Think About What You Think About

 

You didn’t select your birthplace or birth date. You didn’t choose your parents or siblings. You don’t determine the weather or the amount of salt in the ocean. There are many things in life over which you have no choice. But the greatest activity of life is well within your dominion.

You can choose what you think about.

For that reason the wise man urges, Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life. — Proverbs 4:23 NCV Do you want to be happy tomorrow? Then sow seeds of happiness today. (Count blessings. Memorize Bible verses. Pray. Sing hymns. Spend time with encouraging people.) Do you want to guarantee tomorrow’s misery? Then wallow in a mental mud pit of self-pity or guilt or anxiety today. (Assume the worst. Beat yourself up. Rehearse your regrets. Complain to complainers.) Thoughts have consequences.

Healing from anxiety requires healthy thinking. Your challenge is not your challenge. Your challenge is the way you think about your challenge. Your problem is not your problem; it is the way you look at it.

Satan knows this. The devil is always messing with our minds. He comes as a thief with the sole intention of stealing and killing and destroying. — John 10:10 He brings only gloom and doom. By the time he was finished with Job, the man was sick and alone. By the time he had done his work in Judas, the disciple had given up on life. The devil is to hope what termites are to an oak; he’ll chew you up from the inside.

He will lead you to a sunless place and leave you there. He seeks to convince you this world has no window, no possibility of light. Exaggerated, overstated, inflated, irrational thoughts are the devil’s specialty.

No one will ever love me. It’s all over for me. Everyone is against me. I’ll never lose weight, get out of debt, or have friends.

What lugubrious, monstrous lies!

No problem is unsolvable. No life is irredeemable. No one’s fate is sealed. No one is unloved or unlovable.

Your challenge is the way you think about your challenge.

But Satan wants us to think we are. He wants to leave us in a swarm of anxious, negative thoughts.

Satan is the master of deceit. But he is not the master of your mind. You have a power he cannot defeat. You have God on your side.

So fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. — Philippians 4:8 NLT

The transliteration of the Greek word, here rendered as fix, is logizomai. Do you see the root of an English word in the Greek one? Yes, logic. Paul’s point is simple: anxiety is best faced with clearheaded, logical thinking.

Turns out that our most valuable weapon against anxiety weighs less than three pounds and sits between our ears. Think about what you think about!

Here is how it works. You receive a call from the doctor’s office. The message is simple and unwelcome. “The doctor has reviewed your tests and would like you to come into the office for a consultation.”

As quickly as you can say “uh-oh,” you have a choice: anxiety or trust.

Anxiety says…

“I’m in trouble. Why does God let bad things happen to me? Am I being punished? I must have done something wrong.”

“These things never turn out right. My family has a history of tragedy. It’s my turn. I probably have cancer, arthritis, jaundice. Am I going blind? My eyes have been blurry lately. Is this a brain tumor?”

“Who will raise the kids? Who will pay the medical bills? I’m going to die broke and lonely. I’m too young for this tragedy! No one can understand me or help me.”

If you aren’t already sick, you will be by the time you go to the doctor’s office. Anxiety weighs down the human heart. — Proverbs 12:25 NRSV

But there is a better way.

Before you call your mom, spouse, neighbor, or friend, call on God. Invite him to speak to the problem. Capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ. — 2 Corinthians 10:5 NCV

Slap handcuffs on the culprit, and march it before the One who has all authority: Jesus Christ.

Jesus, this anxious, negative thought just wormed its way into my mind. Is it from You?

Jesus, who speaks nothing but the truth, says, “No, get away from here, Satan.” And as the discerning, sober-minded air traffic controller of your mind, you refuse to let the thought have the time of day.

Lay claim to every biblical promise you can remember, and set out to learn a few more. Grip them for the life preservers they are. Give Satan no quarter. Give his lies no welcome.

Fasten the belt of truth around your waist. — Ephesians 6:14 NRSV

Resist the urge to exaggerate, overstate, or amplify. Focus on the facts, nothing more. The fact is, the doctor has called. The fact is, his news will be good or bad. For all you know, he may want you to be a poster child of good health. All you can do is pray and trust.

