 So, I began the first message by saying, why are you here? I'm going to start this by asking you a question, what do you really, really want? Just go really quick with that. What do you want? Just a fast answer to it. If, you know, I was fairy godmother and I could go boom or I had a genie and a bottle, what do you really want? And I'm asking you to go with those first things and not second thoughts because if we're honest, we'll end up saying something like weight loss or a baby or I wish my husband was more affectionate or my financial situation, those things come to our heads. And I might say to you, be careful what you wish for. You might just get it. Sometimes those of us who wish for husbands were like, oh, that's not what I expected. Just kidding. Or you have babies and you're like, oh, no, that wasn't at all what I expect. Well, some people, you know, my dad always says this, if you could just be a lottery winner, you know, that would be like the e-ticket at Disneyland. Wait, they don't have those anymore. So it would be like the annual pass at Disneyland or something. But lottery winners are not so lucky. I read an article by bankrate.com and they told the story of eight lottery winners who lost everything they won. And they said, quote, for a lot of people, winning the lottery is the American dream. But for many lottery winners, it's really more like a nightmare. Evelyn Adams won the New Jersey Lottery twice. Well, that's like being struck by lightning, right? Just to get it the first time, and her total winnings were $5.4 million. She lost it all. And said I was a big time gambler. I made mistakes. Some I regret. I'm like, some? Some I don't. I'm human. I can't go back just one step at a time. I was like, wow, William Budd Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery. And now he lives on Social Security. What? How is that even possible? It was a nightmare, he said. His brother hired a hitman to try and kill him to get the inheritance. And his girlfriend sued him for her share. What? Girlfriends get their share? I don't even know how some of this works. And Post was put in jail because he shot a gun over a bill collector's head. I was like, that didn't work out really well for him. Another guy named Willie Hurt from Lansing, Michigan won $3.1 million. And two years later, he was broke and charged with murder. He spent his fortune on divorce and crack cocaine. Okay, so what do you really want is the question. You know what? And there are even saints in scripture for our benefit that we see things they really wanted and it didn't turn out well. For Sarah, it was a baby. We have Ishmael, Judas, 30 pieces of silver, Abraham wanted safety and he just asked Sarah to lie a little bit. Jordan wanted Delilah, Jacob wanted Isaac's blessing and Eve, she just wanted to be like God and ate the apple. St. Augustine wrote, sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and desperately try to fill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perversion, a distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things are rightly found only and completely in him. You see because a good thing can become a bad thing if it keeps you from the best thing. So I told you that the Lord had me fast once for shopping. He's had me do a lot of things for him. I've had to burn my albums. I've had to unplug my TV. I've turned off secular radios just to get my priority right because I want to keep the main thing, the main thing and you never know what makes your heart lean and where to lean not. Jeremiah rebuked the children of Israel and he said they'd done two things wrong. First, they'd forsaken the cistern of living waters. In other words, Jesus Christ is a living water. They could drink of God all they wanted. They forsook that and then they hewned out. They carved out cisterns that could hold no water. What do I mean? Maybe that's a mall or a manicure or a mansion or money that we think that thing is going to satisfy us and nothing can satisfy us like God does. So if we break apart this small portion of Scripture, we're going to look at the command through the failure of Eve, the caution through James teaching on temptation and the culprit that Scripture reveals about the leaning heart. So let's just start with a simple. It says do not. That's pretty easy. Do not. Many have attempted to enumerate the commands in Scripture and the Jewish sages say they have counted 613 commands throughout Scripture. They say 365 of them are negative commands. In other words, there are do nots. There are enough do nots in Scripture for one every day of the year, 365 do nots. And there are 248 positive commands like do this, love one another. So if you start looking at it, now that kind of sounds complicated like if you're a new Christian and it's Christian 101 and you're like, what, they're 613 commands? And 365 do nots, and I don't even know all the do nots. So what if I'm doing one of the do nots? And I just don't know it yet. So Moses was really helpful, God and Mount Sinai said, let's just reduce this to the top 10, like David Letterman has his top 10. So Moses, it's like, these are the top 10 do nots. We know them as the 10 commandments, right? And then for some of you like 10, that's a lot, that's still a lot, that's 10 things I can't do. And so many look at it that way of Christianity is what you can't do. So Jesus, he came in the New Testament and he said, how about 1 plus 1 equals 10? It was interesting math. What he said was love God and love others on these two commandments, hang all of the law and the prophets. So ladies, I could say to you, if what you're doing is expressing love for God and love for others, that Jesus put that to the irreducible minimum. Well I'm looking at a passage here, when we look at Eve, that she just had one command. Adam and Eve in the garden, all they were supposed to do, do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is in the middle of the garden. So let's look at Genesis chapter 2, just for a minute. In Genesis 2, it says in verse 16, let's look at 15. