Episode 339
The Importance of Mental Clarity in Spiritual Growth
"Your mind must be alert and sober, not clouded by substances or distractions."- Wesleyne
Word of the Day:
"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." - 1 Peter 5:8
In this message, Wesleyne emphasizes the importance of maintaining a clear and sober mind.
Drawing from 1 Peter 5:8, she explains that being alert and sober doesn't just refer to avoiding substances like alcohol or drugs, but also to having a clear, unclouded mind.
Engaging in activities or substances that alter our mental state can make us vulnerable to the enemy's attacks.
Wesleyne urges listeners to assess their actions and habits, ensuring they are not clouding their minds or making them dependent on anything other than God.
Takeaways:
- Be mindful of the activities or substances that affect your mental clarity.
- The devil seeks to exploit moments of weakness when our minds are clouded.
- Identify and avoid habits that make you dependent on anything other than God.
- Pray for strength and clarity of mind, asking God to remove anything that hinders your relationship with Him.
Chapters:
- 00:00 Feeling Defeated
- 00:58 God is Not a God of Defeat
- 03:18 Fully Surrendering to God
- 05:11 Continuing to Release and Trust
What questions are you struggling to answer? Wesleyne would love to answer these questions for you personally. Send any questions or prayer requests to hello@askwesleyne.com
Follow Wesleyne on Instagram @wesleynewhittaker
Transcript
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5 verses 8.
Oftentimes, as people of faith, as Christ followers, as Christians, we are told that we should not engage in certain activities. And those activities are drinking alcohol, smoking illegal substances, watching pornography, engaged in...
any activities that control our mind. And so if we take this verse and the very first part says, be alert and of sober mind, there is no specific text in the Bible that says, that tells you.
It's explicitly to not drink, to not gamble, to not watch pornography. But it says be alert and of sober mind. So if you have a beer or a glass of wine, what happens to your mind? It changes. You become more relaxed or more giddy. But are you alert? And is your mind sober?
So a sober mind means a clear mind. It means a clean mind. It means a mind that is not.
Wesleyne (:full of thoughts or beliefs or emotions that are not yours. So I'm not telling you don't have a glass of wine. I'm not telling you don't watch pornography or don't gamble or don't smoke whatever you're smoking. But what I'm saying is you need to ask yourself, am I alert? And I'm an eye of sober mind when I'm engaging in these activities.
The next line says, your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. So when we are not alert and of sober mind, the enemy is just waiting to pounce. He's waiting to put that person in front of you that is not your wife, is not your husband. And because you are not alert and of sober mind,
you decide, hey, okay, I'm gonna take this person back to my home. He's waiting for you to be sitting at the slot machine, just playing those slots over and over and over again. And then someone comes up to you when you've run out of money and they say, hey, you know that we can give you money if you give us a title to your car, or if you sign a deed of your house over to us.
because you're not alert and your mind is not sober, you say yes. So those are extreme examples, but what are you doing day to day that makes you not alert enough sober mind? Are you mindlessly scrolling on social media for hours and hours on end? And so when it's time for you to read something for work or...
read your Bible, your brain is so focused, your brain is so filled on the images, on the things that you have seen on social media.
Wesleyne (:It could be as simple as that. So anything, any activity, any substance, anything that you find that you must have, that you must do each and every day is causing you to become more dependent on that substance or that thing than God. That means that your mind is not alert. Your mind is not sharp. And so the devil, he is waiting for you to
do that activity, to do that thing. And so it's not a coincidence after you scroll on social media for hours and hours and hours on end, something bad seems to happen. Or after you have one, then two glasses of wine, you get angry and you're upset. You're short tempered. These things are not coincidental. So be alert and be of sober mind.
Think of anything that you are dependent on to get you through the day, to fill the hole in your heart that is separating you from God. Remember, we serve a good God, a forgiving God, a cleansing God. So all you have to do is say, Lord, I realize that there are things in my life that I am doing that are making my mind not alert and not sober.
And so Lord, today I ask you to take those things away. I rebuke them in your name and I will pray every single day for the rest of my life until these things are taken from me. Lord, help me. And when you pray that simple prayer, when you ask for his help, when you ask for his guidance, when you repent, he hears you and he's walking with you. Have a blessed day.
