5 Minutes with Jesus is a daily devotional series for people in the midst of real life, whether facing anxiety, grief, questions of purpose, or simply needing encouragement and connection. Hosted by Sheila Walsh, each five-minute episode offers Biblical truth, honest reflections on faith and emotions, and closes with a moment of prayer.
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| Sheila Walsh: Change the Way You Think | 5 Minutes with Jesus | March 9, 2026
- Start where you are.
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- But every time you feel a negative or anxious thought,
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- Rise up. bring it to the lord.
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- The great thing about our lives is we don't have to do this
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- By ourselves.
- 00:00:10.100 --> 00:00:11.601
- The holy spirit is our helper.
- 00:00:11.601 --> 00:00:14.170
- Ask him for help.
- 00:00:14.170 --> 00:00:15.738
- I love the way that
- 00:00:15.738 --> 00:00:16.706
- The jb phillips translation puts this verse.
- 00:00:16.706 --> 00:00:19.709
- Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold.
- 00:00:19.709 --> 00:00:23.980
- Know you are an individual.
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- You are a child of the king.
- 00:00:26.316 --> 00:00:31.321
- I love paul's letter to the church in rome.
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- The book of romans is such a rich, complete theology.
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- Now paul had actually never been there or met these believers,
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- But he loved them.
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- The church in rome had been started
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- By jewish believers who came to faith at pentecost.
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- Acts chapter two tells us that at the time of pentecost,
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- There were devout jews from every nation
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- Living in jerusalem. but verse ten tells us
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- That they were visitors there from rome.
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- So they'd gone home.
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- And the church had grown and flourished.
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- And the first few chapters of romans.
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- Paul is laying down clearly the basics of our faith,
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- What we believe and why we believe it.
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- But then in chapter 12, he moves on to talk about
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- How to live as a new creation in an old fallen world.
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- Romans 12, verses one and two says, and so,
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- Dear brothers and sisters,
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- I plead with you to give your bodies to god
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- Because of all he has done for you.
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- Let them be a living and holy sacrifice,
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- The kind he will find acceptable.
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- This is truly the way to worship him.
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- Don't copy the behaviors and customs of this world,
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- But let god transform you into a new person
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- By changing the way you think.
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- Then you will learn to know god's will for you,
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- Which is good and pleasing and perfect.
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- Let god transform you into a new person
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- By changing the way you think.
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- And that's huge.
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- I mean, how do we do that?
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- How do we allow the holy spirit to transform us?
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- And how do we change the way that we think?
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- There are so many great books that have been written on
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- The subject, but one of the ones i was reading recently, max
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- Lucado spoke on this subject is called tame your thoughts.
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- It is so good.
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- And i pulled a few nuggets from that.
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- Just pulled five nuggets from that.
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- Number one, you are not your thoughts.
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- Having anxious or negative thoughts doesn't mean
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- That you're weak or that thought is true.
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- It simply means you're human.
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- I find that bringing those thoughts
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- Into the light, into the presence of
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- Christ is very healing.
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- Tell god the thoughts are troubling you
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- And find a scripture that counters them.
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- For example, if you find yourself in a place
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- Where you feel unseen or that no one cares about you,
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- Remember this truth from first peter chapter five verse seven.
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- Give all your worries and cares to god,
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- For he cares about you.
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- Bring everything to the lord.
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- There's absolutely nothing troubling you
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- Today that is insignificant to god.
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- Number two, not every thought deserves a seat at the table.
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- You get to decide what you're going to allow to stay.
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- We live in a world
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- Where we're being bombarded by intrusive thoughts all the time,
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- But we get to decide what thoughts are worth our time.
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- Social media has made life much more complicated.
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- We compare our ordinary bad hair day, spilled coffee
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- On our shirt
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- Lives to the perfected images others choose to post,
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- And then we think we just don't measure up.
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- Here's the good news.
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- You don't have to as you are right now.
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- You are loved and treasured by god.
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- So often we look at what we can see of someone else's life,
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- And we we think it's just perfect,
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- But we never really know what someone else is going through
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- Behind the scenes.
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- When we allow negative thoughts to not just show
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- Up in our minds, but sit down and take up space,
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- Then we're robbing ourselves of the beauty of knowing
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- That we are sin and we are loved by god.
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- Number three
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- Identify and reject untruths.
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- When i was a younger woman, i honestly believed
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- That i was too broken to be loved.
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- My father's brain
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- Injury had changed him and how he reacted to me.
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- All i could understand as a child was that this man
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- Who once loved me now seemed to hate me.
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- And i internalized that message for years,
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- And it meant that although i was involved in ministry,
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- I was very lonely
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- Because i didn't want to let anybody get close
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- Enough to see what i thought my dad must have seen in me.
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- We need to identify these untruths,
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- The things we've believed about ourselves for years,
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- And bring them into the light of god's love.
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- And that leads to number four.
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- Replace the lies with truth.
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- That sounds simple, but honestly, it takes work.
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- We've thought in certain ways and patterns for years.
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- It takes intention and commitment to change.
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- That's just one reason why i'm a huge fan of the word of god.
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- God's word is a love letter to you and to me.
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- It's full of truth.
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- So find a few verses that come against the negative
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- Things you've believed and really meditate on them.
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- For example, i love romans chapter eight, verse 38 and 39.
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- Listen to this.
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- And i am convinced that nothing can ever separate us
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- From god's love.
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- Neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons,
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- Neither our fears for today,
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- Not our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell
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- Could separate us from god's love.
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- No power in the sky above or in the earth below.
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- Indeed, nothing in all creation
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- Will ever be able to separate us from the love of god
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- That is revealed in christ jesus our lord.
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- That's truth.
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- That's who god is.
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- And finally, five small changes build up over time.
- 00:06:19.068 --> 00:06:24.207
- Start where you are.
- 00:06:24.640 --> 00:06:26.042
- But every time you feel a negative or anxious thought,
- 00:06:26.042 --> 00:06:29.111
- Rise up. bring it to the lord.
- 00:06:29.111 --> 00:06:32.114
- The great thing about our lives is we don't have to do this
- 00:06:32.114 --> 00:06:34.684
- By ourselves.
- 00:06:34.684 --> 00:06:36.185
- The holy spirit is our helper.
- 00:06:36.185 --> 00:06:38.754
- Ask him for help.
- 00:06:38.754 --> 00:06:40.323
- I love the way that
- 00:06:40.323 --> 00:06:41.290
- The jb phillips translation puts this verse.
- 00:06:41.290 --> 00:06:44.293
- Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold.
- 00:06:44.293 --> 00:06:48.564
- Know you are an individual.
- 00:06:48.564 --> 00:06:50.900
- You are a child of the king.
- 00:06:50.900 --> 00:06:53.236
- Let me pray for you.
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- Lord, thank you that you
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- Have made each one of us so unique and so different.
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- And lord, you know how we struggle
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- With our thoughts at times.
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- How so often we compare ourselves
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- To other people and feel we don't match up,
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- Or how our thoughts
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- Go against what your word tells us to be true.
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- Holy spirit, will you help us?
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- Will you help us to bring all negative
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- Our anxious thoughts to you,
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- And replace them with the truth of your word,
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- So that we can build our lives up to be strong in christ jesus
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- And his powerful name. we pray.
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- Amen.
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