Your Mind Can Play Tricks on You!

Your Mind Can Play Tricks on You!             Jesus stops them!       Kelly Durant 

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What do you see here, a lamp, or 2 people? And old lady, or a young one?

Somebody once said that people’s minds are all like cement, all mixed up and permanently set! You know cement is mixed with water and it is soft then it gets firmly hard!

This is a true statement for most Christians’ minds as well as the people of the world. Many millions of Christians are out there, but many millions are not in Gods’ standard.

The reality is most of us do not want to use our minds much, we are lazy! Most of us avoid telling others about our faith because we are afraid of the question why? We do not want to make our minds to work to answer questions like..

Why are you a Christian, anyway?

Why did you decide to be a Salvation Army Soldier?

Why do you go to the Salvation Army church and give them your time & support?

As we get older, like the young woman that you see as old in the picture we must use our minds more!

You should do mind exercises, and play games, and ask yourself questions that help you develop apologetics. Apologetics is your ability to defend the word of God from answers you have investigated ahead of time. I hope you pray & study what is in your mind, you must know the answers to difficult questions. To study God’s word requires intense brain work! Do you honor God with all your brain, or mind?

We all may have different answers as to how and why we became a Christian. Here is an answer I hope will serve as an example to why you choose this church. I would answer…

“I chose to be a Christian because Jesus gave me peace of mind, gives me hope for a coming heaven, and He changed my selfish sinful nature. I choose the Salvation Army because it is a holy, uncompromised Christian church that still teaches and practices the truth in the Bible. I consider their members around the world to be outstanding and dedicated examples of compassion in their communities each one impacting thousands of lives around where they live. They are willing to serve the homeless, the addicts, and the poor. The majority of Soldiers & Officers effectively model Jesus’ life of loving compassion taking the gospel of Jesus salvation to others through kind deeds of service and suffering hearts get converted and healed. I am proud that the 3,000,000 members worldwide, one soldiers, and 2 more as volunteers are united with the same visions & goals”.

Let’s examine the scripture from Proverbs 23:7

7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee:

What does it say? It simply says that as you think, that is how you are!

You will act out what you think either good or bad, you will deceive those nearby, so how you think determines everything in life!

Many people have many ideas on what makes them a Christian. There are people believe you must be antiabortion, and a series of beliefs may be near you, but there are some extreme ways of thinking that may put them worlds apart from you! Like the Mormon in court last week who defends the idea of have many young girls as brides, and in his defense he cursed those that were persecuting him! And why is he so confused, because many Christians have not yet applied their brain to analyze if they really live out what they claim to follow!

Here is an example of flawed thinking. My son, Eman, did some local missions trips to some Corps in some small towns in Georgia about 6 years ago. Some are small Corps with 12 white members in the middle for black neighborhoods. His mission was to help with VBS and get the local people to visit the Corps but in a few places the Officers said, oh no, we can’t invite the local kids, the ones that come won’t like it!

A Christian is a follower of who? Of Christ! If you have your mind totally transformed to the point that you think like Jesus, then you are a true Christian! And this means you are non conformed to the world in any manner because the world calls evil good and good evil, If you are thinking like Jesus you will be doing loving acts of kindness as Jesus did and telling ALL others of the Kingdom of God, of heaven and hell as much as possible.

And Christ had whose mind?  What does John 10:30  say?

30 I and my Father are one.

A true Christian knows the mind of Christ and this means they also will know the mind of God and this comes only by reading and filling their mind with the Bible to the point they care for nothing else!

 We must learn how God interacted with man all throughout time. To learn about the mind of Christ, the very first thing we discovery is that He taught us to love God with ALL our hearts, minds, and souls and to love others as ourselves

But our minds deceive us in judgment. Proverbs 20:6

Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?

It is easy for you and I to see, for example, when certain Christians is practicing racism, even though they deny it, and we think, oh, they are not really wrong, and they probably are not a Christian. We see when others have a big sin that shows they are not like Jesus. And this is true, if they were as Jesus they would remember how Jesus, being a Jew preached to the Samaritan woman who had many men, and remember the good Samaritan, etc.

