Mind Molding Series

Have you ever noticed that much our lives run on auto-pilot? You wake up, you reach for your phone, you scroll through social media…

You worry about what’s going on in the world. You compare yourself to your friends on social media. You rush to get stuff done because you’ve packed so much into a day…

and before you know it, your mood, your attitude, and your outlook for the day have already been shaped… and you haven’t consciously chosen any of it.

I don’t know if we realize it not but our thoughts shape us. Today… we are starting a brand-new series called, “Every Thought Captive” and it’s based on the book of the same title by Kyle Idleman.

And one thing that Kyle points out in his book is that our thoughts establish our emotions, they direct our decisions, they regulate our relationships, and they control our goals.

Basically, our thoughts… are what dictate what we do in this life. And here is a truth that I think we need to understand, our thoughts are not neutral.

Your thoughts are shaping you right now. Your mind is being molded by something. Proverbs 4:23 tells us…

Above all else, guard your heart,

for everything you do flows from it.

The Good News Translation translates it this way… which I think is more accurate.

Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.

So if this is true… if our lives are shaped by how we think… what do we think about?

Paul understood this concept long before neuroscience did. He writes to the church at Rome about this idea of transformation and he says this in verse 2a…

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Romans 12:2a

And the Greek word here for conformed means…

Conformed = To be molded by something external

Paul is saying… “don’t let your mind be molded by something out there.” The Philips translation puts it this way…

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold,

And the interesting thing about this word conform is that it’s written in the present-imperative tense which means… stop doing what you’re already doing.

Paul is not saying… hey, there’s gonna come a day when you have to decide whether you are going to be conformed or not. He is saying, “you are being conformed.”

The world you live in is squeezing you and shaping you and molding you… stop it. Stop it… it’s happening right now. Stop doing what you’re already doing.

And modern neuro-science would agree with what Paul is teaching in this passage. The term neuro-plasticity means that our minds are constantly be re-molded by what we experience and what we are exposed to.

So… every thought you think, every image you see, every conversation you take part in, every second of your screen time… molding… there’s a pattern that we are being squeezed into.

So Paul is saying… “whether we realize it or not, we are being squeezed into this pattern."

They say that the average person has between 60,000 and 80,000 thoughts a day. Most of us would say… “that’s a lot of thoughts”. I’m not aware of that many thoughts in a day.

And this is the point, 95% of our thoughts are below the level of consciousness. This means that we’re not even aware that we are thinking the thoughts that we are thinking.

95% of our 60-80 thousand thoughts are on repeat. They are just happening. We don’t think about the thoughts we’re thinking. This is why we can look back over our lives and see something that we said or did and think… what was I thinking.

Why did I do that? I must have thought about it because clearly, I did it. But I don’t remember thinking any thoughts about doing that. Let me show you exhibit A.

This is our felis catus, our feline, our cat… AKA – “Lola”

At some point… about 10 years ago this month actually… I thought this was a good idea. I don’t know… maybe deep down in the 95% of thoughts that were bouncing around in my subconscious, I was thinking…

“Look how calm she is in that cage. This is clearly her personality.”

“Look… she’s sleeping. That’s a good sign. Se’ll probably do that all night.”.”

“I can totally leave a glass of water on the counter. She wouldn’t even think of knocking it off.”

“This will in no way change my furniture, my sleep schedule, or my understanding of authority.” (Oh I could go on all day)

Somewhere along the way, I obviously thought it was a good idea to get a cat. Because here we are, 10 years later, and we still have a felis catus running our house.