Romans 8:6. What Is a Carnal Mind?

Romans 8:6

King James Version

6 For to be carnally minded is death; 

but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Amplified Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever]. (Amplified Bible - Lockman)

Barclay: To be absorbed in worldly human things is death; but to be absorbed in the things of the Spirit is life and peace (Westminster Press)

KJV: For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

NLT: If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace. (NLT - Tyndale House)

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For - 

this word leads us to understand an emphasis that the carnal mind and spiritual mind cannot coexist for spiritual maturity.  To follow a carnal mind brings absolute corruption to your thinking and to your emotions.  It weakens your willpower, thus causing you to make poor and dangerous decisions.  

But to think on spiritual truths about the Godhead:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit always leads to divine life-infusion into the soul, energizing and growing fruit of the Spirit.  The more we set our mind [deliberate decision to do so] on the things the Spirit puts into our minds, the better we think, feel, desire, love, and express with our body.

    Our new spirit, birthed to us at salvation being like God's, always thirsts after its own likeness.  Our spirit thirsts for   more of God.  

1. Psalm 42:2
   My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?
2. Psalm 63:1

   
   

   O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. 

 Isaiah 55:1

1. “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost.

A century or more ago, real praying saints with remarkable spiritual presence and effectiveness in prayer were known to pray for very long periods of time each day.

We've lost that because "we are too busy".  We'd rather world involvement than God involvement.  It's true.  Let's admit it.  That is our struggle.

But never complain about your spiritual condition and why your prayers go unanswered.

Length of prayer is not the issue.  Length in the direct presence of God affects everything in us.  It isn't our words or our points.  Real prayer is relaxed in the presence of God, praying out the entire soul and opening up to the entire presence of God.

Choose your life.  Which do you want?  Defeat or power, unbearable temptations or learning the ways of overcoming, sensing truth and right or confused and going wrong?

Life and defeat mark who we are.  A life of constant inward defeat is a sign of carnal thinking.  A life mostly of the peace of God and how to walk in it comes by learning to think on God's matters.

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Thirst for God until your eyeballs bulge out.  Pursue God until you feel the refreshment.  Drink until your soul is satisfied with God and nothing else.

If we do not thirst for  God, there is either  the presence of sin or the absence of true salvation.

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Carnally minded [KJV] -  is that pattern of mindset influenced by our sin nature working on us to self-gratify in a way God opposes which corrupts us and our works.  It is a mind absorbed with things the Holy Spirit resists.  This is why we feel struggles; the Holy Spirit is resisting us.

It could be worry, thinking of what might be, thinking on things which distress and rob our peace, which dirty our mind, or which elevates my pride.

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death - meaning "no life, separation from reality, living in a state aloneness, fears, doubts, anxieties, etc."  There is no strength, wisdom, answers, hope, faith, peace, self-control, kindness, etc.  

Death [separation] leaves the soul alone to worry, fear, left without power to overcome lusts.  

The result is self-defensiveness, negativity, unbelief, despair, inability to see truth, inability to understand, overwhelmed. angered, embittered, resentment, critical.

Paul is referring that this is the ruling mind of the unsaved but that Christians can revert to this pattern at times and for seasons; but never characterized as the constant way of thinking.  

The mind of the lost are continually earthly and supply no spiritual life.  

Their eyes are blind. They cannot see what others attempt to correct or persuade them on.  Blind eyes cannot see, nor expected to see, except if there is a desire for God to show them.  And they actively pursue God for Truth.

What they can see is immediate decisions to enhance earthly gain, having no thought to the true priority of maturing the soul with Truth.  The lost man lacks Truth.  He is his own god.  He determines his now belief system.  He believes that what he true, is anything that fits his gratification lifestyle.  

His is the motto:  "If it feels good do it"! 

The lost man is a walking dead creature only seeking to eat what it wants; no restraint, no moral compass, empty of character, separated from knowing God.  He lives in his own world of made- up rules that fit him.  He opposes any rules which restrict, deny, "his" beliefs to opposed and resisted.  He has a rationalization for what he believes.  He is his own lawmaker and judge.  Objective truth is ridiculed and scorned.

Moreover, these are the words carnal souls say:

• "we are right,  because this is what we believe." 
• "I have to take care of me.  I don't care what others believe."
• "I don't believe in God or the Bible.  It's all a fairy tale, because that is what I believe."
• "Sex before marriage and homosexuality is not a sin as Christians believe."  "If we do, we're forgiven.  We're under grace."
• "Divorce is good when a people fall out of love."
• "If you love someone, go for it."
• "Everybody's doing it, so I can do it.
• "it's right if you don't get caught."

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Carnal persons do not walk by a universal-historical moral compass.  Today, the compass is "deleted."  Now, a new compass has replaced the old one:  the old one was universal and the same in all men.  The new one is solely personal and subjective.  The old can be found in most civilizations because God authored it.  The new is prevalent because men have discarded God and invented the god of his own imagination.

