Topic: Mindset types

Key verse The people there were more open-minded than the people in Thessalonica. They listened to the message with great eagerness, and every day they studied the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was really true. Acts 17:11 (GNT)

As powerful as the mind is, many are unable to achieve their full potential because of a wrong mindset. Napoleon Hill says “whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” The noun mindset was first used in the 1930s to mean habits of mind formed by previous experience. 
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck found that some people have a “fixed mindset” and believe that they cannot change their capabilities while others have a “growth mindset”. The growers believe they can work towards improving themselves. This scientific result is confirmed by our key verse.   In our text, we are introduced to two groups of people Thessalonians and the Bereans who are commended for being open-minded and diligent to review and confirm the things they were taught by the apostle Paul. The Bereans represent people with a growth mindset, people who are predisposed to listen, believe, and take steps to reach for more in life and ministry. What are the reasons for the fixed mindset you have? What experience did you have that left you so paralyzed by fear? 
Some tribes and denominations have group mindsets that leave them biased.
 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one whom Moses wrote about in the book of the Law and whom the prophets also wrote about. He is Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” answered Philip. John 1:45-46

 Gideon was full of fear and doubt but he was open-minded and that helped him grow out of his fears into faith, even great Faith. Martha had a fixed mindset that Jesus was four days late even though she professed faith in Jesus and the ability of God to answer Jesus’ Prayer yet, she questioned his instruction for the stone at the mouth of the tomb to be removed.
  Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.” – John 11:21-22 
What are the limits in your mind? Is your age, education, culture, experience, and the state of the economy of your nation, the things that have framed your mindset about your future? are you set in your mind about how your change can come? Take note of the answer this man gave to a simple question,  and have a glimpse of how fixed mindsets delay miracles. 
 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” John 5:3-7
  God can do the impossible and miraculous if you can believe. Be open, receive the word of God, be ready to search the scriptures, and believe what you see or hear. Take away the “buts”, forget the failures of the past, and grow out of a fixed mindset.

 Prayer
1. Lord I have realized the effect of my fears and unbelief, deliver me from a fixed mindset in Jesus\’ name.
 2 Father, help me grow in my faith daily, teach me to develop attitudes and habits of the mind that encourage strong faith in Jesus’ name, amen.

 Blessings 

Roses&Thorns