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Guest (Male): Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We're so glad you've tuned in today. At Connect with Skip, our passion is to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus through solid, verse-by-verse Bible teaching that's both clear and practical. Every message you hear is designed to strengthen your faith and help you live out God's truth wherever He's placed you.

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Skip Heitzig: People say there's no such thing as empirical truth. There's no such thing as absolute truth. Truth is relative. Your truth may not be my truth. We are exposed to that sort of thinking. That's why we need a constant exposure and injection of God's truth so that we're able to discern what is right and what is wrong.

It is even more important these days because a generation has arisen where honestly truth isn't all that important. Feelings trump truth. To a whole new generation, it's not about is this true or not true, it's how does that make you feel? If it makes you feel good, that's your truth. If it doesn't make you feel good, then it's not your truth.

Have you heard this? "What should I do?" "Just follow your heart. Just follow your heart." That little bit of pop psychology might sound really noble, but that is like the worst piece of advice ever in history. Follow your heart. Here is why: the Bible says the heart is deceitful above everything else and desperately wicked. Who can know it? If you are driven by your emotional feelings at the time, it might feel good temporarily, but eventually, you might go off the deep end.

Meditate on righteous truth. It says whatever things are noble. I love this word. It means worthy of respect, dignified, worthy of awe. It's the opposite of common, mundane. These are lofty thoughts. Whatever things are just, that is a word that means right or righteous. The scripture shows you how to walk the righteous path. If you ever wonder what is right or what is wrong, the Bible will tell you the principles for righteous living. In Psalm 119, David said, "Your word is a lamp to my feet. It's a light unto my path."

Notice the word pure. Whatever things are pure. That means wholesome. It means morally pure. It's the opposite of smutty. David said, "How shall a young man keep his ways pure?" Then he answers his own question, "By taking heed according to Your word." God's word will give you purity.

You've heard the name John Bunyan. He wrote Pilgrim's Progress. He was put in jail for his faith. In the flyleaf of his Bible, he wrote this: "Either this book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book." The Bible has the ability to keep a person pure. I've discovered something about people who say, "I won't read the Bible because it's so filled with contradictions. It contradicts itself."

Let me translate for you. It contradicts them. Usually people won't read the Bible not because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them. When they say there are so many contradictions, I always say, "Show me one, Mr. Knowledgeable about the Bible. Show me a contradiction." "Well, I know they're there. I don't know which one." Maybe you won't read it because it really contradicts your moral behavior.

As Mark Twain used to say, "It's not the things I don't understand in the Bible that bother me. It's the things I do understand that bother me." Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good repute, good report, if there is any virtue or anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.

Not only are there 70,000 thoughts that bounce around your brain a day, but do you know how many advertisements you are exposed to daily? I don't know who finds this stuff out. They could have assigned a number to it. I'm researching it and I corroborated it a few places. We are told by those who I think know that we are exposed to 5,000 ads a day.

You know how advertising works. They're smart people who know how we think. The idea of an ad is to influence the way a person thinks about a product in hopes to motivate the person to buy the product. They want to influence your thought life in hopes that you might pull out your wallet and buy what you think you understand about that product. This is why we have to filter what we think.

Think carefully, think righteously. Third, think actively. Verse nine: "The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you." After presenting a list of attributes for your thought life, he now shows that the thoughts should lead to deeds.

Please notice the two main verbs. The first in verse eight: meditate, think, ponder. The second in verse nine: do. These do. In the original language, tauta prassete. That is a command. That's the present active imperative. It's a command. Tauta prassete is translated literally this way: "These things I'm commanding you to keep on practicing, keep on doing."

Why does he write so strongly? Because he knows that we can never separate the thought life from the outward life, the inward thoughts from the outward action. What we ponder is what we're going to practice. What we think about is what we're going to do. What we learn is what we're going to live.

This is always the hope of a pastor. Any leader, any teacher, any pastor always has the hope that if we can expose people to truth through the preaching of the word, that the mind will attend to that. In attending to it, somewhere in the process, enough people will go, "I believe that." Because if they attend to it and attend to it regularly, they'll believe it. If they believe it, they'll do it. It's always the hope to graduate to the doing phase.

This is why Paul writes in Galatians 4, "I feel as if I'm going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your life." This is why he adds the list in verse nine. He doesn't just say, "All the things you meditate on, do them." Please notice he says, "The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do."

Why does he do that? Because he understands that you can learn something but not really receive it. You can receive something but not really hear it all. The graduation comes when you go, "I've attended to it. I've listened to it. I've exposed myself to it. I believe in it. Now I'm going to try it on for size and practice it."

I can only speak from personal experience. I grew up in a church. I was exposed to the Trinity, Jesus is God, virgin birth, death on the cross, resurrection. I heard it all my life. It made no difference at all. At all. I was 18 years of age and something changed. I listened to a sermon by Billy Graham. I've heard that stuff before. That's familiar stuff. I believe that. Something has to change. There is going to be a turning around, changing how I think about it and what I do with it.

