Sunday, June 5, 2011

Session 2 - Beth Moore (part 1)

Well, finally, I am here again, and this time, I'm actually going to write about Beth Moore's morning session talk. It's going to be long, and sorry if it doesn't make a ton of sense, I'm writing from the notes I took.

The passage she spoke on was Romans 12:1-2 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer 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."

God's will is perfect. The Bible says we have to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Then, and ONLY then, will you be able to discern what the will of God is. We cannot know the will of God, without the renewing of our minds.

Anything that impacts our calling, God has direction for in our lives. He has a will for our lives, and his will is the most fulfilling.

There is no one like our God! There is nothing like him. And he has a will, a plan for your life.

In order to fulfill our callings, we need the Holy Spirit. We cannot do it on our own. We cannot accomplish what the Lord has called us to accomplish on our own. We have to fight for perseverance. It will not come easily and it will not come naturally. It requires a renewed mind.

Hebrews 10:35-36 says, "So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised."

Our minds need to be renewed. Let's just take a second to look at the beauty of our minds. Some facts about the brain (courtesy of Beth Moore)

Our brains are about the size of both fists. About three pounds. (these are three pounds you would NOT want to loose.)

Decisions are made in the front part of your brain. (Funny how people often touch their forehead when thinking about making a decision)

The memory part of the brain is close to your temple. (Again, often touched when trying to remember of something)

There are 100 billion neurons in our brains that make 100 trillion connections. (We can't even comprehend how big those numbers are!)

Off of these neurons are synapses - which kind of look like trees.
Matthew 7:20 says, "Thus, by their fruit, you will recognize them."
Whatever is going on in our minds - produces fruit in the activation of our lives

There is no way to measure the capacity of our brains. (kind of crazy to think about)

Our minds are brilliant. The capabilities of our minds are amazing. Beth told us about a story she saw in the news, or read somewhere about a guy who dove into a pool and hit his head on the bottom. He got a concussion and had some brain damage. When he had recovered, he was at a friends house who owned a piano. For some reason he was drawn to it. He sat down and started masterfully playing the piano. He had never touched a piano in his life. He could play Beethoven, and Mozart beautifully. Our brains are so cool!

The same mind that has the capacity for brilliance, has a capacity for darkness beyond what any of us have ever imagined. Henry Ward Beacher said, "there are materials enough in every mans mind to make a hell there."

Job 21:6 says, "when I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body." Our thoughts can produce physical results. Our mind controls our body.

God has given us the ability to reason and know what we do and why.

The King James Version of Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil. To give you a future and a hope." It may sound repetitive - the thoughts I think towards you - but God thinks thoughts towards us! Part of what separates us from animals is our intellect. The ability to think thoughts.

If we try to zero in on what is going on in our heads, we often think that real change is not even possible. That is a lie. WE CAN CHANGE OUR MINDS!

A word that is used over and over and over in scriptures, which means to change my mind, is the word repentance. Which means to change my mind in such a way that it changes my actions. Our ability to discern and distinguish the will of God is dependent on repentance - the changing of our minds.

Our minds have to be transformed.

I am only just getting started. I didn't realize quite how many pages of notes I took. But in the interest of trying to not loose you in length, I will continue in another post. Just hold tight, the best is yet to come. Don't forget this though.

Session 2 - Beth Moore (part 2)

Okay, so our minds are amazing. And we have the ability to change them. The Bible says that we have to be renewed by the transforming of our minds. This doesn't come easily and naturally. You have to work at it.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says, "For though 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."

The transformation of our minds is not just going to happen. It is a battle we have to fight and we have to fight it deliberately. We have divine power to demolish strongholds, we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ - another way of saying renewing the mind.

If we reflect and look at what our lives would really be like if we gave our lives fully to Christ - it goes all the way back to the garden in Genesis. We somehow got into our heads that God is trying to cheat us, that we would be freer if we were out from under his control. We think he is about limiting us and taking from us. And we don't even begin to understand that he says - this is where life is beyond your imagination - when you bring your thoughts to me. Not to captivate them, but to give them a focus. To tell you, "this is your direction. This is what you were meant to do."

A stronghold is anything that gets a strong hold on your mind. It has mastery over you. It can be an addiction, greed, pride, forgiveness, lust, insecurity, jealousy, rejection, etc.

Ephesians 4:17-19 says, "So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more."

This is basically the New Testament definition of addiction. They had given themselves over...with a continual lust for more.

