LOSING MY MIND - AND MY RELIGION

We’ve all heard it said, or perhaps maybe we’ve even said it to ourselves before, I feel like I’m losing my mind.

The odd part about it is, that’s exactly what God wants us to do. Not to go crazy or come unhinged, but just to lose our old mind.

To hear more about this, feel free to revisit our previous talks on Losing my Mind. Thompson Truths — Benton T. Thompson III (bentonthompsoniii.com)

Losing my mind is about freeing ourselves from some mental and emotional roadblocks that have been hindering our spiritual growth and possibly causing some delays in receiving certain blessings.

For us to be truly transformed into our new mind we must accept the reality that things gotta change.

We can’t think new thoughts with our old mind.

We will need to reevaluate the people, places, things, and values in our lives that might have previously contributed to us not moving forward.

Among those things, that we must lose our mind in is our religion.

Notice I didn’t say that we must lose our faith, lose our way, lose our relationship with God, nor lose our commitment to him, all those things will grow at an even greater capacity because of our new mind.

I said we will have to lose our mind and our religion! Those religious ways.

Being religious has limited and subjected our Faith to just feelings.

I don’t feel like doing ______. I don’t feel like I’m being fed at this church. I don’t feel that’s what God wants me to do. Feel, feel, feel!

Sometimes we are quicker to consult our emotions, than we are to consult God.

Those feelings are all temporal and unstable sensory based beliefs that come from a religious mindset that have taken over our lifestyle.

Faith is not about our feelings, it’s about our commitment to God.

God says, “As a man thinketh so is he”. We gotta get a new mind!

I must change my thoughts, and I can only do that through a new mind and stop relying on those old familiar and comfortable thoughts.

Those thoughts cause me to repeat unhealthy self-sabotaging behaviors.

The Bible puts it this way “Like a dog that eats his vomit”.

In losing our mind we will also lose our legalism. Those roots of legalism tend to run deep, and we must cut them down so that we can grow in the grace that we can receive for ourselves and extend to others.

Some may know the Laws of God, but not know the Love of God.

Receiving and giving God’s grace is what transforms us into that new person, with a new mind, that we need to become.

With the loss of our religion also comes the loss of our desire to correct and control those whom we feel are wrong.

We are not a fixer, God is. For if we were, we would have surely fixed ourselves by now.

As we further lose our minds, we lose the need to worship busyness.

Busyness bows to two Gods: the god of our own ideals of rightness and God leading to do the righteous thing. We can’t serve them both.

Losing our religion is about losing those religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices that have nothing to do with the love of God.

God is All About Love!

But WHY do we have to lose our minds, you might ask.

Because losing our mind is the only sure way that we can find the heart of God.

We tend to overthink everything. Our faith, our God, our beliefs, his word. Everything is up for debate in today’s world where we question anything that doesn’t have millions of likes. We only trust viral validation. If everybody likes it, then it must be good!

Too often our mind gets in the way of our Faith!

None of the followers of God we read about in the Bible were professors or academicians. Most were just ordinary people, living ordinary lives.

They didn’t overthink things, they worked with their hands, they were homemakers, farmers, fishermen, mothers, fathers, just plain everyday people.  

That’s what enabled them to become great believers in God.

The one thing they all had in common was they were all doers. Not just hearers only. Not bystanders. They lived their faith.

Having a Ph.D. in theology doesn’t mean you know God. But loving the unlovely certainly does.

So, I invite you to lose your mind and gain a better understanding of the heart of God through other people.

Let’s listen to see if we can hear the heart of God in what he wants us to do for someone else this week.

Go ahead lose your mind showing others Gods love and great grace.

This is a Thompson Truth.