Just remembering...
This article is what we have been teaching on here. This is from Beth Moore. One of the keys to a sound mind is forgiving others and forgiving yourself for holding onto all that grief or pain. I thought I would share this with you today because it really does fit into the Biblical Foundations for Freedom (I Found Freedom) plan for enemy attacks.
A Saved Mind
with Beth Moore
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (2 Timothy 1:7, NKJV)
The New King James renders this phrase in the Greek as “sound mind.” The other part of the phrase is where we get the idea of “salvation.” It refers to a saved mind.
When I think back on what Jesus Christ has done for me, I can tell you that He saved my mind. I truly was a tormented and insecure child coming out of abuse, second-guessing, self-doubt and self-loathing. With that kind of mindset, you absolutely despise yourself and believe that you'll never amount to anything. You feel like you have to constantly prove something and perform. Talk about torment of the mind! I lived my life in a cycle of defeat.
But the enemy overplayed his cards with me. He tried to convince me that God could never change me after God’s Word said that's what Jesus Christ came to do. Jesus did not come for the well; He came for the sick. He did not come for those that were already whole; He came for those that needed Him desperately. I began to see what the Bible says and I decided to believe it.
I should give a disclaimer of sorts: I am not talking about genuine, medically-diagnosed mental illness. That is something that God can and does heal through various processes, but what I’m really speaking to are situational challenges where something has happened – a circumstance, sudden crisis, whatever it may be that has caused us to go through a pronounced season of defeated thinking. Maybe we're even going so far as to make fools of ourselves externally, where our defeated thoughts come out in our defeated actions and we begin acting like the person we are thinking like.
Can you imagine what would happen if the enemy could just hold us there? If we became convinced that we don't have soundness of mind and got trapped in that place? All sorts of negative things could happen.
The Apostle Paul talked about it in Romans 7:15 when he said, “What I hate, that I do.” How many of us have done things and, while we're doing it, thought, "I don't even want to be doing this." I can remember times of defeat in my life when I thought, “Why am I doing this? I don't even want to be doing this. This isn't even where my heart is!”
It can come from rejection, loss and many other things. We can think, “I cannot mentally survive this.” We will reaffirm that idea in our minds over and over again. “I cannot make it through this. My mind will never come back together again.”
This doesn’t mean that we don’t grieve. The Word of God says we grieve, but not as those who have no hope. We certainly want to have a healthy grief, but forecasting ourselves as never having a sound mind is a lie from the enemy.
Victimization can do it. This is one I've seen over and over again because this is my specific past. I thought I would have a broken mind forever. I felt that if I had to look squarely in the face of where I had been that I would not emotionally and mentally survive it. I had to begin dealing with my emotional family tree. That is the biggest drop-out rate in the journey, because people are convinced they are not able to tolerate it. But that is a lie! We are not wimps! We have been given a strong heart and a sound mind. We are far more resilient than we realize.
I'm a big believer in seeking godly counseling. I'm a big believer in going to a professional and talking through some of the things we're going through. We can’t let the enemy intimidate us from seeking wholeness and health in Christ by having it in our heads that we will never survive it. That is a lie!
“He sent His word and healed them,” Psalm 107:20 tells us, “And delivered them from their destructions.” (NKJV)
God sent His Word to heal you. We can reprogram our thoughts to reclaim a sound, saved mind. You will feel like you think, so redeem your mind through the health and wholeness of God’s Word.
Adapted from Beth Moore’s teaching, “A Beautiful Mind.” Beth joins James and Betty all week on LIFE TODAY to talk in depth about reclaiming a sound, saved mind.
Original Christian artwork: Illustration of drawing table with detailed plans for making things.
We are thinking creatures. Thinking and making plans are not sinful. God created us with minds capable of recognizing problems and working out solutions. The error is made when we do not count God as part of the equation. While we are right to plan a day, a week, a season of labor on a farm, of buying and selling as a merchant, or on a production line, we must also recognize that God may have other plans.
First, we need to be sure that we are taking God's righteous standards into account. How are we treating the people we work with, the people who buy our goods and services, the people who live around us? How are we treating our own family? Then, we must consider the quality of our products, our labor, our services rendered. Are we giving honest value for the prices or fees we charge?
The idea is not to live in guilt but to plan our lives around the righteous standards God has already revealed to us in His Word. God will honor some attitudes and practices while judging others as unfair or "not right." If we are not right in the choices and plans we make, then we can expect God to intervene, correcting us. He wants us to care about the welfare of all those we interact with. Much is at stake. Not only in this life, but also in the next. Believers must live as witnesses to the truth we have received from God.
And then there are the plans God has that we cannot know anything about. Few of us know the day of our death ahead of time. Few of us know when a society or nation (or even the whole world) may be judged by God, or when He simply plans to change everything around for His own good reasons.
God always works to make things right. It may not seem that way to us at the time, especially if we seem to be on the losing end of some major change. But God is very good at making things right, and at giving everyone an opportunity to do better. The Lord is not only fair and righteous, He is also very, very wise in working things out.
We do not live in a very good world, even though there are many good things going on in the world. This world suffers under the curse of sin, as Paul reminds us again in Romans, chapter 8. Everything beautiful thing in the world suffers harm, illness, erosion, decay, and death. Nothing in this world exists without a beginning and an end. No matter how perfect or wonderful a work of art, a social structure, a relationship or career may seem, it will always come to an end.
God has a plan, and in that plan we each have a little while to live and work and enjoy whatever God has provided for us. We can make all the plans we want for tomorrow, next week, next year, but God will work His own plan. He will give us good strength and wisdom and great skill for a season, and then He will bring about the changes that are in His own plan.
My steps are ordered of the Lord. So are yours. No matter where we plan to go on our little journey, God Himself will bring us to the place of His own choosing. We will see what He wants us to see and learn what He enables us to learn, and accomplish what pleases Him for us to get done. Let us then make all our plans with God in mind, and let us also learn to trust His will above our own.
from the website: http://gospelgifs.com/clips/clipz07/gospel_art011.htmThis was a powerful movie of forgiveness.
Amish Grace
Upcoming Airdates:
- Wed Mar 30 at 10 PM
The peaceful Amish community of Nickel Mines is forever changed when a gunman senselessly takes the lives of five girls in a schoolhouse shooting before taking his own life. What transpires afterward takes the community by storm, as the media descend on the town and criticize its Amish leaders for their notion of unconditional forgiveness of the shooter and their outreach of support to his widow, Amy Roberts (Tammy Blanchard). Devastated by her daughter’s death, Ida Graber (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) finds herself struggling with her community’s belief in the transcending power of forgiveness. Deeply conflicted and unable to forgive the gunman and his family, Ida is tempted to leave the only life she’s ever known before re-embracing her faith.
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