GODLY THINKING FOR SUCCESSFUL LIVING!
Psalm 86:1-17
INTRODUCTION: Do you know how-to walk-in God’s way, in order to live in God’s truth?
Psalm 86:11; Psalm 103:7. Do you know that you can receive Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and still not be walking with godly zest because we maintain worldly thinking? Romans 12:1-2: We must learn how to think with transformed minds: Proverbs 23:7. We can chose to change our thinking to thinking God’s thoughts: Joshua 24:15.
I. IS OUR THINKING GODLY OR WORLDLY?
We must learn to tell the difference between thinking God’s thoughts or the thoughts of this world. Worldly thinking people focus on their problems and worry about them. People who think godly thoughts focus on becoming Christ-like. We are told in God’s Word to consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds, but do we? James 1:2-5. Completeness in the Christian life is none other than Christ-likeness. Hebrews 12:11. People who think like the world love to blame others for their problems. People who think like their Lord take responsibility for their lives, for their thoughts, and for the way they chose to respond to others: 1 Corinthians 10:13. Trusting in our Lord Jesus Christ and seeking to always become more like Him is our way out! Worldly minded thinking people always start with “Why is thishappening to me?” Godly minded people usually ask “What would You have me learn from this Lord so I can be more like You?” 2 Peter 3:10-13. Proverbs 23:6-7 tells us we can talk like a Christian but not be thinking in our hearts like a Christian. James 1:5-8; Proverbs 11:3. Let me ask: “Are you a godly thinker in your heart or only in your head? If you are trying to live the Christian life with a worldly mind set you will find that will not work out well. Your duplicity will surely find you out.
II. LET THE WORD OF GOD TRANSFORM YOUR THINKING!
Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:1-2; 1 Timothy 4:15-16. Godly living requires not only that we think about the things our Lord has told us, but we must do those things: James 1:21-25.
III. NOW FOR SOME BIBLICAL APPLICATION!
There are several things we must do in order to get what we know from God’s Word from our head to our hearts. 1.). We need to create a meditation list: What are the greatest goals our Lord would have for our lives? We must have a list of what God would have in our lives and then a plan of how to achieve those goals: Proverbs 21:5. 2.) We must capture our meditations: Keep a journal of your meditations. This is especially critical if you have jumbled thoughts. 3.) Schedule time every day to get alone with your God and meditate. If you think you are too busy to do this you may be busy on the wrong things: Philippians 4:6-8: Luke 10:38-42. When we have our minds taught to think godly thoughts we will be constantly thinking about God’s goodness, God’s constant supply of everything we need, and God’s blessings in our lives and we will be living what we are thinking about! Philippians 4:13. As we choose to renew our minds we will be thinking God’s thoughts: Romans 12:1-2; Proverbs 23:7. For many we act without thinking. For some of the rest of us we do a lot of thinking with no follow up action! 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. The most powerful think a child of God can do to become more like our Lord Jesus Christ is to align our thinking with God’s thinking: Philippians 2:5. Sadly for so many Christians instead of controlling our minds, we allow everything that comes into our minds to control us: Psalm 86:11.