I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

For God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power and love and a disciplined mind.-2 Timothy 1:7

 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him” -James 1:5

The Life God Has Given You

It’s time to start living the life God’s given you,
Instead of whining as you lust after more.
Cause I can tell you one thing for certain,
Today’s the yesterday you will one day mourn for.
You came into this life with a purpose,
God had a plan on the day you were born.
He created you in His exalted image;
How can you feel sad or forlorn?
Have you lost sight of your reason for being?
Are you lost in the natural world?
Have you forgotten where to find wisdom?
All you need can be found in God’s word.
It’s time to start living the life God’s given you,
Instead of whining as you lust after more.
Cause I can tell you one thing for certain,
Today’s the yesterday you will one day mourn for.
You need to start building the one relationship
Without which you will truly be lost.
Start showing a bit of gratitude
For the sacrifice, He made on the cross.
So when you enter your personal end time,
When it is you for whom the bell tolls,
You won’t question the existence of heaven
While feeling the heat of hell in your soul.
You better start living the life God’s given you,
Instead of whining as you lust after more.
Cause I can tell you one thing for certain,
Today’s the yesterday you will one day mourn for.
©Linda Troxell 12/03/2015

The scriptures tell us that God made every one of us in His image. If you are like me you have heard that so many times that it almost loses its meaning. Almost; but we can’t let it. Knowing that we are made in the image of God is one of the greatest gifts of being a Christian. Let’s really stop and ponder what that means. Because we are created in God’s image, He made us like Him, therefore we have access to the power, the glory and the wisdom of the creator of the universe. That means that we have the capacity to be the pure love that God is. We have the capacity to be pure light unto the world as God is. The truth of the matter is, that we have the capacity to be exactly like the one who was God come to earth; we have the capacity to be like Jesus Christ!  He is the living blueprint for leading the life God has given us.

We are magnificent creatures, but are we living the life God created us to live? Jeremiah tells us that on the day we were born God had a plan for us. Not only did He have a plan, but the plan was for us to prosper and to have hope and a future. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11  Now, if the God who created us had that plan for us on the day we were born and that is not what we are living, where does the problem lie. I hope I am not dissolving any illusions by telling you straight out that if we are not living the plan that God created for us, all of the fault lies with us. God can, or I guess more truthfully He will, only do so much for us.  The Bible tells us that the measure by which we give will be the measure by which it is given back to us. In other words, if we want God’s best we have to give Him our best. He gave us a life with a plan to prosper but He is not going to do all the work while we lay back and complain and criticize. If we want to live a good and positive life than we need to do the things necessary to have that life. What, you ask are those things? Well, let’s look at that.

One of the key teachings of cognitive psychology is that if we want to change our life, we must change our thinking. Because, they tell us, our thinking shapes our feelings and our feelings shape our behavior and together they create our reality.  In other words, they are telling us that to a great extent what we think is what we live. If we think we are unlucky, we will feel unlucky and we will only see that which confirms this in our everyday world. If we believe that no one likes us every time we interact with others we will see something in their behavior that proves to us that it is true. No greeting will be hearty enough, no handshake offered fast enough, and no smile will be genuine enough. No one will be able to change what we see, for we will simply be unable to see anything that doesn’t support our thinking.

For many of us, this may be a difficult concept to believe. It can be hard to wrap our heads around a new idea and some of us may think, as many Christians do, that psychologists are less than credible. So, let’s see what the Bible says about how our thoughts affect us. The Bible tells us that one of God’s ultimate goals for us is our transformation in Him. And that His plan for this transformation is accomplished by renewing of our minds. Romans, 12: 2 tells us: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.”  Now, renewing your mind is just another way of saying changing your thoughts. Throughout the Bible, we are told to guard our thoughts. Ephesians 4:23 says to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 2 Corinthians 10:5 says: We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. That again is just another way of saying that we stop and change all thoughts that do not reflect the words of Jesus. Job warns against harboring resentment in our hearts; the Psalmists warn against those who harbor malice in their minds; James warns us about those who allow bitter envy and selfish ambition to harbor within them.

