Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I’m speaking to you today from Chesapeake, Virginia. I’ve got a couple weeks of the war that we’re doing here, and I’m really excited because these last two weeks I’ve had a couple of guys with me that have a heart for youth evangelism.

They’re married young men, and in fact, you’ve heard one of them before on the podcast, and he’s going to be speaking to you here today. Caleb Reed, you’ve heard a couple times here on the podcast, and for these last two weeks, he’s been the Navy team captain. In fact, he literally just got back from recruiting with his wife and with his team.

And this week, we praise the Lord. Just having finished up our two days of recruiting, the Lord gave us 401 recruits. So if you think of it, pray for us that Saturday night here we’ll have a great crowd.

Now, Caleb is, Lord willing, in the coming years going to be joining us, the Minutemen family, in various capacities. And so, Caleb, we’re excited to have you here on the podcast. please share what’s on your heart.

Okay, I want to talk to you about something that has been a huge help to me, especially as I was in my early college years, but it’s something that continually comes back to me and I have to continually use. When I was growing up, one of the things my dad would challenge me with, especially as I was in the early college years, I’d call home and I’d say, Dad, I’m frustrated. Dad, I’m angry.

Dad, this is irritating me, whatever it may be. And oftentimes times I’d be just asking for counsel. And sometimes he’d turn the conversation around and say to me, all right, Caleb, if you were counseling someone with your issue, what would you tell him?

And I said, well, dad, that’s why I’m coming to you. Cause I want you to tell me what to do. He said, no, I want you to counsel yourself.

A preacher told me a few years ago, one of the marks of being a mature believer is that you can counsel yourself. And I want to ask you, this is a question that I’ve had to ask myself, can I or do I regularly counsel myself out of discouragement, out of frustration, out of irritation, out of sin, counsel myself out of the spiritual battle?

Because, you know, every single one of us runs into the situation where someone says something that was just untimely and frustrating. Someone does something that you think was so inconsiderate. Someone, maybe an authority or even a parent does something that you feel is inconsiderate and you’re tempted, there’s that temptation to flare up, to get angry, to maybe allow the seed of bitterness to start to grow.

And it’s at that moment that you have to take captive those thoughts, as the scripture talks about, and to renew your mind. And I’m looking at Romans 12, 2. And of course, there’s so much truth here that could be unpacked, but I just want to look at one phrase.

Romans 12, 2 says, And that word renewing literally means renovation. It is the idea of complete refreshing, a renewal of what is old to make it new. So you take captive the old thoughts and you renew them with truth.

For instance, in this week, we’ve definitely sensed just a spiritual battle. And I can’t quite describe it except to say you feel like someone’s stepping on your chest. You feel like there’s just discouragement like you’ve never felt before.

You start to question your own calling. You start to question God’s goodness, all those things. And when you recognize that you’re having these thoughts of questioning, of doubting, you have to know that comes from the great deceiver, from the father of lies.

And the mature believer, where we all need to grow to, is to recognize that and be able to counsel yourself out of the discouragement into truth. It’s called renewing your mind. And so simply, it’s taking captive the wrong thoughts, the lies, recognizing them as lies, and then standing on truth.

Dr. Jim Berg has a number of different series on working through issues and challenges. And one of the things he said in a conference he did a few years ago at the school I attended is he said the greatest victory for a young person or for any person working through hurt and defeat is to counsel yourself with truth. He said you have to continually go back to truth.

And that’s what renewing your mind is. Renewing your mind with truth that does not change. Okay, what’s truth that doesn’t change?

For me, in this week, I had to remind myself God is good all the time. God’s goodness does not change. When it seems bad, God is still good.

I had to remind myself with the fact that God called me to preach. I had to remind myself that the gospel is still powerful. I had to remind myself that the Bible says that the devil is defeated.

And that’s one of the greatest ones that is so helpful to remind myself is that I do not need to live in discouragement. Jesus is still on the throne. The devil is still defeated.

