Right Thinking Joins Your Faith to God’s Power

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Running with Horses, a podcast devoted to inspire you, concerning a relationship with Almighty God that empowers you to accomplish things you never thought possible. Shirley Weaver wants to take you there. And now, here's today's episode.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back. Today we are talking the power of God, how right thinking actually joins, connects your faith to God's power. His power is poured out because of His love for His creation, for His sons and daughters, His love manifest many times in manifestations of His power. And we can see the connection we cannot believe for a miracle with wrong thinking about the power that brings that miracle.

To understand God's character, to grow in our understanding of His perfected love for us, right thinking joins your faith to God's power rather than undermining that connection. The power of God is the character of God. The more you know Him, the more you understand His power, displays of His power, and you fully magnify and exalt Him that way, patterned from the Lord's Prayer. His, after all, is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amazing, amazing that we pray that way all the time.

His is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. So glad you're here today for this show where we're looking at how we connect our faith to receive God's power. I was looking just earlier today at the podcast, like the latest stats, the listeners that tune into the podcast regularly. Of course, the majority of those are in the United States, and we welcome each and every one of you, especially love hearing from you.

But also, looking at the stats here, I see listeners in Belgium, Canada, Philippines, France, in the UK, India, Nicaragua, hello Nicaragua, Spain, Australia, just to name a few. I need to tell you this, you are in our heart when we see your nation represented in the listeners tuning in, it automatically brings us together. So grateful for you. Okay, today, Right Thinking joins your faith to God's power. The idea here actually came from the Running with Horses. Let me say that again. From Running with Horses, our devotion book by the same name as our podcast, and one of the titles on one of the devotion days, the title, What Was I Thinking?

What Was I Thinking? And speaking of the book, be sure to check out today's show notes, you'll find a convenient link. Running with Horses, 365-day devotion book available at Amazon.com, or you can go directly to acleartrumpet.org forward slash book. Okay, Right Thinking that joins your faith to God's power. The power of God, fully magnified and exalting his power means that we don't underestimate or undermine nor interrupt the flow of his power in the way that he intends. I love Proverbs 23, 7, As a man thinks within himself, so is he. I become the person that my thinking shapes. As a man thinks within himself, so is he. And the last part of that verse, and then from the heart, as a result of the thinking flow words that govern him, govern the man who's thinking in his heart, he becomes the product of his thoughts. Those thoughts govern and actually define the individual.

You and I both are responsible in this way. We're responsible to discipline our thinking, which is precisely what Paul wrote to the believers in Philippi, to discipline their thoughts, what they think about, they dwell on, meditate upon. He said, you've got to choose to think about right things.

And I'm looking at this passage in Philippians 4, he said, think on these things, anything true, noble, just, pure, lovely, a good report, virtuous, praiseworthy, add to the list. This is the construct of the way our thinking should be allowed or required, better word, required to flow. Because when we choose to discipline our lives this way, it means that we think about and I think concentrate on the right things. You know, if you meditate on right positive things, you live a more positive life, more aligning your faith with the way that God thinks. And then the opposite is true when we concentrate on negative things. That's because wrong thinking, that includes wrong thoughts, gets the application of the same principle. But with an opposite outcome, wrong thinking, if we're honest, we'd admit, means entertaining thoughts, even in an obsessive way that contradict the faith you are relying on to believe God for your miracle, the sign, the intervention, the divine intervention by the Lord, because He has that power. His love is His power.

He pours out His love any way that He chooses. And power is one of those ways. You discipline thoughts and we do this because we know better than to let them go undisciplined. Or again, by contrast, if we continue a habit and the same disastrous consequences of negative or wrong or contradictory to God's word thinking, doing so, those thoughts produce belief systems, not just belief, but belief systems. And we build layers that undermine our faith. Those things dishonor God. That is not okay. In the big picture, the thing you are believing for is a combination of the part that you play and the part that God provides.

The two come together to create the will of God. And again, if we're honest, we have to admit that sometimes we just don't discern the snare of that wrong thinking, of sort of flapping around in an undisciplined way, are the serious consequences which means essentially we don't even see the problem. We're so insensitive to this truth and this reality. You might even say we choose not to see it because the habit is more comfortable, the absence of discipline easier. Why are we talking here about disciplining thoughts?

