In part 1 of "Brain Reboot" I talked about desensitization. How we are bombarded with sex, alcohol, violence and everything else under the sun so much that it has made us think in a certain way. I stated that when we see these things over and over that we basically get to a place where they just don't bother us anymore. We start to think that people who practice certain things are "liberal" and those who don't are "conservative" or worse yet, we get into attitudes of thinking that everyone that doesn't believe like me is going to hell.

I also stated that this doesn't have anything to do with being "liberal" or "conservative". If we care what the Bible says there shouldn't really be any "liberals" or "conservative", there should simply be Christians. Those people who desire to please God and do what His Word tells us.

Therefore I recommended that we need a "Brain Reboot". In all actuality, it is God conforming us to His image to think and act more like He does.  So if that is what we need, how do we do it?

Step 1: Lay down your will

If we ever hope to see things the way that God wants us to, we have to be willing to take a step back from all that we have believed or thought about something and be willing to look diligently into the Bible and see what God says about that something. And that is hard for us to do. Sometimes is something that we may enjoy or something we may hate. But either way, if we don't get ourselves out of the way, God can never fully speak to you and never really accomplish all that He wants to through you.

We have so many preconceived ideas and opinions about everything. Most of these ideas come from how we were raised. Listening to parents or other people that we have looked up to or held in high regard. Maybe it was a college professor or spouse. But most of us feel the way we do about something based on our past experience. The biggest problem with this is that it will color everything you see. You will never fully see clearly because our view is always tinted with past experience or the ideas from others.

It's an incredibly difficult thing to do, but I believe we must be willing to lay our thoughts, wants and desires down before God and allow Him to begin to shape our thinking and opinions. Even though it may be uncomfortable to do or may even cause us some pain. We usually forget that we are not on this earth to be happy, we are here to do God's will. We can have no better example of this than looking to Jesus Christ who prayed in the garden before what would be a horrific amount of pain, suffering and eventual death:

Luke 22:42 - “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Jesus knew He was about to suffer incredibly. But He also knew that God had a purpose behind it. Without the pain and suffering, we would have no hope of salvation.

So how does this tie into this subject? Maybe if we all can take a few steps back and look at our beliefs, likes, dislikes and weigh them with what God wants rather than what we want, it will jump start us to begin to be more and more like Christ.

Whether it's views on sex, alcohol, music, Bible translation, church type or structure, or anything else, let us begin to forget what our own opinion is and start to ask what is God's opinion about it.

Then maybe we all can get to a place where we can pray like Jesus did "not my will, but Yours be done".