Gregory Dickow - The Power of a Right Mind
And I'm calling this today the power of a right mind, the power of a right mind, and how I really want to show you how to have a right mind, what does it take to be in your right mind? And you know, because we know from the scripture that we went over Luke in Luke eight thirty five will go over that again in Luke, eight thirty five. Remember after Jesus cast the Legion of Demons out of the man who was demon possessed with thousands of demons. Jesus, it says that. Then they came out to see what had happened and came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. Everybody stay clothed and in his right mind.
Now we focused a little bit on being clothed, were clothed with two things. When we get born again, we're clothed with God's love and we're clothed with the gift of righteousness. Right. And there's a lot to be said about that. But then it says, and he was in his right mind. Now, obviously, he was out of his mind before. And when you're out of your mind, you do crazy things. When you're when you're off, you're when you have a right mind, when you're in your right mind, you make right decisions. When you're out of your mind, you make out of mind decisions. You make bad decisions. So right a right mind will make right decisions. And by the way, that's what spiritual warfare is, right. Spiritual warfare is who is going to control the decision making process of your life.
And I know I shared that with you over and over again, but Oral Roberts taught me before he died, he said, son, don't just tell people something once. Tell it to them over and over and over again, because people have to hear it over and over and over again. And like a broken record, you're going to hear me say this over and over and over again, that spiritual warfare is not fighting the devil. The devil has been defeated by Jesus. It says, and I can back all this up with scripture first, John, chapter three, verse eight says that Jesus, he said Jesus came, that he might destroy the works of the devil. So Jesus destroyed the works, the devil. Jesus defeated the devil. He said, behold, all authority has been given to me and heaven and earth in Matthew Chapter twenty eight in Luke Chapter ten nineteen. He said, Behold I give you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.
How much power over the enemy? Who's the enemy? The devil. And how much power do we have over the enemy. How much does that leave for him. Thank you. So we're not defeating the devil. He's already defeated. What we're doing is we're pulling down the strongholds of wrong thinking that the devil has weaved into our heads and weaved into our thinking patterns. Because you're not possessed by demons like that man was in Luke Chapter eight. But we are possessed with wrong thinking and wrong mindsets to which I have been assigned in your life to help you pull down those wrong thoughts, pull down those wrong mindsets and start thinking the way God created you. To think from love, to think from grace, to think from faith, to think from hope. To have the right concept of God, the right concept of yourself, which will give you the right concept of why you're here on this Earth and the right purpose and destiny for your life.
And destiny always starts with the way you think you know, because people have said over the years, you've heard me say it, you've heard other people say it, a thought turns into a decision, a decision turns into an action. Action becomes a habit. Habit becomes your character and your character leads to your destiny. You don't have to worry about fulfilling your destiny because your destiny is a byproduct of these steps that come before it. And all of them are a byproduct of the way we think. So we don't have to focus on our character. We have to focus on our destiny. We have to focus on our habits. What we need to do is focus on how we think. Because you're thinking leads to your decisions, your decisions lead to your actions, your actions lead to your habits, your habits lead to your character and your character produces your destiny.
So if you want a great destiny, it starts with great thinking. You don't have to you don't have to search for your destiny. You don't have to ask God to fulfill your destiny. You have to just think great and you'll live great. Think higher and you'll live higher. So this guy's in his right mind in Luke, Chapter eight thirty five. How did he get there? How did he get in his right mind? Because clearly he was out of his mind, breaking chains and shackles and everything they tried to use to control him. And he was harming himself and cutting himself and harming people and scaring people and and damaging his life and others. And he was naked and was without a home. He lived among the dead. He lived in the tombs. And what and what look, this is really important that we get a hold of what's the difference? What was the difference between what kind of man he was before and what kind of man he became after.
The difference was one thing, an encounter with Jesus, an encounter with Jesus. And look, every one of us has had an encounter with Jesus. But it's one thing to have an encounter with him. It's another thing to get in our right mind. It's one thing to have a one time encounter with Jesus. Many people I know, many friends, the guys that led me to the Lord, two of them in particular, that helped lead me to the Lord. They had a one time encounter with Jesus. And then they they helped me have a one time encounter with Jesus, which I had. But then they kept walking their own way. And I sat down at the feet of Jesus. The only difference was they kept walking and I sat down because the thing because we need more than an encounter with Jesus, that's where it starts an encounter with Jesus.
