Good to Great in God's Eyes - Think Great Thoughts, Part 2

Do you know why most people want to change but rarely do? It's because they focus on the wrong thing. They often focus on a behavior they want to change. They focus on emotions they want to change.

But behavior and emotions always go back to something deeper, our thoughts. Thinking great thoughts is the key to real transformation. If you want to learn to think great thoughts, you're not going to want to miss today. Well, thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians.

I'm Dave Drouie. And if you're like me, you really don't want to waste your time thinking just mediocre thoughts. That's why in this program, Chip continues to challenge us to think great thoughts as he picks up where he left off in his series, Good to Great in God's Eyes.

Well, let's jump right in to part two of Chip's talk from Philippians chapter four. I want to give you some very specific ways to learn to think great thoughts, okay? I'm not going to leave you with, oh gosh, I'm going to try real hard, think great thoughts, or I guess I'm going to have to memorize the book of Matthew, James, Colossians. It's a good idea, but I doubt if many of us are going to go there overnight. So what I want to talk with you about is seven areas to cultivate great thinking.

And I'm going to touch on them and then at the end I'm going to give you a little game plan. I believe it's really, really crucial that we think great thoughts. We need to think great thoughts about God. I've just given you one verse. Now I will say, for you second milers, if you had a three by five card somewhere, you could say, think great thoughts about God. And then when no one's looking, you could write Romans 11, 33.

And by the way, I only put 33, but you might want to put all the way to 36 because it's hard to stop. Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable, how unsearchable is God's wisdom and his past beyond finding out? Who has known the mind of God?

Or who's been his counselor? Who's given anything to God that he should repay him? For by him and for him and through him are all things. What if that was the kind of God you worshiped? What if you thought there was a God who knows all things? His ways are mysterious, they're beyond finding out. And you begin to think a high, accurate view of God.

And yes, you can learn it from books like Tozer. But I think first and foremost, the depths and the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. Do you know what wisdom is? Definition of wisdom. Wisdom is God does and brings about the best possible results by the best possible means for the most possible people for the longest possible time. Oh, the depth of the wisdom.

Anything you're going through in your life right now, you worship, if you know Jesus personally, you worship a God, if there was an easier, lighter, better way to orchestrate what he's doing in you and through you, he would be doing it that way. The wisdom of God tells you he's bringing the best possible results by the best possible means for the most possible people for the longest possible time. Oh, the wisdom and the knowledge. He knows all things. He knows next week. He knows about Al-Qaeda. He knows the stock market. He knows about your children. He knows about your grandchildren. He understands your singleness. He understands your depression. He understands all the things that are going on inside. The knowledge of God.

Oh, the depths. It's beyond finding out. When you begin to think of God like that, how? Through scripture. How? Through great books.

And third, how? You might jot this down through nature. I've learned this from my wife. I am such a highly focused, I almost said driven, but it sounds so bad, driven person that we lived in California about five years before I recognized there's flowers all year round. There's flowers here, there's flowers there, flowers there. I mean, there's flowers everywhere. And I have a wife who looks at the forest and is quiet and has a wife that can sit in a chair and watch birds and a wife that we can drive through beautiful country and for 30 minutes not say a word and just absorb.

And she taught me to go up to Tahoe and just look at the mountains and I don't even have to say anything. Just what kind of a God would it be that would make such beauty? What kind of a God who could do anything how He wanted would make red and blue and yellow and violet and 5,000 different kinds of beetles. What kind of a God, what creativity, what love, how winsome could it be when you see the oceans roar and the rocks and the... See, we need to think accurately about God. And you think accurately about God when you get verses on cards that talk about who He really is and you read through the scripture. You think accurately about God when you take the tozer books and the packer books and begin to digest them. And you think accurately about God when you allow nature and the creation.

It reveals the heart and who the creator is like, Romans chapter 1. Thinking accurately about God also I've learned comes when you worship. I learned from my wife.

I actually look at flowers now. I actually at times got to where I would pull off and just stare at the ocean. There's times where I take a walk for non-exercise. It's an amazing adventure. I never dream, why would you ever walk anyplace if you're not trying to get someplace?

