Hi, this is Victoria. Thank you so much for downloading this podcast. I believe God has amazing things in your future. I hope you enjoy this message. I just want to encourage all of us today with the scripture that's found in Romans Romans 12. And this is Paul talking to the Romans and he's encouraging them and urging them with great fervor to change their minds, to be more like God. And he says this. He says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.

So he knew that God wanted to do something in his people, but they couldn't keep thinking the old way and have the new things that God wants to do. You've heard it said like this. They couldn't put new on an old wine skins. They had to change their mind. And you know what? That's the same with us today. We can't be conformed to this world's culture. We can't be conformed to the wrong types of thinking. We have to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

You see, our salvation on this earth starts in our mind.

If you're born again today, if you've given Jesus your life, you're a new creature in Christ Jesus. And so your spirit has been made new. It has come alive in Christ Jesus. The problem is our mind needs to catch up with what's going on in our spirit. All right. But we can do that by not conforming to our old thinking, but submitting ourselves to the word of God, to the teachings of God. You see, we are so blessed because we can get the word of God at the at our fingertips.

We can Google the word of God. We can take our phone and get our Bible apps. We can listen to podcasts. We can turn on the Internet. We can turn on the TV. Listen, we can put our music on our Christian faith, feel music that declares the goodness of God. We are so blessed. We have to submit and stay under this word of God so that it can change our thinking. You see, some people may not have been been brought up in church.

I was brought up in church, but you may not be have been. So you maybe you have some things that are contrary to what God wants you to think today. Some of you have addictions. It's contrary to what God has for you today. You see, God is saying don't be conformed by habit. Don't be conformed by an addiction. Don't be conformed by the cultures of this world the way this world thinks, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

You have the choice of what you listen to, of what you put yourself under. And God is saying, renew your mind, change your mind. Get in to what I have for you. You see, I talk to people all the time who have an addiction and they are struggling to break the addiction, and what I tell them is just don't stay down, get back up, put yourself under the word of God and those strong all those things that are trying to hold you back, they can't stand up against the word of God.

It's only a matter of time before your mind catches up with what the spirit is doing in a patient. The Bible says to him, who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all, we can ask, think or imagine a love that God can do anything. But listen to the second part according to the power that works in us. See, God is saying when you transform your mind, you line your mind up with the power that's in. You see, there's power in a made up mind.

There's power in a mind that says, no, I'm not staying here. I'm on my way to greater places, I'm on my way to God's destination. I'm not going to be held down by always in old patterns of thinking. You see, I think about the apostle Paul and he was so passionate to let them know by the mercies of God, by the grace of God, this can happen for you. You see people, they drink drinks to detox their body.

Have you ever heard somebody say, you know, drink this for five days and it'll get all the junk out of your body? You know, they say that the stuff we eat, even the water we drink, you know, has toxins in it. So people want to be healthy. They want to detox their body. Listen, when you read the word of God and put yourself under the word of God, you're detoxing your mind. You're dislodges strongholds.

You're weakening their grip on you. Listen, you're in a battle. You're in a battle and it's time to stand up and fight. It's time to say I'm not going to let the wrong words come out of my mouth. I'm not going to let my own way of thinking stop me. I've heard people who have fighting illnesses and they listen to the word of God constantly. They've constantly got it going, whether they have the word of God, whether they have a good teaching, whether they have Joel, whether they have praise, they are constantly bathing and sanctifying their mind in the word of God.

So we're justified in our spirit, but we have to be sanctified in our mind. That means we have to set our mind apart from the old way of doing and be, and we have to get in God's way of doing and be to see if we want to know God's will. We're going to have to know God's way. Now, he was telling them, don't be conformed but be transformed. And he was saying, this is a process.

Don't get down on yourself. It's a process. And then he went on to say this. He says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may be able to discern the will of God for your life. What is pleasing, right and acceptable? How many of you must know the will of God for your life? I want to know the will of God for my life.

I want to know the will of God for my life. And God is saying through this transformation, through this new way of thinking, you can take all these choices and you can put them under the scrutiny of what you know. You can test it and see, shall I make it or shall I not? Shall I choose it or shall I go the other way so you can put the choices you make every day under the scrutiny of the word of God to God wants us to walk in confidence before him.