We get born again. But if we want to get in our right mind, we have to sit. We have to sit where at the feet of Jesus, what happens at the feet of Jesus? Well, I'll give you several things. If you go through the Scriptures, several things happen at the feet of Jesus. One, we listen to the word of God at the feet of Jesus. Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus in Luke, Chapter 10, sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to his word. That's that's the first thing that happens at the feet of Jesus. We listen to his word. The second thing that happens at the feet of Jesus is we worship him. The Bible says that that when the the the Bible says with when the when the magic came to Jesus in the manger, they fell down at Jesus feet and worshiped him.
And you know what, they didn't just worship him by falling down on their knees, they opened their treasures to him and they gave to him, you know, at the feet of Jesus were generous, at the feet of Jesus, at the feet of Jesus. We this see this guy. Why is he and what got him in his right mind? He's listening to God's word at the feet of Jesus. He's worshiping at the feet of Jesus. He's surrendering his life at the feet of Jesus. Look at verse thirty eight. Look at what he says in verse thirty eight. I think it's verse thirty eight. Let's look there. Maybe, you know, we'll just. He says now the man from whom the demons had departed begged Jesus that he might be with him. I want to be with you. I want to go with you. I want to travel with you. But Jesus sent him away saying, look, verse thirty nine.
Watch this. He says, return to your own house and tell them what great things God has done for you. And he went his way proclaiming through the whole city what great things Jesus has done for him. Because if you've been sitting at the feet of Jesus, it's going to affect your household. Oh, you don't hear this. If you've if you've been sitting at the feet of Jesus, if you've been sitting at the feet of Jesus, you're going to take it home with you. You're going to take it home. It's going to it's going to it's going to it's going to show up at home if it doesn't show up at home. And it ain't real. Right. It's not just sitting it sitting. You're sitting here listening to God's word, but don't go home and gossip. Go home and listen to the word there. Go home and share the word there. Go home and talk about if you have anybody there at home. Talk about talk about what you what God did today in your life.
And if you live by yourself, talk to yourself. Go. Yeah, that was great wasn't it. Sure was. Man, wasn't that beautiful. Yeah. That was beautiful. Wasn't that amazing. What. God. Yeah. Was amazing. He wasn't that wasn't that incredible. Preach it. Just talk to yourself. You've been listening to yourself long enough, and how's that helped you might as well start talking to yourself. You know, so we see that they were sitting at the feet of Jesus when this man was sitting at the feet of Jesus. That's how he got in his right mind. Because at his feet, we listened to him at his feet, we worship him at his feet, we thank him. Look at Luke, 17, you remember verse 15, 10, lepers were cleansed, but one. Came back, look at what it says, Luke, 17, verse 15, but one of them, when he saw that he was healed.
Now, how many did Jesus heal that day? 10. Ten were healed, right? All 10 of them were healed, but one when he saw that he was healed. You see, it's not whether God has done something amazing in your life. It's whether you're focused on it and it's whether you're looking at what God has done. Remember that old song, look what the Lord has done, right? I don't know. It probably didn't go quite like that, but probably went a lot better than that. Or that song that he hit my body. He saved my ma. He touched me just in time. Right. Remember that. Come on. What? Anybody remember how that goes? We got to do that song sometime. Would you like would you like to do that sometimes, but you can't just sing it religiously and not know the word you've got to like, you kind of like, man, you got to get into it. No matter what style of music we do here, just get into it. It's worshiping God. It's not about style. It's not about style. It's like there's all different styles.
You're here you're here to become conform to the image of Jesus, not to just listen to your favorite music. You can do that on your way home. Right. But you can't you know, this is this is your church family. My kids listen to different style music than I do like I like I listen to Elvis on the way here. You know, I you know, I'm old school. I listen to the 70s, I listen to the 60s, I listen to the stuff that when people knew how to write music. I'm not against all you guys, all you new newcomers that think that, you know, that these new guys and new gals know how to do it, you know, they're OK, but.
