{"id":1499,"date":"2019-01-10T15:38:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T22:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?post_type=portfolio&p=1499"},"modified":"2019-01-10T15:38:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T22:38:54","slug":"mind","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Up Your Mind to Manage Your Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY RICK WARREN \u2014 JANUARY 8, 2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI have made up my mind to obey your laws forever, no matter what\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(Psalm 119:112 CEV).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reason why most people are ineffective in life is that they\u2019ve never learned how to fight the battle of the mind.<\/p>\n

If you want to learn to manage your mind, you have to be delivered from destructive thoughts. That isn\u2019t easy, because there are three enemies that keep you from fulfilling all your good intentions of changing your life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The first enemy is your old nature.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Paul says in Romans 7:23,\u00a0\u201cThere is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(NLT).<\/p>\n

    Do you ever find yourself doing things that you don\u2019t really want to do? That\u2019s the battle in your brain between your old, sinful nature and your good intentions.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The second enemy is Satan.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Satan cannot force you to do anything, but he can make suggestions, and those suggestions are incredibly powerful. He is constantly planting negative thoughts in your mind. He\u2019ll use other people or he\u2019ll use the TV or he\u2019ll just throw a thought in your mind.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. The third enemy is the world\u2019s value system.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Does anything in our society encourage self-discipline? Not much. Advertisements tell us, \u201cYou deserve a break today. Have it your way. We do it all for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

        The Bible says in 1 John 2:16,\u00a0\u201cFor everything in the world\u2014the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life\u2014comes not from the Father but from the world\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(NIV).<\/p>\n

        With enemies like that, no wonder we struggle with discouragement and despair and failure!<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        So how do you fight this battle? Look at what 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says:\u00a0\u201cThough we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(NIV).<\/p>\n

        You have a choice. Your mind has to listen to you. God didn\u2019t give you just a mind. He gave you a will! The best time to win the battle with temptation is before it begins.<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        \u201cI have made up my mind to obey your laws forever, no matter what\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Psalm 119:112 CEV).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":1504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[35],"class_list":["post-1499","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_entries-english-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/1499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}