20 November 2016

My dear readers,

MIND FOOD MATTERS - WATCH YOUR DIET!

(Dr SH Tow, message at Sunset Gospel Hour 27 August 2006)

In life, food is everybody’s concern, for who is not concerned with health? "Health foods" sell like "hot cakes," everybody wants to live better and longer. New parents especially study carefully what foods the expectant mother should consume for baby’s sake, and the newborn child is provided with the best.

In the booklet "The Reason Why," the writer Mr Robert Laidlaw tells this anecdote. A young man sends his young lady a diamond ring costing $10,000, enclosed in a little plastic case by special courier. A week later, on meeting the prospective suitor, she exclaims, "O darling, thank you for the beautiful case. What a special box it is. I admire it and polish it many times a day. I promise to take very good care of it!" Your reaction on hearing this silly story is to exclaim, "How ridiculous and foolish a story." So it is, but it is a picture of men and women today everywhere.

Everybody is so concerned about the needs of the body - what to eat, what to wear, how to beautify and decorate the face, how to look good, feel good, and act good - that they have totally neglected the needs of the soul, which is the forgotten diamond ring, while the case of little worth receives all the attention. Ridiculous, yes, but how true.

Now a word to Christians. No doubt you are watching your diet (and your weight, besides your cholesterol) selecting and controlling your intake of essential foods, plus "healthfood supplements." Such care is natural and fashionable, contemporary. Every well-read and well-informed person knows all about it and observes the ground rules with great care. While we focus all our attention on the body - the box - have you given a thought for the real person - the soul - the diamond ring? This is the problem: the real and urgent need of the soul (the spirit, the mind), the non material part of us, is sadly much neglected. The neglected soul inside us is far more important than the body, for what shall it profit a man if he should gain all the physical vitality and health, and lose his own soul? The body soon passes away, but the soul is eternal. How do your nourish your mind and soul? What "spiritual health food" are you feeding on?

How do you feed your Brain, the gateway to the Mind and Soul?

The MIND is one’s personality, intellect, thinking, feeling. It is the immaterial or spiritual part of you and me. It became part of us when God breathed into the nostrils of the first man, and man became a living soul (Gen 2:7). The gateway to the MIND is through the Brain, the God-given seat of knowledge, wisdom, intelligence. The Brain contains 100,000 million neurons, all linked with each other by an amazingly complex network of minute nerve fibres, a circuitry more extensive than all the world’s telephone systems combined, and functionally many times more powerful than the most advanced super computer. God’s creation is beyond man’s comprehension.

At birth the newborn brain has all the necessary nerve cells for normal function, which are many, many times more than anyone can possibly use in one’s lifetime. But to serve the Creator’s purpose for the individual, the Brain which is yet completely undeveloped, must begin to receive the impulses of the desired kind so that the Brain might begin to function and grow. An undeveloped Brain means the child’s personality and intellect will never develop as in the case of a "wolf boy."

Case of the "wolf boy"

To illustrate what we have just said, we cite the case of the WOLF BOY in India. This boy, thought to be about 6 years old was discovered in 1867 by hunters in a cave in India. The hostile mother wolf was shot and the boy taken back to civilization. But, to all intents and purposes, the child behaved like a wolf. He refused to wear clothes, could not speak, only growled and grunted like a wolf, and ran on all fours. His diet was only raw meat which he ate from the plate on the ground. He never learned to speak.

Lesson learned from the case: the importance of early development of children by exposing them to the desired kind of input through EYE-GATE and EAR-GATE. As God’s Word says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Prov 22:6). Feed your child with God’s Word, therefore!

Our minds need also continual feeding with wholesome food of God’s Word if we are to grow spiritually, and be useful for God. Such feeding does not come naturally, but by the working and supervision of the Holy Spirit, as we endeavour to walk with God and live for God. Recognise, and be daily reminded, "... your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you ... and ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s" (1 Cor 6:19, 20). If our body is the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, it is only right and reasonable that I honour God by admitting into that holy residence those things which please Him. Certainly, I must not allow the sights and sounds, and smells of the world to enter and pollute my body, my brain, my mind, for they are the temple of God, unless I want to dishonour my Lord (which I never shall do, for He purchased, redeemed, rescued me from hell at a price, even Christ’s precious blood).

My mental gateways must therefore be kept pure, under strictest surveillance: nothing must be allowed access into my EYE-GATE, EAR-GATE, and MIND-GATE. Each of these must be jealously guarded, simply because they are the entry-points to God’s palace. Now it becomes clear what I must do: everything I do each day must be selective and God honouring: my reading, viewing, listening, must be holy and sanctified: the newspapers, books, magazines, TV and computer programmes, the music, videos, CDs and DVDs which are contaminated with the world’s sinful filth must be totally barred from entering.

My body is God’s residence! How can I allow the world’s garbage to enter? Once I have acknowledged that I am a child of God, one of His precious blood-bought children, the whole subject of MIND FOOD is clear and settled once and for all. I might even have to remove my house, from an evil environment to one that is free from the filthy surroundings of the world. Remember Lot who settled in Sodom, and was "... vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. For the righteous man ... seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unrighteous deeds" (2 Pet 2:7,8).

CONCLUSION

No child of God should live at the level of the ungodly world, doing what comes naturally, i.e. according to the desires of the flesh "... for to be carnally minded is death" (Rom 8:6). Our lifestyle, the way we treat our body and our mind, must only be God-pleasing and God-honouring: nothing less!

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you." (Phil 4:8,9)

Yours faithfully in the Saviour’s Service,

Dr SH Tow, Sr Pastor