TRANSFORM YOUR THINKING, TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE.
TRANSFORM YOUR THINKING, TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE. WITH A VISION AND LEAVE THE COMFORT ZONE. TRANSFORM YOUR THINKING, TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE. This is the Spiritual message By DR. BILL WINSTON for Success & growth in all areas of life. When I was a little boy I used to go to horror movies on Saturday. My brother and I would sit in the theater and watch two or three of them. Wolfman and Wolfman’s Mama… whatever was playing.
YOU CAN’T GO WHERE YOU CAN’T SEE
That night my brother and I would get in our bunk beds, our dad would turn out the light, and my thoughts would be filled with all that I had seen that day at the movies. My brother would wait until the lights were out and it was quiet, then he would begin to moan, “Oooooo… oooooh… oooooh.”
I’d try to ignore him and act like it didn’t bother me, but after a while, my imagination would kick in.
- It wasn’t long before I was sure the Wolfman was in the room, breathing down on me, and my body would begin to shake.
- Pretty soon I would cry out, “Daddy!” and he’d come in and give us both a whipping!
- My imagination was filled with pictures of that scary Wolfman.
Therefore, the enemy had my soul, and destruction followed!
- I was frozen with fear, cried out in terror, and got a whipping on top of all that.
- This is generally what happens when the enemy captures your imagination.
- We know from 2 Corinthians 10:5 that there are vain (empty, futile, and sometimes evil) imaginations that we are to cast down.
- But God gave us our imagination, which means He has a purpose for it.
WITH A VISION AND LEAVE THE COMFORT ZONE
THE MYTH OF ORIGINAL THOUGHT
- Our imagination is the part of our mind where we can visualize something that is not manifest in the physical world around us.
- We can imagine something based on a previous experience or acquired knowledge, such as when I imagined Wolfman standing over me in my bedroom.
That imagination was based on a prior experience.
- Our imagination can also be a vision or revelation from God.
- If our minds are renewed with His Word and we are following Him, the Holy Spirit can communicate with us through our imagination.
- We can see by the Spirit things that do not yet exist, experiences we have not experienced, and ideas we have never encountered.
The world believes that a person’s imagination is the source of their great place of “original thought.”
- However, the Bible tells us that human beings were created to live in a relationship with the Lord.
- He is our Source of life and all knowledge. Therefore, we have no original thoughts.
- We receive information and revelation from the Holy Spirit and God’s Word or the enemy.
We either serve the Lord or we serve Satan.
- We make decisions based upon our spiritual relationship with God or our carnal, natural connection to the enemy.
The fact that we have no original thought offends the pride of people who don’t know the Lord because they like to believe their ideas are their own.
- Most of them have no idea there is a devil and demons out there that are feeding them thoughts and images, programming their minds, and influencing them to do what they want them to do.
- But everything we think causes our imaginations to be filled with ideas and mental images that were put there by either the Holy Spirit or the enemy.
- For by him [Jesus] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him, all things consist.
- Colossians 1:16-17 (brackets mine) All things mean all things.
- Every creature and every molecule of the physical and spiritual realms was created by Jesus. But also, every thought, idea, or mental image was created by Him. All the enemy can do is take what Jesus created and pervert it, bend it, and distort it into something wicked and deceptive.
The devil has no original thoughts!
- Only God is capable of original thought.
- I know what you’re thinking.
- Well, Pastor, are you saying I’m just a robot that is programmed by God or the devil?
- No. You are programmable, but your programming is subject to your will.
Remember, God gave you free will.
- You choose your programming.
- You decide what goes in and what is cast-off in your imagination and thought life.
- Furthermore, you were created for fellowship with Him.
- Your life is led in a relationship with your Heavenly Father, and a relationship involves communication, intimacy, discussion, and mutual decision.
- You are not a robot; you are a son or daughter of God.
WITHOUT A VISION
- Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. Proverbs 29:18
- The first part of this verse of Scripture is quoted all the time, but I want you to notice something.
- If you read the whole verse, vision and happiness are both linked directly to the Word of God. Those who keep the law are happy.
They are happy because they abide in God’s Word, which enlightens their minds and gives them a vision for their lives.
- Then they can see where they are to go.
- You cannot go where you cannot see!
- Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego meditated in God’s Word day and night.
- That’s why they had a steadfast faith that He would deliver them from Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace.
- And God did deliver them.
