A Healthy Soul and a Healthy Mind
By James Christian

We all sin. Let's face it—none of us are perfect. Most of us fall into sin quite regularly. We lust, gossip, lie, hate our brother in our heart, and do not give God the praise due to Him. When we fail, we should first throw ourselves on God's mercy and confess our sins. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9, NASB). We should also make restitution to those we have wronged (Matthew 5:23-24). Many of us know the repenting and restitution part, but that is not enough. We repent of a sin and ask God to help us never repeat it, but if we stop there, we will still find ourselves doing it again and again. It's not that God is unable to help us, but we are not giving Him any room to work. We need to completely abandon ourselves to Christ, resting and trusting in Him to work in and through us. Jesus said, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me... Apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5, NASB).

In order for Christ to abide in us, we must abide in Him (John 15:4). In his classic devotional book, The True Vine, Andrew Murray defines abiding as "the restful surrender of the soul to let Christ have all and work all." We often think, "I don't want to sin again. I don't want to be defeated. If I just use enough willpower, I can resist the temptation and overcome." This will not work for at least two reasons:

1) We are not abiding in Christ when we think this way. We are still trusting in ourselves. We must believe Jesus' words—"Apart from Me you can do nothing." We cannot overcome sin apart from Christ. Oh, we might stop a certain behavior or two, but that is only treating the symptom, not the sickness. The power of sin is still within us, and we will never be victorious over sin without Christ. We must abide in Him.

2) When we focus on not sinning, we are thinking where we don't want to be, instead of where we do want to be. The apostle Paul had this in mind when he wrote: "Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think about these things" (Philippians 4:8, WEB). Paul encouraged the Philippians to think about where they want to go, instead where they don't want to go.

We must deal with our sins, but we should not focus on them. We should focus on the direction of holiness; we should think about that which is true, honorable, pure, and lovely. Our thinking patterns must change. The way of the world is to focus on sin and failure. (Just look at the newspaper headlines!) However, God's way is to focus on righteousness. As it instructs in Romans 12:2, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." On the one hand, God renews our mind. On the other hand, we must also cooperate with Him. What we choose to think about forms our thinking habits. Wholesome thinking aids in renewing our mind. Someone who always thinks of evil (even not doing it) is more likely to commit evil. However, thinking purely and righteously will develop good thought patterns, and the more we think on these things, the more they will be written on our heart and produce good fruit.

Need something pure, true, and virtuous to think about? Jesus Christ is all of these things. One cannot go wrong thinking of Him. In short, a healthy soul abides in Christ, and a healthy mind dwells on that which is of Him.