Vanity of Mind

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Noblemen

Senior Member
Jan 14, 2018
498
149
43
#1
Vanity of mind

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity (Solomon). I'm sure that was true for Solomon's day. He had it all, the wisdom, concubines, wives, the money, and he considered it all vanity.
What would make Solomon's day so much different than our day we live in. Why can we not say all is vanity. The simplest most basic answer that can be given is; because we have Christ in us!
The relationship Solomon had was a God to people relationship. Solomon did not have a Christ in him born again relationship making him a child of God.
Even his worldly wisdom he considered Vanity.

What does Paul say about vanity, Ephesians 4:17-18

17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

What are some of the things that can bring about vanity of the mind.
We have so much junk in our minds if God hollered at us we would say, "let me pray about that."
To begin with, we are loaded down with doctrines we don't need and which keep us tied in knots. Scripture gives a clear cut understanding of not what you believe, but in whom you believe.
Life does not come from what you believe, it comes from a person in whom you believe.
We are loaded down with religious church work. Everything you can imagine here loads us down, including ballgames, seminars, marriage counseling, and the like. The mind gets so bogged down it can't think clearly.
The mind becomes so bogged down with the weight that our understanding is darkened with a host of things no longer applicable to who you are.

As a result of the mind being darkened Paul says; "being alienated from the life of God."
We only come in contact with His life when in severe crisis. Otherwise, it is our life and we do as we please whenever we want.
We are alienated from His life because we don't understand it. You can be alienated from the life in you by the way you think.

Footnote: the only place you can be separated from Christ is in mind.

You are not separated from Him but your thinking in mind allows those thoughts. Until the mind is given to Christ, you do your own thing.
Paul had a message on how to handle this condition.
Paul decided he was not going to let anything defeat him in this world, for it did not matter if he lived or died. He said to die was victory, it was ok to live, as he might be able help someone, but to die was gain, Phil. 1:21.
Paul depended on the life that was in him.
When God put that special touch on you in your mothers womb, He created you with the potential to be operated by the Christ in you. All human beings are created by God to operate with Christ in them.
If they never come to know Christ, their life is never completed. If you thought about that, wouldn't you want to spend every moment possible learning this Christ who is in you?
 

p_rehbein

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2013
30,825
6,961
113
#2
Here's some perspective on "vanity" from Ecclesiastes.....



I think the best answer is summed up by Peter Leithart (who admits to borrowing liberally from James Jordan on this):
To get the point of Ecclesiastes, we have to ignore the usual translations of several key words or phrases. The Hebrew hebel has been translated as "vanity" (NASB, KJV, ESV, ASV) or "meaningless" (NIV, New Living Translation). The Message gets much closer by translating the word as "smoke." The word means "vapor" (Proverbs 21:6) or "breath" (Job 7:16; Psalm 39:5, 11; 62:9, 94:11; 144:4; Isaiah 57:13). In describing human life as vapor or breath, Solomon emphasizes that life is brief and beyond our control. Life is vapor because the world goes on unchanged in spite of all our frantic activities (1:3-11); because things slip through our fingers when we try to grasp them and through our minds when we try to understand them; because nothing lasts, yet everything stays the same; because it ends in death (2:16), and we have no control over the future (2:18-19).​
found here:

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