MAKE UP YOUR MIND
“Mind Set” - Part 6 (Make Up Your Mind)
Text: Deuteronomy 30:19 / 1 Peter 1:13-16 (NASB)
E. Stanley Jones states it graphically, “If you don’t make up your mind, then your unmade mind will unmake you. Here is the place where there must be no dallying. For any dallying will be the Trojan horse that will get on the inside and open the gates to the enemy. God can do anything for the man who has made up his mind; he can do little or nothing for the double-minded.”
– The Way to Power and Poise, p.258
Deuteronomy 30:19 (NASB)
19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
1 Peter 1:13-16 (NASB)
13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, 15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16 because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
2 Corinthians 10:5 (NASB)
5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,
What is left to be said about the mind? We have covered a lot of ground over the past month…but I want to encourage you to MAKE UP YOUR MIND to CHOOSE LIFE!
I want to inspire you tonight to make the choice of your life. Choose LOVE. Choose to see God’s Image in everyone. Choose to look to Jesus and operate in FAITH and overcome FEAR!
What you choose to SEE determines your REALITY! You have the power to CHANGE your reality by shifting your FOCUS!
Proverbs 23:7 (NASB)
7 For as he thinks within himself, so he is…
You must CHOOSE LIFE…you must CHOOSE to see with a spiritual lens, and look at life through the eyes of FAITH! Why is your reality so messed up right now…because you are choosing to see the wrong things about life. You need to SHIFT your focus…look to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith! As you choose to THINK within your self…so your REALITY will be!
Wandering through life, letting others create your perceptions, can make for a very unfulfilling life.
Make Up Your Mind! CHOOSE LOVE!
Here are some things you might need to SHIFT your FOCUS ON:
How You View Yourself.
How do you see yourself? Are you a failure, a hot mess, a bad situation waiting to happen? Or are you a budding success that hasn’t reached full bloom yet?
Most of us struggle with how we see ourselves. Good news is that we can look to the Word of God and find out our TRUE WORTH! We can learn to see ourselves as God sees us - and not let our value and worth come from this world or people that are not spiritually minded!
You choose LIFE when you make up your mind that you will look at yourself through the lens of the Bible and you shift your focus to the VIEW that God has of you!
Romans 5:8 (NASB)
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
- How You View God.
How do you see God? Is God just a mean judge waiting to pound you over the head every time you get something wrong? Is He just a wonderful Santa type that just gives us whatever we want when we ask for it? Is He a distant deity that stays far away from us and lets us figure everything out ourselves?
Do you see the “giants” as larger than life, and God as smaller than your problems? Does worry consume you because you are not trusting in a God that is able to take care of you and the things you have need of?
Matthew 6:25-34 (NASB)
25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by being worried can add a single [q]hour to his life? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
You need to SHIFT your FOCUS about GOD…look at God through the lens of His Word and through the powerful experiences you have had with Him in the past. Set up memorials in your life that will remind you of His greatness and His awesome power! HE CAN DO ANYTHING!
If you make up your mind about that…then life is so much less challenging! You don’t have to have all the answers…but you have a good relationship with the ONE who does!
- How You View Others.
Dr. Caroline Leaf says, “When you think, you build thoughts and these become physical substances in your brain.”
How do you see others? What views do you have of other people, especially the ones who are different from you? This is part of the problem going on in our society right now. How we think affects our children for good or for bad!
When we think that every
Exodus 34:7 (NASB)
7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
This is how it happens….our focus is on all the NEGATIVE and on all the bad and evil about a certain type of person, or a certain thing…and then because of this…we make the CHOICE to see all those “kind” of people a certain way. Just because one or a small group of people are bad, does not mean that the whole race, group, or classification of people are evil. When we CHOOSE HATE instead of LOVE, we are not seeing EVERYONE in the Image of God…which leads to sin in our hearts, and minds and behaviors.
What you allow into your mind determines your REALITY and ultimately your LEGACY!
Do you want to have a legacy of hatred, violence, imprisonment, shame, or just overall loneliness? No, no one wants that. Think about the Hatfields and McCoys…they trained their children to hate one another and the two families destroyed each other for years, and burned down each other’s houses, and all kinds of crazy. But for what?
If you have trouble choosing LOVE, and seeing people the way that God sees them…then you need to SHIFT your focus, repent and ask God to give you fresh perspective!
As it says in 1 Peter 1:13 (NASB)
… prepare your minds for action
It’s time to Make Up Your Mind - It’s Time for you to choose..
Deuteronomy 30:19 (NASB)
19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
Don’t Be a double minded person who is unstable…make up your mind…CHOOSE LOVE, SERVE THE LORD, TRAIN YOUR CHILDREN IN THE WAYS OF GOD!