Daily Devotional | Out Of Our Minds

One day, not long after I had begun to follow Jesus, I walked out the door and met a friend coming up the street. He was on his way to my house. “I came to see you because someone told me you had lost your mind,” he said. Word had gotten around that I had become a Christian. But despite what my friend had heard, I had not lost my mind. Like the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable, I had finally come to my senses.

The Christian life is a life of the soul, but it is also a life of the mind. We believe with the heart, but what is believed is truth. “The heart is always to be influenced through the understanding—the mind, then the heart, then the will,” Welsh minister Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed. Like Paul, the Philippian church was not perfect. As probably true for all churches, the members had personality conflicts and stresses that created problems for them. The solution was to think rightly.

Consider the case of Euodia and Syntyche, two women Paul viewed with high regard and considered to be colleagues. He pled with them to “be of the same mind in the Lord” (v. 2). He recognized that they might need a mediator. In verse 3 he asks someone he trusts in the church to help them resolve their differences. Paul believed they could be brought together by their shared experience of Christ. While they may not agree on every point, they must learn how to unite in Christ.

The other issue was the problem of anxiety. Philippi was not an easy place to be a Christian. In verses 4–7 Paul urged them to set their hope on the Lord’s return and to voice their concerns to the Lord.

>> Much of the media that occupies our attention is the opposite of true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. How would following this advice affect your entertainment choices?

Pray with Us

Lord, is there something we need to change in our entertainment choices and habits? As we dwell in Your Word and interact with other believers, open our eyes to any inconsistencies between what we believe and what we view.

BY Dr. John Koessler

John Koessler is Professor Emeritus of Applied Theology and Church Ministries at Moody Bible Institute. John authors the “Practical Theology” column for Today in the Word of which he is also a contributing writer and theological editor. An award-winning author, John’s newest title is When God is Silent: Let the Bible Teach You to Pray (Kirkdale). Prior to joining the Moody faculty, he served as a pastor of Valley Chapel in Green Valley, Illinois, for nine years. He and his wife, Jane, now enjoy living in a lakeside town in Michigan.