That's me. Sometimes it's just good to walk to see and behold, behold the heavens declare the glory of the Lord. And to let it soak in and to let God speak to you and to know that He's a what?

What do you learn from it? That He's a good God. That He's a wise God. That He's a God who knows and understands your hurt and your pain.

That He's a God who cares. And if you want to really get a right view of God, just study the life of Jesus. Study the life of Jesus. Study the life of Jesus.

Because everything what Jesus say, if you've seen me, you have seen the Father. Second though is we need to not only think rightly about God, we need to learn to think rightly about ourselves. Learn to think great thoughts about yourself.

And you say, well what do you mean? I mean learn to look at yourself the way God looks at you. And here's my key verse, Zephaniah 3.17. The Lord your God is with you.

Isn't that comforting? He's with you. Well if He's with me, what can He do? He is mighty to save.

He's powerful, He's with you and whatever need you have, He has the power and ability to save. Yeah, but would He help someone like me? He will take great delight in you. Would you circle the word delight in your notes?

Just to get involved in there. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with singing.

Would you put a little squiggly line under rejoice over you? So you need to get an accurate view of God. Think great thoughts about God, but you got to think great thoughts about yourself. Do you get up in the morning and with all the things that you're going through and do you look at the mirror and see all the things that are wrong? I don't mean the physical mirror, I mean the psychological mirror.

I mean how you tend to just unconsciously do that self talk to yourself. Or do you wake up in the morning and your eyes open up and what would happen if Zephaniah 3.17 came down and before you haven't moved, you haven't prayed, you haven't shaved, you haven't showered and it was, I'm with you today. I delight in you. Whatever happens today, I'm going to quiet you with my love. I'm mighty to save the moment you have a need, I will be here.

I delight in you. You are valuable. You are precious. I'm going to save your tears in a bottle. I know all your days.

I know every hair on your head. You matter so much to me. I sent Jesus my son to pay for your sin.

You are the object of my affection. Can you imagine what that would do for how you think about yourself and how you live your life if you believe that? You see, we've got to think great thoughts about God, about ourselves and about others. I love the passage in 1 Samuel 16.7. It's the prophet has been told, you know, Jesse, one of his boys are going to be the next king.

And so the prophet goes and he sees this big hulk of a guy and he's good looking and a head taller and you know, he thinks, well, I guess this is the guy. And the Lord speaks to him and says, Samuel, do not consider his appearance or the height of his stature for I've rejected him. The Lord does not look at things the way a man looks at things. Man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart. And you might jot down 2 Corinthians 5.16. 5.17, we kind of know the verse, you know, if any man be in Christ, new creature.

5.16, he says, Paul will say, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, now we know him thus no longer and therefore we judge no man according to the flesh. See, I want to learn to look and think about other people the way God thinks about them. And so I have little three by five cards because I can't keep things straight and I write them. And I don't try and memorize them. I used to try and memorize them when I felt all this pressure. I just read them over and I end up memorizing them but it seems, I don't know why but it just seems a little less legalistic and a little less like I'm, you know, banging myself in the head. I just read them over, just read them over and enjoy them. And I have a three by five card that says, I long to look at people the way that you look at people, Jesus.

Not by their outward appearance, status, ability or wealth, but by their heart. And I just want to practice. I want to get where, when I pull up next to a car and it's a really fancy car and the Rolex watches out the door and I think there's a human being made by God. I know nothing about his life and I'm not going to try and make up little stories about where he's coming from, what he has, where he's been.

And when I look at the beat up Pinto on the other side and the guy that has, you know, the four earrings coming down, the tattoo on the sleeveless shirt and the rasifarian hair, Lord, I don't know what's going on in this man's life. But what I know is that all that I see externally is not how you see him. I want to view him and see him and treat him the way you do. And see, that takes practice. Because I grew up in the same culture you did and I'm human.

So what do you do? We treat certain people dressed a certain way, a certain way. We think certain thoughts make us, oh that's a tattoo, know where he's coming from. Oh, those two are holding hands. Well, in that culture, girls do hold hands with girls at that age.