You know, but us old timers, man, we know what music is supposed to be, and by the way, you know, you're not hearing they don't play, you go at all. You go to all your favorite movies, you go to any of your favorite movies. And guess what the theme song gets when the theme songs, they're all from the 70s, all the theme songs. Your favorite movies are from the 70s. Why do you think that is? Because us from that generation were the best. We had the best music. We had the best TV shows. Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man. I just a kid in the new generation is awesome, too, but new music's great, too. That's why I'm saying don't don't get caught up in that. If we play worship, if we do if we do a hymn, lift your hands to the hymn. If we do a her, lift your hands to the hurt.
I like that time when the pastor was receiving a building fund offering. And he was he did he did it out loud. He said, like, we're going to take pledges and whoever makes the largest pledge gets to pick the hymn that we're going to sing. Right. And the preacher, the pastor said that. So people say, I'll give 50 dollars. Somebody said, I'll give one hundred dollars. And then later, an older lady in the back said, Preacher, I'm going to give ten thousand dollars. And the preacher said, OK, you get to pick the hymns for today. And she looked over the congregation. She said, I'll take him and him and him. She left there going like this with a bunch of men on her because, you know, that preacher gave her what she wanted when she gave 10 grand, he was like, you can have him and him and him.
I don't care as long as the check clears. Don't get don't go, don't get caught up in style, you know, like get caught up in Jesus, you can worship him with a hymn, you can worship him with a gospel song. You can worship him with a Hillsong, you can worship him with a valley song. You can worship him with a with a, you know, old 80s song. You know, I can't remember some of them will come back to me, but abiding in the divine, abiding in divine love, joy, peace. He will make it mine. You know, I got prosperity, power and victory, abiding, abiding in the I mean, you can you can do any song. You can do any song and worship Jesus. Because it's all about who you're worshiping, not look like, you know, does that make you groove like like groove to whatever man, just move and let your let your heart get into it.
All right. We're moving on. Can we move on now? At the feet of Jesus, so it says now, I lost my train. You guys got to always keep the verse up there to keep me focused because I got like A.D. and ADT and, you know. So when he saw. One, when he was 15, when when this one of them, when he saw that he was healed, that's what he was focused on. What are you focused on? Are you focused on what you're waiting for God to do or are you focused on what God has already done? That's when he returned and with a loud voice, glorified God, you know, he didn't have to be told. Come on, shout louder. Come on, sing louder. Nobody had to coach him on how to worship when he saw that he was healed. His reflex, his reaction was to glorify God with a loud voice. And nobody had to tell him to be loud.
I just want you to see what God has done for you and then you know what will happen, you'll be loud, you'll make you will make a joyful noise, and you will make a sound that other people will hear. And it won't be a religious sound. You know what it will. You know, it will be. It will be. It will be a sound of Thanksgiving. Look at verse 16, it says. And he fell down on his face at his what? At Jesus what at his feet giving him thanks. Listen, if I'm hoping that you're putting these things together with me because back in Luke 835. He was sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind what got him in his right mind? It was sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to his word, it was sitting at the feet of Jesus worshiping God.
And by the way, worship is not how high you lift your hands, although there's nothing wrong with it. And it's precious and it's beautiful to lift your hands when we're singing. But worship isn't just a song that we lift our hands to. Worship is lifting our thought life. It's lifting our thought life higher to God's way of thinking. That's true worship. You say, well, where is that in the Bible? I'm really glad you asked because it's in Romans chapter 12, verse one, he says, By the mercies of God, I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, not a dead sacrifice like that. God, God wants us to present our life to him. And then he says holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, have put the new American standard translation up. Their new American standard Bible says, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
So when, like, we're not sacrificing our bodies to die for him, we're presenting our bodies alive and what are our bodies carrying our heart and our minds. So it's surrendering our hearts and our minds to God. It's surrendering our thought life to God, which is in our bodies. Our bodies carry our brain, our thoughts, our mind. And that's what we're surrendering to God. We're presenting our bodies because our bodies, how's our heart and our mind and our thought life, which is our spiritual service of worship. You say, well, how do you know he's talking about your thought life? Because the very next verse says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. He defines what it is to worship him, be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what is the good, acceptable, imperfect will of God. This is what worship is. It's being transformed by the we're worshiping God when we're being transformed by the renewing of our mind.