He wants us to know what his will is, so we'll know what way to go. It's kind of like taking a test. Have you ever gone in when you're in school to take a test or for your job? The better you know the material, the more confident you were, the more answers you got. Right. It's kind of like that. Not to say in this transformation comes little by little, but keep gaining knowledge, keep testing your choices about what you know to be right.

You know, we make choices every single day and those choices make us so it's so important that we put our choices under God's authority. Now, you know, sometimes we don't want to put every choice under God's authority because some choices we just want they look so good God, I can fix this with you later. Let me go ahead and make this choice. You know what? And God knows that. I mean, we we've all been there.

We've all done that. And the good thing about God, he can take our bad choices and bring him glory. And that's good. All right. He can he's a good God and he loves us. And I love the fact that he's not judging us. The point is, is that we need to not be afraid to take our attitudes, our unforgiveness, our habits, everything about us and put it under the submission of God. See, Paul was saying be a living sacrifice.

That's how he started that. Be a living sacrifice. What he was saying he was going to go all in, go all in. Don't hold back certain areas of your life. You have a bad habit. Put it under God's authority. Don't hold on to it and say, God, I'll fix it as soon as I fix it. Then I'll come over here and give it to you. God is saying, give it all to me. The good, the bad, the ugly.

Put it under my work. Let me break those things off of your life. See, Jesus came as the living word. The Bible says he came as the word made incarnate man made flesh and he walked among them. And did you know that when you read the word of God, you get good teaching, you're walking with Jesus and he's still doing what he did those days in the Bible. He's still healing. He's still delivering. He's still setting free.

He's still restoring. Take his hand and put all of it under his authority. We can't be afraid. And listen, you know, we have big decisions that we have to make in our life. I've heard people say, I want to know the will of God. Should I take this job? Should I start this business? Should I go back to college? Is this the person I should marry? And those are all very important decisions. But we need to put every decision under the will of God because the better choices we make, the closer we are to those better decisions on those big issues of our life.

When I was a young girl, I remember my heart. I was just saying I would just say to God, God, when I get married someday, all I know is this. I want a man who loves you.

More than I do, you see, my heart said this, God, I don't want to be dragging anybody up, I don't want to be constantly pushing them up, but I want them to sharpen me. I want us to be better together. I want us to do great things for you. Now, girls, I just want to tell you this. Don't say this part, but this is literally what I said, because if I was you, I would find a man with a job.

But I said I said, God, he doesn't have to have a lot of money. You know what? He didn't had to be rich. God, I just want him to love you because my heart was like this. God, you can do anything in our life. If we serve you, we can rise higher. We can do anything. But the bottom line is my gold standard is that he loves you a lot.

So when I met Joel, he looked good on the outside. In fact, from the outside he looked like he was perfect. But you know what? I didn't want to just judging from the outside, I wanted to judge who I was going to marry by the word of God. And although he looked good, he seemed to have the right credentials. You know, that wasn't good enough. I watched a steady team. I saw if his beliefs lined up with his actions.

I watched how he treated his family, what he said about his friends, his generosity towards others. See, I let that character line itself up with the word of God. Then I could make an educated godly decision. You said God wants us to be confident in our decisions as our minds are gaining more knowledge and being transformed. Then we can test our choices and make the right decisions. Well, I had the peace of God. He asked me to marry, so I did.

Thirty years later, it's been a wonderful decision. It's been a great decision. Can I tell you, girls don't judge from the outside, make sure their character lines up. You're far too valuable to get together with someone who doesn't appreciate you and know how to bring out the best in you, who doesn't serve the living God. You see, I made my decision. I'd rather be home with a peanut butter jelly sandwich than with a man that wasn't good enough for me and God.

All right. It's not worth it. Every decision you make use the word of God is your gold standard, keep conforming to God's word and his likeness, don't you? Don't conform to the world, don't conform to habits. You may be fighting something right now. And I just want to encourage you to get yourself submit yourself under the word of God. Don't let anything come out of your mouth that doesn't line up with what you want. Listen, when you're in a fight, you got to fight to the end.

You've got to be serious about where you're going. God's work will renew you, strengthen you and refresh you. It'll detox all those old ways and bring you into the new ways that God will love you so much. You're awesome. God is a good God. Thank you for listening to the Jostein podcast, help us continue to share the message of hope with those all over the world, visit Jostein Dotcom, give hope to give a gift today. Thanks for listening to the podcast.

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