Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, December 5th. Stress can affect even the most grounded Christian. Today we'll look at why we lose our peace and what we can do to get it back. Well, it doesn't really make any difference what the situation was. The truth is, somebody intruded into your personal life and took something from you and you suffered the loss. Now, it may have been something very significant that you owned or something maybe rather insignificant, but either way, you suffered a loss and you felt it. And the degree to which you placed value on that object that was stolen was the thing that really determined how much pain you felt, how much you suffered the loss. If it was something very valuable to you, then you felt it more strongly than if it had been something sort of insignificant. And a lot of people who have no peace will give you some reason and will tell you, well, if this were changed and that were changed and if he'd have done this and she hadn't done that, then I'd have peace in my heart.
No, that's not the answer. And what I want to do in this message, I want to tell you why we lose our peace. Now, what I'd like to do is I want to give you seven categories of thinking, thoughts. Thoughts fall into seven categories. I want you to think about them. Because these are the categories of thought that steal our peace. If your thinking falls in any one of these categories, you're not going to have peace.
And some of you are going to probably say, you know what, my thinking fits all of those categories. Now, here's the deception of the devil. Here's the deception of the world. We see people, for example, maybe on some talk show or on the television or we read about them in the magazines and newspapers and I mean they're smiling and they're dressed up, fit to kill and all the things. You just think, well, they're just the happiest people in the world.
You know what? Absolutely miserable. You say, now how can you judge somebody being miserable? Well, I'm not a judge of other people's lives. I'm a judge of principles. I just know that there are certain principles that are absolutely true, not sometimes true, not true under certain circumstances. There are some principles that are absolute. And you see, the world doesn't want to hear about anything that's absolute. Well, that's just your opinion, not my opinion. It is the living, eternal, unchangeable principle of the living God and it is absolute.
Absolute. Now, most people don't want to hear about anything absolute because they want to massage the laws of God. In other words, when he says thou shalt not, what does that mean?
Maybe you shouldn't. Is that what it means? Doesn't mean that at all. And somebody says thou shalt not. That's the voice of God, the word of God, the law of God, the principle of God. And you can rationalize it and massage it and rethink it and all the rest. The truth is the law of God is the law of God, absolutely. Well, that's your interpretation.
Let me ask you a question. How do you misinterpret thou shalt not kill? How do you misinterpret that? Thou shalt not steal. How do you misinterpret that?
Well, that means unless they have more than you do. No, it doesn't either. You know what? I could take almost every single principle the way people live and they just do all kind of things trying to change the law of God. You can't change the law of God. So I want to give you some thought categories for you to think about. Now, listen carefully. You put your thinking in one of these categories, you're not going to have any peace. That's not a matter of opinion.
You listen carefully. And if you are in any way halfway honest with yourself, you're going to have to agree, not with me, but with the principles of God. You cannot have peace in your heart and your thinking fall in any one of these categories.
Can't happen. So let's begin. What kind of peace are we talking about and what kind of categories are we talking about?
So let's begin with the most evident one. First category, sinful thoughts. For example, if those thoughts are thoughts of lust, whether it is for money, whether it is for power, prestige, position or sex, whatever it might be. Lust and peace cannot inhabit the same heart because lust is desire out of control. It is a strong, driving, manipulating kind of controlling desire. You cannot, listen, think lustful thoughts and be at peace within your heart.
You cannot. Also, we could put in that category of sinful thoughts, anger, bitterness, resentment, hostility, hatred, fear. These are thoughts, for example, that you can't have any peace. In other words, you cannot be angry and have angry thoughts and be at peace with God or yourself. You can't hold resentment in your heart and be at peace. You can't have bitterness in your heart and be at peace. You can't have ungodly thoughts in your heart and be at peace. This is why when somebody says, well, you're judging people? No, here's what I just know. That when I see and hear people boasting of their wickedness, boasting of their sin, and then laughing and having parties and doing all the rest and saying to the world, well, everything is fantastic.
I know they're lying. I don't have to judge them. All I got to do is read the Word of God and here's what it says. The Bible says there is no peace for the wicked. And any person who's deliberately willfully rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and understanding who he is, rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and chose to live in rebellion toward him is living a wicked life. He says there's no peace for the wicked.
They're like the sea in all of its turmoil in the midst of a storm. So you cannot deliberately willfully live in sin and disobey the law of God, the will of God, the plan of God, and having the peace in your heart. You can rationalize, massage, and you can do anything you want that's not going to be there.
