Power Thoughts: 12 Strategies to Win the Battle of the Mind (32 page)

I recently realized that it is quite possible to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and yet never give ourselves to Him. We want Him and what He offers, but we are reluctant to give ourselves to Him for His use and will. We are to live dedicated, consecrated lives in which God and His will are our number one priority. Anyone who does not do that will never be truly content and satisfied.

People frequently ask me how I keep my priorities straight. The answer is that I must continually straighten them out. Like most things in life, just because our priorities are straight today doesn’t mean they’re going to stay that way. In our busy lives we have many things screaming for our time and attention and I realize it is easy to get off track. But we can daily re-establish what our priorities will be. We can daily look at our lives and make sure we are fruitful and not just busy doing things that take time and end up drawing us further and further away from God. We can develop spiritual disciplines in our life that will help us keep God as the center of all that we do. Bible reading and study, prayer, silence and solitude, serving, giving, and many other things should be practiced regularly.

Everything

To become a Christian, all a person has to do is believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died for our sins, that He rose from the dead, and that He offers us eternal life. But receiving salvation does not guarantee that anyone will have a close, growing, personal relationship with God—and neither does going to church. Really loving God, having Jesus as the Lord of our lives, and following Him wholeheartedly requires more than praying what is commonly called the “Sinner’s Prayer,” attending church on Sundays, or even surrounding ourselves with Christian friends.

God loves you. He loves everything about you, and He cares about everything that pertains to you. He wants to be involved in every aspect of your life. Think about this: A man is highly educated and trained as the CEO of a thriving company. He’s a Christian; he prays before meals at home with his family; and he serves on the finance committee at his church. He rarely misses a service, plays golf with men from his Sunday school class, and gives generously to the benevolence fund. But in business, this man is known to lack integrity and total honesty. Somehow in his mind he has separated the business part of his life from his relationship with God. When he senses conviction from God about a compromising business decision, he quickly tells himself, “it is just business.”

The problem is, he never prays about business endeavors. He has never read the Bible to see what it says about work, finances, managing people, making decisions, or anything else relative to business. He respects God’s Word in some areas of his life, but doesn’t look to it for guidance in his career. He keeps God in his “god box” neatly separated from his ordinary everyday life. When we divide life into sacred and secular, we are embarking on trouble. God must not be separated from any aspect of life, but instead He must be at the center of all that we do. When the man we are talking about walks into his office each morning, he puts all his trust in his training, experience, and instincts rather than in God. After all, he spent years learning to run a profitable corporation, so why not make decisions based on proven theories and sound knowledge of the industry in which he works? As far as the “little lies” he tells to close a deal, he reasons that everyone does it and it is no big deal.

Now, let’s say this man suddenly suffers from a dramatic and unexpected downturn in the market his company serves. This economic slump results in layoffs for many of his loyal employees and even affects his own income. Everyone affected has to deal with difficulties and pressure they have not faced before. It’s a terrible situation, and the desperate CEO asks himself every day,
How on Earth did this happen?
He is nervous, anxious, and worried. He becomes discouraged and depressed. He asks God to help him with his problem. He wants God to fix it so he can be happy again and just live his life.

While there are all sorts of reasons for changes in business climates, we know from this man’s story that he is a Christian, but he did not invite God into his work. Maybe, had he understood the wisdom of the Scriptures where business and finances are concerned, he could have made decisions to avert disaster. If God had been first in his entire life, perhaps he would have sensed the market change coming and could have made decisions to avoid it. Maybe, had he prayed and asked for God’s help in his business, the people and families affected by layoffs could have remained prosperous. Maybe the man could have avoided the stress of trying to rescue a sinking corporate ship, had he simply allowed God’s truth and teachings to guide him, instead of relying on market information and theories. And most certainly, had the man kept Jesus as the center of his life at all times, he could have avoided the negative emotions he experienced when his circumstances changed. His trust in God would have given him assurance of being taken care of no matter what happened in the market or business world.

I am not saying that we should ignore all the information that comes by natural means but we cannot rely on it entirely; I am saying that to ignore God, or limit your time with Him to a quick Sunday morning visit in church is very foolish.

Let me be quick to say that I applaud everyone who works and studies to prepare for careers. I am in favor of gaining all the knowledge, education, and training available. But I am not for
trusting
in these things. I am for trusting God. Theories and textbooks can fail, but God can give a person who seeks His help one creative idea that will cause a business to succeed. While we need to be equipped with natural knowledge, our greater need is to know how to seek and apply God’s wisdom. When we put God first, He trumps everything else.

God not only wants to be involved in our businesses and careers, but He also wants to be involved in every other aspect of our lives—our thoughts, our conversations, the way we choose to raise our children, the way we manage our time, the way we spend our money, how we dress, what we eat and drink, how we entertain ourselves, what we watch and listen to, and who our friends are. If we truly put Him first, we will welcome Him into all these areas of our lives. We will study His Word to learn His truth about these things, and we will be diligent to obey the promptings of His Spirit.

Are You Forgetful?

I think Jeremiah 2:32 may be the saddest verse in the Bible: “Can a maid forget and neglect [to wear] her ornaments, or a bride her [marriage] girdle [with its significance like that of a wedding ring]? Yet My people have forgotten Me, days without number.” Isn’t that sad? God is basically saying in this verse, “My people just forget all about Me.” People go for days and don’t talk to God, then all of a sudden they have a problem and then they remember Him and come running to Him for help.

