daily devotional

God is more interested in changing your mind than your circumstances. Within your mind are thoughts that control your life. Your thoughts are either propelling you toward your destiny in Christ Jesus, or your thoughts are holding you back in a little life far short of what you were created for. Which is true for you? Are you being propelled forward towards more, or are you being held back into less? It’s all according to what you’re thinking about. And this is why God is far more interested in your mind than your circumstances. This is why God will allow you to stumble right into some messy circumstances and in the middle of that mess is where he does his finest work on your mind, changing the way you think.

Every bad decision you have ever made is a result of a bad thought. Think about that and you’ll find it’s absolutely true. Every bad decision you ever made was first a bad thought that you acted on. There is a war within you for your thoughts. Your mind is the battleground.

So could today be radically changed by a shift in your thoughts? Could changing your mind change your life?

Is it a trendy new age thing to stand in the mirror and speak affirmations. Is it biblical to memorize your goals, envision your success, and harness your energy?

Let me tell you, God hard wired you to become what you think about.

Proverbs 23:7 says For as he thinketh, so is he.

Your life becomes what you think about.

Did you know God created you with a super power? Oh he sure did. It’s called your Reticular Activator. If I’ve been your mentor for very long, you likely know exactly what I’m going to say. In fact, members of BIG Life Mentoring, I just taught on this last night in our live mentoring session, so this is just a reminder to tap into your super power today. Or maybe you’ve gone your whole life without knowing you had one of these powerful little things inside of you, but none the less, it has been working in your life. Your Reticular Activator serves as the gate-kepper to you mind. It determines what you become consciously aware of and what remains as outside noise, never making it fully into your awareness.

Your reticular activator keeps you sane. If you truly noticed every one of the 400 billion sights, sounds, scents and sensations flying at you at any given second, you would go straight up crazy. So, you block out the overwhelming majority of that which is around you and only see, hear, feel, smell and notice a tiny fraction of what there is. In fact, you’re not even consciously aware of 99.999% of all that is flying at you in this moment, it’s all just background noise. Well, doesn’t that leave you to wonder what you’re missing? Now, what is responsible for determining what you become aware of and what you never even notice – your reticular activator.

And it’s not by accident. It was given to you by your creator by great design. And you can use it for your benefit. You are in charge of setting your reticular activator. How do you set your reticular activator? With your thoughts.

Today, if you decide you want to think about things that make you happy, your reticular activator will be fine tuned to seek out those very things and bring them into your awareness. Suddenly you’re surrounded by things that make you happy. They were always there, now you just notice them.

Sadly most of us have taken this amazing super power given to us by our creator and we’ve fine tuned it to find negative, stressful, overwhelming things to worry about. And as we think, so are we. We think overwhelming thoughts, so we are overwhelmed. We think worried thoughts, so we are worried. We think negative thoughts, so our lives are generally negative.

AND IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.

Your thoughts have gone wild. It’s time to harness them, tame them, and make them work for you instead of against you. Your thoughts control your life and they may just be ruining your life.

2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Take captive every thought. Grab ahold of your thoughts and examine them. Are your thoughts serving you? Are your thoughts even true? Take it captive and make it obedient. You can change your thoughts. You can intentionally change your mind and it will change the very things you see in your life. Why? Because it resets your reticular activator and the gatekeeper to your mind will begin ushering in supporting evidence for the thoughts you are thinking.

Opportunities will start showing up.
Ways to reach your goals will be there.
All the reasons why you fell in love with him in the first place will be front and center.
Reminders of gratitude and proof of the blessings in your life will be abundant.
All the amazing things you have today that were once only dreams will be highlighted and recognized front and center. I mean dang, what an amazing day of life it could be if we’re surrounded by all that is good, all that is right, all that we once prayed for and dreamed of. And guess what, that’s exactly how today could go down.

All of this will happen when you take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.

Reign those thoughts in. You don’t have to entertain every thought that flies into your mind. Think about that for a second. Entertaining a thought. Are we taking negative, harmful thoughts and entertaining them. We’re doing a song and dance for these life destroying thoughts and inviting them to hang around longer. Here, come take up space in my life you negative little worry. Come on and stay a while you pesky reminder of all that has gone wrong in the past and all that may go wrong in the future. Let me wallow in the negative. Let me soak in the pain. Let me wear my victim label and render myself powerless.

Oh good Lord, we must STOP THAT.

Take captive your thoughts. Make them obedient. What are you going to think about today?

Remember it’s very important because the thoughts you think are fine tuning your reticular activator to seek out and find all the supporting evidence to back your thoughts and prove them true in your life. Today, you decide what you become overwhelming aware of by intentionally choosing your focus. Seek your blessings, your answered prayers, all that is good and all that is right. You will surely find … your life is so good!