The Mind And How We Think

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. The enemy goes after your mind tonight, Christian. The enemy goes after your mind tomorrow morning when you wake up. The enemy is always going after your mind. Oh, don't worry. He'll forgive you. Have you ever heard that in your mind before? Who hasn't? You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now, open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Your mind, it is within us, it's us, but from the earliest stages of life, the world, our family, living, our external existence, all of these things come together to determine and to make the you that you are. You and I and the human mind has been engineered in a way to receive input constantly. Not only processing, but it shapes our personalities and it shapes our worldview. As we grow up, we have a certain perspective on life that doesn't come from the brain. It's the mind, the brain's only a tool. And that's something that we need to keep in mind because the Bible again tells us and we'll look at some scriptures tonight that our minds are alienated from God. And yet there's something yet inside of us that makes us wonder. Think about it right now. Believer or non-believer alike tonight, the thoughts that come into your mind regarding is life forever, if I were to die, is there heaven, is there a hell? And what about right or wrong? What about sin and what about doing the right thing? All of these things are of the operation of your mind, of the soul of who you are. Listen to what C.S. Lewis, you know, I love quoting him. Listen to what C.S. Lewis says regarding man's situation. When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. Did you hear that? It's going to make you think. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good. A thoroughly bad man thinks he's right or all right. This is common sense, really. I love this. You understand sleep when you are awake. Not when you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly while you are making them, you cannot see them. Think of that. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you're sober, not when you're drunk. Good people know about both good and evil. Bad people do not know about either. That's a profound statement. The very fact that right and wrong and good and bad can be determined speaks to what we're looking at tonight. What makes us the way that we are, you and I? The Bible says in Genesis chapter 3, verse 1, Genesis 3, 1, the Bible says now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said, by the way, this is the third time I've read the word sad, which is important to where we're going tonight regarding the mind. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, that's the fourth statement there, you shall not eat of it nor shall you touch it. Let's do die. Verse 4, then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. Notice that there are numerous statements here where he said, she said, back and forth. Why is that important? Because when words are spoken, the mind receives what is spoken and begins to process that statement. Satan knows this. Notice Satan attacks Eve via deception. Now, I'm not getting into the weeds. The serpent, look, we don't know how Adam and Eve had it. It must have been amazing in the garden. Because you say, why do you say that? Because Eve is being deceived by Satan, but Satan's using the serpent, which was a magnificent animal in the garden. And apparently, it's no big deal to talk to a serpent in those days. I don't know about you. If a snake started talking to me, I wouldn't be, I know how that goes. I've read the book. It's not going to turn out well. But she's not flustered at all about that. This snake's talking except Satan's using her like a puppet and she's carrying on a conversation. But notice what the attack is, the mind. The enemy goes after your mind tonight, Christian. The enemy goes after your mind tomorrow morning when you wake up. The enemy is always going after your mind. Constantly, half God said, did God say, what about this? Listen, it goes on and on. Fill in the blank. I feel this. Doesn't matter what the Bible says, God is love. Oh, don't worry. He'll forgive you. Have you ever heard that in your mind before? Who hasn't? The enemy is speaking. Why? Because that's how he gets into the recesses if I can put it that way of your mind. And he goes to work in your thought process. He begins to tamper with your progress of how your mind works. In Romans 8, verse 5, the Bible says, for those who live, according to the flesh, set their minds on things of the flesh. You got to, everybody get that? If you live for this world, you're going to be thinking only about the stuff of this world. If you live for pleasure, that's all you think about is pleasure. You just line your crib with pleasure. That's all that's you think about. That's what Paul's talking about in Romans 8, 5. Those who live for the flesh, to satisfy the flesh, just mark that. But for those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. So there's a choice for it to be carnally minded as death. The word carnally minded as earthly minded flesh, skin minded, is to live for that. Now look, God made you and I with the ability to appreciate pleasure. Aren't you glad for that? That's wonderful. Be it food. You know, I got to tell you, those of you who are young, you know when you're young, you're picky about food. Let me tell you right now, stop wasting your time. Go for it because I'm telling you right now, when you get older, everything tastes good. I'm grateful to God that He gave us the ability to taste the things that we taste. But when that is handled wrongly, it gets out of control, you can become a glutton. You can eat meat for pleasure's sake, throw up and then eat meat because you are addicted to the sensation that your taste buds are giving you to the brain of taste. That's sick. But when people are doing it, they don't think it's sick because they've gone through the steps so long and so deep that it's become ingrained in their minds to the point where you don't even see it anymore. You don't even realize it anymore to be carnally minded as