I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough: we
must
learn to stop ignoring God when our lives are going well and seeking Him only when we need something. We should seek Him
all the time.
We certainly need Him all the time, but due to pride, self-will, and self-reliance we don’t always want Him involved in everything. This is human nature, but as Christians we receive a new nature. The nature of God comes to dwell in our spirit and that is why we must learn to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh.

When we are not facing crises or having problems, we tend to think we can handle things on our own. But the minute we have a problem that we cannot solve, we suddenly realize we need God after all. Let’s honor God by putting Him first in everything—not only when we find ourselves in situations we can’t handle on our own.

Too Busy?

I believe that most people would like to have a great relationship with God, but they fail to realize it is dependent on the time they are willing to invest in getting to know Him. Some people don’t think it is possible to be intimate with God, many are simply too busy with other things and allow their relationship with God to take a backseat to everything else in life. The truth is, if we believe we are too busy to make spending time with God a priority, then we are simply too busy. It is foolish to never have time for the most important thing in life.

I once read that someone calculated how the average person spends a typical life span of seventy years. Here’s the estimate: if you live to be seventy years old, then more than likely you will spend twenty-three years sleeping, sixteen years working, eight years watching television, six years eating, six years traveling, four and a half years on leisure activities, four years being sick, and two years getting dressed. The average person spends six months of his or her life on spiritual activities. If you add the numbers, you will get a total of seventy years—and then life is over. Do you want to spend four times as much of your life getting dressed as you do talking to God, reading His Word, or worshipping Him? I don’t!

I even read once that the average minister prays four minutes a day. I realize there are some that pray a lot more than that, but if four minutes is the average, it is no wonder that a lot of people go to church and don’t feel they benefit from being there. I discovered years ago that the power that comes from the pulpit when I minister to others is dependent on how I live my private life. I believe anyone’s success in business, in ministry, or in everyday life is directly linked to the place of importance they give God in their daily life.

With All Your Heart

When we think about how much time people actually give God, we can understand why the Bible so strongly encourages us to seek Him. The fact is, we are missing the greatest thing in life if we never really get to know God personally. We must seek Him daily. The apostle Paul said that his determined purpose was to know God and the power that flowed out from His resurrection (see Philippians 3:10). The word
seek
is a very strong word. In its original language, it means “to crave; to pursue; to go after with all your might.” In Jeremiah 29:13, God Himself promises, “Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Jesus plainly told us what our number one goal and priority should be. When the Pharisees asked Him what was the most important commandment of all, He responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect)” (Matthew 22:37). In other words, we can’t just love God when we need Him to help us; we can’t love Him only when it’s convenient for us or popular; we shouldn’t just pay attention to Him when we’re at church or because we think He might punish us if we don’t. No! We are to love Him from our hearts—not out of fear or obligation. And we are to love Him passionately. That’s what “with all your heart” means.

He is a wonderful God. He is worth loving! He is worthy of all your passion and devotion. So don’t wait until you find yourself in a desperate situation. Determine to seek and love God
with all your heart
from this moment on.

What If You Don’t Want To?

More than anything else, I want to help you have the best life you can possibly have. At times, that means answering honest, heartfelt questions, such as, “What if I don’t want to seek God with all my heart? What if I don’t have any desire to put Him first in my life?”

Most of the time, people who have the courage to ask these questions really
want
to want to seek God. The fact that they don’t crave God’s presence often makes them feel guilty or embarrassed, but I think it’s good that they are honest. If you wish you wanted to seek God, but the thought of praying and reading your Bible doesn’t really thrill you, let me help.

Ask

First, ask God to give you the desire you need. If you do not have a genuine desire to know God and seek His ways, you will exhaust yourself trying. You
must
have that desire, because desire is the fuel that enables you to keep going as you grow in God. It makes you want to be in God’s presence, and it helps you stay focused as you pray and read God’s Word. God is the One who gives us the will and desire to work for His good pleasure (see Philippians 2:13), so ask.

Prayer is the way we ask for what we need from God, and when we pray, He hears and answers. If you don’t have a desire to grow in your relationship with God, don’t try to convince anyone (including yourself and God) that you do. Admit that you don’t really want to do it, then ask Him to help you want to want to. After all, God knows your heart; He knows when you don’t really want to seek Him, but He also knows when you wish you could want to. He wants to give you that desire, so ask Him, and He will. If you know that other things are too important to you and that you need to have a change of heart, start praying about it and God will work in you to change your desires. In Psalm 38:9, David told God that all of his desire was before Him. God can give us desires that are good and right and take away ones that are destructive, so ask!

I have had people say, “I wish I felt the way you do about God, but I just don’t.” They may not realize that I did not always have the passion for God that I have now. I had to do the same things I am encouraging you to do. I prayed to want to pray more, to want to study more, and to want to give and serve more. I pray all the time not to be selfish and self-centered. We have not because we ask not (see James 4:2), so start asking!

Be Disciplined

Second, you’ll have to exercise spiritual disciplines. You read extensively about discipline in Power Thought 11, and it applies to your spiritual life as much as it does to other areas of life. Let me give you an example.

You don’t want to be physically hungry for very long, do you? Of course not. So you think about what you’d like to eat; you go to the store and buy it; you take it home; you prepare it; you eat it; then you clean up after it. You may spend two hours preparing a meal that takes ten minutes to eat. Nevertheless, you have to make an effort if you don’t want to go hungry.