SPIRITUAL MENTAL PREPARATION (PART 1)

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control.

1 Peter 1:13a NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Those who know me are aware that I spent a large part of my life serving in the military, nearly 29 years. During the final seven years of that time, I had the privilege to lead at the highest level of the senior enlisted ranks across four different command tours. As I served in that management capacity, I developed several tried and true principles that I have carried with me and promoted during the past twelve years since retirement. Here’s one of them:

Success in accomplishing things is usually 99 percent preparation and 1 percent execution.

In other words, the better prepared for what you are trying to do, the better chance you have of doing it well.

For example, I had the privilege to provide oversight for many military functions and one of the most involved in nature was a retirement ceremony. With all the typical pomp and circumstance, there were a lot of moving parts and if you wanted things to go well, practice was paramount. So in regard to any ceremony I was involved in, there would be extensive rehearsal and we would take participants through the paces of whatever part they held.

The color guard would practice coming into the ceremony, presenting colors properly, and then exiting the right way.

The sideboys, bell ringer, and boatswain's mate would run through coming into the ceremony, taking their places, and rendering proper honors as the ceremony dignitaries would enter and exit. It was important to make sure the proper number of bells was struck and hand salutes rendered properly as the boatswain mate piped each ceremony official in and out.

On many occasions, the retiree would want a flag passing evolution within the ceremony and that would involve more practice by those who represented the different ranks the retiree held. Usually, the passing was done as the words of “Old Glory” were recited and music played in the background. It was critical that the flag was passed at just the write pace so to end right when the reading finished.

The 99 percent preparation part of my principle ensured that we were ready to go on the day of the ceremony and if we did our job right in getting ready, then actually doing things when the chips were down was easy. That was the 1 percent part.

Why get into all this?

Because it is an illustration I want to use to kick off a series of messages titled, “Spiritual Mental Preparation”, a series where we will see the important of preparing our minds and hearts the right way in order to be successful in execution what the Lord wants us to do.

Let’s take a look at these ten words found in the first half of verse 13 of 1 Peter, chapter 1:

So prepare your minds for action and exercise self control. (NLT)

Note here how God’s Word makes it very clear that before we do anything, it’s important to “prepare” our “minds for action” and make sure that exercising “self control” is a part of preparation.

In what ways should we carry out this spiritual mental preparation?

Let’s discuss a few

The first thing that comes to mind immediately is prayer and it makes total sense if you think about it. For if we really want to make sure that our actions are done in the way He wants them to be done, then we should simply ask Him. When we do, I guarantee you that He will tell us what we need to know so to do exactly what He wants.

The second thing we should do is to read and know God’s Word. Within the Bible, from Genesis through Revelation, the Lord informs us how He expects us to live. He tells us what to do and what not to do, and He expects us to comply with absolute, unwavering obedience.

Finally, we need to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit and then do as He leads. He is the great Counselor and Advocate that Jesus promised God would send to do what He had done when He walked the earth. His disciples then, and now, don’t need to worry about knowing how they should act or speak or think. All they need to do is to fully submit to the guidance that the Spirit gives.

We are to do what He tells us to do. We are to say or write the words He wants us to say or write. And we are to allow Him to dictate and distill our thoughts, thoughts which often serve as the root for our communicated words and performed actions.

Doing the right thing, the thing that the Lord favors, requires intentional spiritual mental preparation. Tomorrow, we’ll see the importance of being focused on grace.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.