I think it is pretty clear, from reading the Bible, that God expects us to get control of our thoughts rather than letting them control us. But God never asks us to do something without giving us the means by which to do it. So, just as He uses the Bible to tell us we need to control our thoughts, He also uses it to tell us how to control them. The Bible tells us that we can change our present thoughts by replacing them with different thoughts. And it gives us example after example of what the replacement thoughts should be. In Philippians Paul tells us, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus;-Philippians 2:5 and he exhorted us in Philippians 4:8 to think about anything that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy. Why, then, would God tell us to guard our thoughts against the negative and to fill our minds with the positive if our thoughts did not affect our life? I hope I have convinced you, or at least you are still with me. Because this idea has a wonderful silver lining.

If it is true that our thoughts are the basis of our whole reality, that is very good news. Because, if this is true, then all we have to do to change our whole lives is change our thoughts. Can you imagine? Any time you do not like what you are feeling, or anytime you are done with a behavior that is making you unhappy, indeed, anytime you don’t like your life, all you have to do is change what you are thinking and those things will follow. Of course, as with anything of value, it’s not easy. It takes discipline to take control of your thoughts. Many of our thoughts are so lightning quick that they never even reach our conscious mind. And we are so accustomed to allowing our thoughts to run wild it will be difficult to tame them. But I assure you that it is well worth the effort.

You can begin right now by meditating on God’s word. Pick a short, favorite scripture and practice thinking about nothing but that verse for a set amount of time. As you are meditating other thoughts will intrude, simply recognize them and let them go and return to the verse. Don’t get frustrated, it is natural to have other thoughts intrude. Don’t allow intrusive thoughts to make you give up. Just continue letting them go as many times as they intrude. In the beginning, start with a small amount of time, say 2 minutes, and as it gets easier add time and more complicated verses. This simple practice will teach you to discipline your thoughts.

Once we have gotten started on disciplining our thoughts, our next step is to spend some time thinking about what we think about. Now that we know that our thoughts shape our entire life but that many of them don’t reach our conscious mind, it is important for us to identify our thinking patterns in order to change what needs to be changed. It sounds difficult to identify patterns of thoughts that don’t reach our consciousness, but there is a simple and logical way of doing so. We work backward. We start with the negative manifestations our thoughts have created in our lives, and then, through logic, deduce what pattern of thinking is responsible for that manifestation. For example, if you have a tendency to be very negative, someone who sees the cloud and not the silver lining, it is easy to deduce that negative thoughts about your life, and/or the world, created that pattern. So, in order to change that thinking, you can find scriptures that emphasize the positive about God’s creation, about who we are in Christ and about the beauty and mystery of the world and meditate on them and confess them out loud several times a day. We can do the same with a list of positive affirmations about ourselves, our friends and our families. Before we know it we will find ourselves believing that it is pretty great to be a part of our life as well as God’s world. 

It is so easy to get caught up in the natural world. Make our goals its goals, our desires what it says is desirable and our beliefs its beliefs. In Christian circles, we are exhorted to be in the world but not of the world. What that means is that, although we are physically in the world, we cannot allow the world to dictate our beliefs, our desires or our goals. For that, we look to God’s word, the Bible. God did not create us to be discouraged, He did not create us to be unhappy, to feel empty or depressed. No, God did not give us a spirit of fear; but of power and love and a disciplined mind–2 Timothy 1:7. He created us to reflect His glory, to do good works and spread the good news of His love. If we are confused about the purpose of our life, if we feel that there is something missing, or if we wonder, “Is this all there is” then we need to go to God’s word for those answers. For in the Bible we can find direction for our lives, a map for our behavior and life instructions from our maker. After all, James tells us that if any man lacks wisdom he should ask God who gives generously and without reproach. – James 1:5

Points for Prayer and Pondering

1. Are you living the life God gave you? How or how not? Be honest with yourself. This is not about judgment or measuring up, it’s about finding God’s plan for you and you in God’s plan. 
2. Has God put on your heart what His will is for you, or what His plan is for your life? Write about what that is. If you don’t know, how do you think you can find out what God wants for you? 
3. Do you have hope for your future? If you do, write a paragraph about what that hope is and where it comes from. If you don’t are you willing to use the suggestions above, to find positive scriptures, to meditate on them and confess them? Are you willing to use positive affirmations to change your thinking and feelings? Write a few scriptures and a few affirmations below.