Elisabeth Elliot - The Remade Mind

several years ago I was traveling from Chicago to New York I had it speaking days in Chicago and then one in New York and I flew it on a Saturday night and I was the speaker on Long Island on Sunday morning at 11 o'clock I had to get a train from Pennsylvania Station which would get me to this little town at about as if it was about 10:40 I was supposed to leave at 9:10 I got up very early I spent some time reading studying preparing I had an early breakfast and then I sat there in my hotel room looking at my watch and I thought well since I've got lots of time I might just as well go in citroen station and look at the people rather than sitting here in my hotel room by myself and sometimes it takes a long time to check out of a big city hotel so I went downstairs and checked out of the hotel and immediately Faction walked across the street to the Pennsylvania Station for my 910 train and as I walked into the station there was a large digital clock in front of me which said 9:10 I realized to my horror that my watch was on Chicago time and there was no other train was going to get me out there where I needed to be by 11 o'clock well it's a long story I won't tell you all the details but I made it by 11 to 20 by that time they had corralled another lady to take my place and she was sitting on the platform and when she saw me coming the back door of the church he ran right down the center aisle yelling crated the Lord another time I was given a set of directions for a small church here in Massachusetts and it looked like a very clear map and I took 128 where I lived near Boston you don't go anywhere without getting on to 128 and I went the direction that I was told to go and then I followed precisely the directions of this map and I found myself about 35 miles away from where I was supposed to be at the time that the meeting was supposed to start for the life of me I couldn't imagine what had happened until I discovered that the lady that made the maps had put South at the top of the map she had not bothered to put the arrow with the north one assumed that a map is always oriented with north at the top unless otherwise specified well one more little story and I'm going to tell you what the relationship is between these illustrations case you don't already know I read a fascinating article in The New Yorker several years ago about five men who spent 80 days in space in a capsule a space capsule and the experiences that they had in that space capsule were extremely uncomfortable they had had to be trained for months ahead of time to survive a condition of weightlessness and the author of this article describes some of the things that they had to face up to for example their sleeping bags were strapped vertically to the wall and they had to be strapped into the sleeping bags in order to keep their blankets around them keep the sleeping to keep in the sleeping bag because as you know in weightlessness everything floats and they would have floated out of the sleeping bag their blankets would have floated away from them if they open the cabinet or a shaving kit the contents floated out into space and these men found themselves trying to corral things out of space around them one of the most difficult processes was eating because it took some practice to follow the food to one's face with the fork once the food had been picked up off the plate and started on its trajectory it would continue and so if the man happened to pause in midair with his fork to answer a question the egg continued to plaster itself all over his face they couldn't take baths because water doesn't stay in a tub where there's no weight where there's no gravity they couldn't take showers because water doesn't fall they had to swab themselves off with prepackaged damp towels pills wouldn't fall out of a bottle pages of books didn't stay closed they found open light flowers and the man found himself trying to screw a screw with a screwdriver and instead of the screws going around his entire body was revolving in space one man questioned about it afterwards said boy it's so lousy I don't even want to talk about it the experience was exhausting and utterly miserable why because they had no local vertical that's what they called it no reference point to tell them which was up and which was down they could only go by their own head or their own feet which is a very undependable means of getting one's bearings in the case of my missing the train it was because I hadn't set my watch in the case of being 35 miles from where I belonged it was because the points of the compass were not specified in the case of these five men who spent these miserable 80 days in space they had no reference point the capsule itself was a cylinder lying on its side so there was absolutely no way for them to tell which was up and which was down another thing which they found very disorienting was that they had they experienced 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every 24 hours so you can imagine the experience of disorientation now there was only one thing wrong in each of those cases my watch was wrong the map was wrong gravity was not in effect I want to talk to you this afternoon about the remade mind there's one thing seriously wrong with a lot of our Christian experience and that is that we start with ourselves go into any Christian bookstore and read the titles look how many have the word I listen to any Christian radio station jot down the titles of any three out of five songs that you hear sung and you'll find that it is almost always experience we start with ourselves we are the victims of a very vague diluted kind of spirituality and I think we need to pull our socks up a little bit and be disciplined test our experience by an objective reality there was no objective reality no reference point for those poor men in that capsule you and I have no trouble at all knowing which end is up because we are at the mercy of a law called gravity and everything that we do is affected by that law if I let go this book I know that it's going to hit the table and so these men had no such reference point if we test ourselves by our own experience or by the experience of other people it's going to be very variable isn't it it's not an objective reality and I'd like us to get back to some very simple