Program Success Christian Reader September 2007 | Page 15
The Christian Reader September 2007 15
Elevate Your Mind,
Get Yourself Together
Rev. Dr. Warren Jackson is the Founder &
Senior Pastor of the Rise Above It Family Church in
Holly Hill, Florida
Email: [email protected]
Website: risefamilychurch.org
“Elevate your mind, get yourself together”, I remember growing up
as a little boy in government housing and hearing this statement all the
time. This statement had in it much power to take us to another level
in life. However, we who were living in the projects understood the
rhythm of the rhyme but we did not understand the statement. If we
could have only taken the time to pay attention to the words and not
just the rhythm of the rhyme, maybe some of us could have escaped
the tyranny of poverty of mind. All lack begins with the thinking
process. Poverty of mind arrests futures, destines, and promises. It
retards careers, purposes, and appointments. It steals dreams, destroys
lives, and kills hope. We in the church must come to the place that we
are willing to elevate our thinking in order to elevate our communities,
cities, governments and world.
Elevate your mind, get yourself together. It implies that I must do
something for myself in order to change things in my life. It means that
I have something to do with how life comes at me; it implies that my
response to situations and circumstances could be different if my mind
was at a higher level, and then my perception of life would work in my
favor and not against me. No matter how bad it is. And things can get
pretty bad at times. That is why this elevation is something that must
be a continuous thing. It is not a one time event.
When your mind is operating in survival mode, it is always “hit and
miss”. It’s like playing music by ear; sometimes you might miss the
key, as opposed to having sheet music where you can read it. The
Bible, the Word of God is our Sheet Music. Words can be so impor-
tant. However, sometimes we can say them without even hearing them.
In the case of those of us in the projects, it meant very little to individ-
uals that were still in survival mode; we did not understand the power
of the statement. The statement itself carried much possibility and
promise, but the “beat” had us, not the lyrics.
Elevation implies an upward motion. It says that I am making the
decision to think at a higher level, perceive at a higher level, to see at
a higher level. It gives the indication that things that would have both-
ered me previously, don’t offend me now because my thinking is
different; I have allowed the word of God to change my thinking. It
means that integrity has become a part of my life. It means that I don’t
have to step on people in order to get elevated because I know how
REAL ELEVATION comes.
The Bible teaches the same principle of elevating our minds,
thoughts, perceptions, etc. In III John we hear him saying, “I wish
above all things that you prosper and be in health even as your soul
(mind) prospers”. It implies that we are to work on our minds in order
to obtain the prosperity and health of a life that is without limits in
God. Many have worked on their spirits, which is already born again,
but few have dealt with the savagery of the mind that has left them in
the dark ages attempting to do new things; the old pattern of thinking
without any promise of getting results. God is calling us higher in a
culture that that is termed the Kingdom of God, and governed by the
King of Glory.
The Bible gives us to know that an unregenerated mind is against
God. It fights against the very nature of God within our spirit. That is
why the Apostle Paul said that the things that I need to do, I don’t do
them and the things that I don’t want to do, I do them. Because the
mind has to be changed, our thinking must be altered in a direction that
causes us to serve God even in our minds. I have learned in my 30
years of living for Christ that you can come to church, dance, holler,
fall out under the Spirit, and cry, but if that mind has not changed you
will be just as defeated as when you came in. The mind must change.
The Apostle Paul says in Romans to be renewed in the spirit of your
mind, that you may prove what is good, perfect, and acceptable con-
cerning the will of God. And THAT is the whole of the story. Because
discipline is a difficult thing, it separates members from disciples. It
separates the “haves” from the “have not’s”, it separates the rich from
the poor; it separates the powerful from the weak. It separates those
who would change the world for Christ Jesus as oppose to those who
come to church for entertainment or other things. When we change our
way of thinking we are able to change the way we do things. We are
able to see prosperity in health, wealth, in our emotions, in our social
lives, we began to draw people of integrity to us, educationally, we
began to strive for more, because now we know that knowledge is
something that everybody can have, and those who have knowledge
can and will change things.
In the book of Joshua, God told Joshua after Moses died, “Thou
shalt meditate on the Word day and night to observe all that is written
therein, and then thou shalt make thy own way prosperous and then
thou shalt have good success”, or the amplified says “deal wisely
and have good success”. This had to do with Joshua’s way of think-
ing, not his ability to speak in tongues or dance in the spirit. I believe
see REV. DR. WARREN JACKSON page 18