Renewing your mind and changing your thoughts

April 17, 2009 · Filed Under renewing our mind · Comment 

I was having lunch the other day with a friend of mine who has recently been struggling through some issues with his oldest child. The teenager had become quite rebellious, even to the point of having run-ins with the law.

I asked my friend what he’s been doing to try to get his son back on track. He said something that has been stuck in my head for days now. He said, “It’s not about just changing behavior, although that can help. And, it’s not about changing the environment, which can also help. Rather, it’s about changing the heart. Changing behavior and environment may last for a season, but a heart change is what he needs.”

The next morning in my quiet time, I started to dissect this concept a bit more. I’ve been struggling through some personal issues in my own life that have plagued me for years. These patterns of behavior have been so hard to break. So, my friend’s words hit me pretty hard. I’ve spent most of my Christian life fighting, wrestling and struggling to change certain behaviors, but with only slight improvement. I’m weary of the cyclic reemergence of these destructive patterns. It’s been terribly frustrating.

As I was thinking through this, I started to dig a bit deeper into the heart. I know that as we come to know Christ, we are given a new heart with new desires and new motivations.

    “I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart” (Ezekiel 36:26).
    “What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

As I was talking to God about this, he started to clarify this more:

Son, your heart has been changed. If it hadn’t, you wouldn’t be able to hear me so clearly. So, know that your heart is right. Your heart is good.

It’s your flesh and mind that need renewing. You’ve settled into your old routines, and the way your flesh is wired is that it’s an easy escape. It’s not your heart. If it was your heart, son, you wouldn’t care. But, you do.

Ahh, now that makes sense. My heart was changed when I received Christ. My desires and motivations are towards God. If my heart had not been changed, I wouldn’t care about doing right and fixing some of these issues in my life. But, I do care. I do want this. Then, I remembered a couple scriptures:

“Since you have heard all about him and have learned the truth that is in Jesus, throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception. Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes. You must display a new nature because you are a new person, created in God’s likeness–righteous, holy, and true.” Ephesians 4:21-24.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.” Romans 12:2.

This last one from Romans 12:2 really hit me. It gave very specific instructions on how to be transformed. Did you catch it? It’s not hard. You simply “Let God…”

That’s it. That’s all the work you need to do. Just let God. It’s not your responsibility to change the way you think and behave. That can be hard for those caught into the grasp of addictions. Your part of the deal is to simply let God transform the way you think.

What are some behaviors you’d like to change:

  • I want to stop smoking.
  • I want to lose weight.
  • I want to be a better father/mother/husband/wife.
  • I want to stop drinking or drugs.
  • I want to exercise more.
  • I want to read my Bible more.
  • I want to spend more time with God.
  • I want to go back to school.

How hard have you tried to change your behavior? How successful have you been with that? If you’re anything like me, it’s been quite a failed experience.

My prayers this week have simply been this, “Lord, I let you into my heart and into my mind. I let you into my thoughts, my patterns of thinking, my mind and let you have full access to transform my mind, and to renew my thinking. I let you in to change me, to transform me.”

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Tuning into the voice of God

April 11, 2009 · Filed Under spiritual hearing · Comment 

My wife and I attend Gateway Church here in the Dallas area, and we love our church. One of the ministries they have is called Freedom Ministry headed up by Pastor Bob Hamp. What an amazing ministry!

My wife and I were listening to one of his four core messages on Freedom Ministry called “The Kingdom of God” taught by Pastor Bob. In it, he shares a modern-day parable that I wanted to share with you.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a radio station. Around us are thousands of radio signals that carry messages. Yet, we can’t hear those radio signals with our ears. The radio waves are transmitting right this very moment through our body, our brains, our being. Yet, you cannot see them, hear them, feel them–unless we have a receiver.

The receiver is a special electronic device that tunes into a specific frequency, and then converts those indiscernible radio waves into a different form that we can hear with our ears. But, without a receiver, there’s nothing to hear.

