This past Sunday I shared our third installment in our You in Five Years series at Hillside Church. Our series takes a look at the question: who are you becoming? Most new years resolutions are based around what can be accomplished (weight loss, financial goals, family plans, business accomplishments, etc.). I simply believe the more important question is who are we becoming than what are we achieving (sidetone: I 100% believe in goals and achieving things in this life).
Sundays’ third installment dealt with the subject of mindset’s. Our mindset’s are just that: mind’s that have set in a particular shape. Each of us has perspectives, mentality’s, processes, and mindset’s that each and every thought we have is traveling down. Every decision, conversation, interaction is fruit of a mindset we have built on the inside. Mindset’s are most revealed under pressure. What happens when our lives are under pressure? Well, the mindset’s we have been building are tested. If my mindset is rooted in fear. Well, guess what emotions I feel when something unexpected comes along? I’m prone to anxiety, anger, and disappointment. It’s not simply the event that caused these reactions – it is the mindset (a fear based mindset) I’ve created for my thoughts to travel down. Now, imagine we build every mindset on a sure and strong foundation? A truth. Like the fact God’s Word says He will never leave us nor forsake us. Do you think that could create a powerful mindset for our day to day living? You bet it does. I highlighted this, and the powerful solution to shifting our mindset’s to the mind of Christ in the message on Sunday. The apostle Paul’s exhortations from Romans 12:2 “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” was the main passage for the message (along with 2 Corinthians 10:5 and Proverbs 23:7).
The apostle Paul encourages us not to live according to the patterns of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The transformative work of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit is shifting our minds from living according to the patterns of this world to living with renewed thinking on a daily basis. God has no easy task in transforming our minds when they have been so used to being disciplined by the patterns of this world. We live in a culture that fuels itself on anxiety, doubt, fear, isolation – only to name a few. Once we encounter Jesus He begins to transform our old habits and ways of thinking and renew them according to His ways.
A wonderful example of mindset’s and their power within our lives is to look at the journey of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land found in the book of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Take, for example, the 12 spies sent by Moses to spy out the land of Promise (ref. Book of Numbers 13). 10 of them agreed the land was good, but denied that they could take the land and that God had given it to them. Their mindset? Well, it was limited by their current reality and rooted in fear. Caleb and Joshua, the two additional spies, saw a different picture. What was the difference? Their mindset. They were consumed by what God had done, was doing, and could do in the lives of His chosen people. They were not limited by the giants in the land. In fact, they saw what had happened at the Red Sea and were filled with confidence. They saw how God was literally navigating their journey for them and led them to this place, and their hearts were full of trust. I am of the personal belief it wouldn’t have mattered what Caleb and Joshua saw in the Promised Land they were already convinced the moment Moses gathered them to go. Your and my mindset is pivotal to our daily living in the Kingdom of God. The enemy of our soul wants to bait us into lies through all sorts of thoughts on a daily basis. Each thought is sent to do one thing: set itself up against the knowledge of God within your life (2 Corinthians 10:5). If the devil can get us to believe a lie about who God is then he knows he can keep us living in a false mindset following the patterns of this world. And, in turn, we distance ourselves from God and the things of God.
My encouragement? Put your hope in God’s Word. Grow in your knowledge of God through the Scripture. God reveals Himself in so many profound ways. Bring the knowledge and nature of God into your daily living. What experience are you facing that is causing stress, frustration, disappointment, anxiety, fear, or any negative emotion? Could it be that your mindset is letting your daily living down? If so, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Paul Deary 