Hello and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry of Pastor Rick Warren.

Your mind is the greatest gift God has given you. That's why today we continue with a series

called Rethinking Your Life. In these lessons, Rick shares nine biblical pillars we need to reshape our minds so that we can

become more like Jesus Christ. Right now, here's Pastor Rick with the final part of a message called

Changing How I Think About Pain. Pain can teach you how to really love. Because love is not a quiver in your liver. Love is doing the

sacrificial thing. Love changes bedpans when you need to do that. You might want to go tweet that one,

okay? Number three, third way you can use pain for good in your life I can use it to

draw closer to God to trust him more that's worship I can use it to grow closer to you

and and be closer in fellowship number three use pain to grow deeper like Jesus

in your character use pain to grow deeper like Jesus the

Bible calls this discipleship and every time you're in pain it is an opportunity

to work on your attitude to work on your virtue to work on your character

the Bible talks about the fruit of the spirit,

nine qualities. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness,

faithfulness, meekness, self-control. The Bible says these are what happens when the spirit

is living through your life. How does God build these qualities

in your life by putting you the exact opposite situations? He teaches you love when you're around

unlovely people. He teaches you joy in the middle of grief. He teaches you patience by putting you

in situations where you have to wait. He teaches every one of these qualities, self-control, by putting you in a situation where you're tempted to be not self-controlled.

Pain is an opportunity to grow in character like Christ.

But again, it's a choice.

When you're in pain, you can be bitter or you can become

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