Change Your Mind to Change Your Life!
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Chapter 1Four Things to Know About Controlling Your Thoughts<br>
The mind is under tremendous assault today. In this information age, it is possible to have no alone time mentally. Most people don’t realize that as goes the mind, so goes the life. As a Christian, if you are going to have a strong walk with God, you must learn to harness your thoughts, and not allow them to go helter-skelter just anywhere. In this series of lessons, we will look at how Satan uses thoughts as roads into our lives. We will look at steps you can begin to take to renew your mind with God’s Word. We will discuss the importance of meditation in the Word. And then we will end by looking at how our personal belief system can be changed through meditation in the Word of God.<br>
Satan seeks to intoxicate us mentally.<br>
The mind of the average person today is blinded by Satan. Notice 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NLT): Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. Satan distorts our perceptions of God, ourselves, and others, de-emphasizes the important, and magnifies the trivial. He makes wrong look right, good look bad, etc. The prophet Isaiah says it clearly in Isaiah 5:20 (NLT): What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. These sinister thought patterns come from God’s arch-enemy Satan. The New Testament reveals to us that Satan has a scheme, a plan, a path, a method, or you could call it a ‘road’ of attack into every life. That road into each life is the road of thought. We read in 1 Peter 5:8 (NKJV): Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. The word sober here is nepho, and according to Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary, it means to be free from the influence of intoxicants. In context, it is speaking of mental intoxicants. Alcoholic beverages cause physical intoxication. And a person who is physically intoxicated will think, say, and do things that are outlandish and out of character. Similarly, a person who is mentally intoxicated by worry, doubt, fear, self-centeredness, and the desires of the flesh and surrounding culture will do things spiritually that are out of character for a believer! Satan seeks to intoxicate us mentally. So here in 1 Peter we are encouraged to practice mental self-control. 1 Peter 5:8 also encourages us to be vigilant. To be vigilant means to be ever on your guard. The rest of the verse tells us that Satan walks about as a lion on the prowl looking for a person that is not watching and is not aware that he or she is in a spiritual battle. We must never let our mental defenses down. Satan is looking for the person who is not aware that danger looms with every wayward thought. All of us must stand against Satan’s schemes of mental intoxication.<br>
Satan enters a life through the roadway of thought.<br>
We read in Ephesians 6:11-12 (NKJV): Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. (12) For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. The Greek word wiles in this verse is methodeia, and literally means with a road. The idea here is that Satan travels down a certain path, or a certain road to gain entrance into a human life. The road Satan travels into a life is the road of thoughts. I think you can begin to see the importance of watching and guarding our thoughts. Satan is ever seeking to lead us onto a detour from the path or road of life that God has for us. If we can maintain control of our thinking and not let it get out of hand, then we can keep Satan and his subtle schemes out of our lives.<br>
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About the Book
In his book, Change Your Mind To Change Your Life, Mitch Horton draws richly on his personal journey to know God as he addresses the problem of out of control thinking in a Christian’s daily life. In this book, Mitch challenges the Christian to seek to change their hurtful thinking patterns through a four step process of mind renewal.
Mitch also addresses from a Biblical perspective the need for meditation in the Word of God in a Christan’s personal life. Mitch shows how meditation in the Word of God can actually change a person’s personal belief system and help a person overcome mental traits that hinder their life and walk with God. Mitch leaves the reader with a supply of hundreds of scriptures that show who they are in Christ and that can be referenced for a daily time of scriptural meditation in God’s Word.
About the Author
Mitch Horton has been a Christian for more than forty-four years and brings a wealth of personal experience in this book. Mitch has been in Christian ministry since 1981 and has served on the pastoral team of Grace Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with Bob Yandian. He has also traveled and taught from church to church in his own ministry as well as serving as an associate pastor. Mitch has served as senior pastor of Victory Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, since 1994, where he currently leads Victory Church, a thriving congregation. After attending a Bible school in his hometown, he graduated from Rhema Bible College in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1980. He earned a master of divinity degree from Christian Life School of Theology in Columbus, Georgia.
Mitch and his wife, Susan, have been married for more than forty-one years and have four children and soon-to-be eight grandchildren. He enjoys spending his leisure hours with his bustling family and cycling on his road bike on the Neuse River Greenway in Raleigh.