It’s All in Your Mind

] J ] ] right-minded ladies will dress with that which will become women professing righteousness. Here is a key. Ladies, you are to dress thinking about three things. First, is it modest? Second. does it come from right thinking? And third, does it become godliness? If you can answer yes to all three, then you can wear what you are planning to wear. If you can't, you should not wear it. A part of being a right-minded person is how you appear on the outside. Your appearance not only proves that you are saved by grace. but that you have been transformed from a wrong-minded person to a right-minded person. In 1 Timothy 2:15 the subject of Christian women and their virtues continues and it also is based on right- mindedness. Paul tells them about faith and love and holiness. You see, a Christian lady will not have faith unless she thinks about it. A Christian lady will not practice biblical love unless she thinks about it. And a Christian lady will not practice holiness unless she thinks about it. We have long been taught that when a sinner accepts Christ, everything becomes automatic and you don>t have to think anymore because God does your thinking for you. If this were true, our observation would have to say that at times God isn't doing too much thinking. Ladies are admonished to adom themselves with sobriety, with right-mindedness. In 1 Timothy 3, the qualifications of a bishop, or pastor, are given. Verse two says, "cl/_ lmiwp, tlwt nuut ~ t,/.,u,uhu, du luuhand o/. NU ml/I,, I,~ ,mJi,hud,, .w/Ju...•" Here is our word right-minded. A bishop, or pastor, has to be able to relax. He has to know how to be clothed. That is our word. A pastor has to be able to think. A pastor, like the maniac healed by Christ. will be shunned by other people. A pastor has to be able to pray. A pastor has to desire fellowship with Christ. A pastor has to be useful. That is our definition of a right-minded person, and here it is one of the qualifications of a bishop or pastor. In fact, the same qualification is found in Titus 1:8. Second Timothy 1:7, which will be enlarged upon in another chapter. says. "(lo.,. .IJi,d ludh Rbi gmni tu tJu &pim o/. /llut; bat o/. flJJ-lJJll-, and o/. ~ and t,J a UJURd mlnd." What did God give the wrong-minded maniac? He gave him a right mind. He gave him the spirit of power so that his life was changed. The maniac could now sit, be clothed, be useful, be praying. We can see that God gave him the power of love because he went back to his own city and published what had happened to him. This verse in Timothy says that all believers are given a spirit of a sound mind. I would like to believe that Paul is saying, by the Holy Spirit, that God gives us the ability to think. This does not mean that we do not have to practice and mature in our biblical thinking, but certainly we have not scratched the surface of the power of the believing mind. In Titus 2:1 and 2, we read, "(}Jul ~ tJwu du llti.ntµ wltkh ~ M'mlld dNbi.nL: glud. du mpd mnt. u 1.oiu.Jl.•. " Paul here begins with the elder Christian. It is the privilege of the aged Christian to manifest right-mindedness. By the time a Christian matures in age, he should be grown enough in the grace and the knowledge of Christ to be looked upon as a believer with godly wisdom. May God give us some aged men whom we can look up to who are right-minded, who know how to think, who know how to appear, who know how to pray, who know how to fellowship, who know how to be useful for Christ until they are called Home. 23