Think Better Thoughts

Hi everybody, it’s Pastor Dave. It is great to be with you on an “Encountering The Father” day. That’s our Friday for the journal. If you have an Alone With God journal, open it to an “Encountering The Father” page, your next one in the journal. And listen, Daisy is just absolutely on fire today. She’s just full of joy. She’s so anxious to talk to you about the journal and about Encountering the Father today. And so, my only role today is to just help you stop. Like, the world is spinning. I know. I know you have a hundred things you have to do today, but this is the important thing. So, my role today is to just get you to stop and get ready. Get ready to spend some time alone with God.

Daisy’s going to be in Philippians 4, verse 8, today, but I don’t want to take any of her firepower today. So, Daisy, you’ve got some really important things to say today. Let me give it to you, and you take it from here.

Hey, y’all, it’s Daisy. And today, we are doing (drum roll please) the “Encountering The Father” page. Yay! I am, of course, talking about the “Encountering The Father” page of our Alone With God journal. That’s right; we have our own journal – it’s the Alone With God journal. You can get yours at wordbymail.com. (That’s my little informercial.) But truly, this is the best journal I have ever used. It’s really simple but it’s very thorough. I just feel like it grounds me, and it really helps me figure out what I actually need to focus on.

It requires you to do the work for yourself. In some of the other devotional journals I’ve used, I felt like I was just kind of reading someone else’s devotional and then not really doing it on my own. This has made it such an interactive experience, and I really just enjoy it so much more because I actually feel the benefits. Because when someone else is doing the work for you, you don’t really learn anything. But when you’re doing the work yourself, it is so much more powerful. I know that I was silly about that, but on a serious note, it is the best thing to happen to my relationship with God. I have to talk about it all the time because it’s the greatest thing. It’s like water to me now. So, I just tell everyone to get one.

I want to share something that I wrote in my journal this week, in my part of my reflecting.

Philippians 4:8 (GNT)
8 In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable.

Your thoughts are your driving force in this life. They are what inspire your perspective, your course of action, and your determination when things get tough. So, my question to you is, what types of thoughts are you entertaining? And the next time that you feel overcome with worry or dark thinking, I want you to turn to God and allow him to transform and renew your mind so that you don’t bring unnecessary suffering into your life. What patterns of thoughts can you surrender to God? And in what ways do you want to be reborn? I really urge you to ask the Holy Spirit to just transform your mindset. And even using this journal has helped me to interrupt thought patterns with truth, and love, and light, and has given me an entirely new way of thinking, and has really given me that peace transcends understanding.

Let’s pray. Lord, I have the power to control what I think about and where I allow my mind to go. I choose to entertain the stories of victory and purpose. I choose to know that I am loved and cared for by you. Help me to take my thoughts captive and turn my darkness into light. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Alright, guys, thank you, Daisy. Thank you for that inspiration today.

And guys, I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but Daisy’s verse today was actually the same verse from her Monday devotion, her “This Week” devotion this week. If you haven’t heard that one, you should go back and listen to that one. It’s called “Brakes And Rotors.” She just is inspiring on that one, and it’s the same verse. So, you can see how meeting God at the beginning of the week and then reflecting back on God at the end of the week can help you see the purpose and the design of the Alone With God journal.

So, as Daisy said, you can get one at wordbymail.com. You can text us for absolutely any reason at (877) 790-WORD. (877) 790-9673 So, go to wordbymail.com. Check out the whole ministry – there’s much more than the journal. But the journal is our heart for you. But there are over a thousand verse-by-verse Bible teaching messages there that you can listen to, watch, or read. There’s great material there for you to do small group studies or marriage studies. There’s just a lot of good stuff. That’s wordbymail.com. Thank you again, Daisy.

You guys have a great weekend. And listen, by the way, tomorrow is your “What Am I Grateful For This Week?” page. So be sure to sit down with a cup of coffee and spend a few minutes with God tomorrow morning, just writing down what you are grateful for.

And then, Sunday is our “Sermon Notes” page. And so, take that to church with you, write your sermon notes down. If you can’t get to church, then we’re going through the Gospel of "Mark" together. And so, the message for this Sunday is our fifth message in the Gospel of “Mark.” It’s titled “A Narrow View of Jesus.” That’s a challenging title. It’s in Mark Chapter 1. There is a link to that message in the body of this journal guide. You’ll find it here: “A Narrow View of Jesus”. Or you can go to wordbymail.com and search for it, especially on the phone app.

Alright, guys. That’s it. Have a great, blessed, awesome, Spirit-filled, joyful weekend. See you on Monday. Bye-bye.