Episode 27: Renewing Your Mind

In this episode: Happy 2021! A reminder to subscribe to our newsletter A review of chapters 1-3 The story of the paralytic by the pool at Bethesda The first segment from chapter 4 of our audiobook Show notes Episode blog post: Do you want to be healed? Podcast introduction: Yabo Obien Logo design: Jeff Lyons at […]
The post Episode 27: Renewing Your Mind appeared first on Theodio.

In this episode:

Happy 2021!
A reminder to subscribe to our newsletter
A review of chapters 1-3
The story of the paralytic by the pool at Bethesda
The first segment from chapter 4 of our audiobook

Show notes

Episode blog post: Do you want to be healed?
Podcast introduction: Yabo Obien
Logo design: Jeff Lyons at Light & Story
Original music: Makeup and Vanity Set
Kindle version of Precious Remedies against Satan's Devices by John Hendryx at Monergism.com
Text for Precious Remedies provided by GraceGems.org

Welcome back to the Theodio Podcast, and happy 2021 to you. I’m your host, Dan Kassis.

Each week here on Theodio we’re walking though the book Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks, one section at a time. Along with a segment of our original audio production of the book, we provide commentary and fresh insight, bringing this work of classic theology to life for you.

After a week off, it’s good to be back. I hope the promise of a new year brings you hope of good things from our great God. And I know a lot of us are not going to look back on 2020 with fondness. But I’d like to remind us: regardless of the date on the calendar, Christ’s mercies are new every morning, and God’s faithfulness is from generation to generation.

A review

This episode begins our walk through chapter 4 of Precious Remedies. Before we launch into the content, I’d like to review the ground we’ve covered. And remember, if you’re new to the podcast, you can always go back and catch up on previous episodes. Be sure you subscribe or follow the show so you don’t miss new ones.

Chapter 1 was an introduction, Brooks’s “proof of the point.” The Scripture passages that are the basis of his teachings about our enemy and his tactics against us.
Chapter 2 explains the schemes the devil uses to lure us into sin. His mind games, if you will.
Chapter 3 is about Satan’s methods of distracting Christians from what he calls “religious performances,” which in our day we call good works.

Now we come to chapter 4, eight devices Satan uses to keep Christians in a state of sadness, questioning, and doubting – to rob us of our joy and peace.

If chapter 2 was about our minds, chapter 4 touches on our emotions. Satan goes for the head, but he also aims at the heart.

The first way he does this is by tempting us to dwell more on our sins than on our Savior.

The man by the pool

I’d like you take you back to a well-known story in the gospels. Imagine it with me. The sight must have been unforgettable. The blind, the lame, and paralyzed, gathered in one place, each awaiting an opportunity to be healed. So many desperate outcasts wanting simply to be made normal. So many souls believing desperately a dip in a pool could make them well.

It was the week of the Passover festival, the time when the Jews celebrated God’s deliverance of their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. The Spirit of God passed over the homes that bore the mark of the sacrificed lamb. They awoke the next morning to freedom.

Jesus, the Lamb who was sent to take away the sin of the world, approached one man by the pool, asking a simple question. “Do you want to be healed?”

Of course he did. He had been an invalid for most, or all, of his life. He was there by the pool. The answer should have been simple. But he didn’t answer Jesus simply. Instead, he complained that no one would take him into the pool. The man focused on his inability rather than the source of his healing.

Thomas Brooks says of Christians as he describes Satan’s first device against us in chapter 4: “Their eyes are so fixed upon their disease, that they cannot see the remedy, though it be near.”

We are sometimes like the paralytic by the pool at Bethesda, lying dejected, consumed by our weaknesses, with the Source of our healing in plain sight. Satan blinds us against the power of forgiveness by shining the glaring light of our sins in our faces.

But as Brooks reminds us, “A Christian should wear Christ in his bosom as a flower of delight, for he is a whole paradise of delight. He who minds not Christ more than his sin, can never be thankful and fruitful as he should.”

And so we have six remedies available to us, weapons against Satan’s hounding our minds about the sins that so easily entangle us. It is in dwelling on our Healer rather than on our disease that we will be made whole.

Conclusion

That’s all for this episode of the Theodio Podcast. Next time we’ll talk about Satan’s second device against our hearts: causing us to doubt our assurance. If we aren’t completely, totally sure of our salvation every waking moment, are we really Christians?

I can’t wait to share more with you. Please come back and listen again.

The post Episode 27: Renewing Your Mind appeared first on Theodio.