Vanity of the Mind

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A note from Steve:  None of the studies I do are complete.  When and as you get into the heart of the truth of Christ, you are truly swimming in a spiritual ocean.   There is just so much!  I think that the best a study can do is inspire you to further thought, prayer and study.

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Sanity or vanity, take your pick.

Ephesians 4:17   This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles are walking in the vanity of their mind.

This exhortation in Ephesians to not live out your life like pagan unbelievers do, seeking only to please themselves and satisfy their UNgodly logic, comes immediately on the heels of the description of how to grow spiritually in the body of Christ.  Ephesians 4:11-16 spell out the how of growing up to be a spiritual adult.  From being tended to by the gift ministries that Jesus Christ himself has given to his body, to becoming spiritually mature and equipped to do the same for others, directly connected to the head, Jesus Christ.   (See study   The True Purpose of Christ’s Ministers ….. Ephesians 4:11-24)

This word “vanity” is the Greek word mataios, and means without purpose, empty as to results, fruitless.   Working out at the gym in order to increase fitness is not vain, is not fruitless.  Your body gets stronger, you’re able to do more.   On the other hand,  if your time at the gym is only so that you’ll think that others are thinking that you look good, then you are accomplishing absolutely nothing.  You are merely serving the vanity of your mind.

When your thoughts, words and/or deeds are merely an expression of your feelings, without a purposeful intent to accomplish something, this is vanity of the mind.

That expression goes nowhere, and is an end in and of itself.  Worry, fear, lust (vain desire), rage, envy, bitterness;  all the thinking which is influenced by these and other strong passions as an end in themselves, are vanity of the mind.  They accomplish nothing, and the result is corruption and decay……a getting worse.

Why did you lash out in anger at your child?  Merely because anger demanded that you act on itself.  Was it useful?  No.  It was vanity.  Why do you get depressed?  Because depression comes and demands an important place in your mind and heart, and so you allow it.  Vanity!  It produces no results, only corruption and decay.  Why do you argue politics?  Because strife demands that it be acted upon!  This is vanity.

We can be choosing thoughts based on where they will take us and what they will produce in our lives.

But the vanity of the mind does not so discern, rather giving in to the easiest or most powerful thoughts…..based on our vain logic….which is often based on nothing more than the examples we had growing up, and the strong feelings thus produced in us!  Since the feelings that come in these situations are strong, we give in to them, allowing them to justify their presence in our lives.  Yet they are vanity.  (See study  Satan’s Justification)

Stress,  now there’s a big one.  Stress occurs because you’ve decided something is worth stressing about.  How full of itself is stress!  Why, it struts around thinking it is accomplishing something, when it accomplishes nothing but corruption and decay……it weakens you, makes you sick, kills you!  Why do you give in to stress?  Do you think you have no choice?  In Christ you do!

Try to fly, with no outside resource.  Vanity.  Lots of effort…..no results.  You can’t do life on your own….successfully, fruitfully…..any more than an apple tree can produce fruit without air, water, sunshine, nutrients.   You need help.  Your life’s been designed to require outside resources!

You, and all of creation, have been designed to live life resourced by the presence & power of God. This is the purpose and accomplishment of God’s Christ, Jesus.

Romans 1:18-32 contains the record of the fall of Lucifer, as expressed in and through the lives of mankind, God’s greatest creation.  Verses 21 & 22 contain wonderful information regarding our study today.

Romans 1:21, 22   Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

It seems that the first step on the road down into fruitless thinking is turning the mind away from the recognition of God’s providing for you.  Thankfulness is a real, visceral response to the receiving of a gift.  (See study  On Grace, Gifts and Thankfulness)   Turning away from thankfulness is a closing of oneself to God.  And in its place comes vanity!  Trying to fulfill yourself by your own efforts…..it cannot be done.

This describes exactly what happened when Adam & Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.     (See study  What was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?)   By eating of this “tree”, man fell into “vain imaginations” (“imaginations” is the Greek word logizmos – logical reasonings).

As you continue reading through the rest of this first chapter of Romans, you can see that God spends a lot of time on the uselessness and harm of homosexual sex.  It produces nothing!  Homosexual sex can not produce offspring, so it is literally a fruitless endeavor, meant only for pleasure!  God is not against pleasure, but never as an end in itself.

Romans 8:20, 21  For the creation was made subject to vanity (not willingly, but by reason of him who did the subjecting (Satan, in the garden) in hope,  Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Life, and all of creation, was designed by God to require the continuous supply that comes with a connection with God.  When man, and all of creation, was subjected to vanity by Satan, everything began to die.   In Christ, everything is once again made alive, reconnected with God, brought back into that state of harmonious accord with the ever-increasing supply of God.

John 7:38  (Jesus said)  He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

John 4:14 (Jesus said)  But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

God designed life to be lived from out of His fullness.  Man vainly reasons and lives, seeking to fulfill himself.  Vanity!

Religions, and even Churchianity (the man-organized Christian church)  have come into being, and are maintained, primarily by vanity of the mind.

Matthew 15:7-9  (Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees….the religious sect which interpreted the proper application of the law of Moses)  You hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draws near unto me with their mouth, and honors me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.  But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

“Going through the motions” is vanity.  Going through the motions that you have decided, by your vain reasonings, are what God should want out of you, is vanity!  Going to church on Sunday, just so you won’t feel bad about yourself, is vanity!

II Corinthians 10:5   Casting down imaginations (logizmos – reasonings) and every high thing that exalts itself contrary to the experiential knowing of God, and bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience which is Christ.

This is our “job” as believers of Christ, of those who trust that what God has supplied us through Jesus Christ is the way life is meant to be lived.  Cast down (as an enemy) all vain reasoning, which began at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with Adam and Eve.  Don’t seek to reason out what is right and what is wrong,  what is good and what is bad; don’t seek to fill yourself up by your own efforts; don’t settle for a life of merely expressing vain feelings and passions; rather, seek the experience of God, which is found only in Christ Jesus, our Lord; in the revelation of his spirit within.
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Related Studies

If you enjoyed how this study challenged your thinking and opened up your understanding of Christ, click on one of the related studies below:

What was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
Who put the Tree in the Garden?
The Illusion of Control
The Need To Be Right.
Justified, what it means
Water in a Dry Land
The Spirit of Envy
The Helmet of Salvation

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