Out of your heart flow your words and actions. Change your heart, and you'll change your life.

According to best-selling author Dr. Gary Smalley, nobody has to live by the destructive subtle lies or believe the distortions of truth this world holds out to us. There are steps, strategies, and beliefs people can bring to their lives to either totally transform them or quietly improve them-and it all starts with hiding God's Word in their hearts.

Hiding God's Word in his heart radically changed the life of Smalley himself, and he is seeing it revolutionize the lives of people around him as well-from lust, materialism, selfishness, anger, stress, overeating, anxiety, and guilt, just to name a few. No matter a person's age, experiences, or previous patterns, this book will guide readers to the whys and hows of orchestrating their beliefs to forever change their lives and relationships.

CHANGE YOUR HEART CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Acknowledgments...................................................................................ixOne Hope for You in All Circumstances............................................................1Two How You Formed Your Beliefs..................................................................9Three The Amazing Power of Your Beliefs..........................................................18Four Preparing Your Heart for Powerful Changes...................................................34Five Five Steps to Changing Your Beliefs.........................................................48Six Coming to Grips with the Three "Deadlies"....................................................66Seven The Deadly Lust of the Eyes................................................................72Eight The Deadly Lust of the Flesh...............................................................80Nine The Deadly Pride of Life....................................................................89Ten The High Value of Loving God.................................................................99Eleven The High Value of Loving Others...........................................................117Twelve The High Value of Trials..................................................................132Thirteen The High Value of Forgiveness...........................................................147Fourteen How Your Beliefs Affect Your Eating Habits and Addictions...............................161Fifteen How Your Beliefs Affect Your Vocation....................................................174Sixteen How Your Beliefs Affect Your Children....................................................187Seventeen How One Key Belief Can Keep Your Marriage Thriving.....................................198Eighteen My Final Prayer for You and Our Country.................................................215Appendix One Kari's Letter.......................................................................218Appendix Two Materialism Test....................................................................221Appendix Three Hedonism Test.....................................................................225Appendix Four Self-Interest Test.................................................................229Appendix Five Gary's Top One Hundred-Plus Bible Verses to Hide in Your Heart.....................233Notes.............................................................................................242

Chapter One

It seems normal today for people to feel discouraged, stressed out, hopeless, and even depressed. The pace of our lives is part of the problem. Everyone seems to be in a huge hurry to go everywhere, even if they're going nowhere. The tensions of the world add anxiety and uncertainty-terrorism, political turmoil, wars, and rumors of wars. And the disintegrating values of our nation don't help matters any. We are constantly egged on by advertising and our peers to want more and more things, entertainment, pleasure, and leisure, and this brings on the added stress of working harder in order to afford these things. These combined pressures bring many of us down, inducing more or less permanent feelings of discouragement, depression, envy, guilt, frustration, anger, and a host of other defeating emotions.

What if I could show you a way to rise above all that? What if I could show you a surefire way to live so that these pressures and negative influences would never interfere with your joy and satisfaction with life? What if I could show you a proven method of increasing your peace of mind, reducing stress to the point that it almost disappears, and increasing the satisfaction in your marriage beyond your wildest dreams? What if you were to hear negative words from your mate, experience difficulties in life as we all do, but you rebounded in less than a day? Would you be interested?

In fact, I can show you the secret to accomplishing all this and more. The secret is not original with me; I found the key to changing my life in God's Holy Scriptures. I discovered four awesome, God-given beliefs that, when embedded in my heart, brought about changes in my life far beyond what I ever dreamed possible. These principles work. I know they do because they worked miracles in my own life. And I know they can work in yours as well, because they are God's own principles for living and loving. They were written more than five thousand years ago, and I found them to be life changing for me. I've used them every day for over six years and I can't get enough. I suspect that you'll have the same response if what I write makes sense to you.

Wouldn't it be great if you suddenly found the willpower to lose all that unwanted weight in just six months? Wouldn't you love to achieve more of your goals and reap more benefits from your job? Wouldn't it be wonderful to experience the love and excitement in your marriage that you thought you had lost forever? It can happen. It provides more safety and love for your marriage than anything I know. As you fly through this book, you'll learn the secret to achieving all these dreams and so much more. And the secret is simple: all you have to do is change some of the beliefs that are lodged in your heart.

"Impossible!" you may say. "Surely just changing what I believe in my heart will not make such radical differences in my life." But it can. I am living proof that these four beliefs can change your life beyond measure. Discovering these beliefs has given me the most amazing and rewarding times in all my sixty-seven years, changing and enriching my life in ways I could never have imagined. Six years ago I didn't even know these principles existed. It was my psychologist son who introduced them to me. But when I began to put them into practice, the dramatic and exciting changes they produced in my own life led me to share them with people in my immediate circle. When I saw them change preteens, teens, and adults of all ages, I knew I had found something amazing that could turn a person's life around in just a few weeks. I couldn't wait to share these four beliefs with the world. That's why I have written this book.

The Power of Beliefs

To show you how putting the right beliefs in your heart can change you, let me tell you a story about my oldest grandson, Michael. The incident occurred when he was ten years old. I had just discovered the principle of beliefs, but at the time I didn't know just how broadly they would apply.

Michael walked into my house as discouraged as I've ever seen him. I greeted him and listened as he poured out his heart about how miserable he was.

"Grampa," he said, "Mom is driving me crazy. I can't live like this. Can you do something about it? Can you talk to her?"

The more I listened, the more I realized that his problem with his mom-Kari, my daughter-was nothing more than her insisting that he be responsible about her rules concerning household chores and homework. But what he wanted was my help in changing her so she wouldn't bug him any more and cause his unhappiness. I'm very close to Kari, and she is one of my best friends in life and a wonderful mother. I chose not to take his side or hers. I didn't talk with Michael about the need to be...