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Good morning, my friend. Dr. Lee Warren here with you on Self-Brain Surgery Saturday.

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We're going to get after it in just a minute with part two of our conversation

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from yesterday about the difference between self-help and self-brain surgery.

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It sounds a little silly to try to parse this out, but we got a lot of email.

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I had an hour of yesterday talking to Susie Larson about it on her radio show.

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Get lots of emails saying, hey, help me understand what the difference is between

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self-help and your program of self-brain surgery. What's the difference?

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Well, it's important to understand there is some value in self-help.

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There wouldn't be a $15 billion industry in the United States of personal development

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and self-help if it wasn't helpful to some people.

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There is help that can be found in learning how to make yourself function better,

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to develop yourself, improve yourself, shave things away from yourself.

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There's value in that. The whole point I'm trying to make with self-brain surgery

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being different is that there is a path to operating your brain under the influence

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of your mind connected to the guiding influence of your spirit,

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your creator, the great physician. That's the highest level of operating the human life that can be possible because

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it's how you're designed to operate. And so I just try to draw a discernment between the things that we can do to

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make ourselves better in the endless number of programs and ideas and processes

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that we can put ourselves through that can become completely exhausting.

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Exhausting, that we've got to have this book and next month that book and next

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month that program and next month we've got to sign up for this and keep working

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on buying these things to make ourselves better.

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And ultimately, the true process to get better is to become more like the one

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who created you, to operate your mind like Christ's mind, to operate your brain like he operated his.

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And to do that, you've got to learn some principles. Now, the question always

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is, as I got the email I shared with you yesterday, is, hey,

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I need some discernment here. You try to make a clear distinction between self-brain surgery and self-help,

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and it sounds like a lot of hope lies there.

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However, when I hear some of the work that you encourage us to do,

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it sounds like self-help, the idea of changing our minds, examining our thoughts,

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choosing where to put our attention, sometimes make me feel like I have the

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lion's share of the work. That's what we're going going to talk about today is, are you actually being

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burdened with a lot of work to get this done?

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Or is this some sort of a process that results in rest and peace and healing

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and wholeness and finally some laying down of the work for you, my friend?

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Because if you're tired of being so tired, and if you're wondering why your

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life always feels so hard, and you keep trying and it seems like you can't make

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something change, then what you need is self-brain surgery.

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But before we get to it today, I have a question for you.

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Hey, are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.

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You have to change your mind first. And my friend, there's a place where the

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neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith and everything

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starts to make sense. Are you ready to change your life?

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Well, this is the place, Self-Brain Surgery School.

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I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and this is where we go deep into how we're wired,

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take control of our thinking, and find real hope.

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This is where we learn to become healthier, feel better, and be happier.

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This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.

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This is where we start today. Are you ready? This is your podcast.

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This is your place. This is your time, my friend. Let's get after it.

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Music.

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All right, let's get after it. Hey, I want to take you to Philippians 2, verse 13.

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This is English Standard Version. For it is God who works in you,

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both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

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In the NIV, it says it this way. For it is God who works in you to will and

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to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.

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New American Standard Bible says, It says, it is God who is at work in you,

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both to desire and to work for his good pleasure.

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Now, that's interesting because what the Bible is saying here is that God gives

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you the desire to work, to do things, to make things better.

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He gives you that desire, and then he's inside you doing the work to work out

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those things in a way that pleases him because it pleases him to see you get better.

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This is like when you watch your kids grow up. Like when you're a young person,

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your life's kind of mostly about you and you're seeking what makes you happy

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and all that. And then kids come along. And if you're a good person, you start being more interested in their success

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and their happiness than you are your own. Like a mature, good person says, I really want to sacrifice and make things

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right for my kids so they can grow up and experience a life that's better than the one that I had.

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And they can be happier and they can be healthier and more connected to God.

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And I just want what's best for my kids. And that's the posture that God has here.

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God is pleased when we live our lives in ways that are good for us,

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that are honoring of him. And I want to unpack that Philippians chapter two a little bit in the message

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translation, because I think it really gets to the heart of it and what this

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is all about, why it's so good, why God wants so much for us to figure all this out.

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Here's why. This is the message translation. So it's not, it's more of a paraphrase

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than a translation is really, but Eugene Peterson did it. It's got some great value.

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It's not a strict word-for-word translation of the Bible, so it's not the best

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for study, but it's great for amplification of the text.

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And here's the message Philippians 2, starting in verse 12.

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What I'm getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you've

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done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience.

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Now that I'm separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts.

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Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God.

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That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you.

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God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.

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Do everything readily and cheerfully. No bickering, no second guessing.

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Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and

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polluted society. society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God.

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Carry the light giving message into the night.

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Remember our general calling, like, why are you here? If you ever lay awake

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at night wondering, why am I here on this planet? Well, the first answer is you're here to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

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That's the basic calling that all of us have.

