I bet when you read the title about “Mind Control” it made you flinch a little right? Do you remember in the 70’s when people were all concerned about “brainwashing?” The basic idea was that when you got into some group (i.e. cult) the members would feed your mind certain thoughts and inundate you with those thoughts and end up brainwashing you! Then, theoretically, you needed someone to “deprogram” you and get you back to thinking soundly. (Well, supposedly soundly!) However, ironically, millions of people are brainwashed every day and are sadly, completely unaware of it. The medium is of course the media, which feeds you a steady diet of what to think and how. The media says it and voilà, we accept it as true. We generally accept what is reported as true because we really have no idea on our own and so we are easy to fool!
Do you remember the song by Pink Floyd? “We don’t need no education…” “We don’t need no thought control…” If you have ever heard the song, you probably heard that the band was referring to the stifling control of the British education system and its attempts to make everyone mold into the same conformity (Just another brick in the wall). Whatever your interpretation, there’s an important distinction to make here. In order for any cleverly devised error to be successful, that error must be closely aligned to the truth. Blatant error deceives very few, but subtle error fools almost everyone! When Floyd sang the words, “We don’t need no thought control!” – those words were not accurate according to the Bible. But, this is where it gets tricky. What we don’t need is for someone or something else to control our minds. Maybe that is what Floyd meant, maybe not. But, we absolutely do need thought control! In fact, we need to control our own thoughts more than any other thing we can control. The key is, “we need to control our own thoughts.” There is nothing evil about you controlling your own thoughts because that is the ONLY way you will ever tap into God’s power. There is everything evil about allowing something outside of you to control your thoughts. Can you see the subtlety involved here? Mind control when it is you controlling your mind is good. Mind control when something else controls your mind is bad. Even the whole scary idea of brainwashing has its own good and bad. I don’t know about you, but I need to wash certain parts of my brain. But, I don’t need you, the media, my family, my friends, to wash it; that’s my job!
In order to access God’s power in this life, we have to control our minds. Failure to control our thoughts leads to defeat over and over and over again! Here’s the Word on the subject:
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; II Corinthians 10:5
There it is my friends! Imaginations are reasoning thoughts that exalt themselves against what God says. And, then…dadadadada ~ bringing into captivity EVERY THOUGHT to the obedience of Christ. That’s how Jesus rolled! He controlled his thoughts. If you notice most people, and sure, you might be a part of the group “most people,” they do not control their thinking. No-one has ever taught them that they even need to do it. So, human nature is to just think whatever comes to mind and go with it, so to speak. Now that might be okay if there weren’t forces working against us all the time to bring us down to a lower level of life than the one God intended for us. But, those forces do exist and they are all around us. I don’t have to tell you that right? You are having a great day, feeling good and excited about life and then someone says something or does something, or we read something, or we hear something that changes our thoughts and back down we go! Or maybe we remember some past wrong we did, or rehearse some past wrong we suffered, or start dwelling on some wrongs occurring presently, or start focusing on everything that is wrong, not what we planned, blah blah blah, blah blah blah etc… End result? Defeat! Life less than the life God intended. No power, no happiness, no love, no excitement, no enthusiasm, nothing! They key to a successful life; the key to a life more than abundant; the key to living with overflowing joy and peace is found in controlling your mind! You have to pay attention to what you are thinking about. You might be very surprised at where your mind is going when you start paying attention. But, it doesn’t stop there. Then you must take your mind to task and change those negative thoughts to “just some good thoughts…” Don’t ignore those bad thoughts, confront them; challenge them! Decide you aren’t going to certain places in your mind. Let your past hurts remain in the past. Stop dredging up all that bitterness and poison. Forgive, forget and look forward to the future.
It may sound impossible to control your thoughts, but it is not only possible, it is necessary. The only way to tap into God’s power in your life (and, if you are like me, you could use a little power every now and again 🙂 …) is to get your mind lined up with His mind (so to speak). Get rid of all that darkness and walk in the light. And then God, who is light, will begin to show you what He really had in mind when He invented life!
Don’t take my word for it people, try it out for yourself! Just do a “test day” and see how you feel at the end of that day. I promise you that if you become very serious about what goes through your mind and what doesn’t get to go through your mind, it will change your life. It’s not about ignoring problems or pretending negative things don’t exist, but rather keeping your head in the light where the solutions start to show up!
Actually, “we do need some education and we do need some thought control!”
And, hey as a teacher, I won’t leave them kids alone!!!