- However, if they had sat in front of their television sets all day and all night, we might be reading a different story in the Bible today!
- “Television” is something “telling” you its “vision.”
You are receiving a vision for your life, and in most cases, it is probably not something from God.
- If you want to be able to live through the fiery furnaces of life, you better make sure that what you are seeing is God’s vision for your life.
- Joseph had a vision from God that came through dreams.
- A dream is another way in which God can impart vision to our lives.
Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
- And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
- And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and his words.
Genesis 37:5-9
- And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
- Genesis 37:5-9 Through this dream God painted a vivid picture on Joseph’s mind that one day his family and nations would bow down to him.
- When he shared these dreams with his family, Joseph began a journey of ups and downs, defeat and victory, until finally the Word of the Lord was fulfilled in his life.
- Even though Joseph went through a whole series of terrible trials and unjust circumstances he remembered where he was going and never stopped believing.
He chose to believe that what God had imprinted in his mind as a boy would surely come to pass.
- He chose that vision, that dream, again and again until it finally came to pass. Joseph understood he would go to the place he could see. God also imparts vision through the natural creation around us. ‘
- This is how He showed Abram the land He had given him and his descendants.
TRANSFORM YOUR THINKING, TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE.
- The Lord said unto Abram after that Lot was separated from him, Lift now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
- For all the land which thou seeth, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. Genesis 13:14-15 God said to Abram, “If you can see it, you can have it.” He didn’t mean just with the natural eye.
- He also was talking about seeing with our spiritual eyes.
- If we can see it in the spirit, what the Word of God promises us, and our minds grab hold of the God-given image, we can have it.
- What we are talking about is divine revelation and vision that bring forth our divine destiny.
SEE IT, BELIEVE IT, DO IT, HAVE IT
- The whole earth was of one language, and one speech.
- And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
- And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.
- And they had brick for stone, and slime had them for morter.
- And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
SUCCESS: MUST LEAVE THE COMFORT ZONE AND FOLLOW THE VISION
- And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
- And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined doing. Genesis 11:1-6 (emphasis mine) These people did not worship and serve God, so He stopped them from completing their tower by confusing their languages (see verse 7) and scattering them throughout the Earth (see verse 8).
However, we can see that their imaginations were extremely powerful.
- What their minds could conceive they could have. ‘
- This is true with unbelievers as well as believers because it is the way God created human beings.
- To prove God’s will, we want to make certain our imaginations are stimulated by Him alone.
- In the following story, we see again how God used His creation to implant His vision for Abram in Abram’s imagination.
TRANSFORM YOUR THINKING, TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE.
- After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
- And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
- And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.
- And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
- And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness.
- Genesis 15:1-6 What did God do to stimulate Abram’s imagination?
- He brought him outside and told him to count the stars.
- Abram responded by saying, “There are too many.
- I can’t count them.” God answered, “That’s how many kids you’re going to have.”
- From that moment on Abram saw more than stars in the sky.
- Every night he looked toward the heavens and saw his future, his divine destiny.
He saw it. He believed it. He moved toward it.
- And therefore he eventually saw it come to pass. One of the things I want you to notice here is that when you receive revelation, vision, and imagination from God they are always big!
- They will always be too big and too impossible for you to accomplish in your abilities and strength.
- But God knows what you can handle, and He gives you His Word so you can handle the rest by having faith in Him.
- Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, can [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams] to Him be the glory.
Ephesians 3:20-21 You can’t think big enough for God!
- He wants to stimulate your imagination more than you ever could in your lifetime.
- You are hooked up with a God who wants to do great and mighty works through you, but He’s got to get you to see it and believe it so you can do it.
- He has to impart His vision to your imagination so that you can have everything He wants you to have.
- And He does that primarily through His Word, as you renew your mind and meditate on it.
- He also gives you visions, dreams, and speaks through His natural, material creation. Then, as you meditate and renew your mind with His promises, you can move forward to possess them.
SEEING THE IMPOSSIBLE MAKES IT POSSIBLE
- When you are born again, your potential is no longer limited to yourself.
- Your potential is in God.
- Your potential goes beyond your natural abilities and gifts into His supernatural authority and power.
- However, until you were saved you were programmed to believe you had natural limitations and boundaries.
- You believed you could do only what you could naturally think and do.
- When God puts it in your heart to do something impossible, if you still believe you are limited to your natural abilities and gifts, you will back up and not move.
