Calm My Anxious Mind

Well, I feel incredibly honored to talk about the message of my newest book, winning the war in your

mind

, changing your thinking, changing your life, and I honestly thank God that this message is impacting lives and so many people say that is transforming life. way they think what we know about winning the war in our

mind

we know that most of life's battles are won or lost in the mind we know that it is almost impossible to have a positive life when you have a negative mind and that can be a problem when your mind races with negative thoughts and irrational worries like mine often does, I wonder how many of you can relate to irrational thoughts and run away from the fears that often just consume your mind.

I don't know what it would be for you, but maybe Worry about something that seems normal You are a student and you are worried about getting a bad grade on a test because you know that if you get a bad grade then you are worried about not being able to get into the right university and then not You will have the right job and if you don't have the right job you won't marry the right person and if you marry the wrong person you will have the wrong children and because they are the wrong children, You will need braces and braces are expensive and you will put braces on them. , but then you won't be able to afford to send them to college because you're still paying for your own college and your kids won't get the education and they'll turn to a life of crime and go to prison, which gives you a headache and, speaking of headache, You may have a brain tumor and your mind is racing in the wrong direction.

I'm exaggerating, but not by much. true, and we're just joking about maybe getting a bad grade, but you see what's on the news or you hear what's happening to the life of someone you love or you're fighting for a good marriage and you wonder if it's going to go good. For work, you have more bills than you know how to pay, you're trying to make some kind of decision about the future, and it's very easy for your mind to race and become overwhelmed by very real feelings of anxiety, fear, and This is why I want start today's message with the word of God and if you don't mind and you can in all of our churches, could you just stand in honor of the reading of his word that we will be reading? again today in Philippians chapter four and the context is that the apostle Paul was writing from a Roman prison under house arrest or awaiting possible execution and he said these powerful words under the inspiration of the holy spirit, he said not to worry about anything except in every situation through prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to god and the peace of god that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and what else let's say allowed and your minds in Christ Jesus finally brothers and sisters whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is just whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if something is excellent or praiseworthy think of such things think of such things think of such things and the peace of god the god of peace will be with you the title of the message of today is

calm

My

anxious

mind and father, we ask that you do just that, that we take everything that is heavy on our minds and in our hearts and bring it before you, casting our worries on you, God, because you care about us and for God's sake while we look for you. renew our minds with the truth god, we cast all our burdens on you believing that you care about us give us peace of heart and tranquility even beyond what the world would understand we prayed this in the name of your son jesus and everyone said amen hey Why don't you look at the person next to you and just say peace be upon you?

When you say that, write it in the chat if you want, just write it in the chat. Peace be with you. If that's too formal for you. you're sitting, you can say let me get you some peace, someone said let me get you some peace, come on, write that in the chat right now, let me get you some peace, okay, what I want to do is in This, let's talk about worry, let's talk about anxiety and Let's talk about the mind if you remember a key thought from our book and the truth is that your life always moves in the direction of your strongest thoughts, which is really good news if your Thoughts are good, useful and positive, but it is incredibly bad news.

If your thoughts are negative, what do we know about the mind that we have been talking about in both Scripture and science? God is the god of science and in our minds we know that there is this little almond-shaped portion of the mind known as the amygdala and The amygdala is an interesting little part of the brain that is shaped like this little almond and it is the of the brain wired to survive if you ever find yourself in a moment where you feel like I need to fight or I need to flee. Because your amygdala is actively involved every time you are in danger, this small portion of the brain that God has given you, the amygdala activates and what it does is send strong doses of adrenaline to your body and tells you: be on your guard, be aware, be alert. run if you have to if you see a poisonous snake or if you are like me any type of snake will do the amygdala says snake be careful run run run if you are driving and as happened to me recently a driver evidently must have done it I have been texting and not They were paying attention and started swerving into my lane.

Your amygdala activates and says: be careful, alert, be careful, you are in danger if you have an alarm system in your house and it activates in the middle. of the night like mine did not long ago, your amygdala activates and you panic and even to this day I have no idea what in the world caused it and I can, I can, I can feel the adrenaline even now like the amygdala says be careful, be careful, be careful god gave us that portion of our brain for our protection the problem is that the amygdala is not objective, it is simply programmed to protect and is activated very easily.

