The Bryce Crawford Podcast - Think Like Heaven (EP 11)

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

In this episode, Bryce discusses the importance of renewing your mind.

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Crawford podcast. I'm Bryce Crawford. And today I'm super excited for the podcast episode we're talking about. It's one of my favorite topics to preach on to talk about with other people. It's titled Think Like Heaven. We want to learn how to shift our mind to heavenly perspective. And the basic definition of this would be the renewal of the mind. And we see this in our highlight passage of this episode and of mainly this topic is going to be Romans 12, 2, where Paul writes, do not be conform to this one. world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect. And this is key, because Romans, the overall book, is basically just like the ABCs of the gospel. Paul does through Romans 1 through 11, this incredible job of explaining the power of the gospel, how it impacts our life, how we can apply it to our life. And then in Romans 12, he says, after all of those things, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed, transform your life from the way that seems right to a man. How do you do it by the renewal of your mind?

So you said all of those things that I just taught you, you can change your life by renewing your mind with these things that I teach you with. And I think it's powerful because the renewal of the mind is the way you think and you change it. You change the way that you think. And you want to start to interpret life from a lens of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit versus a lens of the world, which you were born into. When we're born into sin, we're born into. we're born into the world and our worldview and our lens that we look through is one of the carnal mind.

But when we renew our mind, we take off that lens and we put on a lens of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. And that's how we want to view life. And that's how we want to go about walking about everyday life. Now, this is key because when Paul gives the command to renew our mind, this means that there is one truth. And that truth is Jesus. Jesus says, I'm the way. I am the truth and I'm the life. He's not saying, I am one truth.

He says, I'm the only truth. And so when Paul says we have to renew our mind, this busts the idea that there are multiple different truths, that people can have their own truth. It's like, your truth is your truth, my truth is my truth. Everyone can have their own morality wrong. Paul said you've got to renew your mind to the way that's correct. And the way that's correct is Jesus's way, the heavenly way. And so when people say, oh, yeah, brother, like you do you, all do me, like everyone has

their own morality, that's wrong. Where do we get right and wrong? We get that from God. God. And how do we see that? Where do we see that automatically? We see that in the garden. Because the one tree that Adam and Eve were told not to eat from was what?

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so we know that morality comes from God and there's one standard. And so that just totally bust. Paul's like, bro, get wrecked. I am actually telling you that there's one truth and the truth is Jesus. So you've got to change your ways to his ways. And there's a verse that actually talks a lot about it as Proverbs 14. 12. It says there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. The way that we

initially think, if we try to do things our way, if we try to think that our way is greater than God's way, the Bible here says it ends to death. And that may not be physical death. That might be spiritual death. The way that seems right to a man could be, oh man, I'm just going to keep on sinning and live my life. This Jesus guy doesn't know what he's talking about when he says life with him is better than life and sin, so I'm just going to keep doing it. Really? That's going to lead to spiritual death. Then when you stand before God on Judgment Day and you didn't receive the free gift of Jesus Christ, do you see where that follows? So when Proverbs is saying there's a way that seems right to a man, it's going to be the initial way you think. But as you go about life with Jesus and you

renew your mind and you set your things and you set your eyes on heaven, then you will begin to think like Jesus. And then your ideas and your thoughts and your your motives and desires will be aligned with heavens and not with your flesh. And so we want to be careful about that. And I also wanted to highlight this thing that I think about because I was reflecting in my life about how Jesus has changed my life. Jesus has radically changed my life. And before I fully gave myself to Jesus, before I became a Christian, I thought that the things that I was doing, that there wasn't anything wrong with what I was doing, I kept living in my sin,

but I would still feel guilty and shame when I would get done doing what I was doing. and I even remember the people that were on fire around me, I thought they were really weird. And it seemed like this thing, especially in high school, where it's like, oh, you want to try not to be weird. I want to be as normal as possible. Like, I don't want to be weird. I don't want to be like one of the weird guys.

But in reality, how's normal working out for people? How is normal working out for people? Like, how is your life when you say, oh, the normal thing for me to do is go get drunk with my friends or maybe do these drugs or how is normal working out? might not be where it's i know it's not working out you don't have to lie to me about that so maybe it's time to get a little weird maybe the christians that we call weird the people who are actually on fire and sold out for jesus maybe we should learn something from them maybe we should try to get a little weird and

see if this jesus guy's all about it and i remember that when i finally gave my life to jesus at waffle house i said god if you're really real i've had a hard time trusting in things i've put my trust in a whole lot of stuff and everything's let me down you're my last you're my last go-round So God, if you're real, please don't give up on me. And I can confidently say that he has not given up on me. He won't give up on me. And it's impossible in God's character for him to give up on me. And same goes with you.