Listen, you could lift your hands today and walk out of here completely the same as how you walked in. That's not worship. Worship is being transformed because lift your hands all you want. I love it. I love it. I think we should all lift our hands. It's it's an act of surrender. It's a it's an outward symbol of an inward surrender. Just like baptism, it's an outward sign of an inward acceptance of Jesus Christ as our savior and Lord, if you follow me. The water doesn't change you, it's your faith, it's you identifying with his death, going under the water and identifying with his resurrection, buried with him and risen with him.
So I hope this makes sense to somebody here today that it's the surrendering of your of your thought life to God and it's not like, oh, I had this bad thought. Oh, I had this lustful thought. Oh, I had this angry thought. I got to surrender all that to God. That's not what I'm talking about. That's not what renewing your mind is like. We're going to have thoughts like that. That's not you never going to, like, get rid of every bad thought. It's not the goal is not to, like, just be so perfect that you never have a bad thought. I'm not saying to have a bad thought. I'm just saying if it's not the goal, the goal is to have the right mindsets. It's a mindset is like the thermostat in your home, you you you set, you control the thermostat, the thermostat controls what the house is eventually going to feel like. You change the the temperature on the thermostat.
You don't set the thermostat at what the temperature is. You set the thermostat at what you want the temperature to be. Right. And so your your your mind sets are where you want your life to be. This is how I'm going to think. I'm going to think like God. I'm going to think like a winner. I'm going to think like the head, not the tail. I'm going to think like more than a conker. I'm going to think like I'm I can do all things through Christ. I'm going to adopt God's way of thinking. It's not just, oh, getting rid of this bad thought or that bad thought. It's it's it's it's setting the thermostat to God's system. Of thinking, God's mindsets, are you still with me?
So what is it to to be to be in your right mind, it's to its right minded person and person, in their right mind first and foremost. And I've already gone over some of the things. But just to just to kind of recap and put it all together, first and foremost, the person in their right mind is a mind that is convinced. That God loves them. Now, what do you think convinced this man? That God loved him. Here's what convinced him that everybody else had given up on him. Everybody else considered this man was going to be demon possessed and living among the tombs and living among the dead the rest of his life. But Jesus didn't give up on this man because because if you look at one of my favorite verses in the Bible as Matthew Chapter 12 was 20 because it describes what the Jesus that saved me.
The Jesus that saved me, this is what he's like, Matthew, chapter 12, verse 20, look at what it says. It says. Matthew, chapter 12, verse 20, sorry, Matthew, chapter 12, verse 20. And. Thank you. A bruised read, he will not break. This man was bruised by the demons, bruised by his own self-hatred, cutting himself and hurting himself and hurting others, and Jesus does not break a bruised man. He heals him. Jesus does not break a bruised woman. A damaged woman. He heals her. And a smoking flaks. That's the translation I'm not real keen on, I have a different translation for that, that I think. That that captures that a little better, let me see if I can find it for you here. It's actually I don't know where this translation what translation this is, but it goes like this, a damaged or bruised branch. He will not break, nor will he put out a dying flame.
I like this is a good one, a dimly burning wick in an amplified Bible, a dying flame or a dimly burning wick, if you ever had a candle that was just about burned out completely and you're like, oh, there's no hope for that candle, you go ahead and put it out, you just let it burn out. Jesus doesn't let your dimly burning wick go out. He restores you, he heals you, you see, and I tell you something, this man that was demon possessed, he didn't sit at the feet of Jesus because somebody taught him that the ritual to do now is to sit down at the feet of Jesus. Let me tell you what happened. This man in Luke, not in Luke, eight thirty five. This man saw a Jesus that didn't break his bruised branch but a Jesus that healed him. This man saw and felt a Jesus that didn't extinguish his dimly burning wick, but gave him a new wick. This man saw a Jesus who put aside everything else and and everybody else that needed his attention and gave his full attention to this man who everybody else had given up on.
And you know what happened, this man? Touched by Jesus, delivered by Jesus, rescued by Jesus, loved by Jesus. Bell fell to his knees in thanks and said, I'm just going to sit here. And listen. To the man that rescued me. And the man that loved me, you see what got this man sitting at the feet of Jesus was not some religious rule or some religious ritual. It was love and it was. What made Mary sit at the feet of Jesus? Well, one of those Marys, there's like several Marys in the Bible or there was one Mary that had a lot of problems, you know? Right. Because one, Mary had seven demons cast out of her. One, Mary was a prostitute caught in adultery. Like, maybe that's the same Mary. And what what do we find her doing? We find her sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to his word.
