Think

A good friend asked me recently what I was thinking about. "What do you think about on any given day?" he asked.

The real question is what don't I think about.

I think about jobs people have. I think about the impact Robert F. Kennedy's assassination had on our nation. I wonder why traffic lights are red, yellow, and green. I wonder what it's like to live in Africa. I think about prisoners. I think about the Taylor and Kanye saga and what it would be like to be a Kardashian. I think about parenting. I think about books, books, and more books.

I think about my life. The good and bad choices I've made. The people in my life. The ones that were in my life. The ones that could be in my life. What I'm going to do for the rest of my life. If I'm doing enough. My brain is a never-ending cycle of constant incessant thoughts. I'm an analyzer and I'm a thinker. It's a blessing and a curse.

And what often comes with a dangerously running mind.. is a dangerously running mouth. If I don't practice the discipline of taking my thoughts captive, it's harder to take my words captive. The filter of recognizing my choices becomes foggier and foggier. Every thought becomes accepted: starts to be believed: becomes reality. And then I act on it: lie or not.

Because when I don't filter, when I don't cement 2 Corinthians 10:5 into my normalcy, my thoughts develop a superiority. I'll assume I'm right, I'll know I'm right, and I'll tell you I'm right. My thoughts lie to me and tell me I'm in control. And like I said, I'll act on it: lie or not.

The mind is where it all begins.

In Beth Moore's study "Living Free," she calls the mind the primary battlefield. When satan wages war, that's where the battles are. She nails it when she writes: "If our thoughts aren't like God's, we can bet our ways, paths, and routes won't be either."

At Advance, we've been talking about satan and the different ways he lures us: but ultimately how he lost all rights to authority over our lives when Jesus died for us on the cross. Gossip is one of the ways in which satan rejoices and one of the ways in which my thoughts jump start my words: unfortunately negative. It's the game my dangerously running mouth loves to play. But from the stage tonight, words were said that my dangerously running mouth needed to hear:

Just stop talking.

Just shut your mouth.

That's a call to give up control.

It's a call to choose obedience. To recognize humility. To surrender. To memorize Scripture. To remember the transformation by the renewal of our minds.

To bow down to the Cross Jesus died on.

And that's simplicity. That clears my mind.

Frank Turek once described God like this: "Do you want to know who God is? Remove all the limits from your mind. That's God." And that literally BLOWS ME AWAY. If there were no limits to my mind!?

Think about it.