And so, whatever we receive Jesus and we receive the truth and we allow it, we have to allow it to renew our mind. Because some of you guys don't even want to change the way you think. Some of you guys want to keep doing what you're doing. And I can't force you to renew your mind. God can't force you to renew your mind. You have free will. But if you allow God to transform your mind,

then you'll see the fruit of Jesus's teachings and his life begin to manifest in your own life because you're allowing the word of God to read you and then you begin to walk that out and live it out in your daily life. Now, now that we know what renewing of the mind is and how important it is, we need to talk about how to do it and how often do we do it. The renewal of the mind should be a daily act. Jesus calls himself the bread of life in John 6.

He says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. So what are the things in your life that you have replaced the bread of life with to try to sustain this hunger in your heart? And at least for me, I remember growing up, it was pornography. I was on a quest for love.

Everyone that you walk around with is a quest for love. And I was trying to fill this hole in my heart with pornography. And I could never sustain the hole in my heart. I never did drugs, I never did alcohol, but everyone has their own poison. And every day we're going to feed ourselves something. and the way you live your life and the way you act and the things you say will be an identical reflection to what you consume.

And so if what you're consuming is the word of God, then you'll start to see the fruits of spirit in your life. You'll start to see that you're slow to anger. You're quick to listen, not quick to speak. You won't judge. Maybe you'll stop judging others. And maybe even the fruit of Jesus being in your life and the fruit of the renewal of your mind might just be that you just stop

cussing as much. You know? We wanted to look at the big wins for Jesus. That's a win. The renewal of your mind can do things that are hard for you. Something that's hard for you might not be hard for somebody else. So something that's really hard for you is to stop cussing and by eating

your daily bread with Jesus you stop cussing, that's a huge win. That's the fruit of renewal of your mind. And so when Jesus says, I'm the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall not thirst. He's saying I can quench the hunger and thirst you have

in your heart that you're seeking in the world. I can quench that. And you know what's crazy? Is if you look at your own life and you look at your actual appetite, you get hungry multiple times a day and you get hungry every day. So every day, your soul hungers and thirsts for something. And what are you going to fill it with? And in America we have this issue where we're being rocked to sleep

with a lullaby of entertainment right now. Where we're getting so hungry that we're not turning to the word of God. We're actually turning to movies. I'm going to turn on some Netflix. I'm going to go get some food. I'm going to go do that. We're being numbed by America with entertainment. But God says, man, when you're hungry and thirsty, come to me.

And when we even look at Jesus' life, when he's tempted in the garden, not only does the renewal of your mind feed your spirit, but it actually stores something inside of your heart. His law gets written on your heart so that when temptation and hard times come, you're ready. when Satan comes to him in the wilderness in 40 days and 40 nights, how does Jesus combat the temptations?

With the Word of God. You think Jesus wasn't hungry on a 40-day fast and Satan tempted him with some bread? The reason that Jesus was able to overcome that was with the Word of God. That's how he battled it. Now, yes, he was God in the flesh, but he still underwent the same temptations

that all humankind does, and he was able to combat it and shut it down with the Word of God. And so when you read the Word of God and renew your mind daily, then you're ready for any battle that that day has to come, no matter how big, no matter how small, and you're ready for any circumstance.

Because God's law would be written on your heart. There's going to be some days when you read the Word of God, and you absorb it, and you learn so much and you're able to retain it. And I just recently went through a season where I was reading the Word of God, and I felt like I couldn't remember it. I felt like I couldn't remember it. But I realized that there's a season of feasting sometimes,

where God gives us a season where we just feast on the Word of God, and we absorb it, even though we don't think we're remembering it, our heart is having it written on our heart. And then I found the fruit of me spending time with Jesus just naturally manifesting when I was in my everyday life. And so don't be afraid whether it's battles to come. Oh no, I'm physically not remembering it. I feel like I'm not remembering.

Guys, if you're spending time with Jesus, he's right in the law on your heart. Don't be discouraged. Matthew 622 through 23 says the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. if your eyes bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. Your eyes and your ears are the windows to your soul.

