Tag Archives: heart

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The Thought Monster!

When we are young, we have a way of turning things into monsters that are not really monsters. We can be laying in bed and all of a sudden the shirt we left hanging on the bed post turns into some demonic entity that has escaped the underground prison it’s been caged up in, just to come kill us and destroy our hopes of growing up and one day driving a car to the moon and back. The crazy thing is, the more we look at it, the more real it becomes and the less sleep we get.

When we become adults, it really does not change all that much. The major difference is that we don’t have to be laying in the bed in a dark room. We can be sitting on the beach in the beautiful sunshine and our thoughts become, negative, dark, depressing and before we know it, inside of our heads we find ourselves in the midst of the most viscious storm that it sure to take our lives and ruin everything we have ever counted as dear.

Thoughts are powerful and with them we can imagine the absolute worst or the most magnificent best – the choice is ours! We really do have the power, but we fail to realize it and often empower the wrong side of things, tipping the scales against ourselves, rather than in our favor.

For most of our lives, we are often just one decision away from a totally different life and this can be a negative or a positive, we just have to decide for ourselves. This is why our thoughts are so important, because our thoughts become words, which turn into actions, which grow into habits, which eventually become apart of our character and our character ultimately leads us into our destiny.

It is very important for us to understand: The Battle For Our Heart Is Most Often Fought In Our Mind. It is in fact a battle and it always will be on this side of eternity. This is why it is important to challenge, question, inspect and change the way we think, because when we change the way we think about things, the things we think about change and the goal here is change for the better.

Here are three thoughts to help all of us think better thoughts:

1. Think about what you are thinking about! Is the majority of your thinking negative or positive? Is it building up toward a meaningful goal or tearing down what could really make a difference? Be honest with yourself and when you identify wrong, hurtful and negative thinking, be prepared to take it on and take it out.

2. Make Room For The Right Thinking By Getting Rid Of The Wrong Thinking! We have a limited amount of space in our minds and if we are honest, a lot of that space has been taken over by thoughts that are doing more harm than good, so what can we do about it? Challenge those wrong thoughts so that they change into right thoughts that are taking you closer to where you were created to be, rather than farther away.

3. Increase Your Right Thinking In Every Way You Can Think Of! There are so many different things we can do to increase our right thinking. We can start a gratitude list that helps to remind us of all the amazing blessings we have flowing into and through our lives. We can journal our thoughts, ideas and learning on a daily basis that helps us to get it out of our head, so that we can observe things from a different perspective. We can intentionally set positive reminders by reading, writing, posting, sharing positive thoughts, quotes and ideas in as many different places and in as many diffferent ways as possible…

We can take on the THOUGHT MONSTER and win, we just have to have the thought that this is what we are going to do and then follow through on that thought! Once you’ve taken the step, you will be glad you did…

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The Right Perspective!

 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”  -John 14:1-3

BELIEVE!  Life is tough and it is going to throw you curve balls.  In fact, life will throw you a knuckle ball right upside the nose every now and then.  On the best days, it’s not easy, but it is possible to live a blessed life and a blessed life makes all the difference.  You have access to control how you take it and what you do with it.  Jesus said:  “Let not your heart be troubled!” indicating that we make the choice.  Sometimes, you just have to grab hold of your emotions and let them know who the real boss is.  The best way to do this is by fighting your fear with faith.  Jesus said:  “Believe in God, believe also in me!” and if your really believe, then this is a “game changer!”  No matter what you are going through, remember:  Don’t Panic – God’s got this!

CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE!  After we get our belief fixed, we then need to focus on changing our perspective.  We do this, by moving from the finite limited time and space of this moment to the infinite, unlimited time and space of eternity.  Whatever you are facing right now, ask yourself this question:  “What’s the worse thing that can happen?”  Ask this question enough times and you are probably going to come up with the answer:  Death!  Well, death is no big deal for Believer!  Jesus moved from a present perspective to an eternal perspective when he said:  “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places and I go to prepare a place for you!”

Next time you find yourself fretting over something, ask yourself this question:  “What is this going to matter 100 years from now?”

The Scriptures teach us in Philippians 1:21 that to live is Christ and to die is gain!  This physical body is simply my “FLESH SUIT!”  One of these days when this body dies, I am going to take off this flesh suit and then I will really fly!  Death is not a big deal, because it is just me separating from this body and the 70, 80 0 r 90 years, which are a small blip on the radar screen compared to ETERNITY!

The enemy wants to put blinders on you, so that all you can see is your problem, challenge or frustration, but don’t fall for the trick!  The enemy wants you to lose and forget about your eternal perspective, but don’t you dare trade in the good stuff of your Creator!  Use your memory and look back at all the times that you thought your ship was sunk, but the blessings came through and you can say with the Psalmist in 103:  “Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not none of his benefits!”

Now this is living blessed and it is what you were created for – get you some of that and live blessed!

 

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Trouble Free Heart!

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“Do not let your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.”     John 14:1

When Jesus speaks these words, he is not offering a suggestion to be accepted, he is giving a command to be obeyed, a principle to be followed.  It is not optional, it is the very foundation to our getting the spiritual life right for His glory.  Jesus was giving this information to his disciples right before he was to be crucified.  Life as they knew it was about to encounter the biggest change and most crazy challenge that they had ever faced.  They were about to have to live in a world without Jesus in the flesh.  Jesus was preparing them, by telling them that no matter what – “Do not let your hearts be troubled!”

Have you ever noticed that most believers and non believers respond in just about the same way to the challenges of life.  This should not be.  Believers should respond with faith over fear, with expectation over desperation and with hope over hopelessness.  Most all of us, tend to respond to the challenges of life with our emotions.  The problem with this, is that if we don’t control our emotions, then our emotions will control us.

The problem with emotions is that they tend to want to run and will run away from your control before you know it.  When Jesus says:  “Let not your hearts be troubled!”, he is teaching us to reign in our emotions before they get out of control.  You can rule your emotions, or they will rule you.  Every person has to decide for themselves – how they are going to handle the tough battle with emotions.

If you decide that you want to deal with your emotions, then you have to learn how not to indulge the negative.  Life is full of negatives.  We are surrounded and bombarded by them from all forms of media.  Indulging the negative is making an on purpose decision to live life in fear, not in faith.  If Jesus commands us to do something, then it is possible and what seems impossible, always becomes possible through the power of faith expressed in our everyday living.

Life is going to throw some challenges your ways this week, I want to encourage you to follow the instruction of Jesus and “LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED!  I promise you will be glad you did!  😉