Self-Care - Train of Thought
This past Sunday we began a new series where we're going to look at some of the Scriptural teachings about how you can be a better you and experience a better self-care as it relates to your mind, body, soul, spirit, and rest in general. f you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you and hope to be able to see you this upcoming Sunday!
Self-Care is a concept that has become incredibly popular in our culture here in America, and it certainly isn’t a wholly bad thing when it has the right motivations and right results for you and others around you. This can be a very real issue with some people, who can wrongfully abuse this term in their lives, Pastor Robbie states early on about our cultural view of self-care being ‘like a new virtuous way to do the things we want to do anyway. Biblically speaking, that would be a little bit more like selfish care…’. If our ideas surrounding self-care are for the exclusive benefit of ourselves at the expense of those around us, we are not taking care of ourselves like Scripture suggests we should. Our trains of thought are so critical for how we live our lives, because what you think about in your mind is going to impact the person you become!
Moving towards proper self-care from a biblical perspective includes several things, the first of which is to remove toxic thinking from our lives and minds. Ps. Robbie said, ‘All of us came into the room this morning and have had thoughts fill our minds that are toxic. They are not in line with God's Word, and you have to capture or arrest those thoughts. Thoughts like that are going to pop up. They're negative thoughts, anxious thoughts, lustful thoughts, all kinds of different thoughts. God would say those things are going to pop into your head, but it is your choice over whether you will dwell on them.’ (2 Cor. 10:3-5). We must take captive of our thoughts as we go throughout our days, we cannot be complacent and allow thoughts to live outside of obedience to the Gospel!
This second mode we need to work towards for proper biblical self-care is replacing toxic lies, and malicious thoughts with the Truth we find in Scripture! This comes directly from Philippians 4:8 saying, ‘ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.’ If you want to win the battle of the mind, it involves replacing the lies with the truth. I need to identify when I am beginning to believe a lie, wanting to get on this train, and I need to have others around me and really take the steps to replace the lie with the truth. It’s not enough to just try to arrest and push out the lies and toxic thoughts, we have to replace them with God’s Truth! Imagine what your life would look like if you really applied these verses. Imagine what this week would have looked like if everywhere you went, every thought you had at work even?! We have to tell ourselves the Truth! We have to affirm ourselves and those around us with Scriptural truths!
The third and final point mentioned about re-orienting our trains of thought is that we need to refocus with the right perspective. What do we mean by that? We mean with an eternal perspective. We can either choose to see the world around you with an earthly perspective and with today and "This is always how it's going to be" or with an eternal perspective. The apostle Paul was able to choose joy because he maintained an eternal perspective. In Phil. 4:4 we hear Paul declare to us ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!’ Because of God…his promises are eternal, we have security, no matter what we face in this life he's working for our good…you can choose to look for the goodness of God in every situation!
There are so many things that uniquely happen in all of our lives - many of them seem impossible to try and manage or deal with. What we can find comfort in an eternal perspective, dwelling in this mode of living through training our minds to focus on God’s promises! This is the same train of thought that allowed Paul to continually praise the Lord in the midst of harsh jail conditions, in the midst of persecution, in the midst of dealing with life! We are not alone in this fight, we have an intercessor who in familiar with our trials and pains - Jesus!
SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS
Self-Care - Train of Thought: Unlike the sometimes selfish sentiments of our cultural idea of ‘self-care’ Scriptural Self-Care is based on how we orient our Trains of Thought!
Main Scripture Passages: 2 Cor. 10:3-5; Philippians 4:4, 8; 2 Cor. 12; Rom. 12
Remove Toxic Thinking: Our trains of thought must be checked because what we think about in our minds is going to impact the people we become.
Replace the Lies with Truth: Checking our trains of thought are not enough, eventually they will come back unless they are replaced with Scriptural Truths.
Refocus with the Right Perspective: Our perspective needs to be more focused on the eternal, rather than only on what is going on in our lives right here and now.
If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes.
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Join us next Sunday as Pastor Robbie continues in our Self-Care series!
We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!