What Were You Thinking
What Were You Thinking?
12/11/2003 and 12/12/2003
-We have probably all seen the TV show called “What were you thinking”.
-It is a show where people do stupid things like pick up a snake or try to fly off of a barn roof with some crude wings or whatever.
-It makes for good comedy but if we are honest we have suddenly come to our senses in some unusual circumstances and said to ourselves; “WHAT WERE WE THINKING?”
-That is because we know that the situation that we experienced began with a thought or the lack of one.
-Your thoughts are the key to 2004. Your future is determined by what you let stay in your mind.
-Good thoughts are the key to a good life.
-The Bible has a lot to say about thoughts.
-A Godly thought is the seed of a Godly future.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
-A wandering mind is the beginning of a wandering life.
-You can see someone run off with another person who isn’t their spouse and say “What were they thinking?”
-I can get pretty close guessing.
Example
This week I went up to one of the workers who were outside in the cold working on the canopy and I said, “How did you get the outside job?” He said, “It’s wonderful to be outside working!” I said, “It’s all about attitude isn’t it?” He said “yeah.”
Matthew 4:17 (Ben Campbell Johnson)
"From the time that John was in prison, Jesus began his ministry saying to all the people, 'Change your attitude and actions because an invasion of the Spirit is imminent."
-The Israelites were fresh out of Egypt but they weren’t ready for the Promised Land because of their thinking and attitudes.
-They had left Egypt as someone said but Egypt had never left them.
-The way you think can hinder your ability to follow God properly.
1. Take Responsibility for your Thoughts and Your Life
2 Corinthians 10
3 /For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. [1]/
Message
/We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.[2]/
-The pattern is:
· Thoughts
· Imaginations/pictures
· Strongholds
-The Message calls a stronghold a “barrier erected against the truth of God.”
-You can only take responsibility for your life by taking responsibility for your thoughts.
-Your thoughts are the building blocks or building materials for your life.
2. Inspect Your Thoughts
-In the book “Every Man’s Battle” the author uses several illustrations to help us to deal with thoughts.
-He gives the example of a corral that you don’t let wild horses into.
-Every so often you have to go in there and throw a wild horse out that has crept in somehow.
-He also talks about in the case of a man who is very visual and subject to temptation by what he sees, especially when it comes to attractive women, to simply see the temptation as a tennis match and bounce away with your eyes and mind.
-As you continue to yield to temptation it grows stronger.
-People will say, I COULDN”T HELP IT! The truth is that you couldn’t help it after you gave it Wheaties and pumped some iron with it.
-I developed his idea a little further by imagining a castle with a drawbridge and a moat around it.
-I don’t have to let thoughts in just because they yell from outside.
-Until I let them in, they are not my thoughts. They only become my own when I embrace them.
-I got one I like even better;
I like to think of my thoughts as coming up to a customs desk. When you go to another country your passport is examined to see if you are a terrorist trying to get in. If you don’t qualify you are rejected.
-Of course we know that the passport is the Word of God.
Hebrews 4
12 /For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. [3]/
Philippians 4 Message
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.
[4]
3. Replace Ungodly Thoughts with Godly Thoughts
-That Scripture told us how to do it.
-Choose what you think and meditate on.
Psalm 19
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
/[5]/
-Of course the Bible is a good substitute.
-It just needs to be positive and good.
EXAMPLE
While working in a factory I was bored and my mind was getting away with me. I choose to imagine myself preaching in other countries. It soon came to pass. I simply chose the content of my daydream. Reality begins as a dream and as an imagination.
-I was thinking this week how much the message of faith and what some would call positive thinking has affected me. To those who are against it I say; “What is the alternative?” Is it “negative thinking?”
-Your thinking becomes your speaking which becomes your acting.
GOING TO A NEW LEVEL ALWAYS REQUIRES CHANGING YOUR MIND FIRST.
-This is a quote from John Maxwell (Thinking for a Change);
If you want to live on a new level, you have to think on a new level. Recently I was talking to my old friend Bob Taylor, the founder of Taylor Guitars. Bob is a genius when it comes to manufacturing; he just happens to make guitars because he loves them. Bob invents most of the manufacturing equipment used to design and build the guitars his company sells. As much as anyone I know, he understands the value of good thinking. “In the end,” Bob observed, “clear and inspired thinking is the only way to change things for the better. Someone asked me once, when I succeeded at a project that I had failed at before, ‘What did you change?’ I answered, ‘I changed my mind.’”
-In order for things to be different you have to begin to think different.
Albert Einstein said,
“The problems we face today cannot be solved on the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
Ephesians 3
20/ Now ato Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly babove all that we ask or think, caccording to the power that works in us, [6] NKJV/
The Message
/God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams![7]/
NASB
20 aNow to Him who is bable to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, caccording to the power that works within us,
/[8]/
-I read where Curt Warner was a third string QB in St. Louis Family Church and he dared to believe that God was thinking bigger than his dream to play in the NFL and have a Christian voice. Did it work?
-Whatever God idea you are dreaming about, God is dreaming bigger!
4. Be Transformed by Godly Thoughts
-The good news is that it isn’t just mind over matter.
-When you hold on to God’s thoughts His power gets a hold on you.
Ephesians 4
22 /You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. [9]/
Romans 12
/Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual a act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. [10]/
-Someone said, “Let the mind of the Master be the master of your mind.
-You can’t change the future without changing your thinking. But if you will work with the Lord to control and discipline your mind all things are possible.
Matthew 4:17 (Ben Campbell Johnson)
"From the time that John was in prison, Jesus began his ministry saying to all the people, 'Change your attitude and actions because an invasion of the Spirit is imminent."
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[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
[2]Peterson, E. H. 1995. The message : New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs . NavPress: Colorado Springs, Colo.
[3]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
[4]Peterson, E. H. 1995. The message : New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs . NavPress: Colorado Springs, Colo.
[5]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
a Rom. 16:25
b 1 Cor. 2:9
c Col. 1:29
[6]The New King James Version. 1996, c1982 . Thomas Nelson: Nashville
[7]Peterson, E. H. 1995. The message : New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs . NavPress: Colorado Springs, Colo.
a Rom 16:25
b 2 Cor 9:8
c Eph 3:7
[8]New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 . The Lockman Foundation: LaHabra, CA
[9]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
a Or reasonable
[10]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids