TCA 30May24 - Mind Renewal - Ps Chris Mabitsela

The speaker is Pastor Chris Mabitsela. He discusses the importance of renewing the mind and how our thoughts control our lives. He explains that problems and negative expectations can corrupt our minds, and we need to be careful about what we think. He emphasizes the need to fill our minds with the Word of God and be intentional about the process of change. He also advises recognizing and replacing default ways of thinking with God's truth. Tolibona, Tolibona, Tolibona Erakhoikama sesungizolima Ito'y dimagal Ito'y dimagal Erakhoikama Kingdom greetings to everyone. Today we have Pastor Chris Mabitsela. He will be sharing with us the word. Over to you Pastor Chris. Thank you, thank you, thank you Mabitsela. Good morning to everyone in the name of Jesus. Amen. Erekelevoremo apostola, Pastor Jose and the family for this opportunity. Kelevore kudukudukudu the Holy Spirit. I am feeling this opportunity to be in this platform this morning. My name is Pastor Chris as the Apostles have already said. Today I want us to read Romans chapter 12. Let's read verse 1 and 2. Romans chapter 12 verse 1 and 2. Romans chapter 12 verse 1 it says I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God which is your reasonable savings. And do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good acceptable and perfect will of God. Hallelujah. I want to talk about the renewing of the mind. The process and everything that goes into that. From the scripture that you have just read. This is what I'm taking I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about things that compels us to go into the process of mind renewal. And what needs to be done. How to do it. And then I am done. Hallelujah. The first thing is what compels us to go into that process. The mind. We are told that we often focus on our problems instead of meditating on God's promises. So it means when the word says we need to renew our minds. It means in the beginning our minds were perfect. Our minds were pure. But we let in some things into our minds. And then JLo did it over our minds. It needed a renewal. And one of those things are the problems that crops up into our lives. We allow those problems to crop up and we end up meditating on the problems instead of meditating on the promises of God. And we are told that whatever you focus on, you become. So if you focus on your problems, you become your problems. When you find yourself grumpy, always angry, rebellious and stuff. It is because of the problems that came into your life. And you allowed those problems to take seat and relax in your mind. And you finally, you end up becoming those problems. That is one Yamatata Red. And we are told that what we expect determines much of how we live. Your expectations. If you're always expecting bad things to happen in your life, that is what you are meditating upon. You're not expecting good, you're always expecting negative. And negative will come into your thought life. That is one of the problems that we come across. One of the things that compels us to seek a mind renewal. We expect negative and we end up becoming negative in our lives. We are told that there's this thing called a default mode. We tend to follow our thoughts instead of leading our thoughts. You grow up, I mean, the default mode, where do we get that? You get that from your families, from your friends, from the schools you attended, from the streets, from wherever, your colleagues and stuff. So you have that default mode. Every time you go back to the default mode. Let me give you an example. If, say, you grew up in an environment that said you have to be perfect in order to be loved. You'll grow up believing that for me to be loved, I need to be perfect. Nobody can love me if I'm not perfect. God cannot love me if I'm not perfect. And you grow up believing that I have to be perfect. So you spend the rest of your life thinking that because I cannot be perfect, it means nobody loves me. And that's a lie from the devil. Hallelujah. You need to understand that it's a lie from the devil. So you need to renew your mind with the Word of God. Give me Ephesians chapter 4 from verse 22 up to 25. Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 from verse 22 to 25. It says, this is from 22, So that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the disciple. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. You need to get rid of the programs that were put in your system and put in a new program according to the Word of God. That is why I said in the beginning, the scripture we read, Romans chapter 12 says we need to renew our minds. It means our minds were once perfect. It means our minds were once pure. But we let in some things into our minds. We let in toxins. We let in whatever negatives. We let in all those, those, those, those things. They ended up changing our mind, corroding our perfect mind. So that is why we need to renew our minds. Hallelujah. Then we need to be very, very careful about what we think about. When you read Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23, go to Proverbs chapter 4. Here we need to be careful what we think about because our thoughts control our lives. Our thoughts control our lives. That is why we need to be very, very, very, very careful about what we think about. Let me see the version that I was focusing on. Yes, it says be very careful. It's in the International Children's Bible. Be very careful about what you think. Your thoughts run your life. Hallelujah. You need to be very careful about what you think. And then in the Good News translation, it also says be careful how you think. Your life is shaped by your thoughts. Amen. Your life is shaped by your thoughts. So you must make sure that every time this, this, this, this, you put guards around because our thoughts are shaped by what? Our thoughts are shaped by what we see and what we hear. And you're not going to control. You can control what you meditate upon. You can control what you ponder upon. You can control what you allow into your mind. Because right now you might be sitting here and you didn't choose to do that. But if you meditate upon that, that is when you allow that into your mind. You can stop it wherever it is. So the Word of God says be careful what you think about because your life is shaped by your thoughts. Hallelujah. And then we move on. Our thoughts make us what we are. Our thoughts make us what we are. We were taught our destiny comes from our thoughts. I get we are told that our thoughts produces our feelings. Then from feelings we act upon our feelings. Then our actions produce what? After actions it is habits. And then from habits we go to character. And then character forms, leads us to our destiny. Whatever, wherever you find yourself, whatever, it is because of life. And your thought life came because of what you have seen and what you have heard and what you have entertained. Amen. We move on. Hallelujah. Any thought that is contrary to the Word of God is a lie. And if we allow lies into our thought life, that means lies are going to control us. Amen. That is what compels us to go into that process. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Meditating on the wrong thing. Then we move on to the second one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What needs to be done? Proverbs chapter 4. Let's read from 20 to 22. Proverbs chapter 4. We read from 20 to 22. Proverbs chapter 4. Let's read from 20 to 22. My son, give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and hell to their flesh. Amen. We need to keep God's Word around us. Let God's Word be in front of you. Let God's Word be in your mouth. Let God's Word be in your heart. Let God saturate your system with the Word of God. Amen. We need to make God's Word a major part of our life. Without the Word, we are lost. Hallelujah. We need to make God's Word a major part of our life. If you spend more time on other things, say, whatever, and neglect the Word of God, at the end of the day, you will become and those other things. So you really, really need to make the Word of God a major part of your life. We need to be constantly renewed in the spirit of our minds. We read that in Ephesians 4.23. Please give us Ephesians 4.23 in the Amplified Version. Be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind. Ephesians 4.23 in the Amplified Version. And be continually renewed in the spirit of your mind. You need to have a fresh and tenacious mental and spiritual attitude. Amen. We need to have that. A fresh and tenacious mental and spiritual attitude. You're not going to have a fresh and tenacious mental and spiritual attitude if you spend more time on those other things and neglect the Word. You only open your Bible on Sunday or only on Wednesdays when there is Bible study. That's not going to work. We need to spend more time reading the Word of God, meditating upon it, so that we can have a fresh and tenacious mental and spiritual attitude. That's what the Word says. And we need to be intentional about the process of change because it doesn't happen automatically. You need to be intentional. You need to remind yourself every moment, every day, every week, every month, I need to be renewed. I need a fresh and tenacious mental and spiritual attitude. I need to get rid of the toxins that have been brought into my mind. I need to get rid of all the negatives because there's always dust. So even if you close your doors and you don't clean and then you believe the Word because there was nobody in the house, the house is always clean, it's not like that because that's your night or day, no matter what you do. So every time you need to go and clean, that is what you need to do with your thought life, that is what you need to do with your mind for you to have that fresh and tenacious mental and spiritual attitude. Hallelujah. It doesn't happen automatically. So you need to work on it. And one other thing is that we need to spend time recognizing our default ways of thinking and replacing them with the truth of God. Amen. We need to spend time recognizing our default ways of thinking because we always go there. Amen. We always go back to our default ways of thinking. It doesn't matter what church, five, six, seven, eight times a week. It doesn't matter. We always go back to our default ways of thinking. And what we need to do, you need to recognize those default ways and replace them with the truth of God's way. And you need to know Mzalwana is a process. Two weeks, then you are gone. I mean, if you spent the last 40, 50, 60 years of your life meditating upon something negative, and then you think you'll get rid of that in two hours, that's not going to work unless it's a miracle. Hallelujah. Unless you are at the pool of Bethesda. But you need to work on it, and you need to understand that it's a process until it is gone. Hallelujah. Amen. We are told that our thoughts should meet up to the standards in Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. Give me Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. Philippians 4, verse 8, it says, Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God's word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good report, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things. Center your mind on them and implant them in your heart. So that is what we need to do. We need our thoughts to meet up to those standards. Whatever is right, whatever is true, whatever is lovely. So whenever anything comes into your mind, you need to ask yourself questionarily, Is this thing pure? Is this thing lovely? Is this thing admirable? Is it of good report? Is it excellent? Amen. Everything, whatever, it doesn't matter where you are. You are at church, you are at your workplace, in the street, or wherever. But every time something comes into your mind, you should check it against Philippians for a door. Is what I'm thinking good? Is what I'm thinking pure? Is what I'm thinking worth of respect? Is what I'm thinking okay? Is it admirable? That's what you need to do. You need to measure whatever you are thinking, whatever is in your thoughts to the standards set out in Philippians 4.8. Hallelujah. And we are told that when we fill our thoughts with the right things, the wrong ones have no room to enter. And that is to a smile of letting you all over it. When you fill your thoughts with the right things, the wrong ones have no room to enter. If your thoughts are filled with the weight of God, anything else that tries to enter, even what is contrary to the weight of God, will not find room to enter. So let us make sure that we fill our thoughts with the weight of God and thereby not allowing whatever is contrary to the weight to enter into our thought life. And then the last part, how do we do that? We need to meditate on God's way. Psalm chapter 1 verse 2 to 3, meditating on God's way. