated prayer time that you observe. But when you step out of your house, engage in conversational prayer. Father, I am going out now, build a wall of fire round about me. When you want to sign a document – Lord, what should I see and note here? You want to reply to an email – how do I respond to this email, Holy Spirit? With conversational prayer, you engage your mind with God, therefore you are eliminating junk.

Prayer: Holy Spirit of the Living God, help me practice conversational prayer daily, to keep my mind engaged with God, therefore eliminating junk, in Jesus Mighty Name. Amen!