6.3- If you want to be hopeful in difficult times be careful with your mind.

6.3

Thankful that Matt Dabbs reported on a study of ministers who were very satisfied with their relationship with God. 

Ministry/Study: These ministers spent more time studying for lesson prep than everyone else and more time in personal study. They also reported significantly better relationships with their elders than everyone else on average.
Last, these people were more hopeful about the future on average than the rest of the sample.


The more time you spend meditating on God's word, the better relationship you have with God, with yourself and others.
If you dwell on the difficulty of the times you will feel hopeless.
If you dwell on healthy people who love God and you and dwell on Scripture you will feel hopeful.
You get to choose your attitude by your mental choices on a daily basis.


During difficult times we need to reflect on the people who are healthy and who have taught us the word of God.  We need to study the Scriptures because they train is into a healthy way of life.

2 Timothy

3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

⁶ They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, ⁷ always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. ⁸ Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. ⁹ But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

A Final Charge to Timothy

¹⁰ You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, ¹¹ persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. ¹² In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, ¹³ while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, ¹⁵ and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of God^[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.