Join John and Brandi Belt to understand the importance of having the mind of Christ.
The Transcription
You know, we are in a place where we are excited about what God is doing in the next season. You know, we are blessed that we get all this time together with our family in this season. But we are very much looking forward to the next. And so as we’re trusting that you all are, I was joking with a friend today. And I said, you know, I think you have two groups of people that are home right now you have those who have been wanting to get fit and healthy. And so they intentionally have only let like salad be delivered to their house. And then you have the people that thought, Wow, maybe if I just take enough walks around the neighborhood, I can eat all the cookies that I want. And so we’re trying to find the balance to that. But anyway, we just want to spend a little bit of time tonight talking with you about the mind of Christ. You know, Romans says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And in First Corinthians Paul talks about, you’ve been given the mind of Christ that we have the mind of Christ. And so recently, I actually was in prayer for for a relative. And as I was praying for them, I was really asking God for a clearer understanding of what to do, you know, to see breakthrough and manifestation. And what God showed me is he showed me this, this family member putting their hands on their heads saying, I have the mind of Christ. And it was something that I hadn’t really thought of much. But I realized that those things were were neurological, they were things in their mind the way their brain worked. And so we just want to spend a little bit of time tonight talking about that.
Yeah, and I just want to throw out a reminder that this, this is a season of preparation for the next season that God has this season will not last very long. I mean, I believe it’s going to be gone. So until you want to, but this is a time of preparation, you have a lot of extra time, most of you just to spend time in the presence of God, there’s been time and your with your families, you know, to be established in him in a new way, a new fresh way. And just let the Holy Spirit breathe on you in the season, let him breathe refreshing in your life. You know, we live from the inside out, we don’t live by the outside. And we don’t live by rules and lists and all this kind of stuff. But God wants to develop that relationship with him. By His Spirit that lives inside of us. It’s not only us talking to God, but realizing that God dwells inside of us. And in this season, God really wants us to get the mind of Christ. Yeah, he really wants us to get the mind. Don’t you want to get the mind of God, right now in this season, and he has plans for you, he has blueprints for you. And He wants you to spend time with him. So he can show you those things that he wants to do in your life. And I think sometimes with everything that’s going on right now, you get distracted, you can easily get distracted by it, and then miss what God is trying to do in this moment. And the fact is that God is not shocked by any of this. He’s not surprised by it. He knew it before the foundation of the world that this would happen. And so all this is a test to see how we’re going to respond in this season. And so we want to encourage you to get the mind of Christ in the season.
Yeah, so and you know, the word is so clear that your mind is transformed by the word of God. It’s so important, you know that we learn how to live by the Spirit that we, you know, take the prophetic seriously that we take what God is doing and say through other people seriously, but in reality, it’s so critical that we ourselves are getting into the word, because the word reads you the word transforms you. The word shifts your mindsets. You know, I was even thinking this morning, we’ve been trying to read, you know, a little story out of the Bible every day, we’ve been going through mark with our kids for a while. And this morning, we were just reading Mark to probably through 1214, something like that. And it’s the story about the paralyzed man whose friends carry him on the mat, and they dig the hole on the roof and lower them down. And one of the things that I hadn’t really recognized before today, as we were talking about with our kids, is Jesus looked at the paralyzed man and said, Son, your sins are forgiven you. And it just resonated with me in a new way. Because I realized, you know, God is validating him, God is saying, You are my son, you know, we were talking amongst our family just this morning about, you know, well, why do we think God would have to do that? Do we think maybe his own natural father, you know, could have abandoned him, gotten rid of him, so on and so forth. But I’m bringing all that up because I realized, you know, God has this amazing mind that is looking at everything from more facets and more perspectives and and there’s just more Always going on and what you can see in the natural. And so it’s such a good idea to really get in the Word of God and let that word wash you and renew your mind and really give you the mindsets that Christ walked in.
And there was a word that God was given to me and he is reprogramming people in the season. He’s reprogramming our minds. And in a season like this, it’s a perfect storm, to reprogram your thinking, yeah, there are many things that are being shaken right now. He’s gonna shake all those things in your mindset that need to be changed, so he can reprogram you. And one of the verses that came up to me was Second Corinthians 10, and eight. And I just have it here. I just want to read it to you says, though, I’m sorry. Second Corinthians 10 Three, says, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not work according to the flesh, For the weapons of our warfare, and mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. And so in that we’re bringing into captivity every you know, and so God brings things in our lives, circumstances, and all this kind of stuff to shake us in, shake up some mindsets, and really show us in this time, while we’re here on Earth, that this is not a good thing, that this mindset needs to go. And I need to reprogram you, through my word I need to reprogram you by My Spirit. And that’s what he wants to do in this season. And understand that we need to embrace the mind of Christ.
