Manage your Mind

Rick Warren has this devotional from January:
"God is far more interested in changing your mind than changing your circumstances.

"We want God to take away all of the problems, pain, sorrow, suffering, sickness, and sadness. But God wants to work on you first, because transformation won’t happen in your life until you renew your mind, until your thoughts begin to change."

I believe the biggest battle is in our mind and we have to be careful to take David's position of declaring the battle is the Lord's.  When something wants to come into our thoughts and pervert our thinking away from God's Spirit, we should be as offended as David was that Goliath would call out and degrade the name of God before His chosen people.  Our transformation should start with our declared faith that God and God alone is where we want our thoughts and we are trusting in Him to defeat the enemy of our own sin nature.

"Manage your mind, because your thoughts control your life.

"Proverbs 4:23 says, “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts”(TEV). The power of your thoughts has tremendous ability to shape your life for good or for bad. For example, maybe you accept the thought someone told you when you were growing up, “You’re worthless. You don’t matter.” If you accepted that thought, even though it was wrong, it shaped your life.

"All temptation happens in the mind. Paul says in Romans 7:22-23, “I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin” (TLB).

"An unmanaged mind leads to tension. A managed mind leads to tranquility. An unmanaged mind leads to conflict. A managed mind leads to confidence. An unmanaged mind leads to stress. When you don’t try to control your mind and the way you direct your thoughts, you will have an enormous amount of stress in your life. But a managed mind leads to strength and security and serenity.

"Manage your mind, because the mind is the battleground for sin.

"One of the reasons why you get mentally fatigued is because there’s a battle in your brain 24 hours a day. It’s debilitating because it’s intense, and it’s intense because your mind is your greatest asset. Satan wants your greatest asset!

"Manage your mind, because it’s the key to peace and happiness.

“Letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace” (Romans 8:6 NLT)."

I believe there is an important aspect to realize here,  Our peace and happiness will only come once we are at peace with God's authority and rule over everything.  Whether our prayer requests are answered specifically as we asked or not, knowing that God answers them in the context of what is the best for us and those around us with regard to providing our and whosoever the best viewing opportunity of Him, should be sufficient for us.  We should be at peace with God in this and when we are, we are at peace and truly happy in our own world.