Tuesday, July 28, 2009

"Setting your mind on the things of God"

I was reading in Mark where Jesus famously rebukes Peter with the famous "Get behind me Satan!" line. However, it's the second part of this sentence that hit me: For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.

Why have I never noticed this before? I think there's a tendency to equate Satan only to the really, really capital-e Evil things of the world. Fact of the matter is, whenever we're setting our mind on the things of men, we're listening to Satan.

(Sidenote: does anyone else feel weird capitalizing the S in Satan?)

Every day I pray to be a better man. What that probably means is setting my eyes on the things of God. One of the best things I've done this year was to fast on Good Friday this year. It was the first time I ever fasted and helped my faith tremendously. Whenever I felt hungry, there was a simple solution: think of the Lord. Every single time, the hunger went away.

Set your mind on the things of God...let Him put your hunger (or whatever) away

1 comment:

thatoneguy said...

My impression is that "setting our minds on the things of God" refers more to what we are striving toward, what ends we are pursuing, what our motivation is, than what we are thinking about at any given moment. But I guess it can work both ways.