What are you thinking?

“God wants us to actually choose our thoughts.”

Dr. Glenn Pickering shares the importance of choosing our thoughts and considering our decisions and responses.

“We actually have two thoughts about everything.”

There is the initial thought, which is almost always the wrong, and the follow up thought, which we have the power to choose.

“Here’s a trivial example: Somebody says to me, “Hey, Glenn, we’re all over here in the corner having some coffee and some donuts, you want a donut?” I have two reactions to that and they’re both true: Yes, right now, and something close to get the behind me Satan – and those are both true.”

“So we have that automatic thought that we’re not responsible for, but we also have freedom in Christ to slow down long enough to choose the thought that we actually want – and it’s not that first one almost ever.

We are responsible for taking our thoughts captive and responding wisely.

“It’s picking the important over the urgent. It’s the difference between a child and an adult.  A child only has that first thought.  An adult says, “Well, no, there’s a bigger picture here, and even though in the very short term I do want that, in the big picture that’s not what I want,” but a child can’t think that way.”

In doing so we exercise our freedom in Christ, and our freedom from addiction.

“The scripture talks a lot about freedom in Christ – Paul loves to talk about that. When I talk to Christians about that they get a little nervous like, ‘Oh I wouldn’t want to use my freedom in the wrong way.'”

God’s not worried that you’re going to use your freedom wrongly, he’s worried you’re not going to use your freedom at all.  You have the freedom to create a different life for yourself, and God’s mostly worried you’re just going to keep on doing what you’ve been doing because that doesn’t take any thought.”

Highlight – A power greater than ourselves

A power greater than ourselves