I will give you an example of how the mind works when I was a small child, my family once a month would go to our favorite hamburger restaurant and I fondly remember that we were driving back from the restaurant and evidently my dad did something while driving that It upset another driver, so this guy started following me. We, all the way to our house, got out of the car, my dad didn't know what he did to offend the guy and the guy got out of his blue truck and accused my dad of fighting, well, he picked the wrong guy.

My dad can defend himself against anyone and the guy started assaulting my dad and then my dad simply, very honoring God, laid his hands on him in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, all in self-defense. But the guy quickly realized that he was outmatched and ran back to his truck, sending a greeting from a figure to my dad and saying very dishonorable things about his mother. I walked in that night and my mom left me and my little sister on the ground and said there's this guy who hates us and knows where we live and he's obviously irrational, he's probably very dangerous, so every time you see a blue van, In fact, the blue van looked a lot like this one, every time you see a blue van you have to go inside. and close the doors, so I was probably 17 or 18 years later and if I see a blue van, I would run inside, close the doors to hide under the bed, no no, but to this day, if I see a blue van If I see a red truck because it could have been blue and the guy painted it red.

There is something in me that activates and makes me pause and hesitate because the amygdala that God gave me is programmed to protect and that is why our amygdala needs it. a little help from another thing that god gave us called the prefrontal cortex this is the logical part of the brain that tends to think logically so if there is a noise at night in the house the amygdala screams you are going to die and the prefrontal cortex intervenes and says no, it's probably the cat, you're not going to die, there's most likely a logical explanation, the amygdala is all panic, the prefrontal cortex is all logic, the problem with the amygdala is that it always responds according to preprogramming In other words, if you had my experiences, you would tend to believe that blue vans are dangerous and I don't know what would happen in your life, but because of some pain, some fear, some trauma or even maybe a misunderstanding of something that happened to you .

I guess there are certain people, places, events or some kind of news that cause you feelings of anxiety, fear and tension and without even knowing it, your mind can run and run towards the worst case scenario, which you sometimes find yourself in. with yourself. breathless and panicking and wondering and trying to control things you can't control completely overwhelmed by an uncontrolled mind and that's why Paul said this from a Roman prison, he said and I want to read it again, he said, don't be

anxious

about any one thing, don't be ashamed of anything, it could be your big test, it could be your job interview, it could be your health situation, it could be a decision about the future, it could be a financial burden, he said, don't worry about anything, but in every situation.

In other words, if it is in your mind, it is in the heart of God, he cares about you more than you can imagine in every situation through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, what do you do? You present your requests to God and when you give your burdens to God the scriptures say the peace of God that transcends all our understanding I want you to say it again he will keep your hearts and what and your minds someone write that in the chat his peace will keep my mind his peace the peace of god guard my mind its crazy to me but how often even christians underestimate and dismiss the power of prayer you see it all the time people will be in a situation and we could be talking and someone will say : "Well, my goodness, all we can do now." is pray all we can do now is pray i can almost imagine god as such and you think that's nothing the god who can move mountains the god who can raise the dead the god who can see the sick healed and open the eyes of the blind and everything you can Not praying is powerful and as followers of Jesus we have to recognize that prayer is never our last line of defense, it is always our first line of offense.

The author to the Hebrews said: let us come boldly before the throne of grace. We can come in prayer. boldly with confidence why find help in our time of need james said this said you don't have to because you don't ask because you haven't prayed prayer is always powerful not only does prayer move the heart of god but prayer also changes chemistry in your brain I want to say it again, prayer not only touches and moves the heart of God, but prayer also changes the chemistry in your brain, which is fascinating to me because for decades neurologists believed that your brain didn't change after adolescence.

How many of you are glad that your brain has changed after adolescence? I don't know about you, but I thank God in heaven. My brain didn't change it didn't freeze when I was 15 it's okay our brain continues to evolve and continues to change and continues to rewire itself we talk about neural pathways when you think the thought it's easier to rethink that thought and our brains continually change In fact the term is called neuroplasticity and that means it is constantly evolving and rewiring itself now I love the study of something called neurotheology it is the study of the mind and god it is also known as spiritual neuroscience and what does the neurotheology is fascinating it studies the relationship between the brain and belief in god and this is what research shows that prayer actually changes your brain, in fact a book that I would recommend and the author is Dr.