- I have news for you. God will never call you to do something you are entirely incapable of doing, but He will enable you to do it supernaturally.
- There never was a better example of this than when the children of Israel went to the Promised Land for the first time.
- Moses sent twelve spies in to see just what they were getting into.
They returned from searching the land after forty days.
- And they went and came to Moses, and Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.
- And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it.
- Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land and the cities are walled, and very great: and we saw the children of Anak there.
- The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.
And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.
- Numbers 13:25-30 Of the twelve spies, only Joshua and Caleb came back and said, Let’s go right now and possess what God has already given us. We can do it because He said we could do it.
This is the kind of leadership God always looks for.
- The world will say, “Ah, you win some and you lose some.”
- But God says, “I always cause you to triumph in Christ Jesus!” (see 2 Corinthians 2:14.)
Our victory is already won because Jesus already won it.
- Every battle you fight you can win if you will keep your mind renewed with the truth of God’s Word.
- “But, Pastor, you don’t know how much opposition I’m facing. There are giants!” If there are giants, then God has given you the means of defeating them.
- He has put His Spirit and Word inside you, and you know you are supposed to fight and win this battle.
You know you are supposed to be a winner and not a quitter you have an inheritance in Jesus Christ to possess.
- When I found out about my inheritance, I said, “Wait a minute!
- Those giants are sitting on my stuff! That land belongs to me.”
- If the children of Israel had lined up their imaginations and thoughts with God, they would have realized that He had had those giants prepare everything for them.
- Those big guys had built beautiful houses with atriums and gardens, and they had plowed the fields and had grown all kinds of wonderful fruits and vegetables to eat.
God used those giants to prepare everything for His children!
- The problem was, the children of Israel did not see their potential in God, and they did not see the giants as God saw them. Instead, they had a grasshopper image of themselves and saw those giants annihilating them.
The men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
- And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature.
- And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. Numbers 13:31-33
The other ten spies brought back an evil report.
- They measured their lives by their natural abilities instead of God’s Word and power.
- They saw themselves as grasshoppers, and God called that evil.
- I had a similar experience when God called me to quit my job and go into full-time ministry.
- I had a great job that paid well and had good benefits.
- I had a family, a mortgage, and the cars to pay for.
- All my bills seemed like giants to me.
- How could I quit my job and go into the ministry?
- That was where my thinking was at that time.
- My imagination was filled with pictures of me ministering full time in failure, poverty, and defeat.
- I began to wrestle with these images in my mind.
- The Holy Spirit was telling me to leave that job!
- In desperation I began to meditate on this verse of Scripture:
Jesus answered and said,
- Verily I say unto you, no man hath left the house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospels,
- But he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. Mark 10:29-30
- Now I began to question the limitations and boundaries the world had placed on me.
- The more I meditated on and thought according to the Word of God, the less I was manipulated by old, ungodly thinking.
I began to see myself prosperous and fulfilled as a minister of the Gospel.
- The day came when I had such a clear picture in my mind of how fantastic it would be to serve God in full-time ministry that ministry was all I wanted to do.
- I became completely dissatisfied with my job even though it was a good job and everyone treated me right.
- One day I just picked up the phone, called my wife, and said, “I’m quitting my job!” She said, “Well, praise the Lord!” God had already prepared her heart, and we agreed that it was time to take that step of faith.
- I shudder to think what might have happened if I had not meditated on God’s Word and never allowed Him to change the picture I had of His faithfulness and my potential in Him.
You see, I could not go where I could not see!
- From this day on, let God fill your imagination and thought-life with His Word and His will for your life.
- Choose to be programmed by Him instead of the world around you and the enemy behind it.
- I promise you that you will be able to move forward in all He’s called you to do with supernatural wisdom and ability you never dreamed possible.
- One day you will wake up and look back to see all the things you have accomplished and marvel that everything God showed you in your heart, with the eyes of your spirit, came to pass.
LEAVING YOUR COMFORT ZONE
- If we are going to follow Jesus, we are going to move out of our comfort zone again and again.
- The Bible guarantees it. So let’s first take a look at what our comfort zone is.
- How do we get into a comfort zone in the first place?
- We have seen that the enemy is after our soul.
- The soul is the mind, emotions, and will; and he tries to influence our decisions by introducing thoughts and pressuring us with circumstances.
- Then we saw that what we can see from God’s Word we can have.
- If we can imagine it and believe it, we can have it. We can do what God says we can do if we can see ourselves doing it.