Today it is also ever-changing.  

What was wrong for me yesterday is right for me today.  Divorce, premarital sex, cheating was always wrong in past years.  Today we call it normal.

What was right and moral years ago is now wrong and immoral.  For example, once dating and abstaining from sex that was once practiced as right and moral is now laughed at and called wrong and sex is now right.

It used to be caring for an unborn till birth and welcomed into a loving family is now wrong.  Abortion is now right.

It was once right to applaud law enforcement, not it is wrong.

It was once right to honor all in authority, now it is wrong.

It was once right to debate in a civil manner, now it is rejected.

It was once right to pray in schools, now it is against the law.

Once it was right and good to pass out Bibles in schools and for kids to have Bible studies there.  Now it is wrong.  Yet blindly those of the new "right" wonder why the escalation of violence and rebellion in our schools.

Where is the proof carnal thinking leads our nation to greatness and civility?  Where is the proof the new thinking is bringing us together?  It's moving us apart.

The only answer today, even for Christians,  is to change our thinking.  the Bible calls that repentance.  We must admit our pride has led us wrong.  We must search the scriptures to learn God's ways and turn to them.

I'm afraid we will never return to God.  But Christians must search the scriptures deeply to not only learn God's ways but become transformed by the power of His Word.

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We Live in a Dominant "Me" Culture

We live in the moment.  We fail to calculate the consequences of our choices.  From our small perspective we think only for the moment of gratification.  We want the end result to be sensually gratifying.  So we break any and every rule of compass to achieve that end.

However, though the end justifies the means, obscures our vision to clearly see that the end goes farther than the goal of sensual gratification.  The end of all sinful choices leads to death to the soul, death in our relationships, death in our workplace, death in our society and government.  

There is no way to break God's laws and expect a good result.  Sin always leads to death.  Sin always corrupts.  Sin always divides.

Our nation is a clear picture of where we are as a nation before God.  Politics may remove God's name as much as they desire but they can never remove God.

God may move from us, but His judgements will respond.  Choose this day whom you will serve.  To our day, be it known that judgement begins with the people of God then proceeds to the nation.  Perhaps the moral departure of the nation is due to the departure of God's people from His Word.

Though there be much of the Bible, there is a famine of the Spirit of the Word penetrating hearts with conviction and power to please God.

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The Need For the Mind Set On The Spirit

THE BEGINNING OF ENDING THE CARNAL MIND

When a soul desires God, he then investigates what God is saying.  "What is God saying to me?"  In the beginning we are not so interested in what God is saying to others.  We are hungry for what God is saying about my life and how to deal with the challenges I face each and every day.  What can God say about my struggles with temptations, with suffering, with how to deal with those around me?  How can God change me?  How can God help me with very difficult situations I face?

Folks, it's helpful to listen to Bible teachers and preachers.  It's best to listen to God directly.  Why get second hand info when you can get it first hand.  God knows your state.  He knows what's happening and He has your answers.

I may not know those particular answers.  I can give you Bible verses.  But God can cut to the point and give you what you need.

But you are going to have to pay a price.  You are going to have to take up the cross of self-denial in order to hear and experience God.

What will it cost you?  Your time, your heart, you willingness to hear His Word, and your focus on studying the depths of scripture enlightened by the Holy Spirit.  This is the secret to the abundant Christian life.

I am not saying your problems will be solved.  I am not saying if you do this your circumstances will turn out the way you want.

I am saying, God will change your thinking and your inner conflicts.  He will transform the soul, bring you into a spirit of peace, hope, faith, love, and the way to handle what you struggle with.

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The mind set on the Spirit is by choice.  It is chosen for a lifestyle.  It is a passion that will not let go.  It cannot be quenched.  It cannot be stopped.

It may  pursuit of Truth, the willingness to be corrected and conformed to Truth.

The mind set on the Spirit is desiring the life of God in order to know and become like Him.  This is the meaning of new birth.  The repentant man/woman realizes the insufficiency of the present human condition.  He/she has become convinced of the better Way; Jesus Christ has his total answer for all things.

He bends his life, turns his life, changes his own mind -- all toward the pursuit of God, through the Truth of Jesus Christ being the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

He turns his life toward that pursuit in order to have experience for change that fulfills him and pleases God.  

Once the turn toward God is made, the new birth happens.  Supernatural experience from God happens inside the soul.  His eyes are opened, his heart made new, a new spirit given to know and receive God's Spirit of helps in times of need.

He then sees things from God's [Truth's] perspective.  He sees himself as more corrupt than he once thought.  He abhors his ways and pursues a course of life to know Jesus Christ.  He reads the Bible.  He learns to pray.  He wants to obey and learns how to walk with God in a pleasing manner.