For You Gals - 9

 When I drove school buses, I was required to do a brake inspection on my air brakes before I left the yard.  This included going through a series of different steps to ensure that the air pressure in the air tanks would build up in a certain amount of time and that the air tanks were not leaking.  I shudder to think of what could happen if I lost my brakes on some of the hills around Gig Harbor.  Thank the Lord, it never happened.  But, there are other times when  "my brakes have failed."  Let me explain what I mean.

Last night our Titus 2:4 gals group met.  We had a great time looking at the word "sensible" in Titus 2:5.  The Greek word is "sophron."  It's a compound word, formed from "sozo" (to save) and "phren" (mind).  It describes a woman who is sober minded and coolheaded.  (Being sensible is mentioned four times in Titus, and is also applied to pastors, older men, and younger men.  None of us are off the hook.)  In Titus 2:5 the older women are to encourage the younger women to be sensible, or to be sober minded and coolheaded.  Common sense and good judgment should improve with age, but they should also be evident in early adulthood.  The sensible woman is in command of her mind.  When we are in command of our minds we are in control of the things we think about and do. We are also in control of our feelings.  The older women are to encourage the younger women to use self-control and self-control always starts with how we think.  When we have gotten out of control with our behavior or our attitudes, our speech, or our moods, we need to ask ourselves, "Where in my thought life did I fail to put on the brakes?"  (Now you know where I was going with my bus story.)  Gals, we are like a bus without brakes when we fail to apply the brakes of self-control and a bus out of control can cause great damage.  Being sensible is having the ability to apply the brakes to our life - to our thoughts, to our attitudes, our behavior, our speech, and our moods, sparing others the damage a lack of self-control can cause. 

Since the older women are to encourage the younger women to sound minds, to coolheadedness, and to self-controlled thinking, this implies we've gained some experience in mastering our thought life.  We aren't perfect at it by any means, but younger gals, gaining control over your thought life comes from taking periodic inventory of what you spend your time thinking about.  Also, we gain control over our thoughts when we spend the majority of our time talking to ourselves rather than listening to ourselves.  (Think about that one for a minute...)

A sound mind also results from being saturated with God's mind by being in His Word.  As we stay close to the Lord in His Word, He is our mind stabilizer.

...AND TAKE TIME TO THINK.

 Put on the brakes, for Him.

Put off the bad and then set your mind on what pleases the Lord.