Receiving information, opinions, teachings, doctrines, arguments or lifestyles will begin to shape the life and habit patterns of any person in this world. When we are physically born into this world, we immediately begin to be shaped by those around us.
Opinions, ideas, suggestions, doctrines, arguments, all come to the mind of a person and must be analyzed, sorted, accepted, rejected, or replaced. All of these decisions work as building blocks in a person's growth.
There is no difference when we are spiritually born again. The input we receive will determine our growth in every aspect of life.
I remember the conception and birth of each of our children. Each time, as soon as my wife and I learned that she was pregnant, we began praying for our new baby, speaking life to each one while it was only days into conception in my wife's womb.
We would begin telling them they were blessed, smart, prosperous and healthy according to the Word of God, even though my wife was only days or weeks past conception. We continued throughout the pregnancy until each one was born already shaped in the words of faith spoken before they were ever seen.
Death and Life Are In the Power of the Tongue
You will live or die by the words you receive, accept and exalt over your life as well as the words you speak over your life (Prov. 18:21).
Every day of your life you will be presented with hundreds upon hundreds of thoughts, ideas, and suggestions to your mind by outside sources. To every one of us, Christian or non-Christian alike, these thoughts will be presented.
For example, today you will be presented with a number of suggestions by billboards, signs, bumper stickers, radio, television and telephone propositions, as well as memories from the past, and images of the future, some good, some bad, some true, some false, but you will decide what you will believe and exalt in your life. You are controlling this part of your life, no one else is, not even God.
God gave you the authority and control over this area, and you are the determining factor. All of these influences are consistently in the process of suggesting things to the human imagination, some good, and some detrimental to your growth as a mature person and certainly as a successful Christian.
To live a successful Christian life, this state of the mind must be checked constantly to help you to receive the information most needed to operate effectively in today's society. This problem cannot be solved by living your life with your senses closed off. You must understand that you are going to be presented with negative information no matter how holy and sanctified you are. (I am not trying to be arrogant; it's just a fact.)
The key to living in victory is also to remember that your thoughts are controlled by the input you allow to be received and accepted as truth and exalted as the standards in your life.
In Proverbs 23:7, we read that a person is determined by his thoughts, "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he...." The Bible also says of Jesus, "...as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17).
Catch hold of this truth and never forget it: To be presented with a thought, suggestion or idea is one thing; but what you do with that thought, suggestion or idea is another totally different thing. It will determine your entire future: physically, mentally, and spiritually. Remember, you are the deciding factor. You make the decision to accept it or reject it.
Years ago, my wife and I became hooked on soap operas. This may seem like a very small thing at first, but in reality we were opening ourselves up to be trained in a lifestyle we did not want. As time went on, we discussed, studied and somewhat lived the lives of the characters displayed on our television screen in our own home.
Many Christians do not understand why watching, listening and following the lives of people living a lifestyle of sin, adultery, fornication, lies and cheating on television for perhaps three hours a day, five days a week, can negatively affect their lives. We did not know, until our eyes were refocused to the Word of God.
One day I heard someone say that the person I will become within the next few years will be determined by the books I read, the things I listen to and the people I associate with today. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion fools shall be destroyed" (Prov. 13:20).
"Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul" (Prov. 22:24-25).
As I began to look over my life and compare it to the Word of God and His will for me, I noticed that my reading, listening, and associating during my young Christian life was all on a very negative basis in comparison to the lifestyle (conversation) described in the Word of God.
I also noticed that I was being snared and destroyed. No one had told me that it is Satan who destroys. I thought (because I was taught at the church I went to) that it was God just putting me through test after test to make me strong (even though I was getting weaker by the minute).
Little did I know that I was agreeing to destroy myself by listening to and studying Satan's lifestyle and allowing him to train my mind, choose the words of my mouth, and ultimately control my deeds.
"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind" (Eph. 4:17).
Notice, there is supposed to be a difference in the walk (meaning the daily lifestyle) of the believer versus the unbeliever. The word in the Greek here for Gentile actually means "a person without God and with no hope in the world."
However, the walk for both the believer and unbeliever begins in the mind (with the purposes of the thoughts) determining the direction of the person's walk toward God's will or away from God's will.
As believers, we are to be aware of our state of mind at all times. In our daily walk, as we receive information the world is giving out, we must have a different state of mind.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Dr. Shorter is the pastor and founder of Pacific Christian Center Church, a vibrant, growing, non-denominational church in Tacoma, Washington. Leaving his successful secular radio and television broadcasting career as a television host on the Seattle, Washington ABC affiliates, Dr. Donald Shorter Sr. founded Pacific Christian Center Church in January of 1987 with his four family as the only members. 
