A New Way of Thinking

Is it possible for me to please God and do His will without renewing my mind? In retrospect, I thought I could be a pretty good Christian with my own mind. I had never heard that I needed a new mind and a new way of thinking when I was a young Believer. I was, in fact, a very arrogant person who was convinced that my thinking and approach to life was just fine, thank you very much.

Today, however, I see that my mind was filled with distortions, misunderstandings and bad theology. I know that bad theology leads to a dysfunctional lifestyle and poor emotional/spiritual health. No wonder the Lord wanted me to alter my thinking and repent! Those old habits got me into a lot of trouble with God, myself and other people.

God wants me to be healthy and live in abundance of joy, great relationships and spiritual peace. The ideas, assumptions and principles that were loaded into my hard drive called the brain before salvation blocked peace, inhibited joy and promoted conflicts with God, myself and others. YIKES!!! I needed help.

I needed a church and Christian leaders who could assist me to repent of my old ways of thinking and to develop new Belief Systems.

I finally found ways that helped me repent. Oh, I knew that I needed to change my drinking, sex and cursing, but those are easy to alter. After repenting of my wild side I began to read the Bible while studying to be a teacher and coach.

I learned about God's word along with teaching students grow and change. I decided to apply those teaching methods to the Bible.

I learned:

If it works, do more of it.
If it does not work, stop it.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I learned the Christian education was NOT working.
I learned about what needed to STOP.
It was broken so I needed to fix it.

It was my experience with coaching that taught me most about being a disciple maker. I needed to coach Christians how to change their thinking, feelings and behavior. I learned that talk is not enough. I learned that students/disciples only learn when they change and only change when they actually PRACTICE new ways of thinking and acting.

Now I train, coach and disciple men and women with processes that see them change. Next time I'll tell you more about what I learned.

See my web page at www.sweetenlife.com for more on this topic.