Controlling Your Thoughts – Part 1

• Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, March 12th. For Christians, godly thoughts are key to godly actions. Today’s podcast looks at Colossians chapter 3 to find help for setting your mind on things above. >> Do you ever have problems struggling with your thoughts? Maybe thoughts that you shouldn’t have and maybe thoughts about people, whatever it might be.
• Sometimes you just allow your mind to sort of drift over into unforgiveness, pride, lust, anger, all kind of attitudes and all kind of thoughts in your mind that you know are not very good. And so when these thoughts come in your mind, um how do you respond to that? Do you get some sense of satisfaction about thinking something that’s not right? Do you feel guilty about it? Do you feel like, well, I just can’t help myself? Or do you say the devil made me do it? And so think about this. You and I live in a society
• and in a time in a culture that our minds are continuously bombarded by what? Things that we see on the television, in the movies, things we read in the newspapers, things or other things that we read, for example, words that you hear, sites that you see. Our mind is always receiving all of these things.
• Sometime that’s good, sometime it’s not so good. The question is, how can you and I live a godly life and think right when we live in a world that’s throwing all of these things that are not right at our mind? And what they want us to do is to think the way they think. Why do you think they spend billions of dollars on advertising? Why? They want to convince you to think the way they’re thinking.
• And that is you ought to buy their product or you ought to go where they want you to go and buy what you want to buy. Whatever it might be, their idea is to program your thinking to think that you can’t do without it or your kids can’t do without it. And so, how do we live in this kind of a culture and think right? And let me just say this, it’s not going to change until Jesus comes.
• It’s going to be the same. And we’re not going to reach some day out there where everything is right and everybody’s godly. It’s not going to be that way. So, how do we learn to live in a godly fashion in a world that is so antichrist? So, I want you to listen very carefully. What you think today is affecting your life more than you realize.