The Mind Governed by Attachment

From August Writing Retreat: Day 7# (join us for feedback and clarification)

Below is part of an insta-draft of Lacking Nothing: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith. I’m posting material from our August writing retreat to get feedback & clarity. Please support the writing of this book by becoming a paid subscriber.

Below is probably going to be how we start the book. The end of this post goes right into the previous one we posted on Four Rs of Transformation.

Photo by Uday Mittal on Unsplash

It is simple to say. 

Love God.
Love others. 

That is what following Jesus is all about. 

That is what his life, death, and resurrection were all about, revealing God’s love to others so that we too could love God and others.

So why is it so hard for us?

Jesus makes it sound so easy.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV)

Simple. The entire Bible is summed up as: Love God and love others. 

No problem, right?
Except it i.

So often we react with sin instead of responding in love.

The Mind Governed by Attachment

Let’s throw another Bible verse into the mix.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7: 15, 19-20 NIV)

This is the reason it is so hard to love God and others. It’s because the “sin living in me” does it.  We react in ways we regret, in ways we said we never would, and in ways that are wrong. And we don’t understand how or why we could do it. Well, it’s because of sin. 

But let’s drill a little deeper.

Later Paul says this:

The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. (Romans 8:6 NIV)

What does “governed” mean?  

It means the mind controlled by, focused on, or attached to.  It is either attached to the flesh or attached to the Spirit. And what it is attached to leads either to death or to life and peace. 

What does “flesh” mean?

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