In the last 35 minutes, we've been exposed to truth. Some have listened casually, some have listened actively, some actually take notes. I love note-takers. It shows me you're serious about taking this truth home. Others listen to it very casually, others listen to it almost like, "Are you done yet? Can we go now?" Still others just nap during the time. I'm glad that I can be a cure to your insomnia at some level.

You will also notice that in your bulletin you're always every week given an outline. I always want to give my outline to my assistant to produce in the bulletin because I believe it's just another level. It adds handles to make truth memorable so that it can add to the life change.

Let me give you a warning now for all of us. If when you hear truth, if you believe it's true, if when you hear truth you do not come with the determination to practice that truth, here's the warning: something will happen to your heart. You'll get calloused. You'll be very good at hearing truth and immediately dismissing it, marginalizing it, not letting it penetrate.

That's the danger, so that you could come effectively every week and remain unchanged because your heart grows harder and harder because you don't determine to actually put that into practice. What that means is you can have what we call churched unbelievers. Unbelievers not on their way to heaven, but they go to church every single week and the truth hasn't penetrated to change behavior. James says, "Be doers of the word and not hearers only," because he said if you do that, you deceive yourself.

Guest (Male): This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. When you give to this ministry, you help reach thousands of people every day with God's life-changing truth, encouraging them to know Him and grow in His word. To thank you for your support this month, we'll send you Reload Love: Transforming Bullets to Beauty and Battlegrounds to Playgrounds, a powerful book by Skip's wife, Lenya Heitzig.

It's a gripping, hope-filled story of how God transformed weapons of war into tools of joy, and how playgrounds rose from battlegrounds because one person chose compassion over despair. Your gift today helps bring the life-changing message of hope in Jesus to people around the world through Connect with Skip. Request your copy when you give $50 or more at connectwithskip.com/offer or by calling 800-922-1888. Now, here's more from Pastor Skip.

Skip Heitzig: He goes on by saying, "For if you just listen and don't obey, it's like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you looked like." We all understand that analogy. We do it every day.

I got up this morning at 5:30. I turn on the lights in the bathroom, look at my face in the mirror. Same reaction that I have every day. It's like, "This is me in the mirror." I look there and I go, "I can fix some of that." A lot of what I see is irreparable, but I'm good with that. If I walk out of the bathroom and forgot what I just saw, then you're going to see me like this.

In getting a revelation of truth, the mirror, I now have to have a consideration of how I'm going to implement something to change what I see. Fun little story: William Penn, some of you recognize the name. He was the founder of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which was named after William Penn. He was negotiating with the Delaware Indians for a parcel of land to make an exchange for, and they agreed that whatever land William Penn could walk around, circumnavigate on foot in a day, they would work out a deal.

The next day, William Penn sent one of his young men at daybreak with a map to walk around until sunset. He came back and encompassed 40 miles. He had the map and the little markers to show it. He went to the chief of the Delaware Indians who was shocked that somebody actually did that. He just said that, didn't expect him to do that, but he made a promise. They walked it, and that 40 miles became what is today the greater part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

That little illustration simply points out here's a guy who simply acted according to a promise. There's a promise, you said it. William Penn could have listened to the promise and gone, "Oh, that's good. Hallelujah, I'm writing that down. I'm underlining that. I'm memorizing that." He said, "I'm going to walk that. I'm going to walk that out."

I wonder how many promises of God lay in these pages untried, not walked. We must think carefully and righteously, but also actively. You'll notice something Paul says in verse nine. He does this, this is something very Paul-like. He says the things which you learned, received, and heard and saw in me, these do.

He's not saying he's perfect, but he is saying, "I am an example to you." Paul does that a couple of times in this book and a couple of times in other books. He says, "Follow me as I follow the Lord." Here's the point: find a good godly example in your life because that will just reinforce good godly thinking. You'll see it lived out.

There's an old poem that I memorized and I've said a thousand times. This is 1,001. "You are writing a gospel, a chapter each day, by the things that you do and the words that you say. People hear what you say and they see what you do, so what is the gospel according to you?"

I take truth and I internalize it and I live it, and people get an impression of God based on me. In effect, you are looking at the NSV, the New Skip Version. But I'm looking down at the NMV, the New Matt Version, the NCV, the New Chip Version. We all are living letters like Paul said, "You are our epistle, known and read by all men."

We're going to take the truth that's exemplified and that we hear and we're going to live it, and we're going to become some kind of an example to others who watch us. Look at how he ends that little verse. And don't miss this, and the God of peace will be with you. It's the crowning achievement of good, godly, right thinking and living. The God of peace will be with you.

I can't help but do this. Verse seven ends, "And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts." Now it's the God of peace. We love the peace of God, but we love when the God of peace is so intimate and close with us that we experience that intimate fellowship. Here's the point: if you think godly thoughts and you live godly lives, you'll feel God's peace because the God of peace is the one that you're walking with. He'll be with you.