Just because it’s starting to look bad does not mean that he has gained more power or more victory. He is still defeated. And I stand on the truth according to the authority of God’s word, not based upon how I feel.

And this is the hardest point because personality, the way I’m made, my makeup, I guess, is that I tend to be a little bit more living based upon how I feel. Boy, if I’m feeling good, I’m in a good mood. Boy, life is great.

But the mark of maturity is when I don’t feel good, when I don’t feel joyful, when I don’t feel like a great guy, I have to go back to truth and remind myself Jesus is still on the throne. God is still in control. Renew myself with truth.

And even though I don’t feel it, you stand on truth. Last Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to preach and I was sitting in the car with my wife saying, Emma, I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything.

But you know, that’s not the answer. The answer is not, do I feel it? Do I not feel it?

The answer is, what has Jesus said? And I go back through, okay, am I right with the Lord? Yes, I’m clean.

I’m right with the Lord. I have the text he wants me to give. And I just prayed simply, okay, devil, I know you are defeated.

The scripture says that if I submit myself to God and resist the devil, he will flee from me. I don’t feel it, but I’m standing on the truth. And wouldn’t you know it, by the time I got in there to preach, feelings had kicked in.

You know, from the moment I went from my car to the preaching session, there wasn’t really any feelings. And the feeling isn’t a determining factor, but I stood on truth. The key is I renewed my mind.

I renovated my thinking. And it wasn’t necessarily something that someone had to do for me or preach at me, but it was a simple decision that I made to change the way I was thinking. And young people, we have to understand, you don’t have to live in discouragement.

You don’t even have to live in sin. You know, you can come to Jesus who promises forgiveness. You don’t have to earn that forgiveness.

He says you can get forgiveness and you don’t have to wait until you feel like you’re forgiven. You stand on the truth that I’m forgiven, that I can be clean, that Jesus loves me, and then the feelings will come. But the key is, young people, can you counsel yourself into victory?

And this is something we all need to be working at, but I want to encourage you. Romans 12 says we need to be continually renovating, refreshing, renewing our thinking so that we live by truth because God’s word is truth and therein lies the ultimate authority and feelings will come along. But the key is live according to truth.

Don’t live by your feelings. Renew your mind. Live according to truth.

Amen, Caleb. Amen. You know, that’s kind of what God’s been teaching us here this week, isn’t it?

Just maybe a little bit of background for some of you listening. Thursday morning, the guys were out recruiting and it was actually neat. God had given us some good opportunities at ROTCs, but there were a couple of instances where we got shut down by some principals and even somebody kind of gave us the runaround and promising, I’ll do this if you do this.

And we did what he asked and he didn’t follow through. And I think we all, when we were getting together to just look at the scripture and to pray, we were just discouraged. And what’s funny is we were discouraged for no reason.

Oh yeah, sure. It was disappointing that we didn’t get in, but honestly, God had done some great things that morning. But the funny thing is, as we met to pray, I know in my heart, God stirred me, wait a second.

Why in the world do I feel discouraged right now? God is still, as Caleb said, he’s still on the throne. He’s still at work here.

And in fact, the devil is defeated. And I remember I, God stirred my heart in prayer. We talked about it after we prayed.

And, um, you know, I think all of us, we realize, wow, amen. Nothing’s changed. God’s still moving.

And the guys went out that afternoon. Um, and, uh, all’s I got to say is God did miracles at the two schools they went to. Um, God answered our prayers so specifically.

I think Caleb got into a baseball team actually in a classroom full of baseball guys, handed his pad around, signed up like some, I don’t know, 20 baseball players. Jonathan was over at the other school, and he got almost every single sports team on the campus that was practicing there. And God met with us.

In fact, after two days of recruiting, I think I mentioned we got 401 names and numbers, which is just definitely beyond our normal expectations. And so this week, God has been teaching us, don’t live according to your feelings. Align your thinking with the truth and the feelings will come.

God’s blessing will come. And you know that’s what we’re all about here. total surrender to God, and total dependence on His power based on His truth to turn the world upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for listening. That’s T-H-E-E generation.org.