There's nothing going on there. We make so many assumptions and we so judge so many people in so many ways. And God says, think great thoughts. Tell you what, think the way I think about people.

Man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. Fourth area to think great thoughts about is your life. You need to think great thoughts about life itself. Notice what Jesus said about life. He gives us a great thought in Luke 9, 23 to 25. He said to them, remember Peter? Peter has just finally got it really right. Who do men say that I am? Some say Elijah, some say this, some say a prophet. Peter, who do you think? You are the Christ, the son of the living God. Bang, you win today, Peter.

Way to go, you're right. And then he shifts it and he talks about now that you know who I really am. Then he said to them all, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Why?

I mean, do you realize where he's set in the bar? No other priority more important than me. No other person more important than me.

No other agenda more important than me. I want you to set aside your dreams, your goals, your life, your money, your puny view of life and I want you to follow me since you know I'm God and I'm the Messiah and I'm good and I'm wise and I'm all knowing and I always have your best in mind. I want you to release your life to me in surrender and I want you to follow me wherever I say even if it sounds crazy.

And we're thinking, that sounds really scary. I don't want to do that. But he tells us why. For whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for me will save it. In other words, if you try and hang on to it, if you try and control, it's my money, my time, my dreams, God, I'll obey you as long as it's these two states and at this financial level and doing it this way, this way and I'm near to these kids but not. We never get to say that.

We make no conditions. If you try to save your life, you will lose it. But if you lose it, if you lose it, I'll do whatever you want me to, Lord.

I'll go wherever you want me to, Lord. Think great thoughts about life. Life is not about getting, accumulating, controlling, manipulating and having my way so that I create a false sense of security and I can project and think that I'm a somebody significant because I have done this and owned this and can do that. Life is about following Jesus and losing my life but not because I'm dumb, it's because I'm smart.

If he's the author of life, then I'm going to lose or surrender my life and by that I'm going to gain it and then he gives us the greatest reason for what good is it for man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his very self. And don't we see it everywhere? I want to look like the people in Hollywood. I want to have the money of the professional players. I want to have this house here and that house there and that kind of car.

I want to dress this way. I want people to think this and boom, boom, boom. The prettiest, smartest, most successful people in the world live in Southern California. A lot of you people from around the states would argue that but I mean in terms of the image and yet, you know, they can't stay married for more than two weeks.

They can't figure out with billions, scenes and millions of dollars to not put white powder up their nose. I mean, I read those tabloids, you know, take that in context, as I'm going through the grocery line. Come on, think great thoughts, think great thoughts. But as I go through, I mean, you can keep up with the whole world by just, you know, getting milk once a week. And as I do, I just think there's a part of it that, you know, in your flesh that you're sort of curious and wonder who she married last week or is with and they broke up and all, you know, and then there's a part of it with just an ounce of thought where you think about life rightly and you think, isn't it sad? I mean, isn't it really sad that someone that pretty, someone that successful is going through their seven or eight partner and, you know, now they're anorexic and they've made all these movies and you know what, I'm asking God to give me a heart that looks at people the way he does but more look at life the way he does. Because I'm not immune to wanting to accumulate and impress. I'm not immune to, you know, you can do it in ministry, you want to be significant, want to be successful, want people to like you.

You know what, it's all about trying to save your life. Think great thoughts about God. Think great thoughts about yourself. Think great thoughts about others and think great thoughts about life.

As the song says, it's not about me. Fifth, think great thoughts about your future. Jeremiah 29, 11 says, for I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. How do you think about the future? So many of us think about the future with fear.

Some of us think about the future with anxiety. What's going to happen next? What about the terrorism? What about the economy? What about my kids?

What about my grandkids? What about my singleness? What about the big decision I've got to make? And then we think about the future, we think about the future. How do we think about it?

We think about what do I have to do to protect myself from something bad? What would happen if you thought great thoughts about the future? Is God sovereign or not? Is God good or not?