And one thing that is part of the mind of Christ is understanding how he walked. And we need to know how he walked and he walked in authority, he walked in power, he walked with a command. And we need to have that command in our life. And the spirit has been really impressing that upon me that we need to not just pray to God, which is something that Jesus did, he prayed to God, and he encouraged us to pray. But when he was doing the works of the ministry, when he’s doing works of the Spirit, it was by command, it was by authority. It was by powers by power of the Spirit. And he would cast out demons with the word, he would do actions that were led by the Spirit, you know, putting mud in the blind man’s eyes, the different ways that he did ministry in the have the mind of Christ in that regard, in the authority that we have. Because in Luke 1019, it says that I’ve given you all power over the power of the enemy, I’ve given you all authority over the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means harm you. And so we can have that authority and have that confidence in Christ. Because think about it, you’re created in the image of God. In the beginning, God spoke, let there be light, and there was light, we have that same power we have that same authority wants us to, he wants us to realize who we are, were created in His image. And the words that we speak are power, life, and death is in the power of the tongue. And so we want to speak life and we want to speak decrees, and speak commands that bring life and so guard your words, and not only guard your words, but begin to speak light and speak life, into your circumstances. In every aspect of life.
Yeah, it’s so good. And you know, taking captive every thought is something that can at times seem like an act almost in the flesh, where like, what am I supposed to do sit around all day, trying to think, oh, no, something bad came on my brain Stop it, you know, and things like that. But the reality is that you can’t even do that without the Holy Spirit’s power. You know, you can pray and ask God for help, that’s really the best place to start. But then really, a big part of it is actually just getting in the word and spending time with God on your loan, your time alone. But you know, one of the things John’s talking about is he’s talking about the power of the voice and how Jesus when he would minister he would speak with authority. The reality is that Jesus paid the price to carry that authority. And he paid the price so that we could all walk with and use the power of the name of Jesus. But the reality is, is that, you know, when you study out the New Testament and all the situations of power, you see the seven sons of Skiba, who tried to use the name of Jesus, but they don’t know Him. And so the demons actually laugh and say, Jesus, we know Paul, we know, but who are you? Because in reality, it’s not just a formula, where you go and you start declaring and decreeing Jesus, this Jesus that and everything’s better. That’s not reality. Reality is that you spend your life you know, seeking the face of God and as you’re spending time with him as As you’re developing relationship with him, he’s leading you. He’s guiding you. And he’s empowering you. Really, I mean, you’ve already been empowered. But in reality, your mind is still being renewed. And so you’re still learning to walk in that power. But it’s so good. And it’s so, so important that we are really spending some time getting our mindset, right, because I really believe and I know, John would agree with me that we’re getting ready to enter the greatest hour of the church we’ve seen, you know, we are entering an amazing season in an amazing time. And he we need all hands on deck, if you believe in Jesus, if you know the Son of God as your personal Savior and, Lord, we need you on deck we got it has said on deck phenomenal harvest coming, you know, but the deal is what we don’t want is we don’t want to create a scenario where we try to speed through, you know, I was joking at the beginning of this is we’re just so done, you know, we’re ready to go to restaurants, and we’re ready to go fly all over the place. And we’ve been trying to look at vacation just because we got to get out of our house. But you know, yeah, but all of that is to say, you know, as much as we are all looking forward to this season being over. The reality is, is that we don’t want to miss the lessons God’s trying to teach us during the season. And God didn’t create this. God is not for the Coronavirus. You know, this is nothing from God. It’s the enemy, he comes to steal, kill and destroy, right? And so, so even that is a mindset for some people. You know, some people would say, Oh, this is God judging you and ripping you up. But when you read scripture, that’s not reality. And so it’s even mindsets like that, that we need to all really check and say, God, is this really you? Or is this what I’m, I’m trying to figure out on my own.
That’s right. So going back to a point, I’ve been playing chess with my kids over the last couple of weeks. And just yesterday, I was playing chess with one of my boys. And I’m pretty good at chess, I’m not great. But you know, it’s me against a kid, you know, so. But one of the things is, how come Daddy, how come you always win, you always win. So I need to be nicer and let him win a little bit. But anyway, I said, Son, the key is to stay on the offense. So he would make moves and put me on the possible defensive place. But I would look for another offensive place. And that would put him back on the defense. And that’s what we have to do that to the devil. Yeah, we need to keep him on the defense, you cannot score if you don’t have the ball, your mind needs to be offensive against the enemy in a you have to take the ball back and you have to go in and score. And you have to have an offensive mindset. You can’t be defensive. It’s like crawl in a hole and hide or hide under a rock. I mean, come on, and get out. You know, you’re seated with Christ in heavenly places, and the highest place. And so don’t abdicate that. Live from that place, live from that realm of authority and know who you are in Christ. Because in Christ, we can do all things greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.
Amen. Amen. Well, we just want to pray for you tonight. We want to pray that, Lord, we just ask right now Holy Spirit, that you would create a passion and a hunger for every person, not listening and watching God that you would create a passion and a hunger to seek your face God to live for your glory, God to just press in for you in a brand new way in this season. And in this time, and Lord, we thank you for renewing our mind so that you would give us the mindsets of Christ’s Lord, that You would show us how he walked, how he lived, how he moved, how he operated, so that we can imitate that and we can we can live for that. And so Lord, we just ask that you would begin to remove every block every hindrance, even though it might seem as though everything has been removed, Lord, while we’re at home, we just ask that you’d even remove more of those things that would put themselves up against time with you.
Yes, we just thank You, Lord, that the weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, and we thank you, you help your people to recognize their authority help us to recognize the authority that you’ve given to us, Lord, and that we can speak life, Lord, and that we can make the right choices or we can make the right actions in the name of Jesus because the evidence of a transformed life manifests in our speech and what we say and what we do. If we’re really transformed after Christ’s image. The words are going to match the actual match. So help us to live the transformed life in the name of Jesus Christ.