A Sound Mind

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7 KJV)

Hmmm. Wonder if I should cling to that verse. Right now my mind is muddled by things unseen. It’s root is a Latin word, spelled the same, that meant poison, slime or venom. The first Wiktionary definition is: Venom, as produced by a poisonous animal.

The second is: A submicroscopic infectious organism, now understood to be a non-cellular structure consisting of a core of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein coat. It requires a living cell to replicate, and often causes disease in the host organism.

Today, I am the host organism, and those stupid non-cellular structures are replicating sufficiently to cause my immune system to click into overdrive. The immediate results are flowing eyes, seconded only by flowing nasal passages.

This is not conducive to a sound mind.

This will pass. But the symptoms remind me of how it is for us when Christians allow sin to remain uncleansed in their lives. Sin requires a living host and it will replicate. We will be infectious while we hold on to it.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9 KJV)

Don’t deny it – sin is evident in each life. Even the scribes and Pharisees recognized it in their own lives:

And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. (John 8:9 KJV)

Even hearts not right with God recognize when they stand convicted by their own conscience. If they will listen to Him and respond, truly he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The writer of Hebrews gave us a list of those who proclaimed faith across the millennia, then wrote:

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, (Hebrews 12:1 KJV)

Laying sin aside, and move on.

To what? The singularity of the goal before us:

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2 KJV)

May I do so, with a sound mind!

(The Virus_rezon.gif is from Wikimedia Commons)