Intro: Discuss an experience when your perspective (thoughts) changed on a situation, and it positively affected outcomes.
Q1: Do you believe you are prone to think you are either a “victim” of your thoughts, or do you sometimes over “believe” your thoughts when you should be more suspicious of them? (Perhaps you are emotionally entangled in a situation and not thinking clearly)
Read: Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13
Explain: Talk about how “preparing your minds for action” comes from a Greek phrase that is literally, “Gird your loins.” To “Gird your loins” was tied to the custom of wearing a long robe that required pulling it up between your legs, wrapping it around yourself, and tucking it into your waist in order to run or work.
Q2: What is the “therefore” referring to, and how does the word picture just given help you understand what Peter means by “prepare your mind for action?”
Q3: How does sober minded fit in with preparing your mind? Think about a sober person versus a drunk person. What is the difference in their ability to control their thoughts and behaviors?
Read Colossians 3:1-17 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. 12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put-on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Q4: How does Paul tie the lifestyle of the old life and the new life together with thinking in this passage?
Q5: What are some of the “clothes” of the new life in Christ? How has good or bad thinking influenced how you have experienced these aspects of the new life?
Q6: Are you satisfied with the amount of truth you have stored in your mind? Why or why not?
Q7: How have you experienced that having Scripture in your mind has given the Holy Spirit the right “buttons” to push when needed? Can you tell of a specific event?
Q8: Are you more prone to doubt your beliefs or to doubt your doubts? Explain.
Q9: Are you more likely to move through life with a trying (pass/fail) mentality or a training (continually improving) mentality? Unpack this a bit