Carolyn Leaf. In fact, her book Switch on your Brain is a fascinating book and she said, a powerful quote about the brain and prayer, she said it is It has been found that 12 minutes a day of focused prayer over a period of eight weeks can change the brain to such an extent that it can be measured with a brain scan. Not only does prayer touch the heart of God, but prayer changes the brain and is equally toxic. and negative thoughts damage your brain prayer heal your brain transform your brain literally renew your mind so why do we worry why do we find ourselves so anxious if we are followers of jesus and must completely trust in god why our minds often race in an irrational way well, science would tell us that in many cases we are experiencing amygdala hijacking our little amygdala that is wired to protect says you're in trouble you better take control you better work harder you better stay up two in the morning and worry about this because if you don't it will only get worse, so science would say we are experiencing amygdala hijacking.

The Scriptures would say that our minds are dominated by sinful thoughts. In fact, that is a definitive definition of worry. A simple definition of worry would be this:Worry is the sin of distrusting God's promises and power. Worrying is essentially saying God, I don't trust you, I don't believe in your goodness in this situation, I don't believe you. I don't care what I care I don't think you're going to help me I have to worry about this because ultimately I don't trust you and so instead of letting my sinful nature control my mind which is what can so easily happen what What I want to do as a follower of Jesus is choose to let my spirit direct my thinking instead of letting my sinful nature rule my mind in all kinds of terrifying ways.

I will choose to let the Holy Spirit that dwells within me direct my thinking. I'm going to let the logical part of my brain choose what is spiritual. I'm going to take my prefrontal cortex and say, "You think of what is true, you think of what is excellent." what is praiseworthy I am putting my trust completely in you in fact that is how the scripture says it in romans chapter 8 verses 5 and 6 again the apostle paul says that those who are dominated by the sinful nature what happens you think about sinful things when your your mind is dominated by your sinfulness your mind wanders towards things that dishonor god you think about sinful things but those who are controlled by the holy spirit they think of things that please the spirit so letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death but letting the spirit control your mind leads to life and peace and that is why we are going to take captive every thought and we're going to make it obedient to christ from a scientific point of view we're going to let our prefrontal cortex grab the amygdala by the tail and say stop being irrational we're choosing to be spiritual we're giving this to god I'm choosing god by faith to trust you to believe in you to give you my burdens even when my irrational fears begin to run wild I stop I grab that thought I take it captive I make it obedient I will not let my sinful, fearful and dishonorable nature lead my mind in the wrong direction I am intentionally choosing to let the holy spirit direct my thoughts in fact I will give you a visual example and maybe this is an illustration you could use in your own life.

What tends to happen to all of us at some point, in some way, we have something that is troubling us, the good news is that we are not. On our own we serve a good and faithful god and so what do you normally do if you are a follower of Jesus and you are worried about something? Well, you take your worry, your concern, your burden and give it to God, you say. God, I pray for this God, I'm giving you this and God, I trust you with my concern and you give it to God and then you wait and you get scared and five minutes have passed and nothing has happened so you take it back from god and you say god, I don't really trust you with that symbolically every time we worry, that's essentially what we're doing, we say god, I'm going to pray about this, but since I don't see what I want to see and since I'm still worried, we're essentially recovering what we gave to God.

Why are we doing this? The reason is that your God is too small and your worries are too big and someone needs a bigger one. God and a little bit of minor worry and what you're going to do at that moment is you're going to take whatever is weighing you down and whatever is dominating your mind and the Scriptures say to cast our worries upon God with prayer. and petition we take everything and give it to god and what I encourage you to do maybe even in your apartment or your house is get your own god box, it doesn't have to be as cool as mine, it could be a god box shoes. and you can even symbolically dress up as your god and what I want you to do is every time your mind races and every time you find yourself worried about something, I want you to take it to god and then write that worry down on a piece of paper. it could be your teenager you are worried about your teenager it could be your marriage it could be your future it could be your health it could be your job it could be anything you have and you are going to put your worries on God because he cares about you and then you give them to him to God and you trust him with that.

So what I want you to do is continue with your life trusting in God and every time you want to choose to worry about it symbolically. what you have to do is walk over to your god box and take out what you have already given to god from your god box to symbolically remind yourself that you are choosing right now not to put your trust in god yeah um yeah Ask me what it worries me. I have all kinds of different worries that burden my heart. It's a little embarrassing to tell you sometimes what's bothering me, but I love Amy so much and sometimes when she's late. which, respectfully, happens regularly, sometimes my mind starts to wander and I worry if she's okay, if something happens to her and my mind can go in the most ridiculous direction, where if she were injured or killed in a car accident, I couldn't function.