very basic things how do you get to know God well Jesus made it very plain he said the man who loves me will keep my Commandments and my father will love him and we will come to him and my father will make himself known to that man the root to the knowledge of God is obedience very simple isn't it if you love me you'll obey me we talk a great deal about love we very often sentimentalize it and this is one of those words that has become so big and so die to what it is to be almost meaningless a lot of hugging and feeling and touchy foodstuff it's not always related in any way to the kind of love that the scripture describes Jesus made it terribly down to earth when he said if you love me do what I said and if you do what I say my father will come to you and will make himself known that is the route to knowing God one of the favorite topics nowadays which is endlessly discussed is Who am I how do I get to know myself how do I get to love myself how do I get in touch with my feelings how do I get to express myself and our whole educational system is dedicated to the proposition that feelings are paramount and everybody's opinion is worth just as much as everybody else's and children from kindergarten on up are encouraged in this idea they are polled for their opinions about everything from the hot lunch program to the school busing and the sand table and whatever else may happen to pop into somebody's head to ask them questions about and their answers are well this is the way I feel and this is what I think and I went to a large Women's Conference in a very large Church in Boston a few years ago in which they had some workshops and questions prepared ahead of time we're handed out and every single question on the list some 20 or 30 questions began with words like how do you feel do you think are you comfortable with every single one of them relating to personal experience rather than to some objective reality now how do I get to know myself there's only one way and that is to get to know God Calvin said in the introduction to his tremendous volume the Institute's of theology that it is in learning to know God that we get to know ourselves his language was much more stilted than that but that is the route if we obey God and get to know him it's amazing how much he will reveal to us of ourselves probably a lot more than most of us can stand so we need to set our watch establish the points of the conch of the compass find out which end is up by comparing our experience with this book now I'm not knocking personal experience my husband addley who used to do a lot of public speaking said he never made any apologies for talking about personal experiences it was the only kind he'd ever had and your experience is valid for you and my experience is valid for me and if I were to tell you some of my more exotic experiences you might sit there and shake your head and say oh well I've never been through anything like that and I'm glad I never had to live in a house without walls and work with jungle savages and all that sort of thing you weren't supposed to God wants to make himself known to you within the sphere of your experience but he wants to make himself known to you that's the emphasis and if within the sphere of your particular set of circumstances your family your job your prejudices your weaknesses your outlook on life if within that sphere you look for the meaning that God has to you you you and get to know him and test the experience by the principles set forth in this book so often when we face difficulties in life our first impulse is to say well if I could only talk to so-and-so or if I could only get a hold of such-and-such a book or if I only had the money in the time to go to so-and-so's seminar or if I could just get counseled by so-and-so let me offer a suggestion which is available to all of us we can always get to where we'd like to be and talk to who we'd like to talk to or read such as such a book but there is an answer which is available to every one of us and that is in prayer and meditation now that word meditation has fallen on hard times because of the Transcendental Meditation people and that sort of crowd but meditation is a very scriptural thing it simply means pondering carefully quietly and slowly some truths which God has shown you and we don't do nearly enough of that I'm not going to ask for a show of hands but I might say how many of you would rather come and sit at a ladies luncheon and listen to some speaker then spend an hour alone in your room on your knees with your Bible open that's not very easy the fact that it is available to all of us is not to say that it is easy and I personally find prayer and meditation to be hard work and that's why I have to a lot the first hours of the day hours I don't need to indicate and I spend more than an hour in prayer and meditation but the first minutes of my da day have to be spent that way because I can't constant trait after that gets worse and worse and worse now I noticed but most of you are sitting there thinking well I certainly can't concentrate when I get up in the morning I can't talk to anybody until I've had my coffee well let me suggest that you go and have your coffee and talk to God before you talk to anybody else but the point I want to get across and it's up to you to find or make the time and the place is we must learn to know God and it must be in meditating and pondering and obeying the word that he shows us that we come to the knowledge of who he is I'm going to read to you a few verses from Romans 12 very familiar verses to you but perhaps not quite so familiar from this particular translation Phillips translation says with what eyes wide open to the mercies of God I beg you my brothers as an act of intelligent worship to give in your bodies as a living sacrifice consecrated to him and acceptable by him don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold but let God remould your minds from within so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity I have a very simple three-point outline from those verses those of you who take notes can write these down those of you who don't I hope that you'll at least be able to go home and remember three things that I said because they're very simple one start with God - don't be squeezed three let God remould your mind it's a very dangerous