And what you consume is what you become. And so if you're actively consuming the Word of God, then you're going to become an absolute tank for the kingdom. And not only that, you're going to absolutely tank through life because you have Jesus by your side and you know what he says. You're able to combat the lies of the enemy, and the voice of the advocate is more amplified in your life from the voice of the accuser.

And when the voice of the accuser comes up on you, you're able to combat it. And you're like, oh, I don't recognize that voice. That's from Satan. And Satan, you're a liar. You're the father of lies. I can combat that. The Word of God is the truth.

And everyone's on a quest for truth. Not everyone, not everyone each has our own truth. That's not true. There's one truth, and it's Jesus. And when we consume our daily life with Jesus being the truth, then our life will begin to manifest the very thing that we're searching for. And out of the mouth, comes the overflow of the heart.

So if you're reflecting on your life and you're like, I don't know if I'm spending enough time with Jesus, I don't know if I'm getting in the word much. I would actually reflect on your character and say, what is coming out of your mouth? Coming out of your mouth is the overflow of the heart. And we've got two things that are either being written on our heart. We got God's word either be written on our heart,

but we got the ways of the world being written on our heart, and it'll manifest in our life. And if there's more of the world in there, then maybe we need to spend a little bit more time with Jesus. But we need to prioritize time with Jesus because the renewal of the mind is essential to living a kingdom impactful life. And even if,

even if you go your whole life without preaching on a big stage, without preaching in big crowds, if your whole life, you just went spending time with Jesus, then you can never say you weren't ready for battle. But the beautiful thing is, is we're always getting ready for war. and the war is going on right now for people's souls and for your soul.

And so actually when you renew your mind, you're actually prepping up your armory for the battle that's over your soul. So when the lies of the enemy come your way, you're able to combat it. I want to highlight something that Jesus says in Matthew 6, which is going to be key on how to renew your mind. He says, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites,

for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who's in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. I think there's something key about meeting with Jesus in secret. I mean, there's more times in the Bible where Jesus is running away from the crowd than when he's actually like, where's the big crowd out, where's the stage?

And so when it comes to the renewal of your mind, I would actually challenge you who's watching this or listening to this to sacrifice the first fruits of your morning to spend time with Jesus. because when you start your day with Jesus, then your whole day, your eyes are going to be set on heaven. And throughout your day, I'm not saying don't listen to Jesus the rest of the day, read your Bible throughout the day,

but start your morning, the first of your morning with Jesus. I'm going to give you an example because a lot of you guys probably struggle with this. Your alarms on your phone, and you're going to wake up in the morning, and you're going to cut your alarm off on your phone. And the first thing you're going to do

is you're going to pick up your phone over your Bible. When you pick up your phone, you're going to look at it, and you're going to see a nasty DM, a nasty comment, a nasty text, and then the whole day you're going to be offended and you're going to be walking an offense and bitterness because that's the first thing you consumed

was that bitter text or whatever. When in reality, if you consume the word of God first and then life throws its issues at you, Jesus says in the Bible that tomorrow's got its own worries. So when that comes and those worries come at you and you start your day off with Jesus, that it's going to brush right off you because you care about more what Jesus thinks about you than the world.

And so I actually want to challenge you to put your Bible over your phone if your phone's your alarm. So when you wake up in the morning, if you cut your alarm off and you move your Bible off to get off your phone, then you're going to push away Jesus for some Instagram. That'll really convict you. You really want to get convicted? Put your Bible over your phone when you wake up in the morning for your alarm.

And it's going to challenge you to spend your time in the word when you cut your alarm off. Or if you really struggle with discipline, go buy an alarm clock. Like go get an alarm clock. Go get something. Put your phone in the living room. Get an alarm clock. Get a conventional alarm clock. Something.

Because the renewal of the mind is going to be essential to go and. into battle. We're soldiers. Every day, hell is making its best effort to bring people down with them. And we've got to crush hell every day. And if we're going to crush hell, we need to partner with the Word of God to change the way we think. And if we allow it to change our mind, then we can use that and manifest it through our life to help bring other people to renew their mind. So it's going to be key. So when Jesus says, go into your room and pray to your father who's in secret, sit with Jesus alone. Let God minister to you in the secret place when you're alone. Because when you're alone, God's going reveal stuff to you that he doesn't reveal to other people.

