THE BATTLE OF THE MIND (Part One)
| May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23
The three basic elements of man are spirit, soul and body. Man is a spirit that has a soul and lives in a body. The above Scripture proves that man is a tripartite being. The spirit of man is also referred to as the human spirit, the inner man or the inward man. The soul of man is divided into three main parts; the mind, will and emotion. The body basically has five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. With the spirit man contacts the spiritual realm; with the soul he contacts the intellectual realm while he contacts the physical realm with his body.
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow (body)……….
Hebrews 4:12, (Emphasis mine)
From this Scripture it becomes vividly clear, that there is a point of connection between the spirit and soul. This shows that the spirit and the soul of man are two distinct and separate entities. The human spirit is not the soul and the soul is not the human spirit.
To properly understand how to win the battle over our mind we must be equipped with knowledge on how to take our thoughts captive, pull down strongholds and cast down imaginations. We should be able to know the components of the soul, their functions and how they relate to the human spirit and the body.
THE HUMAN SOUL: The soul is the seat of man’s personality. It has three main components; the mind, will and emotion. The soul of man is what enables him to contact and function within the intellectual and psychological realm.
A. The Mind: The mind is the faculty in a man’s soul that enables him to be conscious, perceive, think, judge and memorise. It is the faculty of intelligence and imagination. Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho, in his book, “The fourth dimension, volume 2” made mention of the conscious and unconscious mind quoting Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist. In my personal study I realised that the mind can truly be said to have two parts, the conscious and unconscious mind.
The conscious mind: It is that part of the mind that receives, entertains and processes thoughts. It is where thinking, analysis and perception take place. It makes man aware of himself and his environments. The conscious mind receives information for analysis and processing mainly from the five senses of the physical body. The conscious mind also can voluntarily or involuntarily receive information from the unconscious mind.
The unconscious mind: Sigmund Freud said that the unconscious mind lies beneath the conscious mind. It acts like a bank only that it does not keep money or gold. It is that part of the mind where analysed and decided information is stored for possible retrieval. It is where habits, ideologies, philosophies, fantasies, traumatic memories, painful emotions, fears, beliefs and wishes are recorded. It is a reservoir of images, sounds and information good or bad that were once conscious but have been forgotten or suppressed. It is a place where the personality of man is formed, based on the inherited traits and other factors such as experiences, beliefs, ideologies and philosophies. Though the unconscious mind is below the conscious mind it can exert an influence on a man’s behaviour and character.
B. The Human Will. The human will is the faculty in a man’s soul that enables him to decide and act. The decision to act or not is based on the information received, properly analysed and processed in the mind. It includes freedom or power of choice. The human will while free, is subject to the influences exerted on it from within or without.
C. The Human Emotion. The human emotion is the faculty in a man’s soul that expresses his inward feelings. It is a response or reaction to internal or external events. Facial and vocal expressions accompany an emotional state which communicates reactions and intentions of actions. The basic human emotions are anger, happiness, fear, disgust, contempt, sadness and surprise. Human emotion is also said to be influenced by hormones. According to author David G. Meyers, human emotion involves “…physiological arousal, expressive behaviours, and conscious experience.”
Very Insightfull