- That’s why the devil tries to capture our minds.
Whatever occupies our mind what we see and believe in our soul is going to determine our destiny.
- If we want to experience God’s perfect will and fulfill His purpose in our lives, we must make the right choices, and our choices are made from the strongest images and thoughts in our minds.
- The enemy will always try to create a comfort zone based upon images and thoughts that are contrary to what the Word of God says about us. He gets us to continue making bad decisions because we are stuck in that comfort zone.
- One of the reasons we do not make the right decisions is because of our past experiences.
We may be born again, but our past is still affecting our choices.
- That’s where renewing our minds becomes vital.
- When we renew our minds with God’s Word, we are renovating our belief system, our patterns of thought, our imagination, and our emotions to come out of an ungodly comfort zone into a godly comfort zone.
- We are turning from the low life, living disconnected from God to the high life—living as a child of God.
RE-PROGRAMMING OUR BELIEFS
- If we didn’t get saved as young children, or we were saved but were not taught to keep our minds renewed in God’s Word, we probably have been programmed by the enemy.
- Therefore, to live the high life in Jesus Christ we need to enter into the process of reprogramming and retraining the way we think, imagine, speak, and act. We begin by recognizing that many of the things we have seen and heard and learned in the past came from the world systems and the enemies of God.
For example, the world tells you that as you get older you will have serious health problems like arthritis and loss of memory.
- You will run out of energy and creativity and retire at age sixty-five. But that’s not what the Bible says.
- People who love and serve God do not grow old like that.
- Moses didn’t lead the children of Israel out of Egypt until he was over eighty years old, and when he died his “eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deuteronomy 34:7).
- Moses was on the job until he died, and he didn’t die because of sickness.
- He just went to heaven when God said, “It’s time.” Consider Abraham and Sarah.
Genesis 17:17 tells us that Sarah was ten years younger than Abraham.
- When they went down to Egypt and Pharaoh wanted to take Sarah into his harem, Abraham was seventy-five years old.
- That means Sarah was sixty-five, but Abraham said, “Tell the Egyptians you’re my sister because, Baby, you’re too good lookin’, and that Pharaoh will want to kill me if he knows you’re my wife.”
Now we know Pharaoh wasn’t taking any women into his harem that didn’t look fine!
- The girl had something going at sixty-five! Abraham did all right too.
- After Sarah died, Genesis 25 tells us that Abraham took another wife and had more children.
- He was over 120 years old!
- This is not just an Old Testament phenomenon.
There is no mention that any of the first apostles died sick.
- Church history tells us that they were all executed except John, and John was a vital participant in the church until he went to Heaven.
- If you have been programmed by the world to believe you will struggle with all the curses and diseases your family has had, that you will get the flu when all your neighbors get the flu, and that you will die sick, then you need to renew your mind to get some God-given beliefs.
You need to renovate that old, stinkin’ thinkin’ with the Word of God.
- Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
- That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
- Galatians 3:13-14 You do not have to have the sicknesses and diseases your family has had because your spiritual father is Abraham, and Abraham was not sick. He lived a long, productive life.
Christ has redeemed us from the curse and all that’s under the curse, which includes sickness and dying too soon.
- You have the blessing of Abraham!
- You don’t have to retire at sixty-five.
- You don’t have to have the flu or arthritis or cancer.
- But to live this high life you have to leave your comfort zone, the old ways of thinking and believing.
- Because you are what you think, then leaving your comfort zone means first changing what you think and believe.
LOOKING AT THE MIND
- God created our minds with a conscious and subconscious.
- The conscious part sees and knows what’s going on.
- When we are conscious we are aware and knowledgeable.
Our conscious mind reasons calculate and make decisions.
- The subconscious part of us is fed by what the conscious part receives, and after repeating this input, again and again, it establishes a set point or standard by which we operate unconsciously.
- For example, our conscious mind is in full control when we learn to ride a bike.
- However, after we have ridden a bike successfully for a certain length of time, our conscious mind doesn’t think about how to ride that bike anymore.
- We just get on the bike and start pedaling without thinking about it.
It is automatic because what was conscious has become subconscious through repetition.
- The same process governs every other behavior pattern in our lives. What has been programmed into our subconscious is what we will say and do automatically given certain circumstances and stimuli.
- We could say that the subconscious is our autopilot if you will. In an airplane, when the autopilot is engaged it keeps the airplane at a designated altitude and moving in a designated direction.