But the coolest thing about the secret place is if you're in the secret place and you're learning stuff in the secret place and your friends in the secret place, eventually at some point, both of you guys are going to have learned the same thing in the secret place, whether God reveals it to you at the same time or at different times in the secret place. The coolest thing about the secret place is the secrets of the secret place can be revealed to anyone who wants to meet with him in private. It's crazy. So if you want to renew your mind, be with Jesus and pride. So if you want to renew your mind, be with Jesus and pride. private. There's nothing wrong with doing a public Bible study, going to the coffee shop doing

something, but there really is something special about when you meet with him when no one's looking. And it's just you and him. And when people walk by your closet or a bedroom, they don't know what's going on in there, but it sounds like there's two people on the other side of that door. It's really powerful. So what do we renew our mind with? We talked about it the whole podcast, but the Word of God, Psalm 119105 says, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. So when you renew your mind with the word of God, that's going to begin to be the thing that lights up your path and how you walk. You want to walk the narrow path? You want to be able to see that narrow path easier? Read the word of God. Renew your mind. It's so simple. People are so worried about,

oh, no, the narrow path, it's so narrow, this, this, and that. But when you read the word of God, you get it. And you know where the path is, and you know each step on the path. And so when we read the word of God, it's actually going to light the way for us to burn hot for Jesus and follow God with all of our heart and love him with all we got. It's going to light the way. and when we read the word of God, we need to make it a fact and a priority to invite the Holy Spirit to teach us and minister to us when we renew our mind.

It's going to be really hard to try to understand the Bible on your own. We have the help or the Holy Spirit. God's not trying to withhold his spirit from you and watch you suffer trying to understand the Bible. God's not like a maniacal dictator up in the sky. It's like, oh man, Bryce is trying to understand the Bible. He's struggling so hard.

I love watching him struggle to understand the Bible. No. He's like, man, ask the help. the Holy Spirit. He's going to help you, he's going to teach you, he's going to reveal things to you, partner with the Holy Spirit. And the final thing I want to highlight about the Word of God and the renewal of the mind is my favorite verse about this topic. In all of the Bible is Hebrews 412. For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and of the spirit of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

the Word of God separates the soul from the Spirit, the soul being a way that seems right to a man, your carnal mind, the initial way you think, versus the Spirit, heavenly perspective, what God thinks. And when you allow the Word of God to cut you, we're going to allow it to filet us. We want the Word of God to filet us. What does it mean to filet?

When you filet a fish, you're separating the flesh from the bones. You're cutting the flesh off the bones. So we want to cut all of our flesh out with the Word of God. The Word of God is going to cut our flesh out, fillet our heart and just allow our spirit to be strengthened and follow what God says and who he says he is in that heavenly perspective. And so your goal of the renewal of the mind is to allow the Word of God to fillet your heart and cut every bit of that carnal mind and that flesh out so that your mind thinks like heaven. And I want to end this podcast by praying for a fresh hunger for the Word of God because there are a lot of you guys out there that struggle to read your Bible.

And I just want to encourage you guys that with discipline and with time, it's going to be, easier to read the word. But we also have to understand the necessity of it. It's bread, our daily breath. And if we're not consuming the word, then we're consuming something else to fill that satisfaction in our heart. And a lot of times when we're feeding our flesh, we don't want to read the word of God. But when we start feeding our spirit, our flesh is like, no, you need to go do this. You need to go do that. But as you start feeding that spirit, keep feeding that spirit. Press in. Feed that spirit. Because when you do that flesh, it's going to start to get starved. and then the Word of God is going to become just a natural part of your daily lifestyle.

And then what was once hard to spend 15 minutes with God, three hours will go by and it will have felt like 15 minutes. So I'm going to pray for a fresh hunger for the Word of God. Jesus, I thank you for anyone who's listening to our watching this podcast. God, we just ask for a fresh hunger for the Word of God. God, will people watching and listening to this get hungry for the Word and for truth? Your word says in James, if anyone lacks wisdom, ask God and he'll give it to you. And God, your Word is wisdom. God, will you give us a hunger for your word and your wisdom?

Jesus, we love you. We thank you. Pray for a fresh boldness in their life, God. And God, will you begin to renew their mind? And I pray right now, I release on things that people have been struggling to understand in the word. God, will you make it easily understandable for them right now in Jesus, mighty name? Amen.

Guys, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you loved it, subscribe, follow us on Spotify and Apple Music. And yeah, we'll see you guys next time.