Is God all wise or not? If there is a good God that has a good plan for you and He's all knowing, He's all wise, has the power to deliver it and orchestrates all things on the face of the earth, you can face the future with confidence. You can face the future with hope. In fact, we're going to talk about it later but what if you actually, I call it doing the math, what if you extrapolated all the way out to the very worst thing that could happen? You're a Christian, okay? You love God.

I mean there's issues and there's relationships and there's finances, okay, but you really love God and you know when you get in those thoughts of this could happen and this could happen and this could happen and I could get cancer and this could happen and this could happen, okay, let's just play it out. Worst thing that could happen, you die. You're dead. Dead. You're a Christian. So what happens to you? You immediately go to heaven. Oh bummer. I mean that's how Christians live.

Oh bummer. Let's see, I'm with Jesus. There's no pain. I'm reunited with my loved ones.

You know as Prof Hendrick says, hey, I've started a journey of completion and graduation. I've fallen asleep in the Lord and I love His, I'm going home. It's like falling asleep. No one's afraid to fall asleep. It's like going home. No one's afraid to go back home. It's like starting on a journey, a graduation.

We all like to do that. You know worst case scenario, your future is the God of the universe sent His son. He died for you, paid the price, rose from the dead.

You received Him personally and the worst that can happen is you're gonna end up with Jesus forever and ever and ever. But see we don't think that way, do we? Think great thoughts about the future. You have a hope that can't be tarnished, it can't be spoiled. You have a God that has a plan.

You matter to Him. Think great thoughts next about the past. Paul would say in Philippians 3, 13 and 14, brothers, I don't consider myself yet as having laid hold of it but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for that which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Would you underline forgetting what lies behind and then underline I press on?

And underneath that I want you to write a little note that says I will forget about my past failures and I will forget about my past successes. You know there's some believers that have been through a divorce, been abused or abused someone. I remember the first time in the church where I pastored and I had a guy that abused a seven year old kid.

I mean that's just so, you know, think and doing counseling with him. And when he got out of prison and came and showed me his card and I'm a sex offender and the whole nine yards, tears streaming down his eyes going I never wanted to do that and this is what happened in my life. You know what, instead of a sex offender he became a person, a real person and he found Christ. But you know what just hangs over this guy's life? I'm a sex offender.

I'm a sex offender. Forgetting what lies behind. What's in your closet?

What is it that down deep you spent an inordinate amount of energy covering? You know a divorce, a separation, an abortion, some stealing, some lying. Think great thoughts about your past. Psalm 103, as far as the east is from the west, so far has God taken your sin from you. Isaiah 1, though your sins, though my sins be like scarlet, he'll make them white as wool.

Though they be as red as blood, he'll make them white as snow. You're clean. You don't have to do pendants, you don't have to feel like a second class citizen. Put your past behind you. That is not you.

You are fresh, you are clean, you are born again, you have been adopted into his family, you have an eternal inheritance, you have the spirit of God living, you are a son, you are a daughter, you have a future, you're heaven bound and he loves you. Think those thoughts. Don't be paralyzed by the past. But I would encourage you also, don't think about past successes either. There's a lot of people that, you know what, you've done some significant things spiritually and significant things with your family and some significant things in ministry and in business. You know what? If you don't forget about that, you'll get complacent. You know, I've done this.

I don't know how many times in churches I hear this, well I've done my time. Well how old are you, 62? You in good health? Yeah.

I'm still in good health, I play golf six days a week. Oh man, I'd say that's impacting the kingdom. Oh man, what are you, different foursome every day and you know, guy's probably kneeling the whole night, yeah Jesus come into my life, thank you. But do you understand the mentality of what we're doing? We think the goal is that to get so far, stop and then coast. The reality and the joy of life is not in the attainment, it is in the process. And so many people in their mid-50s, 60s, and 70s, you never ever will have more to give to God, to the kingdom, to people, to your grandchildren, to your neighbors, to your church than you do right now.

And we got people going, well you know, hey, I did my time. Your time's done when you're done. You know, I don't have first retirement 1-7. Now you may physically retire, you may rearrange your schedule, but you know something?

