What Were You Thinking

“You shall also make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it, like the engraving of a signet: HOLINESS TO THE LORD. And you shall put it on a blue cord, that it may be on the turban; it shall be on the front of the turban. So it shall be on Aaron’s forehead…" Exodus 28:36-38

One of my favorite things about the Old Testament is the types and shadows that point to Christ. This scripture is one of those pictures. This is describing the turban setup of the high priest, where he had a plate mounted on the front of the head, rabbinical tradition says that it was two fingers wide and stretched from ear to ear. So the priest had Holiness to the Lord stretched over his mind and it went from ear to ear. Jesus our high priest wore a crown of thorns over his mind so that we could receive holiness he purchased with his blood. I think about the torment those thorns would have been for Jesus, just like our thoughts can torment us. So many today suffer from a mind given over to depression or oppression and the pandemic has only made it worse. Society today that has given their minds over to sin in the form of self-focus, self-gratification and sexual perversion. However, we have freedom from that way of thinking, Romans 12:2 says "to be transformed in the renewing of your mind"

Let's look at three things to see our minds transformed into the holiness to the Lord.

We have to know the Word- this means that we have to crack open our Bible and actually read the words that Jesus has given us. It is very interesting to me that the plate of the high priest stretched from ear to ear. This is a picture of hearing the word of God. When we read and study his word then it builds faith in our hearts; it cleanses and purifies our minds. We see truth and the lies of darkness are exposed. It sharpens our discernment between right and wrong, what is good and what is wicked. The word of God washes away the filth of the world and reveals who we are in Christ.

We have to recognize the thoughts- Our thoughts can be from patterns of thinking that we have held all our lives, like "I will never succeed" "I am failing at what I am doing" "I don't have any value." They are the thoughts that we have become so comfortable with them that they are engrained in our minds and have created a stronghold. The enemy sends thoughts to try to destroy our relationships, drive us into sin, and keep us in bondage. The next step in freedom is recognizing the thoughts that are contrary to the word. This is exactly what Jesus did when the devil tried to tempt him in the wilderness.

We have to deal with the thoughts- When we begin to get to know what the Word of God says about our new life in Christ, we can begin to recognize the thoughts that are contrary to that word. Finally our next course of action is to deal with these thoughts when they occur. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says that to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. This means in the moment we recognize that thought we submit it to the authority of Christ, and the power of that thought has to go. This is the exercise of the weapons of our warfare (the word of God) in the pulling down of strongholds. The more victories we score in the warfare in our minds the more ground is taken for holiness. This is how our minds are purified in His word.

Let's walk today in the victory of salvation, the victory of Jesus that cleanses and purifies our minds!