Live Free with Josh Howerton - What Are You Feeding Your Mind? | Ep. 65 | Friday May 5, 2023

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

God wants you to have peace and freedom, but the devil is at work to keep you trapped in lies by targeting your thinking. In today’s episode, Pastor Mike equips us to fight the battle in our mind. Renewing your mind starts by meditating on what is true. So today, choose to focus on what God says instead of the lies whispered by the enemy. For more information, text DRIVE to 20411.

Thanks for tuning in to today's daily drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, text Drive to 20411. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. I hope you're doing great. Thanks for joining us today for the Daily Drive podcast. My name is Mike and honored to spend a few minutes with you today, just trying to stick a little of God's word in our hearts. And we've been walking through a book called Philippians, just sitting in a few verses

the last few days that I pray has been helping you with your anxious thoughts. Now, of course, I would never oversimplify a struggle with anxiety. I mean, sometimes God will lead you to some professional counseling or to some medication to help you with it. And there's certainly no shame or embarrassment, any of that. He knows what you need. And there are many who find counseling and meds and God to be this powerful combination. And I believe that God works through all of it. But this little passage of scripture has helped me so much. So let me just read it again. Philippians 4, beginning of verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Don't be anxious about anything. But in every situation of prayer and petition,

With Thanksgiving, present your request to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, we've been using the word calm to unpack some proactive things that you and I can do to apply these verses in those times of worry, fear, and anxiety that occasionally rise up in all of us. The letter C stands for Celebrate God's Goodness.

Shift your focus to His grace, His presence, his deep love for you. Then the letter A we learned stands for Ask God for help. Through honest prayer, just tell him what you need. Tell him how you feel. Ask him to come and settle you down. And as you do that, the L on the word calm stands for list things you're grateful for. What we talked last time about the power of gratitude lists. Again, that's a huge focus shifter.

As Thanksgiving goes up, anxiety goes down. And today, the last letter is the letter M. and it stands for meditate on things that are true. Now, if you don't know this already, there is a very real enemy of our soul. Jesus himself acknowledged him and called him the father of lies. Tolus his agenda is to steal, kill, and destroy us. And his chief weapon is lies. He'll feed us lies like, yeah, man, you'll never change.

God doesn't care. You are so alone. This is one pit you will never crawl out of. You are such a screw-up. You're a hopeless addict. Face it, you're just playing crazy. Nobody loves you. You can never tell anybody what you're feeling.

You can never tell anybody what you've done. You're so worthless. Lie after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, you heard them? Yeah, me too. That's why it's so crucial to meditate on the truth. One of the goals of the Daily Drive podcast is to put ourselves in a place where we can stick some truth in our hearts so that we can counteract the lies in the moment that try to bombard us.

Well, Paul wraps this section up by saying this, finally, my brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is aberable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. There was a song about, I don't know, 15 years ago, pop rock group called Sister Hazel.

But I remember the lyrics kind of rang out, if you want to be somebody else, if you're tired of fighting battles with yourself, if you want to be somebody else, change your mind. And you know what? They were right. I'm learning that the real challenge to you and me being all that God wants us to be lies between our ears.

The battle is in our mind. Again, Jesus told us that we have an enemy and that that liar wants to keep us locked up in guilt, shame, and worthlessness. He loves to see you and me wrestle with a tortured soul. And the last thing he wants for us is freedom. So he targets the mind. He knows that if he can get us to believe his lie, instead of God's truth, he can keep us stuck. You see, if you can influence thinking, you can influence behavior because the way we behave is always a reflection of the way we think. In fact, Scripture says

it's a person thinks, so they are. What makes you and me the way we are is the way we think. So you see, the battlefield is not so much our behavior as it is our mind. So let me remind you of a key verse from one of our earlier podcast, the same guy, Paul, he writes this in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Now, I want you to notice God's part and our part there. God's part is the transformation. Paul's saying, you have to let a power that is greater than you go to work on you. Only he has the power to change you and me from the inside out.

You might also remember that the Greek word used there for transform is the word metamorpho. You might recall that from like a high school biology class, where we learn that a caterpillar can't change himself into a butterfly on his own strength and power, but he has to surrender to a process called metamorphosis. And that's the way it is with us too. Metamorpho or transformation, that's God's part. But my part and your part in this transformation is changing. the way we think. We have to renew our mind to a whole new way of thinking. My mind and your mind

will be shaped by what we feed it. And that's why this verse has been so significant for me. So let me read it again. Philippians 4, verse 8, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Now, I like to think of that as kind of a truth grid to drop my thoughts through. I think that's what Scripture's talk about when it says in another part of the Bible, take every thought captive. I mean, it's pretty amazing the way the Holy Spirit will help you in the moment, filter those thoughts, like instantly. For instance, this is the way I've kind of used it.

You might say in your mind, God, you said, whatever is lovely, and that girl on the cover, Sports Illustrated swim-soot issue is lovely. And the Holy Spirit responds, yeah, that may be true. but your thoughts are not pure and that's not the right thing to feed your mind and the way that makes you devalue women that's not admirable or you think you said god whatever is true and what they're saying in the break room about my boss right now is absolutely true he is a jerk and i just want to pile on and add my opinion and the holy spirit says you know what they're saying might be true but you fueling the negativity that's not noble that's not being an excellent employee Your motives certainly aren't praiseworthy.

You need to stay quiet and walk away. You see how having this internal truth grid really does help you, how meditating on things are true will help you renew your mind. As I've been feeding my mind on God's truth, I've been growing, and God has produced some pretty cool fruit in my life. And I'm learning that His Word is alive and it's life-changing and it's fresh. And hopefully you're experiencing a little bit of that too, but maybe just regularly tuning in to this podcast.

But when the Bible talks about meditation, it's not talking about like getting in an uncomfortable position where you'll, like, pull a hamstring or humming or emptying your mind. Rather, we are instructed to actually fill our minds. Fill our minds with good stuff, real stuff, positive, eternal stuff, life-giving principles, life-changing perspective, and you dwell on it, you chew on it,

you hide it in your heart, you memorize, you revisit, it, then you chew on it again. The old adage is, if you can worry, you can meditate. It's just turning a thought over and over in your mind. As you do that, your mind is now being fed much-needed truth, and you develop new patterns of thinking, even new neurological pathways in your brain. For instance, you might read like a verse from First Peter that says,

cast all your anxiety on him for he cares for you. So you start that thought churning. I have anxiety. I need to cast this off. I need to give this to God. Why do I carry this around? I can't do anything about it anyway. Any attempt I make it controlling it just makes it words.

You know what? I need to cast this off. I need to give this to God. I need to let this go because he cares for me. He cares for me. He really cares for me. The one who made me knows me inside out. He's my father.

He's the God of unfailing love. He's got my back. He cares for me. He cares for me. He wants to give me unexplainable peace, just churning it over and over in your mind. mind. And gang, this is a big deal, because life gets hard. And when it does, you can bet the enemy will be there to clutter your mind saying, see, God doesn't love you. Your whole life's

falling apart. You'll never change. You ought to worry. You need to be anxious because he doesn't give a rip about you. But when you've been feeding your mind the truth, you're able to stay rooted and recognize those lies for what they actually are. So here again, is our life verse for today, Philippians 4-8, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. I'm praying for you today as you try to think great thoughts. I'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship,

join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out. For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, text drive to 20411.