We are discovering how God transforms us by changing the way we think. 

We’ve been examining the brain and the insights from the field of neuroscience to better understand how the mind works.  

Brain divided into two halves, or hemispheres, right and left.  Each control different functions and thought processes. 

Right brain = relational side, call it the fast track because our right hemisphere processes the world first and faster than our left hemisphere.  This has implications.

Right hemisphere, processes 6x per sec.  Before the left side starts evaluating and reasoning using our knowledge and reasoning and logic.

This is where we get “gut” reactions, intuition, first impressions, feelings.  All of these come so fast there is no time for the left side of our brain to acknowledge.  

We now understand why our emotions get triggered in certain situations, such as fear or anger.

As soon as you meet someone, your right brain is already having hundreds reactions and responses before a word is spoken. 

Remember, we connect with God relationally, right brain. Why this is so critical to understand. 

When you study the Bible you increase in knowledge and this reinforces our trust in God.  But, if you want to relate to God, hear His voice, have him lead you, that’s all right brain.

This is where the church had missed it since the enlightenment and rather than pursuing a relationship with God which seemed too mystical we instead chose logic and reason.  While some of this was a healthy reaction to the abuse of mysticism, especially in the Catholic Church, we “threw the baby out with the bathwater.” 

For years we have taught that if you have the right knowledge and made the right choices you would be transformed.  Did it work? Only for a few. For most people, they did not change to the extent they want to. 

We can live in continual communion with God.  It can become so common it becomes a habit.

Think about a habit you’ve developed like when you learned to drive.  You had a checklist. You had to be constantly aware of so many thinks it took all your attention.

Now you don’t even remember driving to work it is such a habit. There is an explanation for what is happening.

Donald Hebb, a neuroscientist stated in 1949, “Neurons that  fire together wires together.” When we repeat actions over a period of 30 days we create a new neuropathway for our brain to follow. 

This has now been verified and measured through fMRIs and PET Scans. 

Like learning our multiplication tables, over time it becomes second nature. We respond before we have to think and analyze.  When this happens over and over our brain develops what we call “white matter”, the rest of our brain is “gray matter” but the white matter is special. While your right brain operates at ⅕ of a second, white matter operates at 200x times second.

Not only can we create these neuropathways but we can abandon old ones and create new one. 

Stroke patients in many cases have rewired their brains to compensate for areas that were destroyed.  Other area and new neuropathways are developed. This is called, Neuroplasticity.

This is not just a nice scientific principle it is how God literally transforms our thinking.  It is what Paul describes in Romans 12:2 actually taking place in our brains.  We can no longer use the excuse, “that’s just the way I’m wired”.  While that is true you can be rewired.  This is why bad habits are hard to break. One example that goes to the core of who I am.

grew up very independent, entrepreneurial, driven.  Success in business and ministry because the mission was everything.  People were tools for success.

I found myself telling someone recently, “people and especially your family are not a hindrance to your mission they are the mission.”

I see people as sons and daughters of God rather than tools to accomplish God’s mission. Perfect? No! Still remnants of that old neuropathway I can walk down.  The closer I stay to God the more I reinforce this new way of thinking.

This change in my thinking at the core level is not something I was intentionally working on. It is something God has been doing as I have drawn closer to Him.  I see people instead of projects.

This is how Jesus lived and modeled for us. 

So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. John 5:19 NLT

Jesus placed limitations on Himself. He chose to acts and live by faith in Go. He wants us to do the same. 

Is this the way the average Christian lives, NO! But it is possible.

 We can be sure that we’ve truly come to live in intimacy with God, not just by saying, “I am intimate with God,” but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus. 1 John 2:5‭-‬6 TPT

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.  Phil. 2:5

The Apostle Paul understood living from the head and the heart, spirit and the mind, the right, and the left brain.

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. 15 What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. I Cor. 14:14-15 ESV

Pray with understanding – sickness, needs, fears, interceding for others.

Pray in the spirit – Led by the Holy Spirit. Tongues or revelation.

Sing with understanding or “mind”.  Known songs, or by lyrics.

Sing from Spirit – spontaneous songs, pop or classic songs change lyrics, worship. 

A new song for a new day rises up in me every time I think about how he breaks through for me! Ecstatic praise pours out of my mouth until everyone hears how God has set me free. Many will see his miracles; they’ll stand in awe of God and fall in love with him!  Ps 40:3 TPT

This is the communion we can have with God.  We need both sides of our brain.  

I don’t want you to get the idea that I am saying abandon the Bible and just sit and meditate.  I am saying we need both. I am placing more emphasis on the right hemisphere of the brain because this is the side we have mostly neglected in the church.

We got so afraid of the supernatural being not understood or abused we abandoned in completely.  

It is arrogant to live from just the left hemisphere.  It is saying I have to become the final judge of everything I do.  I have to filter it through my thinking and make the final decision. 

Instead we are called to be led by the Spirit.  

We can so centered on our left brain driving our choices and actions or even trying to influence others. This is why Jesus was forceful with his friend Peter, calling him Satan.

Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get out of my way, you Satan! You are an offense to me, because your thoughts are only filled with man’s viewpoints and not with the ways of God.”  Matt. 16:23 TPT

I hear a whole lot of people who proclaim Jesus, but spend all their time talking politic, or social issues. 

Peter was trying to help Jesus and protect Him. But left-brain logic is dangerous.

Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves. But those who live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities. Rom. 8:5 TPT Impulses, nudges. 

Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm.  Col. 3:2 TPT

This doesn’t mean to think of what Heaven will be like and all of your problems are gone.  Paul is agreeing with how Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”  Jesus wasn’t saying pray you’ll go to Heaven, He is telling us to call Heaven’s realities down to earth through our lives.