Now there's been some research done on thoughts, and thinking processes, and here's some interesting things you may not have realised. I don't have a picture I could show you but thoughts are actually can be measured. In other words they occupy space in your head. A thought is not a nothing. See, a thought is something. A memory is something. We don't tend to think that way, but it is something. Now what is it? Well it's actually neurons going through a path. There are chemicals released, and there's some pathways formed in your mind, so there are electrical impulses, neurons, and chemicals released - see for example, if I just got everyone, now it's nearly half past eleven now, so if I got everyone beginning to think about a beautiful lunch - oh, there it is. Chicken, ooh, I can see it now. I can see the gravy on it, all that seasoning, and the potatoes and - oh it's looking good. Now immediately I'm starting to feel hungry. [Laughter] My body - not notice this, I want you to get this - my body and feelings responded to my thoughts. So as I began to think, there was something happened in my body and emotions, same with yours.
If you begin to think about a painful experience for a little bit, and you begin to remember that experience, begin to imagine it and picture it, very soon there'll be feelings come, emotions will come, and you'll begin to enter into that experience - sometimes tears come. I found one certain piece of music I just played the other day, as I played the music, I found tears come. I thought that's strange. The music is triggering off thoughts, and they're connected to emotions. Because I've got emotions, I must have thoughts; I wonder what they are? So they're all interconnected. Now here's the interesting thing. They've been able to study the brain, and here's the interesting thing that happens. When you think, thinking involves electrical impulses, neurons connect, and you form like a tree in your brain.
Can you imagine a tree with lots of branches? Now the more you repeat certain kinds of thinking, the bigger the tree grows in your brain - so if you begin to think say, negative thoughts about yourself, and continually repeat them, there grows like a tree in your brain, of neurons connected to one another, and the connections grow thicker and stronger and deeper. It becomes set in your brain. So a person for example who continually looks at pornography begins to develop in his brain memories or trees, neuron trees, which grow thicker and thicker and thicker, and there are paths. It triggers off chemistry in their body. That's how God has designed us, it's a physical thing - and so God designed us. Now here's the thing. If a person begins to change how they think, they've observed on the electron microscope, that the trees that hold the memory or the patterns of thinking begin to shrink and dissipate, and if you stop thinking those thoughts they eventually vanish, as though they were never there. Isn't that amazing? They've discovered that in science. I was reading it in a book recently.
If you start to develop different ways of thinking, then new neuron paths form up, and new trees begin to form within your brain - so imagine that, that within your brain are registered the ways you've thought all your life. If you will stop thinking certain ways, and begin to develop new thoughts, there will be new neuron paths formed, new connections formed, and old ones will wither and die away. Think about that. Isn't it amazing? Now here's the thing about those thoughts. They are connected to emotions, so if your thoughts are negative, you unlock bad chemistry in your body; it affects your DNA and your health. So our body is not wired to cope with things like bitterness, judgements, resentments, self pity, unforgiveness. All those toxic thoughts create memory trees, neuron trees in your mind, that every time you go there they get stronger, and they unlock toxins in your body. Think about that - so what is very true is this: You can be transformed totally, as you will renovate your mind.