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And if you're not at that point in your life, if you're not a believer,

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you're not sure what you believe, and you think this all sounds kind of crazy,

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just understand that there's good research to suggest that the happiest,

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most fulfilled people are the

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ones who serve others and live their lives out of a place of gratitude.

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They're not the ones who are seeking their own pleasure, who are always aiming

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to be number one, to finish first, to trample on everybody else to get to the

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top. Those people don't turn out to be the happiest.

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And that's why you've heard of so many rock stars and athletes and movie stars,

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people who seem like they have everything, but they're miserable, addicted, suicidal,

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serially divorced, those kinds of

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people that just don't ever seem to find something that makes them happy.

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And it's because they never figured out that serving others makes you happier than serving yourself.

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And that's what Philippians chapter 2 here is all about. This is a little self-brain

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surgery to say, hey, God already wants this for you.

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He's calling you to want it for yourself.

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And he's providing the tools and doing the work to make it happen inside of

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you. All you have to do is consent.

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Now, here's the tie back to this email that we got.

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When it sounds like I'm telling you you have to do all these things,

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biopsy your thoughts, put some space in between stimulus and response,

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learn these operations to lobotomize lousy attitudes and drain doubt and all

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those things that we talk about all the time, severing six synapses.

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I'm teaching you that there are some processes you can go through to operate

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your brain under the influence of your mind,

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under the influence of your creator in a way that's

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more efficient and more helpful and more hopeful for you and

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ultimately produces a sense of less stress and less work and less disruption

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and less frustration and more of this energy of God working deep within you

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so that you can be ready and cheerful and uncorrupted and a breath of fresh air.

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And people look at you and they say, why do you seem to have such a more hopeful, peaceful life?

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What's going on with you that you can handle these things that are so hard and

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you're still resilient and strong and you're not blown about by every wind that

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comes along. What's the deal with you?

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And so the deal is this, my friend. I want you to recognize something today.

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Every second of every day, you are already working to change your brain structurally.

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You're already doing that. You're either doing it neglectfully by not paying attention to the fact that

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you make new neurons and you connect them to other neurons every second of every day.

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And if you don't steward and direct that process, process, then it will happen

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in a way that recreates the same old, same old and deepens the ruts on that

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wagon trail of how your life is going. And it becomes more and more unchangeable and stuck and fixed.

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And the inertia of how your life has been going will continue to worsen and

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deepen and reinforce itself.

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And it will become impossible for you to change over time, at least in your

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perception, if you choose not to steward that process.

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So the process is already happening of neuroplasticity and neurogenesis and

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recreation of the synapses, whether you do something about it or not.

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And then you could follow one of the three paths. If you say,

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I don't want to be neglectful of that, and I don't want to just allow my brain

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to run my body and run my life and keep things the way they've always been.

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I don't want that. I want things to change. I want to become healthier and feel better and be happier. Well,

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then there's three paths to do that. The baseline one is this hack, this quick fix, this idea that we can just learn

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to sort of calm our minds down and learn to put a little space in between stimulus

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and response and learn to get our racing thoughts under control.

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Remember John Locke said 300 years ago, go, how do we separate imagination from madness, right?

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You're already spending time imagining your life, thinking about the things

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that are bouncing around in your head, feeling things and reacting to them.

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You're already spending a lot of emotional time and energy dealing with your

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internal thought life and the things that come out of it because thoughts become

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things, right? So you're already doing that.

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So I'm not asking you to do more work. I'm not asking you to do anything other than, as Dr.

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Josh Axe said in his recent book that just came out, he's going to be on the

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podcast pretty soon. His new book is called Think This, Not That.

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So the bottom line is you're already thinking, you're already feeling,

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you're already reacting, you're already creating neurons and wiring them and

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synapsing and creating new synapses and reinforcing things.

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You're already doing that. So God says, if you're so tired of being so tired

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and it feels like the way you're living is wearing you out.

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Then you need to change your mind and think this and not that.

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You need to learn a different set of tools to operate your mind.

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Imagine if you're riding in a car and you're driving down the road and the instructor

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says, okay, now I want you to get into the driver's seat here and I want you to drive for a while.

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And then he starts to give you some instruction on how to operate that vehicle.

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Well, you could let your foot off the gas and you could steer it into the ditch

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if you wanted to, or you could slam on the brakes and stop going anywhere.

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You could operate it where you wanted, and you might not get very far,

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or you might have an accident, or you might go too fast and get a ticket. it.

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But if the instructor's there and the instructor says, hey, you're already driving,

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the car's moving down the highway, let me just give you some principles and

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some ideas and some tools that you can do this a little more efficiently.