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it, and the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. So this is the first commandment given and the only commandment Adam and Eve had. It's this command. Eve couldn't resist one command. That's the whole summary of this. If there's 613 or 10 or two or just one, we're pretty likely to mess it up. Eve couldn't do it. Remember Pandora? This was a Greek mythology. Pandora was given the forbidden box. Really it was a jar, but we won't get into that. That's just so no one writes me and tells me it wasn't a box. It was really a jar. But we all know it is Pandora's box. And the only thing she was supposed to do is don't open it. That's like curiosity killed the cat, right? And we all know she opened it, and it said all the evil of all the universe came out when she opened it. And I was a little girl. I heard the story of Bluebeard's wife. Have you ever heard that story? And he was an aristocrat. He was really rich. He married this young girl, and he liked to marry young girls, and this wasn't the only young girl he had married. And he had to go away after their honeymoon, and he left her all the keys to the castle, every key. And he said, you can open any door you want. Just don't open the one under the stairs. One knot. Of course. It's the first door she opens, right? It's because what's in the knot? And as she opens it, and there are all the dead bodies of the wives that had preceded her, and so her days were numbered, the point is we'd all break at least one command. One do not. James 2.10 says, for whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point is guilty of all. So we start out with this do not, and then we jump in Genesis, and we see in verse 3, it says, now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? So we just saw that, right? God did say that. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God knowing good and evil. So the woman saw that the tree was good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise, she took its fruit and ate it. So we see the command, and now we're introduced to a cunning one. A serpent comes on the seed. We know the serpent is the devil, the dragon, and the serpent is a cunning beast in the field. Now some of us may not know some Satan theology 101, but Satan was an angel, a chair of first, right? You know this? He was the anointed chair who covers, he was in heaven with God to worship God. Isaiah 1412 tells us that he fell. It says, how are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How are you cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations? For you have said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. The guy is like right next to God in heaven and glory, and that's not enough. He wants to be God. He wants that place. He wanted more status, more power, more dominion to be like God. You might want to underline this. The original sin, when you hear that, we always think it's sexual intercourse, right? You hear the original sin? The original sin was pride. Pride is one of the most satanic of sins. To indulge in it is to affront God. Beware, the sin of pride and rebellion turned a cherub into a demon. It's a powerful sin. And what was the result? Jesus tells us in Luke's Gospel, he says, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Jesus was there when it happened, and he said, it was bad. That dude went down. In truth and Christianity, the way up is the way down, and the way down is the way up. It's the humble who are exalted, the meek who inherit the earth, the poor who are rich. We have an opposite kingdom, and so Satan went down. In Revelation, it tells us that Satan had a rebellion in heaven and that a third of the angels went with him. So it wasn't enough that he went down. Angels went with him. Jude in his book, verse 6 says, the angels who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode, he is reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for judgment. So Satan goes down, angels go down with him, and where is the first place we see him? The garden. Now he takes his marketing skills to Eden. He exports his campaign to tempt humanity, and what is the first temptation? God knows the day you eat of it, you will be like God. It's the same thing that knocked him out of heaven. You can't get any lower than a serpent on your belly, and that's how low he fell. And he ends up in Eden and Eve meets him. Now, I just tell you, I wish that Eve was a Texan. You may not be from the Southwest like I am, but Texans are pretty tough. And do you know that Texans in Sweetwater, Texas, every year have a rattlesnake round up, and they eat rattlesnakes? And I'm just saying, oh, that Eve would have sliced