- If you turn off the autopilot and then turn it on again, the airplane will automatically go to the previously set altitude and direction unless you reprogram it. It is automatic.
- Most of what we say and do is based on the automatic programming of the subconscious.
We awake and go through a morning routine without thinking about it.
- We do a large part of our jobs on autopilot, without consciously thinking about it.
- And when it is time to drive a car, do the dishes, swim, or play a piece of music we have played many times on the piano, we can be thinking consciously of something else while doing these things.
This is the power of the subconscious in our lives.
- The subconscious mind is automatic unless we change its programming.
- It was created so we wouldn’t have to learn things over and over again.
- Once we learn how to ride a bicycle, we know how to ride it forever.
- When it’s time to ride a bike, we just ride it.
- We don’t think about it because the process has been written in our subconscious.
How do we get something written into our subconscious?
- This happens either through repetition, as we experienced in riding a bike, or through an intensely emotional experience.
- The most intense emotional experience whether or not it seems so at the time is being born again.
- When we are born again we are redeemed from sin.
- All our sins are washed away forever by the blood of Jesus Christ.
- We are no longer going to hell with the lake of fire looming in our eternal future.
- We are going to Heaven to live with our loving Heavenly Father for eternity.
Now that is emotional!
- Changing your eternal address will rock your world and shake up your comfort zone!
- However emotional or unemotional our new birth experience is, the fact remains that our spirits are reborn but our souls are not.
- Although we have no desire to sin or displease God anymore, our minds (conscious and subconscious) have been programmed to think, speak, and act like the world and the enemy.
- So we must renew our minds with God’s Word to begin to reap the full benefits of our salvation, think and act like Jesus, and receive our inheritance as His joint heir.
RE-PROGRAMMING OUR AUTOPILOT
- The Bible tells us how to reprogram our minds, and this applies to both our conscious and subconscious.
- I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
- And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:1-2
We are to read, study, meditate, and live according to the Word of God.
- This is how we reprogram ourselves to live like Jesus instead of the devil, to live the high life of the Kingdom of God instead of the low life of this world.
- Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your selves.
- For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
- For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. James 1:22-24 The Greek word translated glass means “mirr
The next verse tells us what our mirror is.
- But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
- James 1:25 The mirror we need to be looking into is the Word of God.
- Then we will be blessed in everything we do because we will see ourselves as God sees us. One of the first things we have to reprogram in our minds is the way we see ourselves.
- When you get up in the morning and look at yourself in your natural mirror, do you like what you see?
Usually not.
- So you immediately begin to straighten yourself up.
- You brush your teeth.
- You comb your hair.
- If you are a woman you put on some make-up.
- If you are a man you probably shave.
You change the way you look by looking in that mirror.
- The same holds when we look in the mirror of the Word of God.
- We read about Jesus telling the disciples to forgive seventy times seven, and we remember how offended we were by something our boss said yesterday.
- Our mirror is telling us that we need to adjust.
- We need to forgive and make right what was wrong and out of place.
- That old comfort zone of resentment and bitterness is no longer comfortable!
God has given us a new comfort zone called forgiveness and unconditional love.
- We all, with open faces beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 We are supposed to look in the Word and get changed and conformed to the image of Christ Jesus.
- Every day we should look into the Word of God and identify ourselves more and more with Jesus and less and less with the world.
We have been designed to operate just like God.
- Hallelujah!
- The interesting thing about being transformed by the Word of God is that it affects the physical body.
- Remember when I went to the horror movies and my imagination was captured by all those frightening images?
- It affected my body.
My body didn’t know that what I was seeing in my imagination wasn’t real.
- So I was trembling. I couldn’t sleep.
- My heart was racing.
- My breathing was fast and shallow.
- I was not at ease.
- When I did finally go to sleep, I had scary dreams because I had allowed my subconscious to be programmed by horror movies.
- That was not living the high life!
To sleep peacefully and live in ease instead of disease, I had to reprogram myself with God’s Word.
- The disease is named that for a reason. It is a disease.
- When we are not at ease in our minds, when our imaginations are filled with all kinds of ungodly pictures and images, our bodies start acting like what we are thinking.
- However, when our minds are filled with the love and revelation of the Father who loves us, protects us, and provides for us, we are at ease.
- We have peace that passes all understanding.
- “The joy of the Lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
- And our bodies are healthy and whole.