business to assess your spiritual experience by yourself or by comparison with other people start with God now Paul says here come to him I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies now if you're going to present this body you have to present it to somebody don't you I found a fascinating article in the National Geographic which described something about this body that I didn't know at all excuse me it was not the National Geographic it was in a book called God the atom in the universe and I learned that if the average person had all the space squeezed out of him he would occupy one one hundred millionth of a cubic inch if you had this space squeezed out of you now for us laymen who are not scientists that sounds impossible but any scientist can tell you that all matter is very porous extremely porous no matter how solid it may look a piece of lead is as I heard a scientist say so porous it's pitiful and if all the air was squeezed out of an ordinary human being he would occupy one one hundred millionth of a cubic inch now how about this for a staggering fact on this one I did get from the National Geographic it said that if cell division of the body were not controlled and some of us feel that we have a pretty hard time controlling the size we obtained it says here that it were not controlled from the outside if we would reach 80 trillion tons because cells divide and divide and divide continually as long as they are alive cells are dividing now something makes some cells die so that we maintain more or less of a limited size but I want you to think of those two facts that if the space were squeezed out of you you occupy one one hundred millionth of an inch and if the cells were not controlled you would gain up to 80 trillion tons and think about the fact that it is this body about which those things are true that I present to God now whose idea was this body well it certainly wasn't mine it was God's idea to give me this particular body this particular color this particular set of parents the genes the age the height the color of eyes all of these things are part of the Givens of my life I only have one body and happens to be tall white anglo-saxon middle-aged and female clothes that I proceeded you that you present your bodies you start with God you come to him and you say all right here it is Lord everything that I am and your body contains your feelings your spirit your soul your mind your taste your personality everything present it make it like a gift to God and he says don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold now that is a tough assignment never has it been a time when we are more tempted to be squeezed because there's never been anything like the mass media that we have nowadays most of us have television sets most let's get newspapers or magazines and so from every side all the time we are being bludgeoned with data knocked down squeezed pressed overwhelmed disturbed Paul said don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold now how in the world can we keep from it I don't know anyway but prayer and meditation and don't let it be empty meditation stick to the book find out what God says find out what he's saying to you and go out and start doing it I read a very interesting verse just this morning in Exodus the 23rd chapter remember ever seeing this one before and I had not read this particular translation I was reading the new English Bible and it said here you shall not be led into wrongdoing by the majority that's in that whole list of hundreds of commands that God gave following a Ten Commandments when he gave them to Moses you know there are chapters of Commandments following and this was one of them you shall not be led into wrongdoing by the majority nor shall you side with the majority think about that one now of course most of us would think first of siding with the world and we say well I certainly don't do that but unfortunately the world deeply affects the Christian Church none of us are exempt from the influence of the world and sometimes the majority of the Christians you know could be wrong nothing that says that majority vote necessarily is safe God said you shall not side with the majority to pervert justice nor shall you favor the poor man in his lawsuit would you ever be tempted to favor the poor man in his lawsuit if he were a judge naturally our sentimental kind of love is affected by poverty by disability as we were driving here today we saw a blind man hitchhiking first time I've ever seen that and of course all of us in the car immediately thought oh the poor man we really ought to stop and pick him up well of course he doesn't need to ride any more than somebody that can see I don't suppose I'm not saying that we shouldn't have picked him up or that we should have it's just that this is a perfectly natural reaction immediately you think oh the poor man I had an African student in my class in the seminary he had a very hard time with English somehow or other he gotten through grade school in high school in college and here he was in graduate school but having a terrible time with English my natural inclination was to give him a higher grade than I would give to the rest of my students just because he had such tremendous obstacles to overcome what's the standard of Scripture you shall not favor the poor man in his lawsuit justice is absolutely impartial I happened to be the proponent of a very unpopular view probably more than one very unpopular view but one of them about which I've been asked to speak a good many times is this whole business of women's liberation and women's ordination and it was very interesting that a reporter called me up one time and she said you really believe that stuff don't you and I said yes and she said you actually think you're going to sell that in this day and age that women should be ordained and that women's liberation is far from the mark and I said well I'm not really trying to sell it particularly well she said don't you think it's a bit Victorian and I said well it's much older than that Brawl Victoria was at the turn of the century my idea is go back at least to thousand years so I haven't come up with anything new and she said but do you really think you're going to get people to believe that well I said I'm going to keep on trying not very many people do