So first category, listen. Sinful thoughts cannot have peace. Oil and water don't mix.
You can stir it all night long. Not going to mix. Sinful thoughts, peace don't mix.
That's the first one. Second category of thoughts that I want you to think about is this. That's negative thinking. Negative thoughts.
You came to peace thinking, native, for example. Well, I just feel so rejected. It's negative thinking.
Well, if God really loved me, if God really and truly loved me, here's what he would do. No, that's not the right way to think about that. And so oftentimes people have the idea, well, I'm just a nobody. And parents, listen carefully.
You can set your children on the path of anxiety all of their lives by the way you treat them early in life. When you say to them, you'll never amount to anything, why don't you be like your brother? Why can't you be smart like your sister?
Why aren't you pretty like so-and-so? You know what you're doing? You're just sticking a dagger in their heart, in their emotion.
And I'm going to tell you, most people never get over that scar. Negative thinking, you projected it on them. You drove it into their heart. You drove it into their mind.
And what you did is you put a grid in their mind. And every time they think about looks, they think, but not I. Every time they think about abilities and gifts and opportunities and privileges, not me.
You know why? Because their thinking has gone to the negative category. God is a very positive guy.
So what about all these things He says about judgment? They are positive warnings to protect us from ruining and wrecking our lives. That's not negative thinking.
What about all this stuff about hell? That isn't negative thinking. That is information. It is motivation.
It is warning lest you wreck and ruin your life and spend eternity separated from Him. There's another category I want you to think about. And that's the category of erroneous thinking. We think wrong thoughts. And sometimes those wrong thoughts are out of ignorance.
And so I give them that. Sometimes wrong thoughts are out of ignorance. But when a person says, God could not love me and allow this to happen, wrong. Because it may be that God allowed this thing to happen in your life because He has something good on the other side of it.
He wants to do something in your life. He's pruning you and sanding you and sifting you a little bit to get you ready for the best blessing He has in mind. You've said, God doesn't love me. Or somebody says, well, I'd like to be saved, pastor, but I've committed the unpardonable sin.
No, you haven't. When you die without Christ, then you've crossed the line of being pardoned. You want to get saved and you're telling me that you commit the unpardonable sin? That's erroneous thinking. And I think about people who live in fear because of erroneous thinking.
You think about this, when you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Somebody says, well, you know what, I'm just alone. No, you're not alone. Well, I just hate being alone. You're not alone.
You may be lonely, but you're not alone. That's wrong thinking, erroneous thinking. When you're not thinking the way God thinks, you're not going to have any peace. Now, you know, I don't know how to say it any stronger. It's not that you may not. You cannot. You cannot. And you've never met anybody who's negative thinking, sinful thinking, erroneous thinking about things in life that really matter, who have peace.
They don't because they can't. What you have to decide is this. Do I want to have peace in my heart? Then I've got to get my thinking straightened out. Because my actions are going to be determined by what I think. So erroneous thinking, that won't do it. Well, what about unrealistic thoughts? What about the category of unrealistic thinking? When a person sets goals for their life that they have to strive and manipulate and beat other people down and work at it and on and on and on they go and say, here's what I'm going to do.
Here's what I'm going to accomplish. If it's not the will of God, if it's totally beyond God's will and purpose and plan for your life, and if God, listen, and if He's not in it, no matter what you're thinking, it's unrealistic thinking. And if you get close to it or a thousand miles from it, you're not going to have any peace. Because you see, God doesn't operate that way. And when somebody says, well, I'm going to get saved when I get good and ready, and I'm going to do enough good works between now and the time I die, I'm just going to be fine.
You know what? That's totally unrealistic thinking. Number one, God does not save you on the basis of your works.
You could never work enough and you would never know when you'd worked enough or given enough. And so it's absolutely unrealistic thinking, erroneous thinking. Won't work and you won't have any peace in it. Peace doesn't come that way. Peace is a gift that flows out of us when you and I are thinking the right way.
And I'm coming to something more important than that in a second. When we're thinking the right way. When I'm thinking the wrong way, impure thoughts, disobedient thoughts.
And so, as you think about these categories, ask yourself the question, is that the way I'm thinking? Watch this. God will never lead you to think something that's unrealistic.