Here's why. The apostle Paul said, you want to make sure you don't let these things slip. Once you've learned the foundations of the faith, the test of time and the winds and waves of just living life can cause you to lose your resolve and begin to lose the demand that you place on walking in the principles that God has laid out in his word. So to help with the big picture here, right this minute, you, me, we all are a composite of our thought life up until this point. That means that I cannot go anywhere that my thoughts dictate I cannot go. By the same token, if my thoughts are rightly ordered, I can follow those thoughts to do all things in Christ who strengthens me. Again, as a man thinks within himself, so is he because that kind of thing is going to flow from your heart and create the government of your life. As we dwell on a thought, it opens the way to believe certain things.

Let me say that again. To dwell on a thought opens the way to believe certain things contained in that thought. Things like all the logic and reasoning playing in the background, human logic and reasoning often contradict God's character, his nature and the more we ponder. I'm telling you, our lives today are a composite of how we think and what we have come to believe as a result. And bottom line, God's love in this matter will deliver us from unrighteous thinking, unrighteous thought patterns and all of the, I mean, it's depressing, right? It's not productive.

It's not helpful. Don't know why we're encouraged to do it this way, but there's something in the human psyche that wants to resist the structure that God has ordained so that the maximum potential of your life to meet and fulfill your destiny takes place. His love extends to help us choose right here to change. He is the deliverer. To change, to be delivered from something really means to cease believing a lie. You might even say cease believing the lie, which lie? The lie that you're believing causing you to think in ways that contradict God's word and frustrate your faith, break your connection with the love of God and his character and his nature. So the bondage of wrong thinking and that undisciplined thought life is subject to the delivering power of God's love. That is huge because the bondage that we need to break is basically that we become like the thing we think about, but God's love, say it again, God's love will deliver us his power to deliver. Once we choose, you have to choose, we do the choosing, his power begins to flow.

It actually removes all that broken and out of order condition that is in process on its way to fulfillment. You want to stop those consequences before they ever reach the point of harvest. We talked about that in our last podcast. By the way, we have a lot to learn about the power of God is the title of the last show. You need to check that one out.

It's loaded with good information. So back to what we were saying, looking back, once you've been delivered this way, looking back, those who have been delivered this way are shocked that that kind of wrong thinking had a hold on them for so long. See, because they were sympathetic to it.

They were in sync with it. So when we choose, and I hear testimonies from time to time, once the choice is made about wrong thinking, choosing to not partner there, sync with it, or be sympathetic to it anymore, the miracle working power of God's deliverance to help us stop believing the lie floods our lives and restores those broken places. It's a divine intervention, pure and simple.

Your choice, your determination, God's power, that is a fabulous combination. Jesus, this is from Mark chapter six, there was the miracle, actually, plural miracles of feeding thousands more than one occasion with just a few loaves and some fish. Following one of those times, Jesus went into the boat with his disciples and the wind ceased. The wind had been blowing, the storm was up, a storm was up. And when Jesus entered the boat, when the presence of the Lord Jesus came, they were greatly amazed. They couldn't believe that his presence would calm the storm like that. And this is the kicker in the last part of verse 51 and 52.

Actually, it would be 52, Mark chapter six. Get this, for they had not understood about the loaves because their heart was hardened. They couldn't understand that multiplying of the loaves to feed thousands.

Now they're confronting with his presence, calming the storm. And the gospel here specifies that it was from a hardened heart that the disbelief came. You see, the consequence of disbelieving and the habit of wrong thinking is it hardens the heart. And a hardened heart cannot believe, just cannot.

That's just the way it works. In another place, the apostle Paul said, this is 1 Corinthians 2, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But Paul said, the things that I speak are not with the words of man's wisdom, but words that the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Write that down, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. See, not spiritual with natural, spiritual with spiritual, the power of God.

Understand his love and you understand his power. We're growing as we mature in that understanding. We are determined and discipline ourselves to compare spiritual to spiritual, growing up to spiritually discern even more and more. You know, to understand God's heart is a built in protection against the hardened heart that Paul mentioned because we accept and believe for the love of God to flow in his power. So our understanding increases as we understand more and more about his nature and his character and his presence in our lives. You know, as you and I mature spiritually, which we either are or are not maturing, but we determine to mature spiritually, we are increasing in the experience of 1 Corinthians 2.16 where we read, we have the mind of Christ.

That's the experience that God has for you to think like him, comparing spiritual to spiritual, not over there in the natural of logic and reasoning, but preferring instead and choosing and insisting upon all of the will of God with the spiritual content that he has for us to think about, to meditate on, to speak of out of the abundance of our heart and to shape our character in this important hour in which we live. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support this podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. Don't forget to check out the show notes or visit acleartrumpet.org where you can subscribe to Shirley's email list, download the ministry app, and purchase your very own copy of Shirley's 365 Day Devotional, Running with Horses. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.