THE VANITY OF THE MIND
Thursday – January 12, 2017
Suddenly it is Thursday! Greetings from Eastern Gate Ministries International and The Three Minute Word publications. God is so good and kind. Just think of all the times each of us have gone off the rail so to speak and we are still alive. Perhaps we are off the rail today. That is very simple, repent, choose in your own heart (mind) that with God’s help you are going forward according to His Word.
Ephesians 4:15-17 (KJV)
15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
We now come to the seventeenth verse, the verse of victory (seventeen is the number of victory). Because of all that we have been talking about for two to three weeks we have the capacity to not walk as a Gentile (worldly) which is in the conceit of our own minds but we walk with the mind of Christ. Vanity is pride, narcissism [self-love, self-admiration, and self-absorption], self-importance, conceit, arrogance, and egotism. The Apostle Paul talked about this in the Book of Philippians.
Philippians 3:18-21 (KJV)
18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Back in Ephesians 4:17 when Paul speaks of the “vanity of their mind” he is saying, these people are a god unto themselves. What they can reason and rationalize is the truth with no consideration that without God or failing to mature in Christ they walk in darkness.
Proverbs 14:11-12 (KJV)
11 The house of the wicked shall be overthrown: but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish.
12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Let’s move on a little further with our text in Ephesians.
Ephesians 4:17-18 (KJV)
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
These people’s hearts are darkened such that even if they hear the Truth or see light they do not recognize it for they are in the process of hardening their hearts and they find death or destruction on every side in their lives and wonder why. God through the Apostle Paul says they are filled with ignorance, and that ignorance is the result of the blindness of their heart.
Ephesians 4:19-22 (KJV)
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
In the preceding passage we find that these individuals, Gentiles who walk in the vanity of their own minds with darkened understanding made the decision to give themselves over to evil excesses (any evil is excess), a preoccupation, and all that is contrary to Scripture they are doing to the extreme. They are greedy, they want more and more of their particular sins, like sex, gambling, drugs, and so on. In this process of increasing and repetitive sin and the ignoring of the conviction of the Holy Spirit the person gets to a point that they are “past feeling”. Their hearts are hardened and this process is initiated by the individual and perpetuated by them as they pursue “deceitful lusts”. Remember the Garden of Eden.
By: Dr. David Wood, Author, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