him up for dinner instead of had a conversation with him. So if any of you were wondering how you eat rattlesnake, one bite at a time. No, I'm just kidding. Corky Frazier, the chef who cooks hundreds of pounds of rattlesnakes says, first you have to find and capture a rattlesnake, second, kill skin and remove its entrails, cut into edible portions, make a batter of flour, cracker meal, salt, pepper, garlic, roll your snake in the batter, deep fry it, and enjoy. Well, that's not what happened. We know this command was challenged by this cunning one, and he gives a compelling reason why she should disobey the command. The cause was, he said in verse five, God knows the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. This serpent has an attribute, Satan has an attribute, and that is that he is cunning. Cunning means wise or crafty. And he had a tactic to unravel God's order of the man first and then the woman. Paul supports this logic when he says Adam was formed first and then Eve. God planned Adam to be the head of the home, but the woman, the heart of the home. And Eve is tempted, just one command. Now, I just want to sympathize with Eve for a little while because we're always so mad at her. Like when we get to heaven, we're like, what did you do? You know, the curse. That's all your fault. When she encountered the serpent, she had no reason to be suspicious. I mean, she may have never seen one before, and it talked. So she was like, holy cow, there's snakes that talk. Who knew? And she was probably dying for conversation. I don't know about you, but men are awfully quiet. And she was like, look, someone to talk to. And since no one had ever deceived her before, no one had ever lied to her before. She was particularly susceptible, like your toddlers. Like you can lie to them so easily. She didn't have a Bible. She didn't have a pastor. She didn't have a mother. She didn't have a friend to say, put the fruit down. Don't do it. She was dazzled by his tactics. So I feel sorry for her kind of a little bit there. Now, how did Satan, through his cunning, devise his tactic? You know what he did? He made her doubt. Lady's doubt is a dangerous thing. And when you start doubting God and doubting God's word, you're being set up for a fall. How did he make her doubt? There were three areas that he challenged God. He challenged God's authority. He challenged his accuracy. And he challenged the acceptability of God's command. How did he challenge the authority? He comes right up and he says, has God really said? Like, really? God didn't tell me that. Can you tell you that? And in fact, she really got this second hand. If you look at chapter two, God told Adam don't eat of the fruit and then he made Eve. So really, Adam told her, honey, you can't eat that fruit. And she's like, really? I can eat the fruit. God didn't tell me that. Maybe God just told you that. So he challenged the authority. The second is the accuracy. He said, do not eat of every tree in the garden. Like, are you sure every's not every? Do you see people attacking the accuracy of scripture today? Maybe homosexuality isn't homosexuality. And maybe those who are homosexual can be saved. Or maybe the Bible says, herbs, you can have them. So marijuana is probably a pretty good idea because it's an herb and God created it. Or, you know what I mean? All these other kinds of logics that make you think, huh? Well, I don't know. So he goes for the authority. Are you sure not every tree? Maybe that was lost in translation. Maybe every doesn't mean every. So you don't want to have a conversation with the enemy and he challenges the authority and the accuracy. She doesn't fall for it. She says, no, we can't eat of it. And she adds a little bit. I can't even touch it. So she's really holding firm. What made her finally bend? It was when Satan made her doubt challenge the acceptability of scripture. The demands of God often conflict with our desires. Eve gave it a second thought when he said, this will make you knowledgeable. Sometimes we're just like, we don't want, it conflicts with what we're doing. Well, you know, I know you're not supposed to divorce someone but he's not making money. And so my friend just said, dump him. And you're like, but the scripture says, do not, do not divorce. And you're like, I know, but because your desire is different from what scripture says. It's not acceptable in this situation. And that's what happened with Eve. Doubt comes from the Greek word diazzo and it means to look twice or the double take. See, it's like you've already passed it. And then you're like, what? You have that second thought about it and doubt often leads to denial. Eve passed the first test with blind colors telling the devil since God said no, she wouldn't touch it but she did it because she wanted to be like God. This enticing thing. James 1-8 says, a double minded man is unstable in all he does. If something is making you have desires and doubt and you're having a double take, you may be in territory for a leaning heart. I heard the story about a miserly man, my dad's Scottish. And so, you know, we're known for being penny pinchers but I told you, I like fashion. And so anyway, this man told his wife, she said I'm gonna go shopping, gonna go to the mall. And he goes, okay, you can shop but you can't buy. Now Murphy's law of shopping. If you have money, nothing fits. If you