The Replacement Mind

The Replacement Mind



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No one is ever born a pessimist. That’s a product of nurture, not nature – an odd way to describe an environment and a society that prides itself on fearing, or even anticipating the worst, but nurture it is. Pessimism, doubt, fear, anxiety and fatalism are all qualities of persona that we learn from childhood, and from the people around us that influence us the most. ~~~~

That, of course, is a reference to the most legendarily motivational saying in the Western world, about an optimist seeing a half full glass, while a pessimist sees a half empty glass. It’s supposed to be empowering… it is, after all, the same glass of water, just seen differently. But this apparently positive and encouraging bon mot is, in fact, an exhortation to settle for half a glass of water. To paraphrase another famous aphorism, what would Jesus do with that? 

Probably go and fill the glass back up again, hand it to you, and turn it to wine as he did so, but then Jesus is that kind of person. And it’s that kind of person we’re encouraged to pattern ourselves after as Christians, and to leave behind the stimulus and behavior that the world has taught us. We are new people in Christ, but one of the most difficult things we can learn to do is to apply that spiritual knowledge in practical areas in our lives, areas that feel as though they are hardwired, that cannot be rewritten – the ROM of our marvelously wrought brains.~~~~~

In the mind of Christ, however, we can change damaged and damaging perceptions, and think better thoughts. Learned behavior can, and must be unlearned. We’re renewed by the Spirit, and transformation is a fact of life for us now. We may believe that we can change ourselves~~~~~

The Father set us, early on, the example of Paul and the exemplar of His new order, and His covenant with us, so that we would have the story of our own path told to us from the beginning of our journeys with Him – a story of victory. Ask yourselves about your own journey. Where is your focus? Are you distracted by pessimistic thoughts, of past failures and loss? Do you feel as if the past is hardwired, cannot be overwritten? That’s the old you, and that person is gone. Replaced, by something new in the Spirit, a joyful creature waiting to be born.
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