You're done when you're done. You know, Moses, what if Moses at 79 said, you know I'm gonna be 80 next year, I think I'll bag it. We'd be in trouble. Finally, think great thoughts about challenges. How we think about the difficulties and the adversities that come into our life really shape us. James says some very hard words, but they're said to a group of people that are in a lot worse shape than most of us. First book written in the New Testament. It says to verse one of James chapter one is to those scattered abroad, they're Jewish Christians and they've come to know Christ and a lot of people are becoming kind of human torches and persecution has hit.

And some people said, you know, I believe Jesus is the Messiah. And the parents said, guess what? You're no longer my son, you're no longer my daughter. And now you don't have an inheritance, you don't have a place to live. And the persecution came and they're spread out and they've lost home, they've lost relationships, they've lost their jobs, they've lost their companies. Everything, they have a broken world.

It is not working. It's shattered. Their financial security, their relational security, everything that helps us stay sort of solid is gone. So what would God say to a group of people like that? Consider it. The word is reckon. Think thoughtfully.

Ponder. Consider it pure or all joy. What? When you encounter various kinds of trials.

The word for various trials there has the idea of those things that come from the outside. Those circumstances, those uncontrollable things. Consider it. Choose literally.

Choose to consider it joy when adversity and difficulty comes into your life. And you're thinking, why? Knowing. And the word for knowing here, circle it if you would. It's not an intellectual knowledge. There's two words in the New Testament for knowing. One has to do with knowing by way of experience. The other is an intellectual, you know, two plus two is four.

I know that's true. This is knowing by way of experience. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let or allow endurance to have its perfect result. That you may be perfect or mature like the version we have right there. Perfect or mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

James would say to a group of people who, guess what? In our vernacular, their marriage broke up. They had a grandchild commit suicide.

They financially thought everything would be okay. But now, wow, some things really went in a way that, and you're in a situation where you're thinking, I never dreamed I'd be where I am now. I ran into two people in the last week who've been married over 30 years whose mate walked out on them.

Broken world experience. How do you respond to that? How do you respond to the inner struggles and the pressures and the sick of being loneliness and wanting a mate and crying out to God and it's not there? Or a problem in a marriage that, you know, God, God, God, God, I know divorce isn't right. I know divorce isn't right.

I know that's an option. But man, this stinks. This stinks. Help, help, help. Or working on a business or working on an issue and no matter what happens, it just won't come together.

What do you do? You choose to think about it biblically. What we tend to do is say, well, you know what? I'm like this because what my mom and dad did. Or actually, it couldn't be my dad because he left us when I was two. Or I'm like this because, you know, that guy was my boss.

I'll tell you what, when they did, that guy is such a jerk. And we have people who live with a blame, shame or victim mentality and it's everybody else's fault. And you know how you think great thoughts about your adversity, your challenge? I choose because God is in control. I choose to consider this pure or unmitigated joy. A feeling?

No, it's a choice. Why? Because what I know is that God being all-knowing, good, wise and powerful, what I know for sure is this adversity is going to do something and this testing is going to produce endurance like a weight lifter. You put the weights on and you start doing the dips. And like a weight lifter, if you keep doing that, guess what's going to happen? Over time, those muscle fibers begin to split. Any of you guys that have listed weights and that's why you rest the second day, then it heals.

And how does it heal? Stronger. God brings weights into your life sovereignly, lovingly, wisely. Internal weights, relational weights, financial weights, family weights. Painful things into your life.

It's a fallen world. He allows them to happen but He's going to work them for good but your response, how you think about it, your attitude will make all the difference. You can either be a victim, whine, complain, substitute, soothe and medicate your pain with unhealthy things. Or you can say, I'm going to make a choice. I choose to consider this all joy because God is going to produce endurance and endurance does something to a man or a woman.