death, but to be spiritually minded as life and peace. Verse 7 says, because the carnal mind is enmity, warfare against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be a carnally mind that's given over to the passions of the flesh as an out of control mind. And I don't know and I cannot speak for you. I came to Jesus at the age of 19, but my mind was in that place. And because my mind was in that place of being carnally minded, I lived, planned, made allotments for carnally minded living. That's the lost soul. That's the lost mind. It is God's desire. He wants to transform our minds by the power of the Word of God and that's what he does. And when I heard the gospel for the first time, it began to unlock God's love to me, God's forgiveness, but of course, as I told you last week, I also exposed my depravity and how bad I needed God. Let's take another verse. In 1st Corinthians 2, verse 12 to 14, 1st Corinthians 2, 12 to 14, it says, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God, verse 13. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man, this is the unsaved man, with the unsaved mind, does not receive the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness to him, nor can they know them because they are spiritually discerned. So I want to, in light of that, I want you to hear this tonight, your mind tonight, whatever, if tonight you're a victim of abuse, maybe tonight you're here and you were the abuser. You need to know something right now. And through the gift of faith and repentance given by God, you ask Him for it, your conduct as an abuser can be forgiven and God can give you a new mind. He can give you a new life, he can forgive you and get you starting over. If you're a victim, if you've been abused, God wants you to have a new mind regarding the way that you view things. The data comes to you, it could be words. You know, listen, when your abuse and somebody then tells you later on in life, I think you're beautiful, I love you. They don't hear it like you think. When somebody who really loves somebody else and they've experienced that hurt and that abuse because the mind is still held captive. And you see, but Jack, I love the Lord and you're describing me, but I love the Lord. Listen, I understand that. Just know this. He wants to set you completely free. He doesn't set you kind of free. He doesn't get one leg out of the trap and leave the other one. He wants to renew your mind and he wants to have you understand something that God has at work and he's going to take that damage and that attack and that hurt that has been perpetrated against you and he's going to clear up your thinking by the power of his word as you immerse yourself in his word and believe his promises when he says to you, I'll make all things new. You're a new creation. You see, but Jack, I struggle every morning, I wake up and I'm reminded of this. Absolutely. I understand. You keep going back to his promises and you hang on to those promises and you say, Lord, I don't feel it. I'm not getting it, but your word says I'm new in Christ. Your Bible tells me that you will renew my mind in Christ Jesus and I'm asking you to do that now, God. And you might say, I've prayed that a thousand times. Then listen, you keep praying it a thousand times more. You just keep doing it because listen, he will change you and set you free. And again, if you're the perpetrator, he will change you if you repent and seek him. Just turn to him. Our minds can be changed. Thank God. If you don't, if you don't, brain wash, mind wash, listen, your mind, if you don't, if you do not occupy your mind with the word, listen, the past will come back. That's why Paul the Apostle said, you need Christian to reckon the old man dead. You know what that means? Every time that stuff comes up, now look, I'm describing me. You've got your thing that comes up and you hate it. The Christian fights it. It's tough. But listen, greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world. It's absolute victory in Jesus. Listen, to the man I say, don't give up. Keep fighting, fight, fight. Women, I've never been a woman to a plan to never be in one. So I don't know what to say to you. To you, I don't know. Maybe it's words. Maybe it's memories or this person. Oh, I'm heavily married and everything's great. But I remember back then when so and so said this and he was that way and oh, the romance of maybe that's it. Don't think about it. When the thought arises, grab it and cast it over to Jesus. Constantly, constantly fight it. Fight, fight. Today, listen, many are not fighting. They're not fighting. They're giving up. There are so many Christians in the state of depression because the world has gotten inside and it's hammering. And this poor man you saw on the screen began to deny his own life's existence. Maybe Satan is saying to you, has God said that you're his child? Did God say that you were saved? I don't know. God told you your sins were forgiven. Why would he forgive you anyway? You know what you are. It wouldn't be heaven. If you were there, and he begins to sow this seed, listen, Christian, washed as the Bible tells us. In fact, the Bible says in Ephesians 5 that the husband is to wash his wife with the water of the washing of the Word of God. You know that? Speak God's love, God's truth, God's healing, God's Word over your wife. Well, how about your own life? How about your kids? How about your situation? Isn't this true and we're going to end? Is this true? Lord, you know everything about me and you know all the things that trip me up. Are you know the things that I just cannot get victory over? Lord, I'm asking you right now, you, Lord, have pointed out to me those things are, are traps. I know it's your will that I'd be set free. You put it in your book. I'm asking you now God to do a miracle in my life. Can we just close our eyes and pray right now? Every one of us right now? Can we just agree? Lord, I'm asking you right now to do a miracle in my life in the lives of these here tonight. This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast out reach opportunities are listener supported. 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