don't have money, everything looks great. Is that am I right? I don't know how it works that way. So the husband says, go ahead. And she comes home with a dress. And he said, I told you, you're not supposed to buy anything. And she said, well, I saw this really pretty dress in the window and I thought I can try it on. I mean, that won't hurt, you know. And so he said, right then, you should have said, get thee behind me, Satan. And she said, I did. And he said, looks good from there too. Never enter a conversation with a sneaky snake. He's gonna change the topic from what to why. And you're not gonna be able to battle the why. Eve was no match for Satan on any level except one thing and that was God's word. That's how Jesus resisted his temptation. Remember on the Mount of Temptation, you know, God word, God hath said, he said, thus saith the Lord. So this is the command. And now we're gonna look at the caution. The caution in this verse is do not lean on. The next couple of words. Lean in this text means to put your weight fully on. Okay, right now I'm leaning, but this is what scripture means. Now, do you guys have kids who lean on you with all their weight and you're like, get off of me. Stop hanging, stop clinging on me. That might be more the idea of what it is here to lean and put your weight on something. And this bending leaning toward provides temptation. So Eve started leaning. She had a command and she leaned toward it. And now I want you to jump to James with me for a minute and we wanna look on the temptation, James chapter one. James one, starting at verse 14 says, each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. So Eve was deceived and this text is telling you this is part of Satan's tools. This is how we are tempted. It starts out by saying each one is tempted. So I want you to know temptation is not a sin. It's what you do with it. I think Martin Luther used to say, you can't stop birds from flying around your head but you can prevent them from making a nest in it. So you are gonna be tempted but it's what you do with that temptation. It says each one is drawn away and enticed. Those words are hunting terms again. Drawn away means to bait a trap. Enticed means to bait a hook. So in other words, Satan is a roaring lion, a predator seeking whom he may devour. He's trying to place a trap for you. There's an old Native American method that was used in Montana, you know, back in the day during their cold winters and they needed to catch wolves and this is what they would do. They would take a caribou rib and they would carve it out, put it in boiling water, boil it down and they would keep curling it, curling it, curling it until the rib would kind of create a ball and then they would encase it in lard and fat and then they would freeze it. And so then when the wolves would come around they would lob these fat balls at the wolves. And you know the term, he wolfed it down. They would wolf them down. They would just eat the whole fat ball and then the nice warm gastric juices in their tummies and then the caribou rib would go blank and it would kill the wolf with a rib hanging out of each side. The enemy is sneaky. He would like to candy coat things for you and you swallow the pill and you don't even know what you have done. And it says it was drawn away and enticed by our own desires. In other words, what is the bait on the hook? Is it a worm? Is it whatever? Remember I asked you what do you want? What do you really want? What Satan would like to put on the hook is what you really want. Tall, dark and handsome. And he's on the hook for you single ladies. Desire is translated a lust of any kind. God gives us normal desires like thirst and hunger and sex. And it's fine, those are normal desires. But when we want to satisfy those desires outside of God's will, it turns into lust. For example, eating is normal. Gluttony is a sin. Sleeping is necessary. Laziness is sinful. Sex is God's idea and it's good. Can I get an amen? Is there anyone? Come on you married lady, sex is good. And God invented it. But sex outside of biblical context is sin. Isn't it nice to be at a woman's conference and someone said sex is good? I mean that might be the best line of the day. You can call and say I was at this conference today and that lady said sex is good. I don't know. I wish that Christians would just take back things. It's not naughty or dirty if it's with your husband, right? Okay. So just so you kind of get, you're all like, she said sex. I could just see all your minds going sideways and I was just reeling you back in. So when we fulfill our needs, our desires outside of the context of the Bible, it becomes a lust. So desire is going to be the lure. And I will use myself as an example. Before I was saved, I was a bartender in a discotheque. I did drugs like with that whole hippie movement and I had been a pastor's wife for a while and my family is as left wing, liberal, partying, swearing, you name it as possible. So me getting saved is like radical. They just thought I was an occult and they were going to send my uncle, no kidding, who is an attorney to kidnap me so he can like unbrainwash me because that's how different I was for my family. So I go home for a family reunion and I'm saved. I am a pastor's wife and I'm with my family and it's just really hard pressure. They pick on me a lot and stuff, you know, and they