I want to establish in this writing there are only two mindsets we can have. We can either have a carnal mindset or a spiritual mindset. So what is a carnal mindset and a spiritual mindset and what are the results we can expect from each mindset? Here’s a scripture giving us clear description of each and the results of each:
Rom 8:6-8 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. KJV
This scripture tells us to be carnally minded is enmity against God. This carnal minded person has a real dislike, a real distaste for God and the spiritual laws and spiritual principles of God and is displeasing to God and which results in spiritual death which is living a life separate from God and can result in an early physical death. This scripture also reveals to us, to be spiritually minded pleases God and will lead to life and peace. Isn’t that what every person desires, a good life and peace?
What does it mean to be carnally minded? To be carnally minded means to cater to the appetites and impulses of one’s human nature which is displeasing to God. Carnally minded is thinking and doing what is right in one’s own eyes which is humanism. To be carnally minded means to be facts minded, sense ruled, emotions driven and controlled by sin, demons, and natural circumstances and results in what you can naturally expect. Carnally minded means your thought process is generally what you can naturally expect. If you want to get down to the truth of it, to be carnally minded means you have a mindset that is contrary to God and His Word and His will for your life and His planned outcome for you in any situation. With the carnal mindset the Word of God is not reasonable. The carnal mind always is focused on the facts and focused on the problems only getting bigger and always there’s little to no way out! Carnal mindset is always what you naturally can expect which isn’t much or too little too late. Carnal minded thinkers are always victims and never victors.
On the other hand, I define being spiritually minded as being Spirit of God led and guided instead of reasoning led and guided, Word of God minded, craving for God and God’s purposes, satisfied with nothing less than God’s perfect will for your life. A spiritual mindset is nourished by intimate times with God and meditation of the Word of God.
Ps 42:1-2 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: KJV
Jer 15:16 Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: KJV
Spiritually minded means you have given the Holy Spirit control of your thinking.
Spiritually minded, you keep yourself focused on the Word of God as the answer which produces real lasting peace and which gives you clear answers and right direction.
Col 3:15 And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ's] one body you were also called [to live]. AMP
Spiritually minded means with the Word of God you have developed such an image of victory that every problem, every frightening detail and every fact and circumstance stacked against you lose any hold of your thinking. Spiritually minded is a person flowing easily in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control of the Spirit because the Holy Spirit is the strength that produces these spiritual fruits.
A spiritually minded person allows Christ to conquer every temptation, test or trial because of their reliance on the Spirit of God to overcome all evil with good.
A spiritual mindset is the mind of Christ in operation, no longer dependent on mere human wisdom and insights and reasoning that have all kinds of limits and no real answers.
Even in the Church we have relied on our intellect, human reasoning and have been senses driven rather than living out of our spirit. This has closed off the Holy Spirit speaking to us through our spirit what to do with all the facts and circumstances weighed against us each day. We have missed out on revelation knowledge and discernment by our spirit through our spiritual senses.
We are either being carnally minded or spiritually minded because there is no “in between”. You either have the mindset of the natural, carnal world and you are facts concentrated and reasoning prone resulting in natural expectations or you give place to the mindset of the spirit which is based on the truth of God’s Word and your expectations are supernatural coming from a higher dimension or the heavenly realm. This is why 2 Cor 10:5 should be a part of our thinking process every day,
2 Cor 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; KJV
We must take every thought captive, check every thought to see if it is fact based, circumstantial evidence based or if it is of the truth of God’s Word.
Remember, the Word tells us in 3 John 2 we will prosper in all areas of our life as we prosper in our soul and the soul can only prosper when it is centered on the truth of God’s Word and the voice of the Spirit of God rather than circumstantial evidence or the facts.
Carnally minded or spiritually minded which will you choose in any given situation? You have to make the choice every single day.
Being spiritually minded, our outcome will not be based on carnal thinking, facts, figures, human reasoning and so forth but instead on the truth of God’s Word and that’s why we have to check out every thought to see if it lines up with the Word of God which is the truth about us and see if they line up with what Christ’s finished work accomplished for us. We must check our thoughts out to see if they identity with the Last Man Adam, Jesus, who restored all the First Man Adam lost by the original sin in the Garden of Eden.
You must see the First Man, Adam, brought us so low to living life according to human reasoning, the facts, the circumstantial evidence, the natural and the carnal thinking possibilities and what we could naturally expect. Jesus brought us back up to spiritual thinking, spiritual possibilities, supernatural possibilities, heaven possibilities, heaven intervention, and super on our natural in other words.
The carnal mind is sense ruled and is enmity against God and His Word and always will be.
Rom 8:7-8 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. KJV
What does enmity mean? It means extreme hatred. The carnal mindset is enmity against the Word of God. Could this be the reason we have felt at times like the Lord is a million miles away when we have needed Him the most? We have chosen natural solutions to our situations because that made perfectly, good sense. This is how most of us have been trained from childhood. But what makes natural sense, good common sense does not make spiritual sense is what I am trying to tell you. Enmity means we have chosen to be carnally minded about things even after we have prayed and confessed the Word of God over and over and over again and again. My friend, this is a futile practice. Carnal thinking and natural ways of handling things after prayer and confession of God’s Word will prove to completely nullify all our prayers and all of our confessions of faith.