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, his precepts, and teaching he habitually meditates day and night. And he will be like a tree firmly planted and fed by streams of water. A tree that is firmly planted and fed by streams of water, which yields its fruits in its season. Its leaf does not wither, and whatever he does, he prospers and comes to maturity. Amen. Amen. If you meditate upon the weight of God, if you meditate upon the weight of God, you will prosper and come to maturity. That's what the weight of God says. So we need to meditate on God's weight day and night. You need to saturate your system with the weight of God, day and night, for over-maturity, over-prosperity. And then, yeah, that's it. And when we say meditation, meditating means you ponder something and give it your full attention. Pondering upon something and giving it your full attention. We're not only talking about just reading the Bible, or, yeah, no, no, no, no. We're not talking about that. We're talking about really, you need to saturate your system with the weight of God. A picture of Christ down and shaken together and running over. You need to fill your system with the weight of God. What Joy said, when we fill our thoughts with the right things, the wrong ones will have no room to enter. So if you fill your system with the weight of God and saturate it with the weight of God, whenever the wrong things hit you, they will find no room to enter. Hallelujah. And then meditation brings success. When you read Joshua 1, Joshua 1, chapter 8, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall read and meditate, and meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will be successful. Amen. Filling yourself with the weight of God and meditating upon the weight of God day and night will bring prosperity and success into your life. So we understand it's not only about renewing our minds. There are benefits. Amen. There are benefits to renewing our minds. We are told that if we renew our minds with the weight of God and saturate our minds with the weight of God, we will be prosperous and we will have success. We will be successful in whatever we do if we are filled with the weight of God. Amen. And then meditating demands discipline. That's what we need to know. It demands discipline. You need to be disciplined in your meditation. How many times have you decided, you know what, today I'm going to read the weight, today I'm going to meditate upon the weight, then you take Joshua chapter 1 and say, today I'm going to read Joshua chapter 1. And then at the end of the chapter, after reading, then how do you be sure? You have no idea. Why? Because you did not put God, don't make a show or whatever, other things don't go in. You were busy reading, but at the same time you were thinking, how am I going to get money for petrol? And then how am I going to pay the helper? And then how am I going to pay the guardian helper? And then how am I going to do this and that and this and that? And then the kids, I have to go to the kids' school for meetings and other things. And then at the end of the chapter, the only thing you know, you are more frustrated than you were before you started reading that chapter. And you have no idea what you are reading about. So we need to be very, very disciplined and make sure everything that tries to crop in, this is not your time. This is the time for meditating on the weight of God. Amen. And then we move on to, to, to second Corinthians chapter 10, verse five. It says, take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Taking thoughts captive means controlling them instead of letting your thoughts control you. Hallelujah. You take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And that means you, you start controlling your thoughts instead of letting your thoughts control you. Here we are destroying sophisticated arguments and every exalted and proud thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought and captive to the obedience of Christ. That is what we need to do. We need to take every thought captive to the obedience of the word. For the word must be first. The word must take center stage. The word must be last in your thinking. Hallelujah. You need to feel your thoughts with the weight of thoughts and whatever is there or whatever tries to get in there, that is not, that is contrary to the weight. It must be pushed out. We need to take every thought captive to the obedience of the word. I like it in the message translation. We use our powerful God tools for warped philosophies. It means bent or twisted out of shape, abnormal, strange, or distorted philosophies. We tear down barriers erected against the truth. Of God. And we feed every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Hallelujah. We use our powerful God tools for smashing bent or twisted out of shape, abnormal, strange, or distorted philosophies. We tear down barriers erected against the truth of God. We feed every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Hallelujah. Amen. And then we, we, we, we move on. We are told, we are told that it takes deliberation. It takes commitment and it takes intentionality to control our thoughts. It's not going to happen because when you woke up this morning and then said, and then you think there's going to be mind renewal. No, it doesn't work like that. It takes deliberation. It takes commitment. It takes intentionality to control your thoughts. You need to set time to meditate upon the weight of thoughts and you need to be intentional about it. It's not something else that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,