purposely swear in front of me and do things. And so I'm sitting in this room and all of a sudden I smell marijuana. And if you've smoked marijuana or been around marijuana, it has a very distinct scent, right? Anybody else here smell marijuana? Like you never went to a concert and knew that, well that's not right. Thank you. Okay, so I'm sitting there and it's my family's house and I smell marijuana and the first thing that comes to my head is, man, a joint sounds really good. That would be so relaxing. And then I went, what? You're a Christian? You're a pastor's wife? You can't want marijuana? And I started freaking out. My heart is racing. My palms are sweating. I'm like, oh! And a skip wasn't with me. And then so the enemy's messing with me and he goes, no one will know. And I'm like, no! And finally, the Lord just said, you don't have to smoke it. I was like, yeah, that's right. And so we all get tempted, but we don't have to succumb. Timothy 2, 2 Timothy 2, 22 says, flee also youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness. Basically what I'm saying, lady, is when your desires tempt you, run away! That's really, so there's the bait. And if you bite the bait, you get the hook. And it says the hook, it gives birth to sin. When your desires now have enticed you, it will give birth to sin. Acting upon an ungodly desire gives birth to sin. You want to know the real word for birth here? Cause we picture little cherubs and, you know, a birthing room and bunting and babies. The real word is spawned. The son of spawn. I don't know, the spawn from the lebrea tar pit monster spawn. So when you say it gives birth to sin, it spawns sin, doesn't that sound worse? Okay, so it spawns sin. Romans 6, 16 says, do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one slave whom you obey, whether sin leading to death or obedience leading to righteousness. US News and World Report told about Ted Bundy, remember him, serial killer? And James Dobson got to visit him right before he was executed. And it was when James Dobson was doing a report for the government on pornography and so I think he just wanted to be able to interview. And so James Dobson asked him, why did you turn violent? And he blamed it on graphic pornography. It's getting pretty bad, isn't it? Pornography? Shoot, I think a lot of TV programs are like pornography anymore. I mean, I don't know what you can watch. So I was watching one show and it was following these kids in New York who were doing social media and this little gal was 12 years old and she said her friends watch pornography because the guys watch pornography. So the girls wonder what the guys are watching on the pornography and now the rise of women who watch pornography is unbelievable. It's not just a guy's problem anymore. So he says after watching graphic pornography, he said it's like an addiction. You keep craving something that is harder. Until you reach a point, Ted Bundy said, you begin to wonder if maybe actually doing it would give you beyond just seeing it. Cause when your desire goes out there, you're gonna be fish on and it will get you. It's easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy the ones that follow. It's like meth. They say meth is so incredibly addictive the first time you take it, you're addicted. There are some things I warn Nathan about. I will warn my grandchildren about don't do the first one and addictions, drug addictions, sexual addictions. There are some things, please, please, please, please don't open Pandora's box. So it's this bait and it's a hook and then it says sin when it is full grown brings forth death. Sin equals death in scripture. It's like David and Bathsheba. David sees her on the porch. She's bathing naked. He brings her in. They're caught in this thing and ultimately Uriah died. David's reputation died. The baby died and ultimately the kingdom was pulled from David. You don't know how far that road's gonna take you. Have you seen those pictures of mathematics before and after, before and after? And it's like six months later and they don't even look like the same human being. There are some things we just should not mess with and that would be your flesh. Your flesh is a wild beast. You cannot tame your flesh. You have to crucify the flesh. It's about the only thing. Sandra Harold loved her 15 year old chimpanzee named Travis. Travis was potty trained. Travis knew how to dress himself. Travis sat at the dinner table and all was really good until one day she invited over a friend and Travis ripped off her friend's face and hands. And Sandy grabbed a knife and was trying to stab the chimpanzee. The chimpanzee made it out the door and even opened the door to the cop's car. What I'm telling you is you cannot tame your flesh. You cannot make it sit properly at the table. You can't be Bill Clinton and say, I did not have sex with that woman. So if some of you young gals are saying, well oral sex isn't sex, it is. Our lines are so blurred, you cannot mess with it. Is what this text is saying. The Latin proverb says govern your passions or they will govern you. And that's what scripture says. So we see the command and then we see this next area where we have a caution, don't lean on it and now the real culprit. If you are caught in any of these desire areas and you feel like you're on hook, here's how to get unhooked. Do not lean on your own