As a man thinks lesson #1 part 1

Text: Proverbs 23:7

The story is told of a young girl who was born over 50 years ago in Nashville, Tennessee, with major health problems that left her crippled. While her siblings were allowed to run and play outside she was confined to braces. She asked her parents "will I ever be able to run and play like the other children?" Her parents' response "Honey, you only have to believe, if you believe, God will make it happen." She believed with God's help she could walk again. Without her parents knowing she practiced walking without her braces and on her 12th birthday, she surprised her parents by removing her braces and walking around the doctor's office unassisted. Her doctors couldn't believe it, and she never walked with braces again. She then wanted to play basketball. She worked and worked but only her big sister was picked. Her dad however told the coach that if he wanted the big sister he had to pick her. Reluctantly she was added and allowed to work out with the other players. One day she went to the coach and said, "if you give me an extra 10 minutes of coaching a day I will give you a world class athlete." Although he at first laughed after a while she became one of the team's best players. Soon they went to the state championship and one of the referees was a coach for a famous track club and asked her if she ever tried track. She decided to try it and soon began winning races. At 16 she went to the Olympics in Australia and won a bronze medal for anchoring the 400-meter relay team. She then worked for the next four years and went to the Rome Olympics in 1960 and Wilma Rudolph won the 100-m dash, the 200-m dash and anchored the winning 400-m relay team all in world record times.(1)
What someone can do when they think they can do it.

We are going to begin a series this week that is designed to help us in our view of our selves. There are some things when walking the Christian life that we all need to be reminded of especially at times like these, the intimate moments where as a family we have gathered to worship and praise our Father. Far too many Christians today suffer from a thought problem. Many times, gathering with church people only magnifies the problem because for some reason or another the person we look at in the mirror doesn't fit in with the Sunday crowd.

For too many of us, the person who knows us best is ourselves. We see what no one else sees and we are aware what no one else is aware of and because of that we can put ourselves in a great struggle. I don't know how many of you struggle or have ever struggled but let me give you some suggestions of struggles that happen on the inside of the Christian's mind. Because of these struggles it affects the life we then live.

Some Christians struggle with the idea that their life is of little use or worth! Perhaps the person you see every morning in the mirror is someone you think isn't worth very much to the world, workplace, family, the church or even God Himself. You know the cliché that every life is precious, but you don't see anything special about your part! Your not going to be remembered for anything great, everything you have has been a gift of charity that you don't really deserve and so you struggle with this feeling inside. Another struggle might be not that you're not worth very much, but your life is going nowhere and has become very stale. There is no vision for your life and its boring! You are in a routine, and its killing you and you soon aren't interested in anything of your "much-to-common" life. Maybe your struggle is yet different than that. It's not that your life is boring, but you feel trapped in your life. You hear verses like Galatians 5:1- and you want that freedom that scripture so eloquently speaks about, but you have no idea how to get it. You look at your home not as your escape but your prison. The four walls seem to be closing in on you like in the movies. You go to work and your cubicle is a foxhole where the enemies shots are being fired overhead. The church is filled with meetings, ministries, and checklists and there is just no where to "live" your Christianity. Soon, when you start feeling like this, you start to resent the things closest to you: your kids, spouse, parents, church even God.

Your struggle might be nothing like that. Perhaps you are the type of person that struggles on the inside with fear. You aren't stupid, you know that the Bible says things like "Don't be afraid" Heb.13: 6- the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what men can do to me. But you get so crippled with fear that you have a problem enjoying life. The thought of everything from judgment to a friend's rejection has your mind in terror.

Then again, your struggle might be one of ungratefulness. You want to be content with your life. You want to be thankful and appreciate all the wonderful things of life, but you don't have what you want in life. Soon, what you want becomes what you need and the thought of being thankful is impossible.

Lastly, because you know all these things are things that God doesn't want in your life, your struggle might be one of guilt. Not just guilt over sins, but guilt over other things. You struggle because there is probably always something I could be doing that's better than I am doing now. I had a conversation with my Father who is not a Christian and I forgot to mention to him his need to be saved. I have fought and struggled with my kids all day and my husband was gone on a work trip and I fell asleep without reading my Bible or saying my prayers. Children are to be a blessing from the Lord but today I just wished I could have had a break from them. Over and over the list goes and you look at the mirror and you are just covered with guilt!

Look at Proverbs 23:6-8. We want to begin this series not pretending to have all the answers to these struggles, but it might have some. As he thinks in his heart, so is he! Barnes, "as he is all along in his heart, so is he at last in act."

Now, Solomon here uses a general truth to describe a certain situation, but the truth he speaks can be applied to a much broader area! The context is, you go to someone's house that is a selfish or greedy person. The person might give the implication with his lips that he would like to give you something. Solomon's advice is don't take anything from this type of person, because eventually his selfishness or greed will come out. The truth is whatever a person thinks in his heart, he will eventually show it.

In looking back at those struggles that we encounter at times, I want to bring this truth to your remembrance, if you are struggling with fear or guilt or boredom or a feeling of little worth, notice that as you think in your heart, so you are! This means my friends that if you think in your heart that you are a guilty person, you will live in guilt. If you think you have no purpose in life, your life will begin to show that!

Many of our problems that we face in daily life come from what we think about ourselves! Christians can at times be the most beat-up, distressed, depressed & discouraged people and yet it can be all self-inflicted. Brother Leroy Brownlow once wrote, "No man will ever be any better or higher than his meditations, the sum of what he thinks."

If you have a struggle that is similar to one that we spoke about earlier, the question that we need to try to answer is this: What do you as a child beloved of the Father think about yourself? Remember, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he! Matt.22:39- Jesus said the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. What he left unsaid but can be picked up through inference, if that Christians are to love themselves! When you can wake up in the morning and genuinely love the person you are, you have won some great battles!
(continue to the rest of this lesson.)

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