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Tavis: Bishop Noel Jones, the pastor of the City of Refuge Church here in Los Angeles - full disclosure, a church that I'm proud to be a member of. He is the author of several books, including his latest, "The Battle for the Mind: How You Can Think the Thoughts of God." Bishop, as always, nice to have you on the program.

Bishop Noel Jones: It's always a pleasure, Tavis.

Tavis: Good to see you. This book, the subtitle itself begs the question how you can think the thoughts of God. Now, am I being sacrilegious to even think that I could think the thoughts of God?

Jones: Well, that's the whole concept of relationships. Any time you have relations with anyone, you have to get close enough to be able to think as they think, and that's the whole issue. The issue is that mankind has been influenced by outside forces, by the world forces, and has been influenced by the inner force, which is God. That's why He came to visit man in the cool of the evening because God gave the man the kind of intellect that he can grasp who he is and have His thoughts.

Tavis: Help me juxtapose that notion then, the argument that I can in fact think the thoughts of God. Juxtapose that for me with the biblical edict that His ways are far above our ways. His thoughts are far above our thoughts. How do I spread those around?

Jones: Well, of course, that's the whole concept. The concept is that God is in you. You have to change the way you think even to deal with Me, and that's the power that comes in all of us. That's what I tried to say in the book, that once you change the way you think, and you think more like God, then your behavior will be more God-like because, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Understand that when God put man in the earth, he put him in His image and He told him to replenish. "I want you to multiply; I want you to have dominion; I want you to subdue;" which means that, "when I look in the earth, I want to see my image. I want to see my likeness." That's why anytime people fail to meet their privilege and meet their potential, then they don't glorify God. It's not just praising Him, but it's walking in the power that He's given you and you have to think.

Tavis: What's at the center then of this battle for the mind? You argue there is a battle for the mind. I get that part. I think most people get that there's a battle for your mind. You got good thoughts and bad thoughts, good and evil, right and wrong. Even a child knows there's a battle for the mind. What's at the center of that battle for the mind? What's warring inside of here?

Jones: Well, what's warring is, when I meet God, I have already been immersed in inequity. I mean, I've done a lot of negative things, and I'm being moved by my appetites. At the end of the day, it's appetite against values. You and I know that once you have moved into appetency and you have a strong proclivity or even a predilection to something, it's difficult to break it; but it has to be broken here because it's going to pull you negative.

You know there are many people who are gifted and talented, but they have no character because they've been pulled by the physical, or the flesh, as we call it in church. But actually it's just being moved by appetency or appetite. On the other hand, you've got value systems; you've got faith. So instead of being sensual, you have to be spiritual. That's the common link, sensuality versus spirituality.

Sensuality is given to me right now. Give me the pleasure. Let me enjoy myself right now. Spirituality says, look, have some patience and do some work. Be strong and fight the impulses that pull you into the negative. If you notice the world, the world is full of mind-altering substances. Because once you have altered the mind, you have taken away my ability to fight, my ability to stand and my ability to become all that I can be.

Tavis: You've already lost me, though, right now if I'm watching and I'm fighting to stop from turning the channel. If I happen to be agnostic or atheist, when you argue that I should in fact have as one of my goals to think the thoughts of God, if I'm an agnostic, I'm lost already.

Jones: Well, not really, not really, because the mere fact that he would say, "There is no God," must indicate that he must have something that he depends on or looks into. Let me put it this way. Anytime I meet God, I meet myself.

Tavis: Say that again.

Jones: Anytime I meet God, I meet myself.

Tavis: You're crazy. I'm sorry (laughter). You can't tell your pastor, "You're crazy." I say this respectfully. He is so much superior than we are as human beings. How do you argue then that, when I meet Him, I meet myself?

Jones: Because you can't appropriate. You have to appropriate every relationship with God through your intellect, through your mind. For instance, you tell me, "I'm forgiven. God has forgiven me." But if I haven't forgiven myself, then I haven't appropriated His forgiveness, because I have to register everything that is mystical, that is supernatural, to even discuss it. I have to process it through my mind. It is my intellect and this is the capacity that He has given to deal with Him.

What happened was, we turned from God. We said, "Look, we're going to put you on trial to see whether or not we want to deal with you." Once we did that, He said, "Okay, I'll give you a mind that is trial-less so you don't even know in any way how you ought to live your life because now you can't reach me unless I come for you." But when He comes, I believe by faith, and I begin now the process. Be not conformed; be transformed by the renewing of the mind and that's how you operate.

Because God gave a gift. He put a gift to you and, when he put a gift to you, He made a need for your gift. Once He makes the need, then when you search out who you are, based on what He has done, now you operate. When that need is now fulfilled by your gift, you will now walk through your calling. That comes from understanding our God and having a relationship with Him.

