28 Key Takeaway

The Mind is the Capital of the Body.

Every organ of the body was made to be servant to the mind. The mind is the capital of the body. The mind controls the whole system. All our actions, good or bad, have their source in the mind. It is the mind that worships God and allies us to heavenly beings. Yet many spend all their lives without becoming intelligent in regard to the box that contains this treasure. In other words, the brain. The Brain Controls the Body. There are many with chronic diseases today who will ever remain so because they cannot be convinced that their experience, which brought them to this condition, is not reliable. They don't believe their lives can be reshaped. The brain is the capital of the body, the seat of all the nervous forces and of mental action. The nerves proceeding from the brain control the body. By the brain nerves, mental impressions are conveyed to all the nerves of the body as by telegraph wires, and they control the vital action of every part of the system. All the organs of motion are governed by the communications they receive from the brain.

The brain nerves which communicate with the entire system are the only medium through which Heaven can communicate to man and affect his inmost life. Satan Strikes at the perceptive faculties and he comes to man with his temptations as an angel of light, in the same way he tempted Christ. He has been working to bring man into a condition of physical and moral weakness that he may overcome him with his temptations and then triumph over his ruin. And he has been successful in tempting man to indulge appetite, regardless of the result. Satan well knows that it is impossible for man to discharge his obligations to God and to his fellow men while he does his best to damage the faculties God has given us.

If the perceptive faculties become benumbed through intemperance of any kind, eternal things are not discerned, as much as our usefulness in this world. The ignorance that has prevailed in regard to God's law in our physical nature is deplorable. Intemperance of any kind is a violation of the laws of our being. Imbecility is prevailing to a fearful extent. Sin is made attractive by the covering of light which Satan throws over it, and he is well pleased when appetite governs man.

All should feel the necessity of keeping the moral nature braced by constant watchfulness. Like faithful sentinels, they should guard the citadel of the soul, the mind, never feeling that they may relax their vigilance for a moment. The Mind Rightly Trained Wavers Not. The mind must be trained through daily tests to habits of fidelity, to a sense of the claims of right and duty above inclination and pleasure. Minds thus trained do not waver between right and wrong, as the reed trembles in the wind; but as soon as matters come before them, they discern at once that principle is involved and they instinctively choose the right without long debating the matter. They are loyal because they have trained themselves in habits of faithfulness and truth.

By beholding we become changed. As man ceases to watch and pray, he ceases to guard the mind, the heart, and engages in sin and crime. The mind is debased and result is ruin, in this life and in the life to come. To be victorious, constant war against the carnal mind must be maintained; and we must be aided by the refining influence of the grace of God, which will attract the mind upward and habituate it to meditate upon pure and truthful things.

Until the heart is purified, a person is unfit to have any part in the fellowship of heavenly beings. Does not God know who are lingering in sin? God knows and sees everything, every filthy and evil thought or action is spotted by Him. These people hearts have never been given to God. Christ is not in them. Truth is not there. Its place is occupied by sin, deception, and falsehood. The Word of God is not believed and acted upon. Is in a condition of outward ease and security that we are led into sin. Ease and self-indulgence leave the mind unguarded, then debasing thoughts find it's entrance. The mind does not come down at once from purity and holiness to depravity, corruption, and crime. It takes time to degrade those formed in the image of God to the brutal or the satanic. By beholding we become changed. By the indulgence of impure thoughts man can so educate his mind that sin which he once loathed will become pleasant to him.

Satan knows that if appetite and passion predominate, health of body and strength of intellect are sacrificed upon the altar of self-gratification, and man is brought to speedy ruin. If enlightened intellect holds the reins, controlling the animal propensities, keeping them in subjection to the moral powers, Satan well knows that his power to overcome with his temptations is very small. If parents in past generations had, with firmness of purpose, kept the body servant to the mind and had not allowed the intellectual to be enslaved by animal passions, there would be in this age a different order of beings upon the earth.

Every student needs to understand the relation between plain living and high thinking. How mind and body are married in a such intimate relationship. It rests with us individually to decide whether our lives shall be controlled by the mind or by the body. The youth must, each for himself, make the choice that shapes his life; and no pains should be spared that he may understand the forces with which he has to deal and the influences which mold character and destiny.