And then in Luke, chapter seven, verse forty seven, we find her pouring her precious perfume over Jesus head and weeping and wiping his feet with her tears and with her hair. And Jesus said this woman's been forgiven much, therefore she loves much. You see what brought her. To his feet, what brought her to her knees, what brought what brought her to his feet was his love. All right, not this is the religion, you must sit, you must kneel, you must fall at my feet because I am great and you are a low life. No, it's it's Jesus saying I love you. I Washo. And I raise you up. To be seated with me in heavenly places and people who get a hold of that are like I, I think I'm just going to sit here and listen to whatever this man has to say, because nobody else cast the devil out of me. Nobody else forgave me. Nobody else rescued me. Nobody else delivered me.
So I'm not listening to. Who are you listening to. We got to stop. We got to stop sitting at the feet of the gossipers. We got to stop sitting at the feet of the negative. We got to stop sitting at the feet of people that are bitter. We got to stop sitting at the feet of disgruntled people. We got to stop sitting at the feet of people that have something negative to say all the time. We got to sit at the feet of the one who loved us, the one who was just the one who gave us the one who will never give up on us, the one who will not break our damaged, bruised heart. But he will touch it and he will heal it. That's the one I'm listening to. So so if you want to if you want to be in your right mind and not be crazy anymore, because I was out of my mind before I was saved and a little while after I was saved, a long while after I was saying because healing the mind is a process.
Being born again is happens in an instant. You're born again, you're going to heaven. If you die stupid, you're going to heaven. If you if you if you're born again and you're drunk, you're going to heaven. If you're born again and you're high, you're going to heaven. There were many days I came home. There are many days I came home from work. After I got saved, I was stoned out of my mind. I'm not saying lately. But I was saved, I just didn't have my mind renewed. I wasn't I wasn't thinking God's way. I had to, like, get in the cocoon. I had to crawl in there, like the caterpillar does spin the cocoon around his body and then stay there and let the creator cause the DNA of my destiny to emerge while I keep my head in the cocoon, which means I keep my thought life.
In God's word, and I fast from wrong thinking and I renew my mind, that's the cocoon and I come to church, this is the cocoon. This isn't where we live our whole life. We're here two hours a week. And if we come on Wednesday, another hour and 15 minutes, we get out at eight, 15 gang. But what but this is the cocoon that we have to keep coming back to, because this is where the butterfly inside of you. It's not like the caterpillar disappears and a butterfly emerges. It's not like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It's not magic. It's the butterfly is inside the caterpillar and he's flipped. The caterpillar is flipped from the inside out and what's inside of him emerges and busts out of the cocoon and flies away.
That's what renewing your mind is. It's you start out as a caterpillar and all you can do is crawl. But as you stay in the cocoon of God's word and fasting from wrong thinking and all of what we're talking about, then you're your true colors that are already on the inside of you. When you're born again, your wings are already on the inside of you. When you're born again, they emerge and they are released and they grow. In the cocoon. That's what being transformed. By the renewing of your mind is it's really simple.
So, it's time for us to fly, right? It's time for us. You're not going to get to your destiny by crawling. He says you shall you shall mount up with wings as eagles. He you're not going to crawl to your destiny. It's too high, it's too great you got to fly there, so you got to get in the cocoon fast. Wrong thing. You renew your mind, keep coming to the church and hear in the pastor repeat himself over and over and over again. And here, the scriptures and the scripture and the scripture and in the beginning was the word and the word. The word. The word. The word. The word, the word. The word. The word, the word. The word of God. The word of God. The word of God. I'm not some high tech preacher with all sorts of new fangled ideas and new ways of presenting the gospel. The gospel is simple. He loved us. He washed us in his own blood and he made us kings and priests before him.
Revelation Chapter one, verse five and six. That's the gospel. Jesus died for our sins on and was buried. And on the third day he rose from the dead. And if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. So what does it mean to be in your right mind? It means to a right minded person is a person who's whose whose mind is convinced that God loves them. A person in their right mind is a person who is thankful for what God has already done. A person in their right mind is a person who worships God by elevating his thought life to God's way of thinking, not just a ritual of singing a song. And you get a hold of those three things that's what it means to be in your right mind, that you will then begin to make right decisions. And your right decisions will produce an amazing destiny.