Rabbi Schneider - Always Fixed on God
Baruch Hashem, beloved. Welcome today, bless the name of the Lord. Beautiful day outside as you can see. We're at fall time here in the Ohio area. You can see behind me the beautiful trees. Wow, this is a great day, because we've had some warm weather today, so to have the beautiful trees, the smell of autumn, and the sun shining, warm weather altogether. Beautiful, crisp day. Well, we're looking at a very special verse today from the Book of Isaiah. I'm going to read it, first of all, then we'll talk about it together. Hear the Word of God.
Isaiah 26 verse three. "The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in You". So let's take it apart. Two sections. I might have to do the second section of this on the next Seeds of Revelation, but let's at least get started today. The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace. So I want to, first of all, just bring to the forefront one of the biggest battles, if not the biggest battle that we all face is to have what? Peace of mind. How many of us battle at times with having peace of mind? I know there's times that I'm sleeping at night and all of a sudden I'm woken up in the middle of the night and a thought comes to my mind and the thought just begins to amplify.
And then I have a hard time getting back to sleep. And during the day, the thousands of thoughts that move through our mind every single day and every time a thought passes through our mind, we're having to respond as to how we want to handle that thought. Is it something to be received? Is it information that's helpful or is it somehow something from the enemy that God wants us to resist and to keep out? And so what Isaiah tells us here is that when we're steadfast of mind, we can be kept by the Lord in perfect peace. But how do we become steadfast in mind?
One of the keys Isaiah gives us is in the very next phrase. It says, Because he trusts in You. In other words, the point is we, number one, need to keep our mind focused on the Lord. And this is something that we build up. We build up an ability to keep our mind focused on the Lord. We don't go from being a zero to a hero just like that, but rather we get strengthened, it's like physical endurance. You build up that endurance spiritually as well, that you can train your mind and become more self aware, that you can keep your mind focused on the Lord. You become more aware of your words, you become more aware of your thoughts.
So the first thing is becoming self aware. We build up in strength to be able to do that. Then the second thing is we're making conscientious decisions to push our thoughts, always. If they begin to veer to the left or the right, back to God, and we're able to receive peace in that because we're trusting God with whatever thought the devil tries to throw at us that would cause worry, doubt, or fear. Because we have in our soul a foundation of trust. We're able to keep those thoughts that produce fear out. And so as a result, Isaiah tells us, we're able to keep our mind in peace.
Father, we love You today. We need You today. Father, strengthen us today. Conform us to the image of Your Son, Yeshua, whose mind was always fixed on You and who had perfect rest because of His trust in You. Abba, You said that the number of hairs on our head are numbered. Help us to know, Abba Daddy, how deeply You love us, how deeply You care for us, and how You're involved in every detail of our life in a way which gives us the ability to trust You.