Our temptation is to think, "I just want to manage it (my stronghold or addiction), I can handle it." But the nature of addictions that it only calls for more and more and more and then the old thing that used to cut it for us no longer works. It then takes over and has a strong hold on us. A stronghold is anything that is pretending to have more power than God. It has exalted itself over your life.

2 Timothy 2:26 says, "and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will."

The devil really does exist. The enemy has a plot to destroy God's will for your life. Anything he can do. God has a will for your life, and Satan has a will for your life. And both continually call for more. More and more for the spirit of Christ, or more and more bondage. But we will never be able to maintain where we are. That's not how the mind works. You are constantly moving in one direction or the other.

Okay, so is it really possible to live in mental victory? To live without any strongholds?

Psalm 119:133 says, "direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me."

Sanctification (the process of being more like Christ) is an ongoing process. We are fully capable of living life completely victoriously. There is enough power in Christ that we can walk without any kind of sin having dominion over us.

1 Corinthians 6:12 says, "everything is permissible for me - but I will not be mastered by anything." Nothing in this world will have mastery over me. Like Louie had talked about in his talk the night before - we have to chain our lives to Christ. If he is truly our master, nothing else can be.

If we're really going to do what God has called us to do in our lives - it is really going to take some focus on Him. There have always been challenges, there will always be distractions. You have to let distractions go, and zero in on God. If you want a mind for God, if you want to be anointed by His power to do what you could not possibly do on your own - we've got to be able to frequently let go of everything else. To shut the door to every single pipe that is trying to get to us, and have our minds renewed before God. He doesn't yell. He speaks in a small still voice and we are desperate to hear it.

Psalm 27:4 says, "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to see him in his temple."

We have so many distractions. It is scary to think that the greatest minds in the world, the greatest minds of our generation may not make an impact because the mind has not been renewed enough to completely get God's will. One thing - God is a jealous God. He wants to be our one thing. Shut off every other thing to hear the Lord and do just one thing.

It's never been harder to do just one thing. Are we willing to work the mind that God has given us? Not to just watch something, but to read. And read a lot. And with all the capacity we have in our minds - to take captive the thoughts of Christ. Memorize scripture. Memorize chapters of scripture. Memorize whole books of the Bible. You're brain has the capacity to do it! And when it is in your head, you will see results in your actions. Your life will be renewed by the thoughts of Christ.

Luke 2:18-19 says, "and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."

Mary treasured the things that she heard from Jesus and pondered them in her heart. Everyone else was amazed, but Mary actually took the time to think things through. We can come together and be amazed. The conference was amazing. But it is pointless if we walk away just amazed. We need it to change our lives. The change comes when we don't stop at amazement, but we think it through. If we shut it down and do the next thing, we're going to miss what God has for us. Don't just be amazed. Think things through. For just one thing.

Session 2 - Beth Moore (part 3)

So our minds are amazing. And with an amazing mind, we can do really great things. We can also do really destructive things. Looking back at what Beth had said earlier in her talk, the same mind that has the capacity for brilliance, has a capacity for darkness beyond what any of us have ever imagined.

We're now going to look at the destructive patterns in our brains.

The really cool thing about our brains is that we can create pathways in our brains. A chain reaction is happening in neurons when we think the same way over and over again. The more we think that way, the more we burn a path in our brain through the neurons. When we think the same way over and over again it paves paths in our minds. These can either be destructive or constructive.

You basically pave a path. Which then turns into a road. And then a highway. If I get in this situation - this is the thing that I am going to think. Automatically. Because you have been thinking that way for so long. After the highway, we get on the toll road with it, and it acquires quite a cost to us. We really do have the right and the capacity to decide how we are going to think, what we're going to use our minds to do and what kind of path we are going to tread. We get to decide that this is going to become the reaction instead of that.

We can begin to think a new thought about an old situation. This is the renewing of your mind.

It is not an overnight fix. You can't just say, "I'm never going to think about this again."

A renewed mind - thinking new thoughts about the old thing - will defuse the power it has over you.

Beth said that people often say to her, "I can't change the way I feel." No. But you can change the way you think, and that will change the way you feel.

We have the capability, we have the invitation to know the thoughts we think. We can change our minds, and that will change our hearts.

Luke 24:45 says, "Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures."

1 Corinthians 2:9-10 says, "no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him - but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit."

In order to hear one thing from Him, we have to frequently close everything out.

If you give him your mind, he will blow it for you.