As a Man Thinketh...

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7

When's the last time you actually held a conference with your thoughts? Did you know that some of the thoughts that you have about yourself are in deep conflict with the thoughts that God have about you? 

Even just your regular thoughts about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness, probably are in direct contrast of God's thoughts. Listen to these two messages real quick from one of my favorite Generals, the late Dr. Myles Munroe,

"Nothing is worse than the wrong mentality."

"You are whatever is in your sub-conscious mind."

I remember telling this to a gym room full of women at a women's conference in 2014, "Stinking thinking, produces putrid results." Look at every area of your life. These areas are a reflection of what thought patterns are governing them. You're at a dead end job, because of your thinking. You're in a dead end relationship, because of your thinking. You're lacking funds to take your dreams or vision to another level, because of your thinking. 

Think about it, beloved...

Let's take this to a higher key. A large helping of believers honestly truly have a very skewed understanding of God. So then the basis of their thinking is actually made up of these warped revelations. Many believed Jesus was poor so they associate living in poverty with living a life of Christ. #Negative. Jesus lived modestly on earth because he knew he wasn't staying here. He lived out of a satchel because this place was not his home but many have shackled themselves to a suitcase of mediocrity thinking on the contrary! 

You can't say you serve a God who owns a cattle on a thousand hills, establishes a place where there are many mansions and the streets are paved with gold, yet you're here trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?????

A lot of cycles are kept alive because of ungodly lopsided thinking. I know for a fact that a nice portion of my life prior to deliverance was riddled with repetitious behavior that was unprofitable and was funded by the way my thought patterns were set up. For example, after I broke up with my first and pretty much only boyfriend at 20 years old, I convinced myself that I was only suitable for a certain type of man; one that needed to be fixed, one that needed help. It didn't make it better that I didn't have really any examples of men of the opposite around me. So I would ignore red flags to adhere to this faulty constitution of my thinking. My declaration would always be, "I can fix him." 

My God, this thinking put me in some of the most emotionally agonizing positions I would come to know. I would find myself doing things I told myself I would never do and putting up with things that I told myself I would never put up with. Terrible!!! 

You may not be able to relate to that story. Well what about your employment or desires to improve your current living arrangements? You say, "Well I don't have the experience or degrees to work here or there but I hate where I work now." It's okay to know your lacks and limitations. It's not okay to build a constitution around it. We tend to stay in undesirable places and/or situations when we literally think ourselves into captivity. 

Let me tell you about my little scavenger hunt. I applied to be a teacher's aide for Chicago Public Schools, I applied to work in the NBC newsroom. I wanted to work as a counselor for the Chicago Men's Correctional Facility. I tried to get into the Navy. The baby activist in me wanted to run for State Rep. I then tried to stick with my degree and applied to work as an associate at Morgan Stanley three times! I made it to some interviews at other institutions too. A lot of these things I did when I'd been unemployed for quite some time. Moral of the story; I didn't see what I lacked. I didn't see what limited me. My thinking exceeded my circumstances which gave me the confidence to go after some things bigger than me. 

Romans 12:2

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.

In the first video, Dr. Myles Munroe spoke of the dog who was released from his chain but did not go after the meat. It was because his mind had not caught up or accepted that he was no longer bound.

Once you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you've been released from the chains that had you bound. What was once presumably impossible to you, is now possible with God! Now you must partake of the meat, the benefits of salvation! I challenge you this week to sift through your mind and chastise your thoughts. Turn over every stone. Dig deep into the thinking of your heart, the subconscious mind. 

You may find that some of your thinking comes from how you were raised.  

There's so many people who's picked up methods of living from parents or a parent. People who even believe the erroneous things about God because of how they were raised. You may have experienced some type of trauma or misfortune that heavily influences how you think. Maybe you were molested, raped, received a surprising health diagnosis, lost a job, got a divorce, been evicted, got arrested, served some time, lost a loved one tragically, saw someone die, all of these things makes imprints on our minds and causes glitches in our thinking which shows up in our lives. 

I tell you this, what it's going to take this year for your world to pull a complete 180 degrees, is for you to stand flat footed and confront the parts of you that's satisfied with this stinking thinking. Therapy through a medical professional or pastoral counseling can help you unpack and get to the root of of this if it's really serious. But you can't expect to move any further or obtain the best that you desire if your thinking makes you comfortable in your cubbyhole of chaos! And you don't have to be surrounded by explosives and land mines for things to be in chaos either. Just something as simple as ignorance is chaos. Moreover, there is a such thing as ignorance perfected by fear! Fear is chaos too! 

You heard that? 

I saw a meme one day that said, "There's nothing more frightening about change except when nothing changes." 

It's time to change your thinking or risk nothing changing.  

G.I.N.O 

God Is Number One