Now watch this carefully. He may lead you to think about something that seems impossible, but He knows when He puts His energy and strength and wisdom in you, you're going to be able to do it. I'm talking about unrealistic from God's viewpoint, His will and purpose and plan for your life. And if it's unrealistic, or it can be something just bizarre, as we said in the very beginning, it's not going to happen. And listen, if you set out in life to strive after something that's not of God, you're not going to have any peace.
Because unrealistic thinking from God's viewpoint never produces peace, it just doesn't. Then there's another category. Now think about the category of rebellious thinking. Rebellious thinking says, I know what the law says, but here's what I'm going to do.
Watch this carefully. In every single one of us, there is the potential of being rebellious. Anytime God says to you and to me, here's what I want you to do, we say, no way. Or we can say, well, thank you very much, Lord, and I'm going to think about that.
God doesn't give commands for our contemplation. He gives us commands for our obedience. And you'll see people will teach Sunday school, they'll sing in the choir, or some people will preach. All kinds of aspects in a church life. And say, God, praise the Lord, I'm serving you. I'm here to tell you, friend, all the service to God in the world that does not come out of our heart of submission to His will is not going to bring you any peace, any real joy, any real contentment. And here's what will happen.
On the outside, you'll be looking fantastic. On the inside, if somebody can see what's going on inside of you, it's like your internal motives are just churning and churning and churning. Why?
Because you cannot have peace and be rebellious toward the Father, cannot be. Well, I want you to think of another category. And that's the category of obsessive thinking, obsessive thoughts. These are thoughts that grab you, won't let you go. You won't let them go.
Something you want at all costs in life. And so these thoughts harass you, dominate you, control you. You'll never have any peace because you see what's happening is it overshadows all your other thinking. The only thing you can have an obsession about and have peace is Jesus.
That's the only thing you can think about with such obsessive thoughts. I love you, Lord Jesus. I praise you. I bless you.
I want you to saturate, permeate my life. If you're obsessed with loving Him and obeying Him, you're going to have absolute peace. You know why? Because if you're obsessed with Him, you're going to be walking in obedience to His will and doing what He wants you to do.
Then there's one last category I'd mention. And that's enslaved thinking. You say, well, isn't that the same thing as obsessed?
No. Enslaved thinking is that I have given myself over my thinking to something that absolutely controls and dominates my life to the point that even when I don't like it, I've got to have it. An alcoholic is an enslaved thinker. A drug addict is an enslaved thinker. People who have addictions, whether it's sexual addiction or drug addiction or alcoholic addiction or work addiction, doesn't make any difference, what is?
They're people who've been captured and enslaved by wrong thinking. I have to have it. I must have it. I can't live without it. I must achieve it.
I absolutely have to. Enslaved thinking, there is absolutely no peace whatsoever. You say, well, how do I deal with this? The only way to have peace in your life is first of all to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior by confessing and repenting of your sins and laying it all before Him and telling Him you're giving your life to Him. And you're trusting Him on the basis of what He did at Calvary when He died and shed His blood for you. An atonement, it was an atonement, a payment paid for your sins. He satisfied the law of God. And in that sacrifice, your sins are forgiven when you come to Him and ask Him. Then what happens is you have peace with God.
The war is over. Now, how can you have the peace of God daily in your life? There's only one way.
One way. Having trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you, now watch this. The Bible says, Jesus said, I hold the keys of life and death. That means He determines your birth, when and how and what you're like and why you live and where you grow up.
He determines the moment in time when He's going to take your life off this globe. So the keys to life and death He holds. He's left you a key. Keys of life, He's got it. Keys to death, He's got it.
There's one key that you have and you'll never have any real peace until you turn this key over to Him. And that is the key to your will. Our will to obey you. Our will to follow you.
And you may think about it this way. Well, I have a whole set of keys. Key to my health. Key to my possessions. Key to my relationships.
On and on and on you could go. And what I want to ask is this. Is there any key in your life that He doesn't have? You see, that's why the key is the key to your will.
Because it's been your will and your thinking that you choose whether to live in obedience to Him or not to live in obedience to Him. So what am I saying? Your peace, nobody can steal it. Nobody can take it away.
It's the way you think and the way you respond. If you want the kind of peace I'm talking about, it is a choice that you make. It's a choice to experience that peace. It's a choice to keep that peace.
And it's yours for the asking and the turning over of the key to your will. Thank you for listening to Why We Lose Our Peace. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-05 02:46:18 / 2024-12-05 02:54:26 / 8