Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

“Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.” Proverbs 4:23 (GNT) God is far more interested in changing my mind than changing my circumstances.  I want God to take away all of the problems, pain, sorrow, suffering, sickness, and sadness in my life. But God wants to work on me first—because transformation won’t happen until I renew my mind and until my thoughts begin to change. Why is it so important for me to learn how to manage my mind? Here are three reasons . . . Manage my mind because my thoughts control my life. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts” (GNT). Your thoughts have a tremendous ability to shape my life for good or for bad. For example, I may have accepted a thought someone told me when you were growing up: Like “You’re worthless. You don’t matter.” If I accepted that thought, even though it was wrong, it shaped my life. Manage my mind because the mind is the battleground for sin. All temptation happens in the mind. Paul says in Romans 7:22-23, “I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin” (TLB). One of the reasons I get mentally fatigued is because there’s a battle in my brain 24 hours a day. It’s debilitating because it’s intense, and it’s intense because my mind is my greatest asset. Satan wants my greatest asset! Manage my mind because it’s the key to peace and happiness. An unmanaged mind leads to tension; a managed mind leads to tranquility. An unmanaged mind leads to conflict; a managed mind leads to confidence. An unmanaged mind leads to stress. A managed mind leads to strength, security, and serenity. When I don’t try to control my mind and the way I direct my thoughts, I will have an enormous amount of stress in life. The Bible teaches, “Letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace” (Romans 8:6 NLT). I need to choose life and peace for myself by beginning to manage my mind today. In summary: It's extremely important to manage our thoughts, as they shape our lives. God is more focused on changing our minds than our circumstances, and transformation begins with renewing our thoughts. We must manage our minds because our thoughts control our lives, influencing them positively or negatively. The mind is also a battleground for sin, where temptation and struggles occur, making mental discipline vital. Furthermore, managing my mind is key to achieving peace and happiness, as an unmanaged mind leads to stress, tension, and conflict, while a controlled mind brings tranquility and strength. By choosing to let the Spirit guide my thoughts, I can experience life and peace.

Five Ways God Uses Your Problems

“My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver.” Psalm 119:71–72 (NLT) Life is a series of problem-solving opportunities. The problems I face will either defeat me or develop me, depending on how I respond to them.  When most people encounter difficulty, they react impulsively or become resentful. They don’t pause to consider what benefit their problems might bring. As a result, they never see how God wants to use problems for good in their lives. There are five main ways that God uses the problems in my life. I need to understand them so that, next time I face difficulty, I can be on the lookout for how God is working. God uses problems to DIRECT me. Sometimes God lights a fire under me to get me moving. Problems can point me in a new direction and motivate me to change. Is God trying to get my attention? As Proverbs 20:30 says, “Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways” (GNT).  God uses problems to INSPECT me. People are like teabags: If you want to know what’s inside them, just drop them into hot water! Think of when God has tested my faith with a problem? What did that problem reveal about me? James 1:2-3 says, “When you have many kinds of troubles, you should be full of joy, because you know that these troubles test your faith, and this will give you patience” (NCV). God uses problems to CORRECT me. Some lessons I learn only through pain and failure. When I was a child, my parents  told me not to touch a hot stove. But I didn’t actually learn the lesson until I ignored their instruction and was burned. Sometimes I only learn the value of something—like health, money, or a relationship—by losing it. That was true for the author of Psalm 119: “My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver” (Psalm 119:71–72 NLT). God uses problems to PROTECT me. A problem can be a blessing in disguise if it prevents me from being harmed by something more serious. Later I may be able to say like Joseph did, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20 NIV). God uses problems to PERFECT me. Problems, when responded to correctly, are character builders: “We know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character” (Romans 5:3-4 NLT). God is far more interested in my character than my comfort. My relationship to God and my character are the only two things I'm going to take with me into eternity.  I'm going to experience difficulties. Everyone does. When I do, I need to remember that I have a choice. I can let those difficulties defeat me, or I can choose to let God direct, inspect, correct, protect, and perfect me through them! In summary: Problems are not just obstacles but opportunities for growth. There are five ways God uses difficulties: Directing you – Problems can motivate you to change and point you in a new direction. Inspecting you – Difficulties test your faith and reveal what’s inside. Correcting you – Pain and failure teach valuable lessons we might otherwise ignore. Protecting you – Sometimes, problems prevent greater harm or danger. Perfecting you – Challenges build character and endurance, helping you grow spiritually. I need to view problems as tools God uses for my growth, and to choose how I respond: either letting them defeat me or letting God use them to refine me.