necessarily but the majority has never been a very safe guide don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold here's the next another verse that I read that same passage in Exodus when you see the ass of someone who hates you lying helpless under its load however unwilling you may be you must give in the hand with it the world is certainly not going to give you any rules like that all the way through scripture from Genesis to Revelation God is saying the same thing listen to me trust me obey me don't listen to the majority don't do what you feel like doing have you ever heard that if you if it feels good do it who would feel like helping out somebody who hates him and then it says don't be hard on an alien it's terribly down to earth right where we did in Psalm 36 it reads it says the wicked man flatters himself in his own opinion would you rather be asked how you feel about something than what you know about it here in America because of democracy we all feel obligated to have opinions about everything doesn't make any difference whether we know anything about it or not 99% of the time we don't know anything about it but we have opinions anyhow don't we well it says here the the wicked man flatters himself in his own opinion how do you what how do you feel now tell us how you really feel now tell us how you really feel what do you think the third thing that Paul says to do is let God remould your MA lines from within and that is the crux of what I want to say to you this afternoon the remaking of the Christian mind has to come from inside what you have put into your mind comes out of this book and as you feed on that and pray over it and let me recommend that you get down on your knees sometimes that you stand up and walk around sometimes if you are inclined to go to sleep as I am when I'm trying to pray that you stand and say your prayers out loud if necessary in order to concentrate my brother recently wrote a letter in which he described how he practically has to shout his prayers at God in the morning he said not to flag down the attention of God but in order to concentrate my own attention which is so prone to wander every other direction but that's the way you feed your own soul and then God can remould your mind from within in Ephesians the fourth chapter we have exactly the same principle stated Paul says to the Ephesians this is my instruction in which I gave you from the Lord do not live any longer as the Gentiles lived for they live blindfold in a world of illusion and are cut off from the life of God through ignorance and in sensitiveness they have stifled their consciences and then surrendered themselves to sensuality practicing any form of impurity which lust can suggest but you have learned nothing like that from Christ if you have really heard his voice and understood the truth that Jesus has taught you know what you learned was to fling off the dirty clothes of the old way of living which were rotted through and through with lusts illusions and with yourselves mentally and spiritually remade to put on the clean fresh clothes of the new life which was made by God's design for righteousness and the holiness which is no illusion now I'd like to suggest five possible areas in which God might be wanting to make your mind to alter your thinking completely we are so prone to excuse ourselves if they well it's just the way I am and that's me and I got a Mimi I saw this tennis player that throws temper tantrums on the courts on TV the other day he was being asked about how he had alienated so many people and he says well he says I can't change you know that's just what I am it's me got to be me and we let the world squeeze us into its mold and we actually believe that and the Bible tells us that you don't have to be me not the sinful old me but God can remake your mind let's take the first possible situation have you ever been disappointed in a person has anybody not lived up to your expectations I won't ask for a show of hands of the wives whose husbands have lived up 100 percent to their expectations but you know you could be grateful to God for the 80% that they do live up and just forget the 20% that you would like to change if you're disappointed in people go back to these three points start with God don't start with that person with how you feel about that person with what you think that person is doing long start with God don't let the world squeeze you into telling you how you have a right to feel about that person let God remould your mind now how do you start with God well obviously you bring that person to him and you pray you can talk about me just as much as you please I'm going to talk about you down on my knees and that's a good place to start and he'll tell God if you've got to give vent to all your feelings give vent to them to God tell him everything you think about that person and then start confessing all the sinful things that you've said to him about that person and pray for them bring the person to God try to see him as God's season that will change your whole perspective Paul pray that we might see things as God sees them and I don't know any way to do that except in the light of the word ask God to show you that person as he sees him and then see how God can revolve your mind you can change your mind toward that person well how about this like of a situation some of you may have jobs that you find very trying very difficult some of you may not like your husband's job some of you may not have wanted to come and live where you live now or wish you could move somewhere else maybe you don't don't like the situation in your church you don't like that woman on the committee that is so impossible to get along with you don't like the fact that you have to take care of your mother-in-law or that intractable teenager there are all kinds of situations that you don't like try those three things again offer it to God don't let the world squeeze you and then let God remould your mind I live for a year in a house that didn't have in walls it was an Indian house in the jungle of Ecuador and I happen to be very much of a loner an introvert who likes solitude and privacy I have a dear friend on the Cape an old lady who often says to me I think the Lord gives us whatever is hardest for us and God does know how to whittle us down and pair off the sharp edges