So you do. You enter the doctor’s office, not heavied by worry, but buoyed by faith.

Which do you prefer?

 

~From Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

Is Your Faith In God Growing?

 

 

Life is complex. You must deal with a secular culture, temptations you never knew existed, the demands of work, an imperfect marriage or other significant relationship, financial pressures, the challenges of parenting, and more. Do you find yourself wondering what on earth God is doing? Do you wonder if your life matters? Are you finding your way, or are you trying to do it like I was — without a map?

The Bible is one big story made up of two halves: the Old and New Testaments. Each has five major events that mirror one another. Our story with God begins in paradise, and it will end there again, thanks to Jesus who offers us forgiveness and salvation.

Everything in human history turns on the person of Jesus.

So really, it’s not a secret what God is doing on earth. The world is no accident. And you are here on purpose. There is a bigger picture to life, and you are a part of it. God is inviting you to follow Him, grow up in your faith, and “have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).
 

~From Grown-Up Faith: The Big Picture for a Bigger Life by Kevin Myers with Charlie Wetzel

 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

Worship Christ And Overcome Sin

 

 

Christians’ actions confirm their salvation.

Since they have been confirmed by Christ in the past, they are submitting to Him in the present. People doing battle with sin evidence that they belong to Christ. These are Christ’s people.

Whoever says ‘I know Him’ but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked. — 1 John 2:4-6

How can we know that we are saved? If we are obeying God. If we are fighting sin.

Why is fighting sin important? Because by it we confirm our salvation. Notice that the text does not say, “in him truly the love of God is perfect,” but “in him truly the love of God is perfected.” It is a process. Those who truly know Jesus keep His commands. The fact of the former produces the latter. The existence of the latter gives proof to the former.

We do not work at killing sin and obeying God so that we might earn our salvation. We go through the hard fight because we know that Jesus has already purchased the ticket. It is a joyful confirmation that comes out of the knowledge of a fully paid fare. And we can’t wait to get where we are going.

Sin kills.

The wages of sin is death. — Romans 6:23

The pursuit of sin ends in your death. But this is not a quick death (Genesis 3:16-19). Sin kills you slowly and painfully. Sin is not something you enjoy now and pay for later. Sin is painful now and deadly later, no matter what lies it has told you to the contrary (Romans 7:11).

Jesus took the penalty of death brought about by sin (Isaiah 53:5; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18). This is a reality as real as the irrevocable “not guilty” sentence passed by a judge in a court of law. However, Jesus does not just want to forgive the penalty of death in our lives. Jesus wants us to experience the healing power of removing death from our lives. He came to give us a full life, where sin and self-salvation had only brought death and destruction (John 10:10).

We fight sin to be made well. We will be perfectly healed when Jesus returns (1 John 3:2). But now every step we take toward Christ and away from sin is a step out of sickness and into health. Each step toward a healthier life confirms the guarantee Christ gave us in His resurrection, provides a greater joy in life now, and enflames our hearts to worship God.

When we look to the cross, we see that Jesus has decidedly killed sin in our lives — so we worship. Our worshipful response to our sin’s death results in the worshipful activity of putting our sin to death. But here is the unexpected truth of the gospel-motivated fight with sin. In worshiping God we become like Him. The deception of the tree is made true by the gospel. We are being made into the image of the one we worship (2 Corinthians 3:18). In worshiping God through the gospel, we receive freely what self-salvation could never provide us, despite all our work. Killing sin is from worship and for worship. Glory to God! He is making us like himself.


~From Rewire Your Heart by David Bowden 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

 

 

Affirmations For The Win!

 

 

And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.”
2 Corinthians 6:16 NKJV

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
John 10:10 NKJV

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2 Peter 1:2-4 NKJV

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:31 NKJV 

If you read these verses, God is for you and has promised you great things to live a godly life. Believe it and affirm it by speaking it daily. Repeat after me:

God is on my side. God is in me now, who can be against me? He has given unto me all things that pertain unto life and godliness. Therefore I am a partaker of His divine nature.

 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!