Key scripture- “Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies” (Proverbs 23:6).

The choices that we make reflect our values, so we need to ask ourselves “Where are my values coming from, the world or the Word of God?”

Since your values are shaped by what you think, and what you think is shaped by what you put into your mind, you should never underestimate the significance of what you put into your mind.

The world really wants you to adopt its values, its way of looking at life, so it pounds its values into you with every television show you watch, with the magazines you read, with the internet, with the radio, and with the attitudes of the people around you. Therefore, if you do not combat the world’s way of thinking by saturating your mind with Scripture, and prayer, and spiritual fellowship with other believers, then you have no hope of standing against the world influencing your life.

God’s message to you today is clear–don’t become like the secular world, but be transformed by the Holy Spirit as you renew your mind. The Spirit will take the Word of God that you put into your mind and enable you to see life the way God sees it and to make decisions that are based on God’s Word, you will then start walking in righteousness, which will then change your values and your choices, because your choices always follow your values.

By reading and mediating on the Word of God you can be changed in the way that you think and the way that you act because the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword. God’s Word fills, empowers, enlivens, and redeems us. But it also divides and destroys because it pierces and exposes our disobedience and unfaithfulness. (Hebrews 4:12).

God’s Word will enter where no other sword can, and make critical dissections in your life because it pierces and divides the soul and the spirit. It will make a soul that has been full of pride to be humble, it will make a perverse spirit be meek and obedient. All your sinful habits that have become natural to you, that you think you can never conquer because they are rooted so deeply in you will be separated and cut off by the sword of the Word of God. It cuts off ignorance so that you can the understand God’s will and His Word, it removes rebellion from your will, hatred and hostility from your mind, unforgiveness, sexual immorality, greed, anger, lies, and all other sins that have no place in the life of a Christian. This sword divides between the joints and the marrow, the most secret, close, and intimate parts of the body; this sword can cut off the lusts of the flesh as well as the lusts of the mind, and make you willing to undergo the sharpest operation for the removal of all sin from your life. It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, even the most secret and remote thoughts and designs. It will evaluate all of your thoughts and purposes, the vileness of them, the bad principles they are driven by, any sinister thoughts and actions, and it will expose and remove them. The Word will turn you inside out, and let you see all that is in your heart. That is why your faith and obedience cannot grow without the Word of God.

Stop and think about what you are putting into your mind, and resolve today to start filling your mind with the Word of God, by getting up fifteen minutes early every morning and spend that time in God’s Word, praying to Him and talking to Him about your day. If you do that, I guarantee that you will be transformed, but don’t take my word for it, instead try it yourself.

Pray this – Our Precious Heavenly Father, I love you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, and I know that the only way I can be transformed from the inside out is to saturate my mind with Your Word not with the things of this world. I know that the only way that the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart will be pleasing to you is by planting Your Word in my heart and letting it change me to be more like Jesus. I know that right belief always produces right living and the only way I will know what is right is to read Your Word, and let it remove all of my sinful attitudes and actions, and replace them with the attitudes and actions of Jesus. Father, I want to be cleansed of all unrighteousness, therefore, I will fill my mind and my heart with Your Word, and when I do that I will see the goodness it brings to me and to others as it changes me from the inside out. In Jesus’ Name, I pray, Amen.