No Turning BackSample

On your journey with Jesus, what you think is incredibly important. When the Bible talks about sin, it’s talking about both sinful actions and sinful thoughts (Ephesians 4:17–18). God uses Paul’s words to connect action with belief. When people are separated from Jesus, they walk (act) “in the futility of their minds.”

Here’s what’s crazy. You can be morally decent. You can attend church. You can even do all the “right” Christian things—float around and have manna for breakfast—and still live an ungodly life. How? By never allowing Jesus to transform your thinking. A God-centered (rather than me-centered) life starts in the mind. When we terminate God from our thoughts, toxicity is bound to dominate our lives. It’s time to deliberately decide to live with God not only on our minds but also in and through His heart!

How do we actually fix our minds on God and keep our thoughts there? We find a clue in observing what makes true Christ-followers different from their nice, decent, but unbelieving neighbors. It all starts with truth. A Christian believes that God created humankind, people chose (and still choose!) sin, Jesus died to pay the just penalty for that sin, and our resurrected Lord will one day welcome His followers home to eternal life with Him. Dwelling on and living out these core gospel truths transform us from people who do good things into redeemed saints who’ve been set free from sin.

God will transform our hardened hearts and, through His Spirit in us, cause us to walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36). I also don’t want you to miss this crucial dynamic: God vows to put all this in us; it’s not based on what you or I can do . . . ever. It’s about who God places in us: His Holy Spirit. The supernatural movement of the Holy Spirit works this extraordinary change deep within us, turning our toxic thinking to transformative truth.

It’s often frustrating for me that the dismantling of my old self and toxic thinking is not immediate. It’s progressive. It takes time to grow in godliness, and we must be set apart in our thinking. But when Jesus becomes a person we know, and not just a place we go for help, everything will change . . . especially how we think.

Think upon these truths: God never uses words to condemn His children: loser, failure, no good, useless, stupid. Instead, God calls His children Beloved, Redeemed, Chosen, Disciples, and Heirs.