2020 Maryland Men of Faith Conference: True and Honest

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Maryland Men of Faith

Christian Martin

How to Control Your Mind

This media has been presented to you by the Maryland Men of Faith, where men are challenged and encouraged to form the character of Christ.

For more information, please visit www.mmof.org.

I'm the pastor of the Living Hope Seventh-day Adventist Church in Haymarket, Virginia, and I want to thank the leadership team of the Maryland Men of Faith for giving me this privilege to be able to virtually share with you.

While my presentation relates to the theme of health and wholeness, it will focus primarily on emotional and spiritual health, which ultimately produces health and wholeness.

My topic today is entitled, How to Control Your Mind.

Have you ever heard the saying, he who controls his mind, controls his life?

But the opposite of that statement is equally true.

He who doesn't control his mind has no control over his life.

And men, if there was ever a time for families and marriages alike to be strong?

And for that to happen, what is urgently needed?

So as we begin this seminar today, I invite you to bow your heads with me as we pray.

Father in heaven, we want to thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to examine our hearts, to meditate on principles of urgent importance as men in today's world.

We pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit would come and guide us and convict our hearts, that He will search our hearts and know us and see if there's any wicked way in us, and that we would conclude this seminar with the confidence and certainty that You have led us down the path that leads to life.

And so we thank you Lord for answering this prayer in Jesus name.

When Barna Group asked who people are most comfortable having spiritual conversations with, Fathers came out low on most people's list.

And when we ask fathers, who are they comfortable having spiritual conversations with we found that they are not nearly as likely as mothers to say their kids.

This is a crisis, a crisis by all accounts.

A rather large and important study was conducted by the Swiss government, published in 2000.

And it revealed some astonishing facts with regards to what they called generational transmission of faith and religious values.

In short, the study reveals, and I quote, it is the religious practice of the father of the family that above all determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.

The study reports, if both father and mother attend regularly, 33% of their children will end up as regular churchgoers and 41% will end up attending irregularly.

Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all.

However, if the father is irregular, even while the mother continues to be regular, only 3% of the children will eventually become regulars themselves.

Well, a further 59% will become irregular.

38% will be lost or regarded as unchurched.

Men of faith are needed today to occupy the roles of husbands and fathers if we expect to see healthy and wholesome marriages and homes.

As men, we have a very crucial role to play in our community, in our church, and above all, in our homes.

And because we do, more than ever before, our prayer must be, Lord, renew me.

And in the process of God changing us, there's 1 issue that has a dramatic effect on whether we will know success or failure.

And this central issue is the battle between our thoughts and feelings and God's moral principles.

Men, every day we must make a choice, a decision, whether we will yield to our feelings and thoughts or obey God's will for our life.

In other words, if we're going to live in humility, we will need to choose to surrender pride.

If we're going to live in purity, we will need to choose to surrender immorality.

If we're going to live in eternal values, we will need to choose to surrender temporal values.

If we're going to live as men of faith, living healthy and wholesome lives, there are choices to be made.

You know the writer of Hebrews declared that Moses had to make this choice.

Come with me in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 11 verse 25.

And there we are told that Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

This demonstrates a spiritual discipline to choose principle rather than yield to emotions or feelings.

This is a fundamental choice that each of us must make on a daily basis if we are to be men of faith.

But the truth is that it's not always the case.

I'd like to begin by considering the impact of feelings and thoughts on our choices.

By taking a close look at this subject from a biblical perspective before we go into the practical application.

All right, so let's go to Genesis, Genesis, the book of beginnings, and we'll go to chapter 3.

And we find that yielding to feelings of distrust is what caused Adam and Eve to choose to disobey God's direct command in the garden.

It began with yielding to feelings which resulted in thoughts that were demonstrated in actions.

In verse 6 Genesis chapter 3 verse 6 we read that when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make 1 wise, it was appealing to her emotions and feelings, desirable to make 1 wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

She also gave to her husband with her and he ate.

While it was the woman, according to the text, who was initially tempted and the first to disobey God's command, the husband clearly also yielded to his own will rather than God's will, his own will rather than God's will, and consequently was also enticed.

And as a result, both Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden and led to what would become a wilderness.

Some generations later, in the wilderness, yielding to feelings and desires once again led to a distrust.

It led to what caused the children of Israel to ultimately disobey God's command.

There in verse 4 it records that they yielded to their intense craving.

A short time later it becomes evident that their trust in God has eroded in time.

As they have yielded to their intense and more intense feelings and cravings, this has resulted in a distrust that ultimately leads to disobedience.

And they cried, if only we had died in the wilderness or in the land of Egypt, if only we had died.

When the appeal was made by Joshua and Caleb to trust and obey God, their response was to stone them with stones.

They were, they had been powerfully overtaken by feelings and thought patterns that led to harmful behaviors.

We've examined the story and the dynamics there involving feelings and ultimately thoughts leading to behaviors.

Now we're going to take a look at another biblical character.

Moses, on the other hand, overcame his initial feelings of inadequacy by ultimately obeying the command of God.

In Exodus chapter 4, if you turn to Exodus chapter 4, there you find a series of responses by Moses that were fueled by his feelings of inadequacy.

There were excuses to not obeying the command of God.

And in Exodus 4, verse 18, it simply says that after a series of excuses, Moses went in spite of his feelings.

In verse 20, it tells us that Moses returned to the land of Egypt.

And Moses took the rod of God in his hand, which demonstrated a choice to trust God despite his feelings.

This example reveals that overcoming your negative feelings includes making a positive choice to obey God in your mind.

In other words, you're overcome by negative thoughts or negative feelings in your heart, but a choice is made, a positive 1, to obey God in your mind.

In Luke chapter 17, let's move over to the New Testament now in Luke chapter 17 Jesus gave another important instruction to his disciples concerning how they should or could overcome their feelings.

For example, in this case, of not wanting to forgive when others offended them.

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How to Control Your Mind

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