Natural sense does not ever make spiritual sense.
Solomon said it so clearly, so precisely,
Eccl 1:14 I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless--like chasing the wind. NLT
Eccl 1:14I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit. DRB
Solomon, a very wise man, tells us here in this scripture that he has observed the busyness of humans on the earth, their human thinking and reasoning and human striving and human desires that are all just mere vanity and all of which vexes their spirit. They are doing all without the consultation of their spirit man that is led by the Spirit of God and thus their spirit is vexed day after day after day and thus anxiety and weariness and meaningless living sets in that leads many times to an early death.
The Church has to realize that a carnal mind vexes our spirit as Eccl 1:14 clearly tells us. Our spirit was designed to know God and be led by Him but instead people, including Christians, are leaning towards the human mind, human reasoning, human training, humanistic ideas, human ways of dealing with things, what naturally you can expect, and thus missing out on the spirit life of the supernatural and righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Human reasoning is resulting in so many governments financially defaulting. These governments can’t pay their bills and even financial institutions are collapsing. Why? Because in their reasoning they forgot God. They have left God and God’s financial principles out of the government. They tell you that there has to be a “separation of church and state” and so they have separated themselves from God and spiritual answers that are the real answers they need to fix the problems they face. They have forsaken spiritual wisdom and spiritual direction in their finances and instead have clung to and leaned on only the reasoning of their mind and Solomon calls this “chasing the wind”. This leads not only to the downfall of a nation but also the destruction of lives of individuals and whole families even in the Church!
Romans 8:8 tells us they that are in the flesh cannot please God. This means this person is so carnally minded, naturally minded that their faith is inoperative, completely destroyed and this is displeasing to God. Now God has no choice but to allow that person to get what they expected in their carnal mind and carnal reasoning even though they prayed and confessed the Word of God. And most of the time God will get the blame for their devastating outcome.
See again, if our soul is prospering with carnal reasoning then that is what we will get; but if our soul is prospering in the truth of God’s Word then that is our outcome.
See we can pray and confess the Word all we want but having a continual carnal mindset followed by corresponding natural speaking and natural actions this nullifies faith and all prayers and all confessions. We can only change our results if first we change our mindset, change from carnal mindset to spiritual mindset.
The carnal mindset reasons away what is rightful ours in Christ Jesus for it just doesn’t sound reasonable. This reasoning keeps us running to the world for our health care. Human, natural reasoning is why the Church with the rest of the world is so dependent on the Babylonian financial world system to borrow money. This is why we run to the world and run to the world and we don’t see demonstrations of Kingdom health care and Kingdom provision. You just can’t mix the two kingdoms and expect to get Kingdom of God results. The Church must have clarity on this!
See the carnal mind or to be carnally minded means you are only willing to see things only in terms of the flesh or how things seem in this natural world. So that carnally minded person will probably tell you they will not believe it unless they can see it or unless there is physical evidence of it. You hear people say, “The facts are the facts.” Like there is no other truth but the facts.
The truth is the Word of God is the truth no matter what the facts tell us in any given situation.
I know some would say, “Jane, you just can’t deny the facts.” But I would tell them, “So are you telling me that I have to deny the truth of God’s Word about this situation?”
See the truth is we must drop the facts if we are to believe the truth of God’s Word and get its results. It doesn’t seem reasonable but the only way to get results the Word of God produces is to use the Word of God as the basis for everything in our life.
An excellent example of what I am talking about is when a doctor gives you his or her diagnosis; do you receive that diagnosis as the truth about you? You have to make a choice between the diagnosis or the truth of God’s Word. I know he or she is your doctor but they are only humans telling you what they humanly have discerned, their diagnosis; but then you will have to make the choice between human discernment or the truth of God’s Word.
What about when you heard you were healed by the stripes of Jesus, did you instantly take that as the truth about you?
See, we are talking about truth versus facts. We all have to choose daily between the facts and the truth of the Word of God because our outcome can come only from one or the other.
For the most part people, including Christians, because of their carnal programming believe the diagnosis or facts the professionals showed them before they believe the truth of God’s Word about them because again they can see it or they can feel it and they heard it from the doctor who is a professional. Some people, including Christians, are so convinced everything their doctor says is law and gospel and they believe they can’t do anything until they first have consulted their doctor. Consulted with whom? What about consulting with the Spirit of God or the Word of God and believing fully and faithfully what you heard from the Spirit of God or found in the Word? I don’t think this even enters into the minds of Christians because they have been so programmed they have to consult their doctor and other professionals in this Babylonian world system before they can do anything and to them these professionals’ word is final authority. It’s like they are the ultimate authority on everything but yet they are just practicing medicine, practicing law, etc. The lawyers are practicing law but yet Christians will seek a consultation with a lawyer before they even think of getting counsel from Holy Spirit or the Word of God or a man/woman of God about a matter. These professionals are practicing on your health and practicing the outcome of your legal matters which could affect your prosperity, your family and your future. In other words that’s dangerous, that’s deadly. Need I remind you that “practice” means repeat something to get better, improve performance and that’s why they say, “Practice makes perfect.” Practicing medicine with your health and practicing with your legal matters makes the practice of these professionals of medicine and law better.