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Put your seatbelt on, use your blinker when you change lanes, obey the speed limit,

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don't change lanes inappropriately, don't slam on your brakes if somebody's right behind you,

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giving you some operating instructions so that you can operate the car that

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you're already driving more efficiently and safely, And you'll get to your destination

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less stressfully and without as many tickets or accidents or problems,

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right? And your passengers will be safer. So that's kind of this general idea that there is a process that's already underway.

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You're already doing it. And so let's learn some principles to do it more efficiently.

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Does that make sense? I want you to remember Ephesians chapter 4 is the self-brain

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surgery chapter. chapter. And Paul says this, he's worried about us being like infants tossed back and

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forth by the waves, this first 14, blown here and there by every wind of teaching

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and by the cunning and craftiness of people and their deceitful scheming.

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So that's sort of the self-help industry right there. There's a lot of garbage

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out there. There's some good stuff. There's some really good stuff.

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There's also some garbage. And there's all these programs that come along.

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They promise you five steps to a better life and 10 ways to do this and 60 ways

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to do that or 40 days to freedom. And sometimes those programs are just every wind of teaching and the cunning

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and craftiness of people who are making their living selling this year's program.

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And you try it and you learn it and you work at it and it doesn't feel better

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and maybe you make a little progress, but then maybe you slip back.

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That's the idea of self-directed, human-directed ideas to try to make ourselves better humans.

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And God says, no, I don't want you to try to be a better human.

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I want you to try to be more like me because you've got the mind of Christ because you've been renewed.

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You can renew your mind and change your life and then you'll look different

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to the world and you will be more attractive to them because they're gonna see

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that what you have is helping you become healthier and feel better and be happier

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and less stressed and less worn out and less overwhelmed.

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And he goes on to say in Ephesians chapter four, I tell you this and insist

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on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.

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So the problem with the unrenewed mind, the problem with the world and people

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trying to make themselves better and doing everything they can to figure out

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a way to make things happen is that their thinking is wrong.

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And you get your thinking right, your life will be right. So you're already doing it, okay?

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You're already doing it. You need to learn to do it in a better way,

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the way that you were designed to do it.

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Because your brain wasn't designed to be frustrated and stuck.

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Your brain is designed to heal. And you just have to learn how to allow the Holy Spirit to sort of be like my professor,

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put his hands on your hands and operate that thing the way it John Locke said

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300 years ago that in some ways there's a difference between idiots and madmen.

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Madmen put wrong ideas together and so make wrong propositions,

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but argue and reason right from them.

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But idiots make very few or no propositions and reason scarce at all.

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He's saying basically that there's a sort of madness where you can ask the wrong

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questions and decide on the wrong things, but then operate from there in the

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right way based on that set of information, and you just won't get very far.

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Truth says you ask the right questions, you operate out of the right place,

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and then the principles will be true and valid for you, and you will make progress in your life.

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As you use the mind of Christ to operate your brain like Jesus would have operated

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his, then you're not doing more work. You're actually becoming more efficient.

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You're operating this system like it was designed to operate,

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and you're going to get to your destination in a healthier and safer way. That's the bottom line.

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That's the difference. is I want you to separate this endless striving to make

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yourself a better person using all these different ideas and techniques and technologies.

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And just go back to the way he said it in the beginning, take every thought

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captive, transform your mind, renew your mind, get out of the futile thinking

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that's held you back, change your mind and you'll change your life.

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And by the way, you don't have to do it by yourself because he's already calling

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you to do the work that he wants you to do, that he is doing in you for his own good purposes.

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And his purpose and good pleasure is that you, my friend, become healthier and

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feel better and be happier. And his greatest good pleasure is that you follow him into a life that helps

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others see the light and the footprints that you're leaving on the trail to

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this renewed mind and this improved life and this eternal perspective that gives

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you the resilience to handle the traumas and tragedies and massive things.

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It's not a monument on the roadside that said, this is as far as I got and then I gave up.

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It's a footprint, a trail going forward.

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Where you can become healthier and feel better and be happier.

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That's the difference between self-help and self-brain surgery.

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And the only thing you have to realize is that there is very good news,

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my friend. And the good news is you can start today.

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Music.

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Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is brought to you by my

17:29

brand new book, Hope is the First Dose. It's a treatment plan for recovering

17:33

from trauma, tragedy, and other massive things.

17:36

It's available everywhere books are sold. And I narrated the audio books.

17:40

Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up by my friend Tommy Walker,

17:44

available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

17:47

They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship the Most High God.

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And if you're interested in learning more, check out TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

17:58

Or if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at wleewarrenmd.com slash prayer,

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wleewarrenmd.com slash prayer, and go to my website and sign up for the newsletter,

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Self-Brain Surgery, every Sunday since 2014,

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helping people in all 50 states and 60-plus countries around the world. I'm Dr.

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Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon. Remember, friend, you can't change your

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life until you change your mind, and the good news is you can start today.