Think About These Things

Why do I keep asking God to change my circumstances instead of letting him change me?

Paul puts the transformation inside the person, not around them. The pastor names it plainly: most days the thing that actually changes is his own perspective, not the situation he was praying about.

Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:2

For I delight in God’s law after the inward person, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

Romans 7:22–23

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to save many people alive, as is happening today.

Genesis 50:20

If I can't trust every thought I have, how do I tell which ones are actually true?

The pastor says not every thought that arrives is worth believing, and Satan's oldest move was making a lie sound close enough to the truth. Paul describes pulling each thought down and checking it against Christ.

For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,…

2 Corinthians 10:3–5

Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

1 Peter 5:8

Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die, for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3:1–5

You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

John 8:32

How do I keep my mind on God's word when my whole morning belongs to my phone?

The sermon's closing challenge was to reach for scripture before reaching for the screen. The psalmist sets the pattern: crying out before daylight, thinking on the word through the day, and letting it fill the night.

I rise before dawn and cry for help. I put my hope in your words.

Psalms 119:147

How I love your law! It is my meditation all day.

Psalms 119:97

I will bless Yahweh, who has given me counsel. Yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons.

Psalms 16:7

But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.’”

Matthew 4:4

Why does the same wrong thought keep coming back even after I've dealt with it?

The pastor describes thoughts worn into familiar paths, the way repeated footsteps wear down grass, until a thought becomes a belief and the belief becomes an action. He says those old paths do not have to govern today.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Romans 8:5

For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;…

Romans 8:6

I have set my heart to perform your statutes forever, even to the end.

Psalms 119:112

I will never forget your precepts, for with them, you have revived me.

Psalms 119:93

What would change if I actually thought about other people and about heaven during my day?

The sermon says we grow to resemble whatever we think about most, so it names three directions: Jesus, the people around us, and eternity. Paul tells the Philippians to look past their own affairs, and tells the Colossians to set their minds above.

Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.

Colossians 3:2

Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works,…

Hebrews 10:24

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the offspring of David, according to my Good News,…

2 Timothy 2:8

But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”

1 Corinthians 2:9