Be renewed in your minds

Many circumstances can arise to bring a heaviness to the people of God.

In the Scriptures it is called fainting.

However, the Lord has provided a way for us to deal with this heaviness when it comes.


If you give out substantially, you can be depleted in ways other than in physical strength.

A mental or spiritual output may bring you to an exhaustion which cannot be explained.

After a good night's rest, you are still tired, because your output has depleted you to a point where you have lost your reserves and removed the barriers that you had to defend yourself.


You can become so tired that you become stymied on a little problem and find yourself going around in circles with it, unable to dismiss it from your mind.

You may find yourself going through actions so routinely that you cannot even remember what you have done.

You find yourself checking to see if you locked the car, if you locked the house, if you turned off the oven.

When this happens, you have to get through to the Lord immediately because you are in trouble- your reserves are gone.

You have been depleted to the point where you are not functioning properly.


Your relationships with your family and those with whom you work may be perfect; however, when your reserves are depleted and you have no defenses, you begin to get irritated with the people around you.

Have you ever noticed that most of your contentions come from minor problems which are not worth getting upset over?

Everything can look wonderful when you are in the middle of a blessing, but there are times when you are so tired that you begin to think of all that is wrong with your walk with the Lord.

At these times you need to know how to renew yourself.


Hebrews 12:1-5 deals with this problem of fainting.

Jesus, the Example

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ( we would like to run with endurance) fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Literally, this means,"faint in your souls." The King James Version reads, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. It is mental and a soulish experience.)

A Father’s Discipline

 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;

In other words, you reach the place where the dealings of the Lord cause you to faint.

Twice the problem of fainting is mentioned in this passage.

You must understand this fainting, and learn to draw strength from the Lord.

Your spirit may be perfectly set to walk with God, but this fainting occurs on a psychic and emotional level.

There is no way to comprehend it.

It simply happens, and you must cope with it.

Find something in Christ that helps you meet this need.

Jesus was able to endure the cross.

He was able to go through hardship to the point where He could fall on that cross.

He suffered, yet He did not turn back.

And you are to consider Him and fix your eyes on Him, realizing that He endured the cross for that joy that was set before Him.

Think of the cross.

Focus on Christ and how He carried that cross; then you will not grow weary and faint in your mind.

If you are sick, look to the whipping post where Christ was whipped for you and know that by His stripes you are healed ( I Peter 2:24 ).

That provision is yours.

If you are aware of sin in your life and that sin oppresses you deeply, then look to the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

That blood was for the remission of your sins; it was shed for the cleansing that you need.

When you begin to faint in your mind and grow weary, then you must go to Christ again, just as you do for every other need.

Draw from Him as you remember how He endured such hostility by sinners against Himself.

 Christ endured so that we may not grow weary and lose heart.

Here again we see the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf.

God made Him to be sin in our place, so that we can become righteousness ( II Corinthians 5:21). 

God put all our sicknesses upon Him, so that by His stripes we were healed.

He gives us all these benefits, but it is necessary for us to go a step further.

Being a sinner, you cannot manufacture righteousness (Although many try and end up frustrated); therefore look to the blood of Jesus Christ for your righteousness.

You cannot generate in your body the health that you need; therefore you look to Jesus as your healer because He suffered in your place.

Likewise, when you have reached a point of depletion, and you are unable to draw upon your inner reserves to make yourself snap out of the heaviness, then you have reached the point where the renewing of your mind must take place.

Remind yourself that you believe God; you believe that He endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself so that you would not grow weary and faint in your mind.

 Do not condemn yourself because you get into the doldrums.

A man can endure just so much pressure before he begins to crack under it.

But if you are going to run with endurance the race that is set before you, there must be something to feed you the strength that you need to keep running beyond all the limitations of human endurance.

You need not only forgiveness of sin, healing for your body, and a new status with God; you need a perpetual supply of inner strength, a fortification of the mind that will give you what it takes to go on when you have nothing to go on.


 The Lord never expected you to be like a candle.

In the King James Version, the seven churches mentioned in Revelation 1 are portrayed as seven golden candlesticks, which is a mistranslation.

The churches are not seven golden candlesticks; the vision is of seven golden lamp stands.

The lamps are filled with oil and do not burn themselves out as candles do.

A candle is self-consuming.

God does not want us to use ourselves up; therefore we must be fed by an inner supply of oil to keep the light going.

In Zechariah's vision of the seven lamps; there are two olive trees connected by pipes directly to the lamps ( Zechariah 4).

The lamps are burning because the flow of life is coming fresh from the oil in the olive trees.

This is how God wants us to function.


