Mind Games - Week 5: “Changing Your Mind”

Whatever you build your life on, you share the destiny of it. And we're not we're not messing around like that's the truth. You build your life on what other people think, you're gonna share that destiny. You build your life on what God's word says, and you will share this destiny. Friends, God is a good, loving, wise parent. And he has what's best in store. His ways are higher than our own, which means we shouldn't always understand them perfectly, which means they're gonna be harder than we would prefer. But if you live into that, you are going to love the person that God is making you into. [01:15:15] (34 seconds)  #BuildOnGodsWord

Because the reality is this, friends. I just wanna be honest with you. The reality is the life that you live directly mirrors back to you the thoughts that you allow yourself to think. Your your life is filled with things that are mirrors back to you of the thoughts that you have. So you have the life that your recurring thoughts are producing, whether that's good or that's not good. And so listen, if you want God's hand on your life in a big way, you've gotta get God's thoughts operating in your life. [00:42:16] (34 seconds)  #ThoughtsCreateLife

Some of us, we get our thinking on the other end of the spectrum of emotion. If it feels like the right thing, it's gotta be the right thing. Like, how could it be wrong if it feels right? So listen, here's the key. The most important decision you're ever gonna make is your decision to decide upon whose authority will you build your life. Will you build your life on the authority of what culture's saying, what traditions are doing, reason or like, because whatever you build your life on, you share the destiny of that thing. [00:53:08] (36 seconds)  #ChooseYourAuthority

Listen, some of you, life is not working, and it seems really hard, and why, and and you're wondering, and here's the reality. God wants you to get as serious with him as he is with you. He loves you. And he wants you to turn from that path that you're on. There's no peace there. It goes over a cliff, only you can't see it. He can't. And he is calling you to do the hard thing. Leave that thought process behind because God knows best. [00:56:44] (26 seconds)  #GetSeriousWithGod

So friends, listen. Living to according our own thinking, it's like sitting in a rush hour traffic is so distressing, so anxiety producing. And more than anything, we need to hear this. God loves you so much and he wants you to tune in to his higher thinking in the midst of whatever you're going through. Family's falling apart, marriage isn't going well, job's going down the tubes. In that place, tune in to God's higher thinking. It will change your experience. [00:59:37] (31 seconds)  #TuneIntoGodsThinking

Here it is. Which best describes your life right now? A dry thorny thing or a green and leafy thing? Which best describes your thoughts, Your heart? Your life? Not sure where? How how would I know? Here's how you can know. Check what's going on on the inside, particularly in your head. Notice right here, for you shall go out in joy and let forth in peace. Joy and peace are byproducts of God's word being absorbed into the heart and the mind and the life. [01:10:00] (31 seconds)  #JoyFromTheWord

If we could somehow get God's thoughts operating in our own lives, we would experience God's peace. Now help me out everybody. True or false? I need to I need to hear your voice. Sometimes, true or false, sometimes in life people find themselves at a place where something needs to change. True or false? Here's the question though. What is it that needs to change? And I look at my own life and to all too often, the thing behind the thing, the change that leads to change has to start up here. [00:39:26] (29 seconds)  #ChangeStartsInMind

Now the truth is friends, all of us are at a place where something needs to change. Our God is a God who's a loving heavenly father. And like a good loving heavenly father, he wants to raise his kids to think in a good way. So something, somehow in our lives needs to change. And listen, the change that leads to all change isn't out there. The change that leads to all change starts up here. Everyone point to their to their changer right there. This is where it happens. It starts up in here. [00:41:48] (28 seconds)  #PointToTheChanger

Don't even realize how truly influenced we are by the thinking and the thoughts and the ways of people around us. So what pattern is dragging you down? What pattern is keeping you from God's higher things? Because the reality is in our passage, we see that God's thoughts and ways aren't just higher than it's like the gap is pretty high. Heaven to earth, that's pretty high. And in that space, God has a lot of amazing things for you. But you can't let thought processes that aren't his keep you from that. [01:02:41] (32 seconds)  #GuardYourThoughts

There's the truth friends, the key to a transformed life is a transformed mind. We're seeing that all throughout the scriptures. The key to a changed life is a changed mind. But between us and transformation, something's gotta give. I think Will Rogers put it best. I'm gonna show you what Rogers said. Here's what Rogers said. He said, it isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble. It's what we know that ain't so. [00:36:38] (32 seconds)  #TransformedMindTransformedLife

So let me ask you, what might God be calling you to leave behind? Something is diverting you, pulling you away from him. For some of you, it's a script in your head that tells you, you're no good, you're a loser, you never measure. Leave that behind. That's not just no. You can't live a new life with those old thoughts. For some of us, God might be calling you to leave behind an untruth, a half truth that you've bought into. [00:54:19] (25 seconds)  #DitchTheNegativeScript

Could it be that the biggest trouble between you and the changed life, changed marriage, changed relationships, that the biggest trouble is right here? That what you think you know just isn't so. So the question is, if that's the case, and I know it's the case in my own life, what do we do with that? How can we ever change our mind when we think what we know we are it's just well, that's what we're gonna see today in our passage from Isaiah. [00:38:45] (30 seconds)  #BeliefsBlockChange

Now tragically, there are many who claim to be followers of Jesus or people of faith or the people of God who quite honestly get their thinking not from God, but from other places. Let me share with you where a lot of people, Christian people, get their thinking. First place would be culture. We just look around and we say, well, everybody's doing it. And if everybody's doing it, it's gotta be okay. So that's where we get our thinking. [00:52:00] (26 seconds)  #CultureIsNotAuthority

Some they don't like what's happening in their churches, go find a different one. And again, you're free to do that, but change the problem with changing location is wherever you go, there you are. Funny how problems follow people. The same stinking thinking that makes the job stink, or the marriage stink, or the other whatever stink, the same thinking follows you to so changing location. Sometimes we wanna change other people. [00:40:44] (33 seconds)  #WhereverYouGoYouAre

My own perspective was very limited. It was just me and a bumper and a million angry people. And all around, all I could feel was the chaos, the noise, the frustration, and the distress. Literally, my inner world was but the moment I tuned in to this perspective above me from the traffic helicopter, I understood my situation from a higher perspective, and it changed the whole experience. I went from frustrated and angry to, oh, good. We'll get going here pretty soon, and sure enough. [00:58:59] (37 seconds)  #HigherPerspectiveChangesEverything

We all know people like that. But when it comes to our thoughts, our thinker, our knower, the big problem often is what we think we know just isn't so. I've told you this story before about the guy in Chicagoland who wanted to buy a brand new Cadillac, never wanted a car payment, so he saved up his money to be able to pay cash and the day came. He went to the dealership, laid down cash, bought a brand new Cadillac, he was driving down the tollway enjoying his brand new car. [00:37:29] (29 seconds)  #ChoicesReflectBeliefs