Wikipedia defines Brainwashing (we are using it in the positive sense) as mind control, thought control, and thought reform.
Why is this so important? Why teach on this on this subject so much?
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 | NKJV (19) I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; (20) that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
Remember that whether we are experiencing life and blessing OR death and cursing is dependent upon the decisions that we make in life.
The Choice Is Yours
- The quality of life that we have today is a result of the choices that we made yesterday.
Those choices, either good or bad, have been shaped by the decisions that we have made.
To make any positive change in our lives, we must start by accepting that truth.
- Whatever is influencing our lives the most, is what helps shape the decisions that we make.
God labors through your recreated spirit to influence your decision-making process. The location of our free moral agency is our soul.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 | NKJV (23) Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are a spirit, we have a soul and we live in a body.
- Your soul is the seat of your decision-making process.
Your soul is comprised of your mind, will, and your emotions.
- Our decision-making process is based on: I think, I feel and therefore I choose.
Your mind interacts with your emotions or how you feel to produce desire and desire is the foundation of your decision-making.
- God has created you so that if you have the right information and process it correctly, you will not make bad decisions.
You have reasoning ability given to you by God. You can take information and process it and come to a right logical conclusion.
Your mind was not created to arrive at the wrong conclusion.
Most people do not have enough of the right information to come to the right conclusion. They mostly have more than enough of the natural information and not enough of the spiritual information. If you have enough of both types of information you have the capacity to come to the right conclusion.
Wash Your Mind
There are thought patterns that your mind thinks it needs to have to be happy that must be cleaned out:
- Self-centered thinking.
A child only thinks about “me”. We must be concerned with the needs of others above our own needs.
1 Corinthians 10:24 | AMPC (24) Let no one then seek his own good and advantage and profit, but [rather] each one of the other [let him seek the welfare of his neighbor].
- Feeling sorry for yourself or self-pity.
This kind of thought will always lead to depression and then oppression and eventually death.
Psalms 28:7-9 | TPT (7) You are my strength and my shield from every danger. When I fully trust in you, help is on the way. I jump for joy and burst forth with ecstatic, passionate praise! I will sing songs of what you mean to me! (8) You will be the inner strength of all your people, the mighty protector of all, the saving strength for all your anointed ones. (9) Keep protecting and cherishing your chosen ones; in you they will never fall. Like a shepherd going before us, keep leading us forward, forever carrying us in your arms!
- Prideful thoughts.
God gets all the glory all the time. You must come to grips with the fact that we don’t get any of the glory.
John 15:5 | NLT (5) “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.
- Comparison thinking.
Hebrews 12:1 | NLT (1) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
- Negative, defeated thinking.
The glass is always half empty…
Romans 8:35, 37 | TPT (35) Who could ever separate us from the endless love of God’s Anointed One? Absolutely no one! For nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love toward us. Troubles, pressures, and problems are unable to come between us and heaven’s love. What about persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats? No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love… (37) Yet even in the midst of all these things, we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything!
- Natural reasoning that is contrary to God’s Word.
Sometimes God does not give you enough information to come to a logical conclusion but our minds always want a logical conclusion. When He doesn’t give us enough information, we try to come up with our own conclusion and that is called natural reasoning and it takes you to a natural answer.
Proverbs 16:25 | NKJV (25) There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.
A mind that is washed from carnal reasoning will stop at the question and moves over to trust of God. We must arrive to the place of maturity where the questions don’t matter.
Proverbs 3:5 | NKJV (5) Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
How do we wash these thoughts from our mind?
Romans 12:2 | AMPC (2) Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].
Communion Scriptures
1 Corinthians 11:23-28 | NKJV (23) For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; (24) and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” (25) In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” (26) For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. (27) Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. (28) But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.