God’s voice is a lot like those radio waves. He’s “broadcasting” his love, his compassion and his faithfulness into our hearts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all the time. But, are our hearts tuned in? Or, have we “hardened our hearts” from receiving God’s love? Or, has the enemy gotten us off-tune so that we can’t hear the message of God’s love?

spectrum.jpgOne of my electrical engineering classes at college was the study of radio waves. We had this device called a spectrum analyzer. With it, we could sweep the frequency spectrum looking for broadcast signals. They were obvious from the spike. But, when no signal was present, you could see this thing called the “noise floor”.

There’s no such thing as zero noise–there’s always something there called radio noise. It’s a phenomenon where random, non-broadcasted signals are generated by a variety of naturally occurring sources–sun flares, noisry electronic equipment, cosmic noise, photons, etc. As you would sweep the spectrum on the analyzer, you would move through the noise floor looking for a very clear spike. That spike was the signal broadcast.

God’s voice is a lot like that. We often sweep the “noise floor” of our mind, thinking we’re picking up certain broadcasts, but often we find that it’s just noise. Maybe it’s noise from wounds in our hearts. Maybe it’s noise from the distractions of the day. Maybe it’s noise from the enemy.

Lately, I’ve been wrestling with this issue of spiritual noise in my life. I’ve drifted from hearing God’s voice clearly. I’m not tuned in, and I’ve spent weeks trying to tune back into the Voice. I know it’s there, and I know that tuning into it requires discipline. It also requires that I put aside the distractions.

Lord, let me tune into your Voice!

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Is God happy with me? Does he hear my prayers?

April 7, 2009 · Filed Under accepted by God · Comment 

Below is an excerpt from an email I sent to a friend of mine to encourage him that in Christ, God is always pleased with us. Always. He’s never discouraged, disappointed, frustrated or mad at us. He loves us unconditionally.

    I used to get real discouraged when I didn’t spend my mornings praying, reading the Bible and talking to God. I felt like God was mad or frustrated or just disappointed with me. I felt like I had failed him or had fallen short of what he was expecting from me. And, that often drove me further away from spending time with him.
    I was getting discouraged in my relationship with God. I felt like he was disappointed with me, for not doing all the things I know I should be doing. Then, I heard this guy sharing about how God is not mad or discouraged with us in anyway, because our performance has nothing to do with God’s love towards us. We cannot do anything to make God love us more or less. His immeasurable love for us through Christ is never-ending, always faithful, and always abundant.
    I’ve also learned that even in our mistakes, God never pulls away from us. It is us who pulls away from God. He is constantly wooing us, loving us, drawing us, speaking to us. He is always pursuing us, and he enjoys it when we come to him and call to him. But, in no way is he ever disappointed with you for not spending time with him. Sure, he wants us to spend time with him, but that’s for our sake, not his. He knows that when we spend time with him, it helps us grow and protects us from harm.
    I think about my loving parents’ attitude towards their children. If children don’t want to spend time with you as a parent, that’s okay. It doesn’t change your love towards them. You still want to protect them, provide for them, teach them and guide them–for their protection. God is a much better father than we can ever be. How much more does he love us?
    I just wanted to encourage you in that. Know that God has not pulled away from you. He never will. So, be encouraged!

This topic reminds me of a scripture from Hebrews 4:14-16,

    “We have a great High Priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God. Let us cling to him and never stop trusting him. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it.”

Because of what Christ has done for us, we can come boldly to the throne of of our gracious God. Did you catch that word, boldly?

How can we come boldly come to God’s throne as a sinner? Because in Christ, we are no longer sinners. We are righteous in Christ. We are holy. We are perfect in God’s eyes. If you don’t feel perfect, understand that it’s not God making you feel that way. It’s the enemy trying to keep you from going boldly to God’s throne in your time of need. The more he can convince you that you are not worthy enough to go to God, the less you will.

So, go boldly.

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