Have you ever had your mind or heart so full and overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions that your heart and mind could not focus on anything else but those memories and emotions? In some situations your mind was so locked up, that you couldn’t think or even sleep and sometimes wouldn’t eat properly. A lot of us have done the “miss direct.” You know the the one where you are staring right in the direction of some person, completely zoned out until you here these words: “do I know you?” or “why are you staring at me?” How about this: has anybody ever had something bother them so much that they got into their car, started to drive and while they were driving they came to themselves wondering when they’d even gotten into the car and for what reason? What about accusing someone of something, that came from a dream?

The problem of every human being in the Church, around the Church and in the world, is that our minds and hearts are so preoccupied with things from our past, things of the present, and possibly even our future. So much so that we will not get an understanding of who we are, what we are, and where we are. We will never know where we are going.

So lets look at where we are now in life; our existence in life calculated by three things: Past, present, and future. Past+present+future = Existence. Philippians 3:13-14 says, 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

So if any one of these processes is not met, there cannot be any growth in the mental, the spiritual or the physical. Let’s give an example: Lets say that more of a past situation has gained the majority of your mind, heart or both. Then your past, from the past, has already occupied your past fully, and it also has occupied your present which means you don’t have a present now because it has become you past. Lets try to calculate that. Past+Past+Past = No Existence. To know where you’re from (Past) and to know who you are, (Present) is to know where you are headed (Future) = existence. So to be preoccupied with the things of your past and not to be aware of the present and pertinent things in your life, there will be no growth in you. That means that you will become stagnant in your life, and that will cause you to have no future.

Mark 4:19 reads, 19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. One of the things that the people of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ suffer with is this: they don’t know how to let the desires of this life or the world go! They’re trapped in the mindset of having their cake and eating it too, as the old adage states. However, the Word says in 1 John 2:15-17 15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

We must not allow anything, any mindset or anyone to confuse our heart or mind to turn us away from Jesus Christ, and if you don’t know you better ask somebody. Colossians 3:1-2 says, 1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Also Isaiah 26:3-4 reads, 3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. 4 Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Finally, Hebrews 12:1 says, lay aside every weight that so easily beset us.

It is so!