The Fight Inside Your Thinking Part 1 - Lesson OPEN | Pastor Jeno Orchard CR

Hope for Mental Health

The Fight Inside Your Thinking Part 1

(Romans 8)

 

Principle 2:

Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover.

 

“Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Matthew 5:4 (TEV)

 

Step 2:

We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

 

“For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.”

Philippians 2:13 (NIV)

 

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (NLT), “We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. 4We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. 5We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.”

 

Forever Family, There is a violent battle going on for your life and it is happening 24 hours a day.  In 1965, Donald Grey Barnhouse wrote a book about it, it's called The Invisible War. It is the battle for your mind. That battle is vicious, it is intense, it is unrelenting, and it is unfair, because Satan never plays fair. The intensity comes is because your greatest asset is your mind and Satan wants to control it.  I have worked with people who desperately want to hear God but they are unable to because their minds are broken, and they are not connecting with the God they know. 

Let us all understand that whatever gets your mind…gets you.

We will cover Six Principles in this two-part series that help our thinking.

1. Don’t believe everything you think.

a. We all naturally believe that everything that my mind comes up with must be true.

               i.    Just because we think something, that doesn’t make it true.

b. We all naturally believe that everything that my mind comes up with must be true.

c. The world suggests all kinds of false views and we are hit with those false ideas all the time.

d. Everyone’s Mental Health is impacted by sin.

e. Confusion

Deuteronomy 28:20 (NKJV), “The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.”

f.  Anxiousness

Job 20:2 (NKJV), “Therefore my anxious thoughts make me answer, Because of the turmoil within me.”

g. Our minds can be troubled.

2 Thessalonians 2:2 (NKJV), “Not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.”

h. We can have a sinful mind.

Romans 8:7 (ESV), “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot.”

i.  This is why we need clarity of thought, and we need to understand that we cannot believe everything we think.

               i.    All sin begins with a lie.

1 John 1:8 (NKJV), “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

j.  Why can’t we believe what we tell ourselves?

1.      We all have blind spots.

2.      We can’t tell ourselves the truth.

3.      We make snap judgments.

4.      We have backgrounds that give us biases.

5.      We jump to conclusions.

6.      We get trapped by categories.

7.      We miss the big picture.

8.      We see what we want to see.

k. I just learned is that the optic nerve which is the only nerve that goes directly to your brain, that when you're looking at something, studies have shown there are actually more impulses coming from your brain forward than from your eye backwards when you are seeing. What does that mean? It means your brain is telling you what you see. It's already preconditioned you, that's why you can put four people at an accident and each of them will see something different. Why? Because your brain is telling you what to see. Don’t believe everything you think.

2. Guard your mind from garbage.

a. There is an old adage that states, “Garbage in garbage out.”  If you put bad and corrupted data into your computer it can do nothing else but give you junk information. The same is true for our physical bodies.  If we continually eat fast food and junk food, then our physical bodies will suffer for it.

Proverbs 15:14 (NLT), “A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash.”

b. The same is true for our minds.  What we see and what we listen to are brain food.  There is material that will make us smarter and Godly, and this will cause us to mature.  There is also things that are just “stuffing.”  It is neither good or bad (NFL Statistics).  There is other things that aren’t wrong, they are just necessary (how to turn on the light switch in the dark).

Psalm 101:3 (NKJV), “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes…”

c. Be careful with your entertainments.  Sometimes we think we can allow anything into our minds, and we will be ok.

               i.    Some people can be so openminded that their brains fall out.

d. Here are two ways to guard your mind:

1.      Constant Contact Prayer

2.      Fixed Focus

Philippians 4:6-7 (NKJV), “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

e. The first way you guard your hearts and mind is to pray about everything and His peace will guard your hearts and mind.

               i.    Constant Contact Prayer – Maintaining a running, but reverent, conversation with the Creator of the Universe.

Philippians 4:8 (NKJV), “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

f.  The second way you guard your hearts and mind is to have fixed focus by “meditating on these things.”

               i.    Fixed Focus – Maintaining a constant stream of thought on these 8 things.

1.      True

2.      Noble

3.      Just

4.      Pure

5.      Lovely

6.      Good Report

7.      Virtue

8.      Praiseworthy

              ii.    Don’t resist it, replace it.

g. It is interesting that whatever we resist, will persist.  Some people will say I don’t want to think about this, I don’t want to think about this…but what are they doing…thinking about it. 

               i.    Whatever gets your attention, gets you.

3. Always be teachable.

a. We all must be lifelong learners.  Love knowledge and wisdom, and then love acting on what you have learned.  Remember that disciple means “learner” and you cannot be a Christ follower without being a learner.

Matthew 11:28-30 (KNJV), “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 

b. When you “take on a yoke,” you lighten the load of the other.  God wants us to learn from Him.  So, if you think your education ended when you graduated, then you are wrong.

               i.    Leaders learn, if you stop learning, then you stop leading.

c. We all must understand that there are things we don’t know.  There are things I know that you don’t and there are thing that you know that I don’t.

 

Proverbs 27:17 (NKJV), “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.”

 

d. Why does God resist the proud?  Because the humble are teachable.

 

James 4:6 (NKJV), “But He gives more grace.  Therefore He says: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’”

e.   

f.  I firmly believe that you can learn from anybody.  Like:

               i.    The young.

              ii.    The old.

            iii.    People who like me.

            iv.    People that don’t like me.

             v.    My critics.

            vi.    The people who totally misunderstand me.

Proverbs 18:15 (NLT), “Intelligent people are always ready to learn.  Their ears are open for knowledge.”

         vii.    The greatest impact on your life will come other people and books. 

g. Can you take your car or your money or your cellphone with you to heaven?  No.  But you will take your knowledge and wisdom to heaven.

Proverbs 10:14 (NLT), “Wise people treasure knowledge, but the babbling of a fool invites disaster.”

h. By the way, 50% of reading must be from the classics.

i.  From a Biblical standpoint, there is nothing new under the sun.  Truth from 1,000 years ago, is true today, and it will be true 1,000 years from now.

               i.    Truth is not invented; it is only discovered.

4. We must acknowledge that there is a fight going on inside of your thinking.  If you do nothing, you will lose the fight. So:

a. Don’t believe everything you think.

b. Guard you mind from garbage.

c. Always be teachable.