Tavis: Let me be sure I got this right. When your gift meets up with your need, you are now walking in your calling, your vocation.

Jones: Exactly. What God does is, He gives you a gift. Everybody had a gift coming in here and everybody came in naked, and you're going to leave naked. So the gift has to make you prosper and glorify God between the time you come and the time you leave.

Tavis: Those struggling right now watching this, as often the case, I don't mean folk who happen to be teenagers. Sometimes you can be in your fifties and still struggling trying to figure out what your gift is. How do you figure that out?

Jones: Well, what you do is, you understand need. You look around and see wherever there is a need and then you ask yourself, "How do I very naturally fit this need?" You want to fit it very naturally because you don't want to burn up. Now if you're walking in your gift, many times you'll burn out. We can fix burnout. We can't fix burn-up (laughter). But the whole point is, you want to naturally flow into the thing that you see as a need because what God does is, when He gifts you, that gift compatibly operates within that need, so it's a flow ...(technical difficulty).

Tavis: ... Not as handsomely as I would like, but I'll take what I can get and thank God for it. Let me ask you, because you argue in the book, and I'm fascinated by this. I'm fascinated by this notion that you argue that we can in fact think the thoughts of God, that there is a battle for the mind, that we need to - one of the parts of the book, in fact - become more spiritual, but yet you admit that being spiritual in today's world is increasingly difficult.

Jones: It's very difficult because many times we have so much that's pulling us to the physical aspects of our lives. There's so much that's so psyche-oriented, that we're so sensual. Everything is hearing and smell, it's taste, it's all of this. Consequently, we allow our situation to govern how we think instead of using revelation to govern how we think. You see, I came along today and I saw a place that said, "Thirty-seven condominiums for sale." The lot was empty. Where are the condominiums? In somebody's mind.

Tavis: Right.

Jones: They're going to put that thing together, and you have to forecast it, and you have to operate in circumstances that bring you hope. See, when you're hopeless, your circumstance overwhelms you. But when you have expectation that this situation is not utopic, there's more to it than this, and I have that strength on the inside, you then begin to shake it up even though nothing's changed.

Tavis: That's spiritual, okay, but that would seem to me to put your finger on the pulse of what's wrong with so many people and that is, God aside, there are people lacking hope and, when they lack hope, there's no way out and they quit.

Jones: Inertia, melancholia, depression. They never move forward. Because hope gives you energy in a bad situation. As long as I have expectation because that now becomes substrata of faith, because faith is the substance of things hoped for. Anybody living has to live with strong expectations, and that's spiritual. You can't go by what you see. You go by what you believe, and you believe a whole lot more than what you see.

Tavis: You said to me in a conversation one day - it's something I want to pick up on because it comes back to the text - that each of us ought to strive for - and I want to talk to those folk who don't necessarily get or believe in the God thing, but can still be enlightened by the text. You argued in a conversation once to me that each of us ought to have as our goal to be the salt of the earth, to be salt. The goal is to be salt. Explain what you meant by that.

Jones: You see, when you talk about salt of the earth, you're talking about changing things. You're talking about having an influence. Now you can't be of the world or be moved by the world or follow the world's principles and then change them because you have to be uniquely different. See, Jesus is not the kind of man that a girl could take home and say, "Mom, I'm getting ready to marry this guy."

Tavis: What's wrong with Jesus?

Jones: Where's he working at?

Tavis: (Laughter) He ain't got no job, yeah.

Jones: He's running around doing a whole lot of talking and preaching and teaching. He's completely occupied with what He's doing. John the Baptist. These are the people, like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi; take all these people. These people would never let the circumstance of a situation influence them or bring them to a place of melancholy, depression, inertia, not taking any action. No. All you need is a little grain of salt in each one of our lives, and we'll make this world a better place.

Tavis: Like the salt in the soup.

Jones: Yeah, salt in the soup. The soup doesn't influence the salt. The salt influences the soup. That's what this book is saying. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Change the way you think, and you'll change your environment. You'll change any space you're in.

Tavis: Do you believe each of us then has the capacity on some level to be world-changers?

Jones: Oh, indeed. What happens is, we have to combine. You have to do yours in your space, and I do mine in my space. When you have children, you have to raise your children understanding that this is your opportunity to perpetuate change. Because if you have changed and you raise your children within the same vein, now we're dealing with long-term change to overcome these long-term problems.

Tavis: The book is called "The Battle for the Mind: How You Can Think the Thoughts of God." I was booking a show, another network before PBS, and I flew across the country for five years every weekend just to watch you preach in church. I think you understand why. Bishop, nice to see you.

Jones: It's a pleasure. I love you.

Tavis: I love you too. Up next, a special holiday performance from Christian Scott - another Christian. Stay with us.