I am pretty sure this comes from Dr. Charles Stanley, a minister here in Atlanta with a television minsistry that Anita often watched or listened to. We visited his church once and the congregation is actually the studio audience. We were a bit stressed to keep the kids quiet during the whole service, so we never went back. However, his ministry inspired us many times. I am not sure yet how much of this Anita wrote or how much Dr. Stanley wrote.
Why we lose our peace and what we can do to get it back?
7 categories of thoughts – categories of thoughts that steal our peace
Deception of the devil and world – we see people and we think they are happy but actually they are miserable
Some principles are absolute – you cannot massage the laws of God
1. sinful thoughts – lust for money, power, prestige, sex – lust and peace cannot inhabit the same heart; lust is desire out of control; anger, bitterness, resentment, hostility, hatred, fear
2. negative thoughts – particularly parents to children; God is a positive thinker;
3. erroneous thinking – wrong thoughts; “God can’t love me otherwise He wouldn’t do this to me” – not true. God may be sifting, sanding, and pruning you for a wonderful blessing on the other side. Jesus said I’ll never leave you nor forsake you. – when you’re not thinking how God thinks, you cannot have peace
Do I want to have peace in my heart, then I have to get my thinking straightened out.
4. unrealistic thinking – when a person sets goals for their lives that they have to strive, manipulate, on and on and on, if it’s not the will of God, if He’s not in it, no matter what I’m thinking it’s unrealistic thinking and whether I get close to it or not, I won’t have any peace. God doesn’t operate that way.
Peace is a gift that flows out of us when you and I are thinking the right way. When I’m thinking the wrong way – impure, disobedient thoughts …
5. rebellious thinking – I know what the law says, but here’s what I’m going to do. In me, there is the potential for being rebellious. Anytime God says here’s what I want you to do and I say “no way” or “I’m going to think about that” – God gives us commands for our obedience, not for our contemplation. All service that does not come out of submission to God’s will will not bring peace. You cannot have peace and be rebellious toward the Father.
6. obsessive thoughts – grab you and won’t let them go; something I want at all costs; mind is divided, captured, enraptured; it overshadows your other thinking; the only think I can be obsessed with is Jesus.
7. enslaved thinking – I have given myself over in my thinking to something that absolutely controls and dominates my life to the point that even when I don’t like it I’ve got to have it – alcoholic, drug addict, addictions, including work addictions
The only way to have peace is to accept Jesus as my personal savior.
How to have the peace of God daily in my life? There’s only one way. Having trusted Jesus as my personal savior, is to turn over the key to my will – a will to obey Him, a will to follow Him.
My peace is the way I think and the way I respond – no one can take it away. It is a choice that I make, a choice to experience that peace, a choice to keep that peace. It’s mine for the asking and the turning over of the key to my will.
In my will and my thinking I decide whether to live in obedience to Him or not in obedience to Him.