But our weak human minds often make us think that because we can see someone’s sin or fault that that must make us better. I am referring to any subject here! Each must never allow the, ‘holier than thou’ spirit as this is a mistake and trick of the mind. We all fail in God’s eyes and the reality is we do not serve others enough, pray enough and also be quite enough meditating to let God bring into our minds all the faults and sins we have that we must change.

Do you remember what Jesus said about that? Matt 7:3-5

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Christians think that because they may not do what they understand as really wrong things, like to steal, or lie, that this must be holy enough to make their selves a judge, but we will never be holy enough until our mind is totally full of God’s word and then practicing it! Holiness is a growth process and we are all still growing!

The easiest sin for a Christians to have is a sin of pride believing they are superior to another. But it is a sin to not know your own mind, to not be aware that you are not caring, loving and forgiving.

We must compare our way of thinking as how God and others may see it. The verse we are studying today exposes this. There are people in the Christian world that only think in terms of criticism, and their minds and hearts are far from their Christian brothers because they are not even in tune with what areas God wants them to change.

If I ask you about your weak areas, can you tell me? To be unaware of your thinking and sometimes wrong conclusions, unaware that your mind plays tricks on you, is not fully in tune with the mind of Christ.

Why is it that people are like cement and all mixed up in their way of thinking? There are many people today that have minds, and many people actually are well guided and love the Lord and others as their selves. But we discover our faults with interactions with others.

When we do a Bible studies & debate we may also find out some people may have misinformation from their past learning, and people will always have some mixed thinking in their understanding in life. But I and everyone must sometimes admit we must change our minds, when we were unaware of certain facts.

Focus on Jesus mind, was he aggressive and imposing on the people with mixed up thinking, people like the prostitutes, drunks and publicans? Did he not show them love and compassion? The only times that Jesus got angry was against the false teachers of the law, who taught the word of God with arrogance for own purposes of exploitation damaging God’s image in his projection of  love & forgiveness. Hypocrisy and holier-than-thou thinking invokes his anger!

Thesis: Any idea or thought that obsesses your mind to focus on anything other than how YOU are applying your or my heart, mind, and soul to loving God and people more is a misapplication that will bring grave consequences.

We all see people’s minds by their actions, like the crazy man in Norway that in his mind was doing the right thing killing 90 some people. What horrible actions from mixed up thinking, believing he was purging out bad people. Consider these verses when we have a transformed mind…

Romans 12:3  For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

 4For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:

 5So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

 6Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;

 7Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching

 8Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.

 9Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

10Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;

 And we will love, and not hurt, only if we first program our minds to do it this way!

Once you have Jesus in your mind, He becomes like a filter, and you will only allow your self to think and act like Him because it filters all things through Him.

Have you ever had the filter of a tea bag break on you? It is not so nice to get tea leaves in your teeth, right?

People who sin with their words and actions, are those that do not have the Word of God as a filter in place in their minds.

The people of the world, and even many Christians, remain in their carnal immature states because their minds never get fully connected to God. So then what rules their hearts is envy, jealousy, and malice and all the destructive emotions. Only by filling our minds with God’s word, by transforming the way we think, which affects everything we do, will we be able to become acceptable to the Lord. 

Today you will leave here responsible to God for what you think and what is in your mind since God will not accept your thinking way above His way. It is not okay to think what you think is okay, to God it is foolishness.

We must as people of God here think alike as the verse says here: 1 Cor 2:16

16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

People that esteem their own opinions, their own way of thinking, or anyone else’s teachings as more important than the Bible, are in danger of not living as a true Christian.

What do you think? What a person thinks will determine your future, whether your destiny will be in heaven of hell. If you think Jesus is the Son of God, then do you make your heart soul, and mind love and serve Him above everything?

Do you use your mind to learn the ways of God so that you may leave behind the wrong things in your heart and mind so you can love God more?

Rom 12:2

2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

We know how Christ-like you are by how you think, whether you think like Jesus or not.

We see what you do, and hear what you say, and all of this comes from what you think.

Do you need your mind transformed by the Holy Spirit? He can change you, but it will be your job to work at changing yourself day after day by studying the Word of God too! Prayer.