We need to understand that God has not given us a spirit of fear. The dangers of fear are enormous and in a previous post, we considered different types of fears and how we can overcome them. Our focus for this post is to consider what it means to have a sound mind. A sound mind is a healthy mind, the state that allows one to make good reasoning and thoughts. It is the totality of your mental well-being and intelligence. For instance, when a person starts to act differently from the norm (goes to the park and starts to chase people away), that person is considered mentally unfit. The reason is that what the person did lacks intelligence. Similarly, when people undergo emotional trauma and end up with mental health issues, their actions indicate that they are not of sound mind.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.(2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV)
Without a sound mind, one is likely to do things out of the norm. People have signed off their properties to total strangers because of a lack of sound mind. Others have wandered into dangerous situations because of a lack of sound mind. Yet few other people have committed suicide because of a lack of a sound mind. To be honest, we are likely to miss our destination in life when we operate without a sound mind. God is so interested in our mental well-being and the devil has always put fear in us so as to deny us of a sound mind. In 2 Timothy 1:7, Paul told his protégé Timothy, that “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” God has given a spirit of sound mind.
When we understand the importance of operating with a sound mind, we will be intentional about what goes into us. All information will have to be filtered by the word of God. We need to train our minds to take what is good and to reject what is bad. We do that by filtering every information with the word of God. Further, we should be mindful of what we take in. We cannot consume anything that will be detrimental to our mental health. Consumption of substances that may trigger mental issues should be strictly avoided. Imagine, seeing the General Manager of your firm acting unruly in public as a result of substance abuse. If the same person returns to work the following day in a calm state, we still associate that person to the past attitude. Similarly, we should consider ourselves in the same way. If we understand that our mental well-being is important to God, to us, and to make society a better place for all, we will be considerate with whatever goes into us.
Remember, when we fail to take charge of our mental well-being, we make ourselves susceptible to pain, shame and ridicule.
To read more of these, grab my book A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE: YOUR LIVING SACRIFICE here.
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