I couldn't continue leading the church and I wouldn't want my life to stay the same. It's true with my children. Sometimes I send them in a car. You know what it's like when you send a 16-year-old son. a daughter goes out when they are just learning to drive and this irrational thought comes to my mind what if and I have to choose to say god, you love them even more than me, am I trusting you with something else? What weighs on me is simply the spiritual responsibility of leading the church and it is very easy in our current culture to say or do something, accidentally or even unintentionally, that can create all kinds of controversy and I am always aware that I am representing God and what I do matters and many times I just worry, I don't want to disappoint God, I never want to harm the name of Jesus and if it's heavy on me, it's heavy on me. and these are my worries, what should I do instead of just giving my worries to God?

What I want to do even more is give my life to God to be hidden with God in Christ Jesus, my whole life belongs. to him all my life everything I trust in him I believe in him he is good he is always faithful and some are going to say well that is irresponsible you are just living in denial you have to be more responsible than that now here is my philosophy and you can adopt this in your own life three big thoughts first of all is this I want to do what I can do could you say that out loud I'm going to do what I can do? you can write that in the chat those of you online come on team lc from all over the world write in the channel and do what i can do in other words, if you have an exam coming up, you are not just trusting in god for your exam, What are you doing, are you studying? you are studying if you want to be in better shape you are not just praying for your health you are going to eat well you are going to exercise you are going to receive good advice you are going to do what you can do the second thing is that we are going to give to god what we cannot make someone say I'm going to give God what I can't do if I can't do something I'm going to do Trust in God.

I give to God what I cannot do. First I'll do what I can. I will give God what I cannot do and ultimately trust God no matter. because of who he is because of his character because of his nature God I'm going to do what I can do and God I'm going to trust you by casting my worries on you and I'll give you what I can't do and no matter what happens because of your goodness your promises Your faithfulness I am going to trust in you no matter what happens and what I want you to do for a moment is I want you to imagine a heart of peace I want you to imagine a life full of endless joy I want you to imagine peace of mind trusting in God and I want to tell you what it is possible and it is also a choice it is a choice dominated by the sinful nature or dominated by the spirit can we review our four weeks of study if your life is moving? the direction of your strongest thoughts you like the direction your thoughts are taking because I didn't like it for so long my thoughts were dominated by negative self-defeating thoughts you're pathetic you're not good enough you'll never measure up you don't have what it takes I can't keep up I'm always overwhelmed Well, if you don't control what you believe, you'll never control what you do So what are we doing?

We are identifying the stronghold, whatever lie we have been believing, the dominant lie where our spiritual enemy is deterring us from the truth of God and when we identify that lie, we replace it with a truth, not just a practical truth but a spiritual truth from God and then what do we do with that truth well we do this we write it and then what else we do we think about it and then what else we do we confess it until you believe it say it with me someone we write it we think I confess it until you believe it again we write it we think it I confess it until you believe it I need online help write it in the chat what we do we write it over and over again we write it we think it we confess it until we believe it so what do I declare in my life?

Where does my mind need to be renewed? Let me tell you that Jesus comes first in my life. I exist to serve and glorify Him. I am disciplined. Christ in me is stronger than wrong desires. in me, write it, think about it, confess it, believe it. Every day I am getting closer to Jesus thanks to Christ. My family is more united. My body is stronger. My faith is deeper and my leadership is sharper. I am creative, innovative, focused and blessed beyond measure because the holy spirit of god dwells within me declare what is true about you write it think it confess it until you believe it write it think you confess it until you believe it we are renewing our minds with the truth what is true about you if you don't I know what is true about you let me declare it you are not a hostage to your harmful thoughts because the weapons you fight with are not the weapons of this world your spiritual weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds and what do you do by the power and authority of god you tear down every pretense that rises against knowledge the knowledge of god worry is not your master why because you trust in god his peace guard your hearts guard your mind and guard your soul in Christ Jesus you are not a slave to your habits you are not a prisoner of your addiction you are a conqueror by the blood of the lamb and by the words of your testimony come to someone you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the kingdom of life renew our minds renew our minds renew our minds we also know that you can't control what happens to you but you can control how you frame it you can look at life from a negative perspective and say this is bad this is difficult or you can look at it from a different perspective perspective and say God you are good you are faithful and you are true and what is so powerful as followers of Jesus is this we are not interpreting God through our circumstances God where are you not good because life is bad now what are we?

