Oct 20, 2023 Keep Your Mind Stayed on The Lord – Words of Grace – October 20, 2023
“You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” –Isaiah 26:3
This is a welcome verse for people with the normal struggles of following Christ in a broken and busy world where peace eludes us.
The problem is we don’t know how to do this. How do we keep our minds fixed on the Lord? Is the Lord all we think about? What about the rest of life; the conversations, tasks, and responsibilities of everyday living? Do we ignore these to stay focused on the Lord?
We can keep our minds stayed on the Lord while still doing life by keeping the Lord at the center of all of life. This is what it means to trust the Lord.
In the context of Isaiah 26, keeping the mind stayed on the Lord means remembering that he is moving all of history toward the great and glorious end of salvation for his people of faith. The haughtiness and hostility of the nations will not be forever. Judgment on the nations will give way to a new nation of the redeemed people of God worshipping on his holy hill (Isaiah 25-27).
So, the exhortation to keep the mind stayed on the Lord is not about thinking only of the Lord, but about thinking about the truth of the Lord while experiencing all of life.
In the context of our daily lives and the complexity of the world, we can fix our minds on the Lord and remain in peace. Here are some ways we can do this.
Let the Lord be the first thought of our day. Even before we put our feet on the floor we need to speak to God, thanking him for his greatness and grace, acknowledging his lordship over all, and relying upon his strength to live the day ahead of us. Let the truth about God fix itself firmly in your mind as the day begins.
Let the Lord be in our thoughts throughout the day. Here is the challenging part. All day long we will encounter things that make us either forget what we thought about in the morning or doubt it. And we can’t ignore the realities of living to think only of the Lord. So, we remind ourselves throughout the day of the sovereign power, sure plan, great grace, and steadfast love of the Lord. Fully present in our world, we acknowledge the presence of God.
Let the Lord be the last thought of the day. Nighttime is a time for reflection. How has the Lord loved us? How has he kept us? What will be true when we rise in the morning? What will be our future if this were the last day of our lives? We can think on these and a hundred other things that keep us stayed on the Lord.
The mind stayed on the Lord doesn’t think only of the Lord to the exclusion of the things of life. It keeps the Lord in mind while experiencing all of life. Morning, noon, and night are times to keep our thoughts on him.
This Sunday at Grace we will fix our minds on the city of salvation where the Lord will reign forever (Isaiah 25-27). May he keep us in perfect peace.
-Scott