and certainly he couldn't affect anybody who would value privacy more than me when he assigned somebody to live in a house with no walls I was scrutinized day and night everything I did was not only observed but very often imitated always laughed about and commented upon endlessly analyzed criticized and I found that I was considered a comedian all day long everybody was laughing and everything that I did because nothing that I did was anything like the things that they did I didn't like that situation particularly but there wasn't any question in my mind that God wanted me in that place and so when I was trying to learn their language and finding myself not only mocked and imitated by the Indians themselves but by my three-year-old daughter who was miles ahead of me linguistically even though I had learned Spanish and two other Indian languages at this point I thought well perhaps I can keep up with a three-year-old as she learns the language I made up my mind when I went there that I would keep up with her whatever she learned that day I would learn and with my systems of mnemonics my tape recorder my notebooks my files my charge for analysis I thought maybe I can keep up with her but it was a naive hope because she very quickly learned to speak their language perfectly and learned the phrase Hakan which means everybody listen to this I would be trying to say some alcohol a she would be yelling out haha come on over here and get a load of this the third thing disc after dislike of a situation a third thing is uncertainty again start with God he said I am the way I am the truth he didn't say this is the way and point us and tell us how to get there you know how it is when somebody gives you directions and they're very unclear and you try to follow them and things don't work out the way that you thought they meant and you'd much rather have somebody who says just follow me and that's what Jesus does he said I am the way not that we would never be uncertain but that in our uncertainty we could come to it start with God present your body present your problem don't let the world squeeze you and let God remould your mind from within and Paul says if you let God reload your mind from within you will see that the plan of God for you is perfect meets all his demands and moves toward the goal of true maturity how often have you envied the path that God has led somebody else oh well if I only had so-and-so and I only has doesn't such an amount of money well if I didn't have to live with this husband if I only had her husband or by I had sentence as a job or if I didn't have to work with this impossible person and a thousand things if I could have if I could play the violin like that if I could get up and speak if I could write books if I could do this is out of the other thing but God has a plan for you which Paul says is perfect meets all his demands for you now the minute you start comparing your gifts and your circumstances with somebody else you've been squeezed by the world go back to God start with God let him remould your mind Lord change my mind about this thing help me to see the situation as you it fear of the future any of you afraid of illness the death of somebody you love how about the energy crisis what in the world are we going to do this winter how we're going to pay those oil bills what about inflation what's good what's it going to be like in 1981 how about cancer how about what your children are going to turn out to be old age anybody here afraid to admit that they're over 50 hold these things before God every morning come din and say Lord Here I am with all my fears all my uncertainties and all my dislikes and all my sins present your body a living sacrifice holy acceptable and let God remould your mind about those fears let us remember ladies and let's call a spade a spade fear is a sin fear is a sin the scripture says fear not Jesus said it over and over and over again change in circumstances is this perhaps the way in which God wants to remould your mind my life has been a series of crises it seems to me maybe God doesn't look at it that way at all I suppose it's just as important to God how I wash the dishes as it is how I write a book I'm just as much serving him when I'm cooking a pot on the stove as when I'm standing up talking to 100 ladies at a luncheon but God wants me to know him within the set of circumstances that he's given me and in every crisis as I look back I can realize that God has been remoulding my mind from within as long as I stick to these principles start with God don't listen to the world let God remould your mind and he does this right now my husband and I are in the midst of another upheaval not nearly as big a crisis as some of the others in my life but we're moving tomorrow so you can imagine what the house looks like today my poor mother-in-law toiled all day yesterday packing and it's an upheaval and the minute we have made the decision I began to have second thoughts third thoughts and fourth thoughts and fifth thoughts but I'm a great believer in simply following through on the guidance that you believe God gave to you at the time don't take up and doubt what you planted in faith now whatever this set of circumstances is that you might not like ask is this where God wants me if you believe it is ask what he wants to teach you in it if you believe it's not then get out but if this is where God wants you this house this job this church this marriage these children children coming home or children going away from home your health it's within the sphere of this particular set of circumstances that God wants to remould your mind I beseech you that you present your bodies let me read that translation again from Phillips as an act of intelligent worship I beg you to give in your bodies as a living sacrifice consecrated to him and acceptable by him don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold but let God remould your minds from within so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity

Channel: bibelchannel

Views: 118,677

Rating: 4.8431373 out of 5

Keywords: elisabeth elliot, jim elliot, the remade mind, god, glory, elisabeth elliot jim ellio, love, gods love, jim elliot preech, preeches, elliot, elisabeth

Id: t-FH2izFozk

Length: 42min 24sec (2544 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 24 2014