understandings. What? That's the culprit. What we call the mind in English, the Bible calls the heart. So look at me for a minute. When I say trust in the Lord with all your heart, it's not trust in the Lord with all your heart, it's with all your heart. In the Bible, the head is the heart. The mind is the heart. The thoughts are your heart. Are you getting this? Because you've been told cupids and little lacy hearts and all that kind of stuff. Your heart is not here, it is here. I really, really, really want you to understand that. So we have this culprit and it's the heart. Thelson's Bible Dictionary defines the heart as the inner self that thinks, feels and decides. The thinking processes of a man or a woman are carried out in their heart. Again, Hebrews 412 says, for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates to the dividing of soul and spirit, joint in marrows, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Your heart thinks, your heart has attitude. Cognitive behavioral therapists believe feelings arise from thoughts, attitudes or judgment. So they just go with me. Your feelings, you always go, where did that feeling come from? I'm so sad, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I don't know why I'm so agitated. Your feelings come from your thoughts, from your thinking. That's why some people think ferris wheels are fun and other people think they're terrifying. It's what they think about what's going on or jigsaw puzzles. Some people think that's wonderful and other people hate it. It's what you think that informs how you feel. Solomon said, for as a man thinks in his heart, so he is, I'm wanting you to connect this. I'm gonna say something that's gonna hold you accountable for the rest of your life and your wish I would not have said this. Emotions are in your control. I'm holding you accountable for your emotions. What you think impacts how you feel. If you wanna change your mood, change your mind. That's what scripture says. As a matter of fact, the battle with Eve, the battle in James, the battle for the Christian is for the mind. We're told to take our thoughts captive and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Cause that's what the enemy was doing in the garden. He was messing with that. We make our emotions the engine of our train, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah, I'm going with feels good. Yeah, I like it. Yo, woo! And the caboose is our will. It should be the opposite. We should be going with our thoughts and our thoughts and our will should be running the train and the feelings follow. You get this? Feelings follow what you think. You shouldn't follow your feelings. This is why we walk by faith and not by sight. I'll give you an example again from my own life. I had cancer four years ago and I had a large tumor growing in my abdomen about the size of a grapefruit. And I didn't know if it was cancer until they had to do the surgery and the tumor was so large that it had pushed my bladder and my colon in different directions and through the imagery they couldn't tell if the tumor had just adhered to these organs or if it had kind of intersected and got involved in them. So I didn't know until I woke up if I had cancer or if part of my organs would be taken out as well. And I'm gonna digress for a second. So here I am. I wake up from the surgery. Just a funny story about my dad. And I remember Skip comes in and he's petting my hair and he's being really sweet. And my mom had flown out. My parents are divorced. And my mom is there like rubbing my feet. And my dad walks in the room. And you know, you're just coming out of an anesthetic if any of you have ever done this. My dad just walks over, looks in the baby blues and he goes, sweetheart, it's cancer. You will have chemo and you will lose your hair. I'm like flailing. I'm like, no one has said anything. I can hardly open my eyes. And I just turned to my mom and I said, no one's used the C word yet. Because I didn't know. I don't know why I even went there. So anyway, now this is post-surgery and I'm in chemo and I'm losing my hair and it was a bad chemo day for me. And I was feeling nauseous and feeling tired and probably feeling sorry for myself in truth. And I have a friend who's a doctor and she calls to check on me and she goes, how are you doing? And so I tell her, I'm not doing really good. I'm having a bad day. And she said, I would like you to do me a favor. And I said, okay, what? And she goes, every 10 minutes I want you to say to yourself, I feel better. If I could have punched her through the phone. I probably would have, what? I feel better. I was like, are you nuts? I'm bald. I was like, okay, I'll indulge her. I love her. And so I would started doing that. You know what? Within an hour I felt better. And I have applied this to guess what? Traffic, tension, teenagers, all kinds of things. I just tell myself, I feel better. No, I take my thoughts captive. I try and live on scripture and land there. Romans 12 too says, do not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. You wanna be new? All new inside, change the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do. You will know how good and pleasing and perfect His will really is. You wanna know God's will? Take your thoughts captive. Be pleasing to Him. Transform them by the renewing of your mind and He will tell you. You can