Because of natural training and natural programming the thought never enters into the minds of Christians that the ultimate authority they should be seeking is the counsel of the Great Physician who knows all about their body because He is the Creator of it. The Holy Spirit, the Great Counselor of all counselors is available for consultation 24/7 and His legal consultation costs you nothing. Both physical and legal outcomes in these consultations would be accurate and would be far more advantageous every single time.
Carnal thinking destroys faith, faith in the reality of God’s healing and God’s counsel and destroys faith in God’s promise of giving them an expected end.
We must change from a carnal mindset to a spiritual mindset where we are pleasing the Lord because we are no longer cutting Him off from working in our affairs.
Through natural carnal thinking we keep the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit from giving life to every cell of our bodies to where the curse of sickness and disease can’t stay any longer. Through the counsel of the Holy Spirit we gain the right legal action to take because He doesn’t have a law degree in just one area of law.
Because Christians are so naturally programmed with this carnal mindset they are prone to think and speak accordingly. How many times in a day or week do you come in contact with a Christian and the first thing that comes out of their mouth is usually something negative about their health. This is carnal thinking and carnal speaking. I mean, you could remind them they were healed by the stripes of Jesus but then in the next second of time they are back to telling you just how bad their health is and it’s only going to get worse or their doctor told them, “You will just have to live with this for the rest of your life.” And because of their carnal, natural thinking they think nothing about their speech is against the truth of God’s Word and nullifies its powerful ability to bring real change. They would fight you for the facts. What they are doing, knowingly or unknowing, is they have chosen the facts instead of the truth of God’s Word.
It is sad to me that I can engage in conversation with a Christian and most of the conversation is along the lines of carnal, natural thinking and when you try to change the conversation to spiritual truths that would help this individual; they quickly change the conversation or these same Christians who were so heavily engaged in that natural, carnal conversation will tell me they have to go and they must leave now! They seem so uncomfortable with the truth of God’s Word. Now that is sad to me.
I’m telling you, every Christian should have their thinking so changed to a spiritual mindset, supernatural, heavenly mindset that as we engage in conversation we have very little if any natural conversation. We should be reminding each other of the divine health we possess, the divine prosperity that’s part of our spiritual inheritance, the quickening of our bodies by the Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead when we become older adults which is renewing our youth and strength and we should be sharing testimonies of how the Word changed situations and sharing the deliverance the truth brought in our lives. These are the things every Christian’s conversation should be concentrated on and then I believe a spirit of faith would arise and there would be more demonstration of the power of God in the Church and not just in a church building but everywhere the Church goes.
Isa 50:4 The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples, That I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. NASU
Carnal words cause us to become more weary and hopeless and helpless and anxious, while spiritual words build up, edify, causing faith to arise, causing hope to leap with fervent expectancy, joy springs forth, peace saturates and anchors the soul, resulting in encounters of God’s presence and His power and His glory.
Oh, that the body of Christ would set their minds on things above that are eternal and not on things of the earth that are temporal and are all subject to change. Oh, that we would set our conversations on spiritual things that change fear to faith, hopelessness to a hope with expectancy, conversations that destroy anxiety and changes worry to answers to all problems. Wow! That’s the capability of spiritual conversations to bring forth answers to unsolved problems and alleviation of all anxiety and doubts and fears! Conversation of the truth of God’s Word is what is needful in the Church instead of the facts and circumstantial evidence that only generate more worry, more fear, more doubt, more stress, etc. This is what would separate true believers in Christ from the world because we would be walking in the light of the Word of God and the discernment of the Spirit of God and resulting in demonstration of the supernatural this world is looking for. Spiritual conversation among believers day to day with faith declarations included would change a life, change a whole nation, change a whole generation set for failure, change our faith level, and even change our whole perspective of life to the “good life” promised in the scriptures.
Oh, that we Christians would make the choice every day of a spiritual mindset and engaging in conversations of spiritual truth.
In the Old Testament the Israeli were to focus their thoughts and conversation on the Law of Moses day in and day out:
Deut 6:7 …and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. KJV
Oh that Christians today would choose to focus their thoughts on the truth of God’s Word and talk it in their house and daily use the Word in their conversations with others and meditate the Word as they go to bed and when they arise fill their day with the truth of God’s Word. I believe we would change the world in no time. We would be known as they were in the Book of Acts, “those who turned the world upside down”! Don’t we want to be world changers today? Then it starts with the choosing of a spiritual mindset programmed by the Word of Truth and the leading of the Spirit of God and resulting in spiritual conversations and actions of faith and resulting in divine intervention and divine demonstration.
Every Christians has to make a choice between a carnal mindset or a spiritual mindset every single day. Now that you know the difference, which will you choose today, a carnal mindset or a spiritual mindset?