Good Morning my brothers and sisters in Christ. I pray you’ve spent the week living intentionally and with purpose. As I was getting ready for work this morning I listened to a sermon by TD Jakes entitled, “Nothing As Powerful As A Changed Mind.” It’s an older sermon but was definitely on time for me this morning. If you read my previous blog then you are aware that I’ve been reflecting on God’s hand in my life over the last year. Not that I’m living in the past but I’m acknowledging the transitional growth that has taken place. In the sermon, Bishop Jakes talks about the importance of changing our default setting. My local pastor preached this same word last year at the exact moment that I relinquished everything that I was in order for Yahweh to rewire my own default setting. One thing that Bishop Jakes said in his sermon that stood out to me was, “You know when you’ve changed when your sin is no longer your normal. Not that you won’t mess up ever again but that it’s abnormal when you do. Your desire to go back to it no longer exist.” I can truly say that over the past year my desire to be my former self truly died. I feel out of place thinking or doing some of the things that I use to do. My old decisions don’t make sense to me anymore now that God has changed my mind. What made this time different from all the other times I prayed for God to change my situation? To change me? Unlike, the other times I prayed for deliverance this time I wasn’t afraid of what I would lose once the change started to take place. I wasn’t hesitant to lose everything that I knew in order to discover the newness of who I was in Christ. What is the prayer that you’ve continued to pray over and over? Are you ready to change your default setting? What are you afraid of losing? Let’s talk about it.
A default setting is a preexisting value of a user. Typically, our default settings are formed from how we were raised, our experiences, and generational trends. It is the thing we return to time and time again. It may be triggered by obstacles, verbal concerns, or people. If you’ve ever prayed for God to heal you in a certain area or prayed about not going through the same things over and over. You may be still operating in your default setting somewhere in your life.
I did a blog post about Faith and Works not too long ago. See here. In the post, I talked about the requirement of us to balance the two. We can’t have one without the other. I never understood that my prayers required action on my part. It wasn’t good enough to pray for financial growth then spend my money on clothes and shoes. It wasn’t efficient to pray that my relationship with God would develop and only talk to Him on Sunday. I believe I’m still referencing this transforming revelation because the Lord keeps revealing new layers of it to me. Each time He gives me a deeper understanding. For me, it started with a decision to be obedient to His instruction. I then had to face who I had been and the things I had done over the years. I had to repent and fall out of agreement with those things. I had to allow Christ to change my mind and heart. Then I had to give God full access to break me in order to make me whole. I had to understand that the broken pieces of me were necessary. The hurt of losing people, the pain of revisiting my past, the confusion of letting go of everything that made me who I had been up until that point. All necessary. I finally understood that God couldn’t heal what was not broken. He had to break my thoughts, my understanding, my default setting, my relationships, and my habits. So know when we pray for healing we’re also praying to first be broken.
Are you ready for God to truly change you? It’s going to cost you something, but the price we pay is nothing compared to the payoff. Blessings.
“God, pick up the pieces. Put me back together again. You are my Praise.”
Jeremiah 17:14 (The Message)