What we do is we are interpreting our circumstances through the goodness of God and then as followers of Jesus we cover everything we do in prayer and we are not going to be anxious about anything but in everything with prayer and petition we take our request to God. and the peace of God the peace of God not the peace of this world the world cannot give it and the world cannot take it away it is the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and what else do we go on and you and your minds in Christ Jesus So as followers of Jesus we are going to let God give you the power to win the war in your mind and when you know the truth, the truth will set you free, we will get out of our spiritual lives. enemy and we are entering into the truth of God and it is the truth of God a renewed mind that will set you free so father do it we pray do it we pray to God I know there are so many in our church family so many looking in line. who are overwhelmed by uncontrolled thoughts, fear and anxiety, God, help us to send those worries upon you in all of our churches today, those of you who have a real burden, a fear, something that makes you indescribably anxious, what we are going to do today is Put it symbolically in our God box.

You want to give it to God today, but in all of our churches there is something weighing on you. It may keep you awake at night. It's almost always there. It is always present. A load you want. give it to God by faith today if you would do this just raise your hand just all our churches raise your hand someone in the chat you can just write in the chat I'm giving my burden to God right now whatever it is . Can you even give it a name if you want? I'm trusting God with whatever, just fill in the blank, write it in the chat.

I'm giving this to God. I'm trusting you, God, with this now, father, symbolically, we just launched. this for you the relationship the health problem the fear the financial burden the indecision whatever god we simply give it to you we trust that you will be good that you are always faithful and god just give us the wisdom to do it what can we do if there is anything we can do about it God, give us the wisdom and the courage to just do it to do what we can do and God, let's trust you with all the things that we can't control and don't matter. what a god, no matter what we are going to trust you with all our hearts and rely not on our own understanding but onall our paths, god, our mind recognizes you believing that you, oh god, will make our path straight, we release these burdens. god, I pray by faith for someone right now there is a deliverance right now right now right now god I am trusting in you I am trusting in you right now in this moment god we are trusting in you we are trusting in you as you continue to pray today I can only imagine how many of You feel like I did for much of my life when I had this heavy burden and this weight and this fear of where I was with God.

I remember too many times to count, like making a deal with God, if you're there, you know, help me, forgive me, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I always had this heaviness of thinking that I haven't been good enough for God. I didn't know where I was with God and that may be something. From you at this moment I have very, very good news that can give you peace of mind beyond measure and that is that God loves you. I want you to listen to this. He loves them very much and the reality is that every time they feel like they are not good enough for God, that's true, none of us are good enough for God.

We have all sinned. We have all broken God's commandments and that makes us sad. separates from God but here is very good news because of the goodness of God he became one of us in the person of Jesus his son Jesus had no sin he never sinned he was the perfect sacrifice he died in our place for the forgiveness of our sins and in the goodness the power of God Jesus did not stay dead but our God raised him from the dead so that anyone and this includes you no matter how dark your life feels no matter how much evil you have done no matter no matter how heavy the weight is anyone who calls on the name of Jesus your sins will be forgiven and you will be new peace of mind peace of heart peace of soul because you are new the old is gone and the new has arrived online or in a physical place those who They say I need his grace I want his forgiveness let's just walk away from our old life let's take a step towards him our minds are not dominated by our sinful nature but by the spirit of god we find peace with him all our churches and online those who They say I need your grace I need your forgiveness today Jesus I turn from my sin Turn to you today I give you my life that is your prayer raise your hands up now everywhere and say yes that is my prayer while we have our hands raised in all our churches today we thank God for you in the chat right now just write it there, I am giving my life to Jesus, just write that in the chat right now, I am giving my life to Jesus and as we have people all over the world, the Heaven rejoices at this moment and so do we. let's pray together no one prays alone could you just pray out loud pray heavenly father forgive my sins jesus change me make me new fill me with your spirit so I can follow you live because you think about what is true and it represents you and all that I I will do what I can do, I will trust you what I cannot do and God, I will trust you no matter what happens, thank you for the new life, I give you all mine, I give you all my burdens. and I thank you for all your peace in the name of Jesus, I pray that someone will celebrate a great welcome to those born into the family of God.