It does something to their character. I'm going to let God use this to make me more and more like His Son so that I am perfect, mature, teleos, so I can fulfill the design that God ultimately wants in me. I'm going to become more and more like Jesus through this suffering. Hebrews 5, although He was a son, speaking of Jesus, although He was a son, He learned obedience through the things which He suffered. And we're living in an evangelical community who does everything to avoid suffering rather than saying it is a part of what happens in a fallen world. And people will see more of Jesus in your life by how you go through suffering, whether it's internal, family, financial, health. They'll see more of Christ in your life by how you go through suffering than your great successes in saying Jesus did it all. We've got to think accurately, great thoughts about God, ourselves, our future, our past, our challenges, because you're a product of your thought life.

How do you get there? Let me give you a little to-go package and we'll wind it up. Has anyone got the idea that possibly memorizing and meditating on Scripture is going to be a part of this deal? And you know what?

You don't have to kill yourself on this. You can write them on 3x5 cards. I think the NAS still put out the topical memory system. I started with just 60 verses and they have 30 topics. You memorize two verses. Then I just started making up topics of my own.

And then you do have to review them for four or five weeks so they won't stick. And then you'll get so many that it'll get a little overwhelming and some of you get a little arrogant. You get a few hundred verses and you'll think, oh, wow. And then God will bring some humbling things into your life and you'll realize it's not memorizing the verses.

I'm sorry, Lord. You know, it's knowledge puffs up. Love edifies. But then you'll just develop a little system. And as God really speaks to you, you write it down and you memorize it and you use those little times where you're kind of bored and you will find that God will renew your mind and transform your life. I encourage you to use your drive time. You know, I listen to teaching tapes. I do listen to worship, but sometimes just turn it all off. Be quiet. Think great thoughts. What if you just took these seven areas?

What if you took these seven areas that I gave you and the single verse that I gave you and you wrote, think great thoughts about God, Romans 11, 33, and you wrote it down and you made seven cards and in the next couple of weeks you just started in on them and just read them over and begin to think and then add kind of little thoughts of your own on the back of the card about thinking great thoughts. You know what happened? I'm just telling you in 10 days, your emotions will start to shift.

Why? Because right thinking produces to what? Positive emotions, which leads to wise behavior, which leads to fruitful consequences.

Second or third actually is listen to great music. Thinking great thoughts. It's interesting. I'm reading through the daily walk.

I did it for years and years and years and I haven't done it. And Teresa and I thought, you know, let's kind of go back and read through the daily walk Bible. And so we're, we thought, well, you know, we're now we're grandparents, so we're thinking like grandparents. So we got, we got a daily walk Bible for all of our kids and all their wives and everybody. And so I don't know if they're all doing it, but theoretically we can be moving through the Bible together and it just feels warm and ooey gooey in this grandfather's heart, you know, just right here, you know? And so it's interesting though that I'm reading through Moses after all the turmoil and when he wanted the people, the second generation after they blew it, did you notice what happened? What God told him to do? God said, Moses, you know, round one, they didn't do so well. There's a very loose translation of that phrase, but you know, we need to do better this time. So what I want you to do is I want you after you review it, put it into a song and we have the song of Moses and you, and in my Bible, you know, it's pretty small print, but I mean, it's three or four columns.

He put the entire history of Israel and the greatness of God and redemption and deliverance and who God is and who we are and what he did and what his promises are. And he put it in a song that I don't think there's anything probably that is an easier way to memorize or to also get good things in your mind, but listen to great music. And finally, take those walks in nature and hear God's voice.

One of the things that I've done that's been very helpful, I learned this from my wife, was memorizing random scriptures can be very helpful, but I've tried to look inside my heart and my life and my family and I realized I've got a half a dozen issues, you know, maybe I've got 12, but I've only learned about six or seven so far and they're reoccurring. I get overextended. Why? Well, down deep, I want to prove myself.

I don't believe God really loves me. Okay. Well, you know, you can just keep being a workaholic or you can keep pleasing people and you can just have a quiet time over here and not make the connection. And so what I finally did years ago, I said, you know something? This is the truth I need. And so I wrote down, I feel compelled to please people, to be on the go, to make this happen because I down deep don't believe I'm significant in your eyes. Period. Stop.

