Joyce Meyer - How Your Mind Affects Your Outlook On Life

TOPICS: Mind

Okay, a few opening comments. How much thought have you ever given to your thoughts? Do you ever think about what you're thinking about? If you find yourself in a bad mood, a low mood, emotionally you feel like you're really getting down in the dumps, getting discouraged, why don't you take a few minutes and stop and think about what you're thinking about? And you'll find that the way you feel is connected to the way you're thinking.

Are you aware of how much your thoughts affect every area of your life? They affect the words you speak, your moods, attitudes, your relationship with God, yourself, and other people, and every decision and every behavior that you make. And no, you don't have to just think whatever falls in your head. You can do your own thinking. I'll go slow. You see, the reason why it's quiet is because this is something we never think about. We never think about how we think.

You know, we just wake up in the morning, the devil says, "You're depressed," and you say, "I'm depressed". You just get right in agreement with him, "Yeah, I'm depressed". He says, "It's going to be a lousy day," you get up and the first thing you say to somebody is, "It's going to be a lousy day". We have to learn to recognize the lies of satan and to understand that, more than any other thing, he uses our mind. He lies to us, he brings deception into our lives. He tries to steal everything from us that Jesus came to give us. And we can't just sit passively by, and wish we didn't feel this way, and kind of hope something happens.

You know, that kind of hope really isn't hope at all. Hope is expecting that something good is going to happen. It's not, "Well, I hope God does something". You know, the Bible says that the Kingdom of God has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. And I love that. "The kingdom of God has suffered attack, and the energetic take it by force," is a better translation.

And so, we need to stop just thinking that everything good is just going to fall on us, and we need to realize that God is giving us a life plan in the Bible. He said, "I am the Way". And so, you might say in here is the way to live. Now, you can't circumvent it. Doesn't matter if you like it or not. God's not going to change His mind. In here is the way to live. And any problem that you have, the answer to that problem is in this book. And so, we learn what's in here. And this takes time. You get better and better and better, but nobody's going to have total victory overnight. This is not a drive-through breakthrough.

You know, you can drive through and get just about everything today, but you cannot get a drive-through breakthrough. You're going to have to go through to get the breakthroughs that you need. Amen? And changing our thinking, learning how to let the Holy Spirit show us when our thoughts are wrong, learning how to recognize the lies of satan and learning to think the way that God thinks about every situation is the very basic foundational thing that has to take place for any kind of real transformation in our lives.

Do you ever feel like that you're losing your mind? Well, perhaps you are. Perhaps you've lost or given up the control of your thoughts. So really when we say, "I feel like I'm losing my mind," it's because we're letting the enemy do our thinking for us and he's filling our minds with worry, and fear, and anxiety, and threats, and every kind of torment. You say, "Well, I just don't know what to do. What can I do?". Well, think something else. Think something good. Good always overcomes evil. "Well, I can't help it. You know, I'm just a worrier". Well, the first thing you might do is stop saying that. Don't ever say again, "I'm a worrier". Don't say that. Perhaps you've never even known that you could control your thoughts.