compare the difference of some of the saints as they struggled with their thoughts. Job says in Job 21.6, when I think about this, I'm terrified. Trumbling seizes my body. You know what? I know I'm not the only one like this either, but do you ever go to bed at night? You turn off the lights. Your head goes down in the pillow. It's like ding, ding, round one. I'm a terrible mother. I'm so stupid. I didn't do that the right way. My kids are gonna be ruined. Of course, nobody likes me. I was so mean today, but I didn't clean the house. Change the laundry. It's all my fault because they terrify you. So what do you need to do? You know, there are sometimes I literally say to myself, shut up, Lenya, and think about that. And I start thinking about scripture. David in Psalm 63.6, on my bed, I remember you, God. I think of you through the watches of the night because you are my help. I sing in the shadow of your wings. It's what you think about. I want you to realize there is this process if you're taking notes. And I want you to see how this thought can end in a really bad place. You think a thought, number one. Number two, it causes a feeling. You feel a feeling. Think a thought, feel a feeling. Number three, you will act accordingly. You will act upon what you thought and what you felt. When you act upon this thing often enough, you will harvest a habit. Now you've got yourself a habit. Number five, that habit will cultivate a character. Oh, she's the busy body. She's the one that's always depressed. She's the one that you, you know, watch out for her. You know, because you develop a category. I'm sorry, a character. After you're thinking, feeling, acting, you get a habit and then you cultivate a character and it will determine your destiny. Do you see why it's a battle for your mind? A battle for your thoughts? Remember I said, what do you want? What do you really, really want? Because what you think about is how you're gonna feel. How can you interrupt this downward cycle? Because right now you're like, help me. Yes, that's it, that's me. How do you stop that? You assert your will by faith. And you do not go by your feelings. Even if you don't feel like it or something doesn't make sense, you obey God and walk by faith and your feelings will follow. Do you catch me? I love Skip. I love, love, love Skip. Best marriage, best thing. But you know there's some mornings I wake up and I don't feel like loving him. I roll over and I go, you know, you're really irritating and your breath stinks too. Now, do I act upon that? No, good morning honey, I love you. Would you like a cup of coffee? See the more you act on that, the more you feel loving. Look, quite frankly, if I lived by my feelings, I wouldn't even get up most mornings. I mean how many of you really want to get out of bed? How many of you really want to do the laundry or go to work? I mean really, if we just went flow with it, man, just, you know, if it feels good, do it. We would do nothing. So we have to interrupt this cycle by taking our feelings captive and we make choices based on faith and we assert the will. I'll use a beautiful example in my closing. Corey Ten Boom. You guys remember her, she was caught in Nazi Germany and she was in a camp with her sister and they were humiliated by the German guards and one German guard in particular really humiliated them and one day she was teaching, she was out of, you know, camp now and she was going around teaching and she just happened to be at a European church and afterwards up walks the guard, the meanest, baddest guard and he says to her, Corey, will you forgive me? And she said everything in her did not want to forgive him and she said, but the Lord tells us, you know, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and she said, woodenly, mechanically, she stretched out her hand and when he touched it, she said, I forgive you. And she said it was like an electrical current went up her arm and through her body and warmed her all the way through and the next thing she knew, she and the guard were embracing each other with forgiveness and love. You control your feelings. Three simple questions that help realign your leaning heart. The first one was what do you want? When you're leaning, that's a good question to ask yourself. What do I want? Number two, why do I want it? See Eve wanted the fruit, why did she want it? To be like God. And then number three, what are you willing to do to get it? She was willing to disobey God and bite the fruit and give it to her husband by the way. Continuing that downward cycle, what do you want? Why do you want it? What are you willing to do to get it? When you're in this dilemma, ask yourself these questions and if these three answers are the answers to your question, you know you're on a good path. What do you want? Is it in God's word? If it's in God's word, you're safe. Why do you want it? Is it according to God's will? Not just in his word, but according to his will. What are you willing to do to get it? Will you do it God's way? You see, Sarah wanted a baby and she told Abraham sleep with Hagar. Was that God's way? God wanted them to have a baby. He promised they'd have a baby. He said your seed would be as many as the sand. She wanted something that was godly. It was in God's word. It was in God's will. But they didn't wait for God's way. So that's how you can prevent a leaning heart.