- That is the result of reprogramming our “autopilot” subconscious and our conscious mind with God’s Word.
- God’s comfort zone is found in the truth of His Word.
RE-PLACING LIES WITH TRUTH
- Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
- And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:31-32 We all want to be free, and the truth is the only thing that will get us free and keep us free.
The Bible tells us that knowing the truth comes only one way: believing in Jesus and abiding in His Word.
- Then we can call ourselves disciples and we will be free.
- I hear all the time, “Well, Pastor, I just don’t have time to spend in the Word.
- I’m starting a new business.
- I just had a baby.
- I’m running to all my children’s activities.
- I’ve got too many things going on.”
- There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
- Proverbs 14:12 Guess what?
- Our way can seem like the best way and still get us killed!
Without the light of the Word of God shining in our hearts and minds, we don’t know where we are going.
- We don’t have a clue. And the best way to end up in bondage or a ditch somewhere is to neglect the renewing of our minds with God’s Word.
- The devil knows this, and he does something really interesting.
- He will see to it that believers get distracted and deceived away from God’s Word, but he will tell unbelievers God’s principles for success.
He’ll leave out that it’s the Word of God.
- He won’t talk about Jesus, His death on the Cross, or His resurrection.
- And he certainly won’t speak of sin and redemption through Jesus’ blood.
- However, he will make sure the people he wants to exalt in this world know just enough truth to be successful in what they do.
- You see, God’s Word works whether or not you know or believe it is His Word.
- When I teach organization and time management, there’s no better place to teach it than out of the Bible.
- Here’s a verse we have touched on, and it covers every area of our lives.
As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7 This is God’s truth.
- Think evil and it will soon bring you to destruction.
- Think whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report; and virtuous, and you will walk in peace (see Philippians 4:8-9).
- Remember, you will always move in the direction of your most dominant thoughts.
- Every successful businessman knows this truth!
The rich man’s wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty. Proverbs 10:15
- Why is the destruction of the poor their poverty?
- Because they think about it all the time!
- They wake up in the morning thinking about how they are going to pay the bills.
- They go to bed thinking about how much food they can buy.
- They need to believe in Jesus and continue in His Word.
- They need to see who they are in Him in the mirror of God’s Word and change their programming.
Change your thoughts and you will change your life.
- Well, Pastor, you don’t know what he did to me.
- You don’t know the mess I’m in. You don’t know how bad it is at work.
- You have no idea what I’m facing every morning.
- You better stop thinking those thoughts if you want to live a high life.
What you’re thinking is not good.
- It’s not lovely.
- It’s not a good report.
- I can look at some folks’ faces and tell what they’re thinking, can’t you?
- When we were little boys, my brother and I would start horsing around and making noise as soon as our mother got on the phone.
- She would look at us and the look on her face said, “Stop, or I’m going to get you!” Her face revealed all to us! What you think and believe will show on the outside of you.
- You will speak and act according to your comfort zone, whether that was programmed by God or the devil.
- You will move in the direction of what you think and believe and make decisions from that point of reference.
- Therefore, if you want to set your autopilot on God’s will and timing, you must renew your mind with His Word.
DOES THE TRUTH HURT?
- I will not mislead you.
- Change involves some discomfort.
- What you have believed about yourself is that you’re a worm with a criminal past and never get a break, that you’re not smart enough or good-looking enough to succeed, that you don’t have the talent or the drive other people have, or that you will never be able to have a happy family or healthy relationships have given you an excuse to back off, quit, and fail.
- That kind of thinking is right from the pit of hell and has kept you from being who God created you to be, but it has been all you’ve ever known, and it has become your comfort zone.
Now God wants you to change.
- First, He wants you to change the way you see yourself.
- He wants you to see yourself as He sees you: righteous, holy, beloved of God, with a divine nature and destiny, endowed with His authority and power, full of His love and grace.
- Then He wants you to act like what you see.
- He wants you to be Jesus to everyone you meet and step out in faith to do what He’s called you to do.
Can you see how all this is impossible without renewing your mind with God’s Word?
- If you have dragged your feet with God, it’s time to step up to the plate and get your mind renewed! Reprogram your conscious and subconscious mind with the Living Word and be healed in soul and body.
- Leave your old, worldly comfort zone behind and move into the high life with Jesus. Once you begin to walk in this life of His love, grace, and peace, you will never look back!
Success Story Of Bill Swad: “ I’ M GOING TO DO IT!”