Head Health Part 4

THE ART OF MAKING UP YOUR MIND

Synopsis of Bible Study June 10, 2020

Delivered by Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III, D.Min.

Matthew 5:37 NKJV But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

I.            INTRODUCTION

1. Sometimes, life can be as simple as making a decision. If it’s that simple, why do so people struggle with it? Why the contemplation. Why do people struggle on making a decision on what they want to do?
2. Double mindedness can be devastating. The word is translated as “confused”. Double mindedness simply means confused.
3. The most miserable person in the world is that person who is habitually indecisive.  They can’t even decide on something as simple as, what do you want to eat.
   1. “We make our decisions and then our decisions make us.” – Frank Boreham

II.            THREE WAYS INDECISION MAKES YOU UNSTABLE

1. Emotionally Indecisive –  You’re worried and confused and you’re not fulfilling the thing that God has for your life. You are filling yourself with stuff that is not timeless truths. You can’t focus beyond changing emotions. There are those who are emotionally unstable.
   1. When your emotions are out of control, it has a result of a lack of devotion which causes commotion which results in a lack of motion.
   2. In the book, “Restored at the Root”, we see a young boy in the cemetery cutting himself and crying out, because he is emotionally unstable. This story can also be found in the bible.
      1. The devil can cause a traffic jam on the avenue of your mind and cause your thoughts to be all over the place.
      1. There is a true diagnosis for indecisiveness, but the other side of the coin is you’re just a person that is not able to make up their mind on what they want to do.
2. Relationally Indecisive– Lack of commitment. At some point you’re going to have to make a decision about what you are going to do concerning your relationship. For example, some of you have been asking where your relationship has been going for a while now.
   1. Indecisive people are like a bad tooth, because it’s relational indecisiveness. Proverbs 25:19 Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth and a foot out of joint. – It takes more energy deciding what to do than it does deciding what not to do.
      
      
3. Spiritually Indecisive – One day you read the word, one day you don’t. One day you’re in the race and one day you are’nt. You just can’t make up your mind what you want to do.
   1. The bible even tells us that we need to be hot or cold. There is this moment where you have to decide spiritually, if you are going to be in or if you are going to be out.
   1. Are you going to be in the Kingdom or in the world?
      1.  We have met people who are less than 30yrs old and they have had more than 5 different Pastors. At some point, the problem has to be you. All 5 Pastors and all 5 Churches can’t be wrong.
      1. The real problem is, you can’t make up your mind where you want to be.

III.            WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

1. Double-Minded
   James 1:8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.- A person that lives with a double mind also lives with double standards.
   1. When your life is unstable, the mind is unsettled. It lacks convictions.
   1. The devil will make you so double minded, that you lose your stability.
   1. Where there is no stability, there is vulnerability. Where there is vulnerability, there is gullibility.
   1. If you are stable, stuff don’t phase you.
2. Cold or Hot
   Revelations 3:15-17 15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked – When you are unstable, you can’t even realize where you are in your current situation. You hear people say, “I don’t know where I am in my life right now”
3. Choose for Yourselves
   Joshua 24:15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”- You’ve got to make your own mind up.
   1. Many can’t choose for themselves, because they are waiting for other people. Our lives are connected to others and how our decisions will affect them. When you’re a child, you don’t make decisions for yourself. You wait for others to do it for you.
      1. When you grow up, you make your own decisions. That is what maturity is.
   1. Your spiritual decisions have to be based on what’s good for you and your family not worrying about what others may think.
      1. Some people have died spiritually, sitting up, worrying about what others think about it. Do what you have to do and go where you need to go, to make your spiritual fitness where it needs to be. Make a decision.
4. Obey the Voice of God
   Deuteronomy 28:1-4 Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God: 3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. 4 “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.- When you make up your mind to obey God, there are consequences.
5. Everyday you wake up there are choices, decisions, and then there are consequences. Every choice leads to a decision. It has to come from a moral place. If it does, the consequences will bless you and bring you into greatness. If you make the decisions based on the wrong moral compass, then the consequences will not bless you. The consequences may be rough.

IV.            HOW TO MAKE UP YOUR MIND

A.     Admit Your Need

1. Pride blocks wisdom. (fill in the blank) – You can’t learn anything, if you think you know it all. Come to a place where you can say, “Lord I need you”
   1. James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. – When I ask God for wisdom, I have to realize that it is His wisdom by which I make it.
   1. God knows, he cares, and he will provide.
2. Ask for Wisdom
   1. Wisdom is knowledge, put into practice.
   1. The world is impressed with knowledge, but God is impressed with wisdom.
      1. Proverbs 11:2 When pride comes, then comes shame; But with the humble is wisdom.
      1. James 4:2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
   1. Question: How many times in the New Testament does the Bible say, “ask and it shall be given”? The is 29.
      1. In the Greek this literally means, “Just keep on asking, to be consistent, to be continual”
3. Anticipate It  
   1. Expect an answer in faith.
   1. If you want something first, you have to ask the right question.
   1. You have to ask the right way and that is asking believing and not doubting.
      1. For example, when you ask for wisdom, the key is prayer and the condition is faith.
   1. Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV) 6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. – We believe He rewards us according to our faith.

Case Study: Peter

Matthew 14:29 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!” – Peter is out of the boat and he is walking on the water and looks down and says to himself, “I’m not supposed to be able to do this”. This caused him to sink instantly.

1. Peter’s mind is on Jesus. If keeps his mind on Jesus, it doesn’t matter what happens. When he focuses on the waves, he starts sinking. You have to make up your mind and decide what you are going to focus on.
2. You can walk though this season, but you have to make up your mind if you are going to follow Covid or follow Jesus.

V.            HOW TO GET YOUR ACTIONS TO FALL INTO ALIGNMENT WITH YOUR MIND

1. Live Like Your Decisions Affect Your Destiny
   1. The quality of your life will be determined by the wisdom of foolishness in your decision.
      1. How many of you remember the show “Seinfeld”? Many of people loved watching the show “Seinfeld. A study was done by some college students about why so many people liked this show. The study showed that it was because of its plotless filming. People living plotless lives, like Plotless TV.
      1. What would you look like if we would  live our lives walking into our destiny?
2. Stop Living Life in The Middle
   1. No decision is a decision.– For those of you that said you wasn’t going to vote, know that you did vote, whether you know it or not. To fail to make a decision is to make a decision. Living life on autopilot is dangerous.
   1. You can’t live this life without making a choice.
   1. Jesus asked the disciples to follow Him and He would make them Fishers of Men. They made a decision to follow Jesus.
   1. In the bible, a man sat by a pool waiting for the water to be troubled for 38yrs. After 38 yrs, Jesus asks if the man wanted to be made whole. Though He asked, Jesus already knew the answer. The revelation to this is, you’ve got to make a decision.
3. There Is Power in The Prize
   Case Study: Paul
   1 Corinthians 9:24-27 24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. 25 And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. 26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. – In a race, all runners run. They are running for a prize. Only one will obtain it.
4. As Christians we have a point. We run this life for a purpose.
5. When you are saved. You live a life towards gaining the imperishable prize as described in Phil 3:8: Philippians 3:8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ…
6. Philippians 3:12-16 12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind. – This about making up your mind.
7. You can’t live between two extremes. God is doing a new thing and it shall spring forth. You can’t spring and cling. You got to make up your mind if you’re going to go to what God has or are you hanging on to the past.
8. You’re equipped for this. You fear the choice of God, because you feel the pressure. It’s time to make up your mind. You got this.
9. Yesterday is a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. All you have is right now. At some point you have to make up your mind and our prayer is that you do it today.