And then turn the card over and then put a Zephaniah 3.17 on the other end. And just take what are the issues in your life? Is it, you know, temptation with lust? Memorize a verse on that. Is it struggles in a relationship?

Is it temptation with the media? But take the area where you struggle and we all do and write out your bad thinking and then write stop. In fact, I made a little stop sign.

Mine's very artistic. And then flip it over and put the truth. And what you can train your mind to do, you can train your mind because you read that one you say stop.

When unconsciously those thoughts come because you've been programmed, the stop will come and then God will bring the verse to mind and you can break out of destructive habits. Your life can totally change. Does it take time? Yeah.

Does it take work? Yes. Take focus? Absolutely. Take discipline?

Mm-hmm. Those are like fruits of the Spirit, you know. Think great thoughts and you will experience a great God and a great life. Chip will be right back with his application for this message. Think Great Thoughts from his series, Good to Great in God's Eyes.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said, whoever wants to become great among you must what? Through this series, Chip explores what greatness means to God by highlighting 10 crucial practices he says are vital. Now, if you're looking to dive deeper into the subject, let me encourage you to check out Chip's book or our small group study. These are perfect tools to help jumpstart your faith.

To learn more about these resources, go to livingontheedge.org, the Chip Engram app, or call 888-333-6003. Before we go any further, Chip's joined me in studio. Chip, I can see you're wanting to jump in here for a second and talk to our listeners.

Thanks, Dave. I want to talk to those of you who partner with us financially. Your gifts help us not just stay on the air, but they provide the necessary funding to create curriculum and develop our website and provide resources at extraordinarily reasonable prices. I mean, your giving is making an amazing impact, so thank you very, very much. And for those of you that are enjoying the benefits of Living on the Edge but you haven't yet become a financial partner, would you consider doing that today? Your gifts are going to get invested right back into the ministry to assist us to develop resources, stay on the air, and help Christians live like Christians. I mean, is there ever a day when we need to make a difference?

Well, it's now. Will you help us? Thanks, Chip. Well, as you prayerfully consider your role with this ministry, I want to remind you that every gift is significant. When you partner with Living on the Edge, you multiply our efforts and resources in ways that only God can do. To send a gift, go to livingontheedge.org or text the word donate to 74141. It's that easy. Text donate to 74141 or visit livingontheedge.org.

App listeners just tap donate. Well, Chip, I'll be candid here. Your encouragement to think great thoughts is something I've not really thought about before. So what would you say to me and others who need help getting started? Hey, Dave, I get it. I mean, I really, really get it. I've done this study with businessmen.

I've done it with 20-somethings. So I'm hearing people coming up to me and saying, I got all these demands, and I got family, or I've got parenting, or I'm single, and I'm working 64-hour weeks. How am I really going to change my thinking? Okay, now for all of you that are thinking, yes, help me. First of all, would you just lean back and lighten up and realize the patterns that you have, you intentionally or unintentionally chose, and you are who you are today because of how you think.

So one thing you've got to get is if you really want to change, and God wants you to change, and you want to change, and for some of you, your mates want you to change, and for some of you, your kids are dying for you to change, or your roommate wants you to change, okay, it can really happen. But let's get it down on sort of the lower level. I told you, I wrote those on little three-by-five cards. Now, you can go to our website, and in the notes, you'll see those things. Better yet, in the book, I give those with very specific instructions about how to do this. But I mean, minimally, you can write down those for yourself in a translation that you want. Those seven cards go on your nightstand. You don't memorize them, you don't try and do anything hard, you just read them over out loud before you go to bed. When you wake up, you read them out loud, three minutes at night, three minutes in the morning, in an unhurried way. Then go brush your teeth, get a shower, put them back on your nightstand, do that for 30 days, and I will tell you something, God will start rocking your world. Thanks, Chip. As we close, a great way to take advantage of our resources is through the Chip Ingram app.

There you'll find this series, along with many more, all free. Let God's Word pour into you in such a way that you get perspective and the freedom He longs for you to enjoy. Well, join us next time as Chip continues his series, Good to Great in God's Eyes. Until then, I'm Dave Drouie, saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.