Sunday Sermons
Minding my Mind
Minding my Mind
Most of us are very in tune with our emotions and how we feel at a given moment, yet at the same time we can be completely oblivious to our thought patterns. Feelings are there for a reason, yet our thoughts, what we mentally ponder on a habitual basis are absolutely crucial to get a handle on, for we will become what we are pondering.
- “For as he thinks within himself so he is” (Proverbs 23:7).
- “The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart”
(Matthew 15:18).
“Since the dawn of time, or at least since researchers started poking and prodding the human brain, it was assumed that the brain was fixed structure. Whatever brainpower you had was a done deal, not a work in progress. The only change your brain was going to see was the deterioration of getting old. But over the last decade, neuroscientists have discovered that, like an eager student, the brain is remarkably responsive to experience. Ask your brain to do math every day, and it gets better at math. Ask your brain to worry, and it gets better at worrying. Ask your brain to concentrate, and it gets better at concentrating. Not only does your brain find these things easier, but it actually remodels itself based on what you ask it to do” (The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., p. 24).
In order to be stewards of the minds God has given us, we need to learn to think about what we are thinking about. “Do you give mental real estate to every fear, every what-if, and every anxiety? Are ungodly thoughts free to roam and wreak havoc on your soul?” (My Name is Hope, John Mark Comer p. 129).
- “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).
- “But each one is tempted when he is carried away by his own lust and enticed” (James 1:14).
An Appeal For Help
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” (Psalm 139:23-24).
“He is asking God to bring to the surface mental habits that need to die. Questions, habits, patterns, ruts, ways of viewing the world, and ways of processing information that suppress his mental lungs from taking a deep breath of fresh air. When was the last time you asked God to test your mind, to show you areas where your thought life was out of sync with God’s heart?” (Comer p. 130). The idea that the wrong thoughts prevent us from being able to mentally breathe is certainly supported by Scripture:
- Jesus noted that, among other things, worries choke spiritual growth (Mark 4:19).They do yet more than this, they prevent the word of God from transforming us.
- “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down” (Proverbs 12:25). Holding on to worry is like trying to breath with a stack of bricks on our chest. Anxiety kills hope, motivation, optimism, and even love.
“Anxiety is a perfect example. You get anxious when your mind is out of control, when you cannot stop thinking, ‘what-if?’ Anxiety hits when you are thinking about the future and not the present, yourself not God, what could go wrong and not what could go right” (Comer p. 129).
Demolishing the Strongholds
“We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Often the speculations and lofty things we forget about destroying are the false speculations in our own heads. “Strongholds are where the enemy is in control, not God. They are places in your life where your power to fight sins and temptations is crippled—where you are imprisoned by warped ways of living” (Comer p. 131).
Speculations Include
- All the worrisome “what-ifs”.
- All our human opinions and theories about ourselves, others and the world that are not based in Scripture.
Lofty Things
- All the mental ruts in our heads that we refuse to abandon, because we think we have a better idea than God in that area of our lives.
- All the views that we refuse to give up, even though God says they are false. All the compartments in our head and heart that we refuse to turn over to Christ.
- Worry can be a stubborn habit to break, yet it can also be rooted in our own determination to run our lives our way.I can be stubborn and refuse to turn over every care of God (1 Peter 5:7).I can have the attitude that essentially says, “No, I have the right to worry about that”, or, "God cannot fix or help me with this or that, but I can fix it myself if I just fret about it enough".
- In fact, I think at times we are so convinced that our determination to worry creates some sort of all-powerful force, that our God could part the Red Sea, but He somehow cannot help us with our problem? Yet our worrying can fix it? How illogical a fretful heart is. Jesus addressed this view of worry when He noted that worry is powerless to accomplish anything positive (Matthew 6:27).
We are Destroying
Thinking differently is a process, and bad habits will not go down without a fight. First, we need to check to ensure we are not becoming our own worst enemy. Did you notice the word “destroying” in 2 Corinthians 10? When it comes to bad mental habits, we need to be nothing short of ruthless. No truce; no peace; no treaty, rather spiritually destructive thoughts must be completely destroyed. I must demolish them. Nothing can be left standing. Complete and total destruction. It is no victory to say “I will not worry as much”, instead be ruthless: any worry that is caught entering your heart and mind head will be shot on sight. Let's determine to give out no more free passes to life-ruining thoughts.
Filling One's Head with the Right Thoughts
- “Rejoice in the Lord Always”: Philippians 4:4
Why are we fretting when we are saved? What are we doing wasting our time missing the fact that God is with us, that all things are possible, that God loves us and will never forsake us, and that with God just think of all the things that can go right!
- “The Lord is Near”: Philippians 4:5
He is always near to us, and could arrive at any time.
- Nothing and Everything: Philippians 4:6
In other words, worry about nothing, pray about everything and thank God for anything. “Turn your anxieties into prayers. Repurpose your fears and worries and dreads into prayers” (Comer p. 134)
- The Grateful Heart: Philippians 4:6
I have found that worry can only enter when I stop thinking about all my blessings. “A reporter once asked Bob Dylan if he was happy. Dylan’s response was, ‘These are yuppie words, happiness and unhappiness. It’s not happiness or unhappiness. It’s either blessed or unblessed” (Comer p. 107). I do like “blessed” better than “happy” because “happy” can be such a shallow word, yet “blessed” reminds us of the true reality. How can I be sad or anxious when, as a Christian, I am so blessed? Let's determine to keep a mental of our moment by moment blessings rather than this week's setbacks. Let’s replace the habit of worrying and pondering all the “what-ifs” with the habit of recounting all our blessings as children of God. Let’s make 2016 the year of gratitude.
- Choose Where to Dwell: Philippians 4:8
What is true? The truth is, you are blessed. “The opposite of gratitude is entitlement, thinking God owes you. There is a humanist in all of us who thinks we are good, we have rights and God is lucky to have us. When we don’t get what we want, we slip into self-pity. Do you have clean drinking water? Nearly one billion people on the planet today do not have access to clean, safe drinking water. Are you reading the words in front of you? One of out of every five humans is illiterate. Do you have money in your pockets? Even five dollars of spare change? Over three billion people live on less than two dollars a day” (Comer pp. 107,108). So let’s fill our minds with God’s truth, for truth is like oxygen for the lungs of the soul. Let’s embrace God’s perfect view of the future, God’s hope-filled imaginations, God’s healthy mental patterns and God’s clear way of thinking.
Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.net
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net
