Therefore prepare your minds for action. Be sober-minded. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13 Berean Study Bible.
While driving a school bus, I get to see how teens decide to dress. There are some boys who wear pants hanging down that are 3 sizes too big. As they get off the bus, the teachers make them pull up their pants and tighten their belt before going into the school. In my imaginative self, I have changed the words to an old 70’s song by Argent called Hold Your Head Up. My version- Pull your pant’s up…high, Pull your pants up…high, pull your pants up.
Let’s break down the verse to see how Peter encourages us to take our sagging thoughts and hold them up high.
Prepare (anazōsamenoi) means to gird up. In the Roman era, tunics or robes where the normative clothing for men and women. In order to maximize speed and agility, one would pull of the slack of the robe and tuck it in under and around the belt. Ungirded thoughts are all of those things that weigh us down from the diligence necessary to be effective Christians.
Mind (dianoia) is not just the gray matter inside your head. Rather, it carries the idea of having both sides of an issue weighed out and coming to a conclusion. The focal point is not having lots of thoughts, but rather looking at two opposite sides of an idea and choosing to focus on one compiled together.
For action and be sober-minded are actually one word in the greek (nēphontes). It literally means to be sober or free from the influence of intoxicants. This has less to do with the effects of drinking and more of a focus on one who is thinking rationally or clearly. This is not a state of being, but rather it incorporates the activity included in being leveled headed.
Let’s put it together.
Therefore…take all of those random thoughts that are weighing you down; those thoughts of worry about your future, too long of a to do list, overwhelming backlog of unfinished tasks, feelings of guilt that have been pushed back to be dealt with on another day, all of the avoidance topics in your life like your relationships, your health, your finances, your broken things. Gather up these thoughts
Gird or pick up those thoughts and stuff them in the belt of the truth of God’s word. Evaluate each of these thoughts against the backdrop of God’s word. If an item needs to be addressed…do it. If it needs to be let go, grab a hold of God’s grace and see it as completed.
It is much easier to think clearly (be sober minded) once we have taken the time to gird up our thoughts. So sing with me. Pull your thoughts up…high, pull your thoughts up…high, pull your thoughts up.
Let’s agree together in prayer today.
Father, one of the hardest activities for us to master is to control our thoughts. Sometimes it is easier to let them run wild about how life could be if we had not made certain choices or if some bad things had not happened to us. We recognize that we have undisciplined thinking and truthfully, we may not even want to control our thoughts and bring them into the light of reality, for then we would have to be responsible. Right now, we acknowledge that we need your help. We acknowledge the challenge to be singularly focused is obtainable through your grace. Help us to recognize run away thoughts and bring them captive to the obedience of Christ. We ask for Your peace to make its home among our worrisome thoughts. In Jesus name, Amen.
Blessing Love y’all