Scoliosis of the Mind
Taigen Joos
When I was a child, I was diagnosed with adolescent scoliosis. My back had a slight curvature to it, which was causing some discomfort and difficulties for me. Thankfully, my condition was not severe and was caught early so that treatment could be given. I ended up going to the chiropractor for a series of regular adjustments. If you have ever been to a chiropractor, you know that there may be some initial pain when the doctor “adjusts” your back, but it is meant to help bring healing over the course of time, and in my case, correct what could have developed into something worse.
My back was out of alignment and needed to be adjusted and corrected in order to provide better stability in my back and overall health. In a similar way, the mind of many Christians is out of alignment with God’s Word and needs to be adjusted and corrected as well.
We can think things about God that just are not true. We base these thoughts on our feelings, or what we think we would do in certain situations, but those thoughts are not in alignment with the truth of God as revealed in His Word.
We can believe certain things are true of God generally, but not true as they apply to our lives personally. But as Dr. Jim Berg points out in his study, “Quieting a Noisy Soul,” something cannot be both true and untrue. For instance, God cannot love the world, but not love me personally. Yet, often, our thoughts and beliefs of God can be out of alignment when we think these kinds of contradictory thoughts.
We can believe false notions of God, as taught by other people. While it is not sinful to listen to other preachers of God’s Word, our thoughts must remain captive to what the Bible teaches of God. If someone says something contradictory to the Scriptures, our allegiance to God’s Word must supersede our allegiance to a human being.
Our mind is an important part of our Christian lives. What we think about God is of vital importance.
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.
For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God.” –A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, 1.
The mind of a Christian must then be cultivated to think God’s thoughts after Him. In those times when our thoughts are out of alignment with God and His Word, we must allow God to adjust them through the means of preaching/teaching, through the means of loving chastening by other believers, through the means of the Holy Spirit’s conviction, or through whatever other means God chooses.
In your times of scoliosis of the mind, allow God to renew your mind, and adjust it to glorify Him more.
Taigen Joos is the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Dover, NH.