 The Lord may bring a church to a point of depletion over and over again, and this can be very discouraging to the shepherds.

But the Lord will keep allowing His people to come to a point of depletion until they learn that it is not by might nor by power, but by His Spirit that they endure ( Zechariah 4:6). 

Learn to draw upon the Lord.

Learn how to minister this to yourself.

At times David was very discouraged; but this Scripture says, ...David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. I Samuel 30:6.

You must touch the Lord for that inner spark that will keep you running when you have no motivation or strength or heart to run anymore.


  We hesitate admitting that in the old flesh we lack the courage and the strength to make it.

The quickest way to win the victory is to admit the limitations of human frailty, yet remembering that by the grace of Christ we have no limitations.

We can find a way to draw upon the strength of the Lord and keep on going when otherwise we would want to give up.

Grasp this truth so that you will not faint under the dealings of the Lord.

To go through the work of the cross requires that you draw strength from the Lord.

You will not make it otherwise.


  Romans 12:1,2: I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God ( everything in this passage is involved with that phrase: by the mercies of God; if you miss that, then the rest of the passage is of no value to you), to present your bodies a living and a holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

You may feel that you must give your all to the Lord, but the ability to surrender yourself to the Lord is not in you.

You do not know how to give all of yourself, nor have you the capacity to give yourself that totally to the Lord.

How can you make yourself into a holy sacrifice except by the mercies of God, by His grace?


  And do not be conformed to this world (this age), but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Grasp the fact that none of this can be done outside the mercies of God, you are not to be conformed to this age, but you are to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.


  If you want to get that fresh spark, just come to Him and say, "Lord, I know that I do not have what it takes, but I draw it by the mercies of God.

I am going to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of my testimony" (Revelation 12:11).

It is not because of a reserve within us that we are enabled to overcome all that is in our way.

We do not overcome because we are supermen.

Somewhere along the way we have to learn that our flesh needs an unfailing source of divine supply flowing through it.

We will have that supply as long as we recognize that it comes by the mercies of God, by the grace of God.


  Christ went through all those pressures in order to meet your need.

He accomplished a substitutionary work for you.

For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted. Hebrews 2:18.

To succour means to rescue.

He is able to rescue those who are being tempted.

He can rescue you because He ever lives to make intercession for you ( Hebrews 7:25 ).

He faced every kind of resistance that a human being could face for your sake.

You are not able to resist temptation in yourself because of the flesh nature, but remember that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness to fulfill all righteousness for you ( Hebrews 2:17 ).

Take Christ to be your substitute in everything that you face.

Take Him to be the answer for every problem.

He met the pressures on your behalf, so that He can help you find the grace and the stamina to go on when you have no reason to go on, no heart to go on, no motivation to go on, no inner reserves to go on.


  We draw from Him so that we will not be weary in well-doing, so that we will reap because we faint not ( Galatians 6:9 ).

The problem with many Christians is not with giving, but with receiving.

God has taught them to give, but they do not know how to draw from the Lord.

Often they condemn themselves for moments of weariness instead of reaching out by faith appropriating His strength to go on.

Do not condemn yourself.

Anyone can become so tired that he could lie down and wish he were dead.

We are no better than Elijah, who was a man of like passions as we are ( James 5:17 ).

When he lay down under a juniper tree and requested that he might die, it did not mean that God was not using him.

It was an indication that he had reached the point where he had no reserves.

When he awoke, an angel was beside him.

A meal was prepared, and the angel said, "Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you" ( I Kings 19 ).

Elijah had to see that he must first take the provision of the Lord, because the journey was too much for him.

Then he went back to sleep.

When he awoke again, more food was ready, and the angel said, "Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you."

We have to face the fact that the journey will always be too great for us.

Not only do we start it by the grace of God, but we will finish it by the grace of God.

He who began the good work in us is the one who will perform it until the day of the Lord ( Philippians 1:6 ).

We must understand that He is the one who performs the work in us.


  The next time you become s discouraged and weary that you want to forsake all you are doing for the Lord, simply come before Him and say, "Look, Lord, I have run out of gas."

Then start drawing from Him.

When a morbid self pity or a melancholy mood hits your mind and spirit, all you have to do is come to Him and say, "Lord, I have to draw on You.

You are the one who endured such contradiction by sinners so that I would not be weary and faint in my mind.

You made the provision."


Determine to walk in His strength.

He started this good work in you and He will perform it until the day of the Lord.


 You will have to draw upon the Lord every day of your life, so you had better learn to be a good receiver.

Learn how to draw and draw, and then draw some more.

This is the provision He made for you by His grace.