God Uses It All for Your Good

“There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. . . . When your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” 1 Peter 1:6–7 (NLT) What I'm learning is that life is not a series of random accidents. Life isn’t unplanned. It isn’t without meaning. God knows what’s going on. In fact, he’s using every part of my life—the happy times and the difficult ones—to weave my story into a beautiful tapestry. A a child of God, nothing can come into my life without God’s permission.  Everything is Father‑filtered.  Not everything that happens to me is God’s perfect will. That’s just not true. When I sin, that’s not God’s will. When somebody sins against me, that’s not God’s perfect will either. But God does have a permissive will. He allows some things without causing them. For example, when I overeat, I become unhealthy and do not feel well. God does not cause that, but he does allow it. In the same way, God does not cause evil and God does not cause suffering. But he does allow them—and then he uses them. How does God use evil and suffering? What I'm learning is that He’s an expert at bringing good out of bad! He could have kept Paul out of prison in Philippi, but instead he let Paul go to prison and the jailer became a believer as a result. God could have kept Jesus from the cross, but he let him suffer and die—and because of that, the gift of salvation is available to all who believe!   God loves to turn crucifixions into resurrections.  The things I most wish were removed from my life are often the very things that God is using to shape me into who he wants me to be.  The Bible promises, “There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. . . . When your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world” (1 Peter 1:6–7 NLT). God wants to use my biggest problem for my greatest good. Even when I'm in pain, I can look beyond it and trust that God is in control. The apostle Paul said it like this, “That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” (2 Corinthians 4:16–17 NLT). In summary: Life is not random or unplanned, but that God uses every experience—both the good and the bad—to shape my life into something meaningful. While not everything that happens is God's perfect will, God permits certain things, including suffering and evil, and then uses them for good. God is an expert at bringing good from bad, For example Paul’s imprisonment and Jesus’ crucifixion, where negative circumstances led to positive outcomes. He encourages believers to trust that even in pain, God is in control and is using our struggles to produce lasting glory. Ultimately, my faith through trials will lead to joy and honor when Christ is revealed.

Nothing Worthwhile Is Ever Easy

“Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” Galatians 6:9 (NLT) Many different things can keep me from completing my life's mission. Is my worst enemy discouragement or procrastination. If Satan can’t get me to quit my life mission, he’ll try to get me to delay it.  The apostle Paul teaches that I need to resist discouragement: “Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up” (Galatians 6:9 NLT). I get tired of doing what’s right. Sometimes it seems easier to do the wrong thing than the right thing. But that’s exactly when I must refuse to be discouraged. When I'm discouraged, I become ineffective. When I'm discouraged, I work against my own faith. When I'm discouraged, it’s as if I'm saying, “It can’t be done.” That’s the exact opposite of saying, “I know God can do it because of what he said.” Today, as I consider how well I resist discouragement, I can keep in mind the following: How do I handle failure? When things don’t go my way, do I get grumpy? When things don’t go my way, do I get frustrated? When things don’t go my way, do I start complaining? Do I finish what I start? How persistent am I? If I'm discouraged, it’s time to resist. Don’t give up without a fight. Nothing worthwhile ever happens without endurance and energy, and as John Maxwell says, "Everything worthwhile is uphill", you never coast your way to the top. When an artist creates a sculpture, he has to keep chipping away. He doesn’t hit the chisel with the hammer once, and suddenly all the excess stone falls away, revealing a beautiful masterpiece. He keeps hitting and hitting, chipping away at the stone.  That’s true of life too. Nothing worthwhile ever comes easily. You want to keep hitting it and going after it, and little by little your life becomes a masterpiece of God’s grace. Great people are really just ordinary people with an extraordinary amount of determination. Great people don’t know how to quit. So, the next time I feel discouraged, remember God is with me and God is for me and I will reap a harvest of blessing if I don’t give up. In summary:  This emphasizes the importance of perseverance in achieving meaningful goals. Drawing from Galatians 6:9, we are encouraged not to give up doing good, despite feelings of discouragement or procrastination. Discouragement and procrastination can hinder progress, but resisting them leads to blessings in the end. Setbacks and failures are inevitable, but persistence is key to overcoming them. Like an artist chiseling away at a sculpture, continuous effort eventually leads to a masterpiece. Greatness comes from determination, and with God's support, I can reap the rewards if I don't give up.