Let me close with some practical tips. These are just takeaways. Practical tips on wholesome thinking. Three things to walk away with. Number one, evaluate. Evaluate content. It's very simple. You listen to things, you watch things, you focus on things, you meditate on a number of things. Evaluate those things. What I'm going to say is going to hurt because we're all Americans, most of us are Americans.

According to the Nielsen Group, the average American watches four hours of TV a day. That's just a fact. Some of you go, "Well, I dispute that. I'm at three and a half." Like it or not, here's the point: we fill our minds with whatever we happen to be watching on television.

I'm not here to tell you what you can watch and not watch. I'm not going to get legalistic. Let me just say, especially to parents, the average American adolescent will end up seeing 14,000 sexual references every year. 14,000 sexual references on TV a year. How many of those are righteous holy matrimony relationships? One, two, if you saw the right show.

There is a bombardment of values that we expose ourselves to. Not only that, but by age 18, the average child will have seen 20,000 violent acts, including 16,000 murders. Just evaluate content. That's number one. Number two, punctuate. Punctuate your day with truth. Begin the day, end the day with truth. Get up in the morning or whenever you get up. Begin the day in the word and close the day, not with a commercial on TV, but even if it's a short Psalm or a Proverb, just thoughts from God's word to put your head on the pillow at night and go to sleep with those thoughts. Punctuate your day with truth.

Evaluate, punctuate, and the third tip: meditate on scripture. When you hear a Christian say meditate, I don't mean put your hands out like this and go, "Omm," transcendental meditation where you disengage the mind. Biblical meditation is the opposite. It's where you engage the mind. To meditate on scripture means you read it, but you don't just read in it, you feed on it. You ponder it. You take and emphasize a word and another word in the phrase, and you ask what it means to you so it's really internalized. Evaluate, punctuate, and meditate.

There was a couple who were married for 40 years. The husband died in this relationship. It was a loving relationship. The wife was left very lonely, didn't know what to do. She had a period of grief. You can imagine the kind of grief after being with a partner so long. This gal remembered that she had a friend who owned a pet store. She decided she was going to go talk to this store owner.

The store owner said, "You ought to just get a pet. I know it's not going to be a husband, but get a pet." She looked at cats and dogs and fish and snakes. None of them was something she wanted. She wanted something to talk to. The owner of the pet store said, "Well, we have this parrot that just is a chatterbox. Talks to everybody." She said, "I'll buy it." Bought the parrot, dished out a lot of money, took the parrot home, big cage.

Came back in a week. The owner of the pet store said, "That bird talking to you, right? A lot, huh?" She goes, "Not saying one word. Not a word. It's been a week, not a word. I sit there, I talk to it, not a word." The owner of the pet store said, "Well, have you thought about putting a mirror in the cage?" She said, "A mirror?" He said, "Yeah, it's funny, but birds like parrots like to look at themselves in the mirror. It loosens them up. And the bird will start talking."

She bought a mirror, put it in the cage, came back 10 days later, hoping that it would have talked. The guy at the pet store said, "Worked, right?" She said, "Not a single word." He said, "Well, have you put a ladder in the cage?" She said, "A ladder?" He said, "Yeah, birds, they look at themselves in the mirror, they like to get a little exercise. And they get a little exercise, they feel more at home, they're in their own space. That bird will talk."

She bought a ladder, took it home. A couple of weeks later, came back. She's not smiling. She said the bird is not talking. The owner of the pet store said, "Well, if you put a swing in the cage, like up toward the top of this large cage, what's going to happen is the bird's going to look at itself in the mirror, climb up and down the ladder, swing a little bit, make it feel like it's in its natural habitat, the jungle. The bird's going to talk. I can almost guarantee it."

She did it, bought it, came back, walked in the store a couple of weeks later, mad. Before the owner of the shop could say, "How's that bird?" she said, "The bird died. That expensive parrot is on the bottom of the cage, dead." The owner of the store said, "I'm just befuddled. Did the bird say anything at all?" The woman said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, as that bird lay taking the last few breaths, it said, 'Don't they have any food down at that store?'"

That's a lot like you and I. We think about and we focus on things that aren't even important when we're starving to death for the kind of truth that could transform us and make us dynamic. To feed on the right things is one thing, to learn them and assimilate them, be changed by them is another.

Guest (Male): We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, remember that as our thanks for your gift today, we'll send you Lenya Heitzig's book Reload Love: Transforming Bullets to Beauty and Battlegrounds to Playgrounds, a gripping, hope-filled story of God transforming battlegrounds into playgrounds.

When you give, you help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting more people with the truth of God's word and the hope found in Jesus. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy of Reload Love: Transforming Bullets to Beauty and Battlegrounds to Playgrounds when you do. See you next time.

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Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.