Markhevans’s Blog

Renewing Our Minds

I was at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry our church is sponsoring again last night (we’re doing it via DVD). Kris Vallotton was the speaker and I don’t think I have heard a better explanation of how the enemy traps us in the way we think. Kris described his own upbringing by two very abusive step-fathers and how he vowed to never be like them. He said that the problem was that in trying to not be like them he had to constantly think about them. His point was that what we think about is what we become – “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”.

The enemy wants us to dwell on the negative. He will often take truths out of context to convince us that we are powerless, unworthy, and incapable. Kris talked about the concept of a “Sinner Saved By Grace”. That statement is true of who we were, but cannot and should not be a description of who we are. If we continue to live in the identity of who we were we will never be able to function as who we are. Kris stresses that these are not positional concepts (i.e. we are saints) but are, instead, facts. If our identity is that of sinner, if we think that is who we are, is it any surprise that we struggle with sin? I don’t think he was saying we will never struggle with sin but that if we are constantly seeing ourselves as sinners that we become what we envision.

The other mind-blower was his description of baptism. He said that it is not a symbolic action but a prophetic action. It is a proclamation of the death and Resurrection we participate in with Jesus. He said that we dwell on the death part of taking up our cross and ignore the Resurrection part. As Dan Wilt has said, “We are called to present ourselves as living sacrifices, not dead ones”. If every believer saw himself as alive to Christ and dead to sin and meditated on that, set their mind on that one fact, what would the church look like?

Lots of good stuff to ponder. I know I’m going to spend a lot more time thinking about who I am and discovering what God thinks about me. I’m ready for His power and presence.

Blessings,

Mark