The topic of mind renewal and taking thoughts captive is by far my favorite topic and my favorite thing to do! It’s amazing how close God feels when I enter into His presence and give Him my thoughts. I’m not so great at it, but by the grace of God I’m getting better every day!
A while back I read a medical book that took the science of medicine and linked it to the commands and words of God from Scripture. It was the most interesting and life changing book I’d ever read and like any good medical text book it took me six months to read 🙂 . Well, I’ve begun a new one now called ‘Exposing the Spiritual Roots of Disease”. I realize that not everyone believes this, as a matter of fact the author addresses this often, and He uses scripture to support his beliefs so it’s hard not to believe.
You know what stinks? Temptation and how it makes us do the opposite of what we believe.
Anyway, yesterday while reading before bed The author of this book talked about temptation and the ways Satan tempts us on a daily basis. How Satan’s voice often sounds like our own, and how we need to be aware of every thought that comes to us. I woke up this morning with a great epiphany from Holy Spirit that I’d like to share with you today and hope you are encouraged to be alert of Satan’s temptations and reject him and his ways.
Do you feel that from the moment you wake up till the moment you go to bed you are under constant battle in your mind. The battle between choosing to follow God and giving into the nagging thoughts to do the opposite of what you want to do? From the moment I get up to the moment I cave to temptation (usually before lunch) my mind is rattled with battle. My inner dialog is pulling on me from thoughts of the LORD and His ways to thoughts of my flesh and my ways. I wake up with the drive to get into the word of God and even while reading the word I’m bombarded with distracted thoughts.
While I reflect on the Word today and start to prepare myself for my daily capturing of my toxic thoughts the Holy Spirit stirred in me the way I tend to do things that I don’t believe in because I’ve “convinced myself” to do them. I felt Him ask “why is it that you do things that you don’t actually believe?”
The voice of temptation sounds like our own thoughts! That’s why its so hard to reject it. If you’re anything like me you start off with a plan and as the day goes on thoughts of doubt flutter around and wear us down: “are you sure you want to commit to fasting today? I mean most people don’t do that and they are fine”. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat that second piece of cake, it’s not like you have treats every day, what would a little more do anyway. “ everyone else can have a drink or glass of wine at the end of the day, why can’t you? I mean who really cares anyway, right”
Do those voices sound familiar to you? Or at least thought with similar forms of temptation!?? Well, that’s Satan and his schemes and, ladies, his goal is to wear us down from the moment we get up until her gets us to cave and then he does and obnoxious victory dance while we sit and sulk because we did the opposite of what we wanted and promised we would! It stinks doesn’t it!?
The Old Testament is filled with words like “He inquires of the LORD” “because his heart was seeking the LORD he had victory”. Same is true for us! We need to 1. Inquire of the LORD always. 2. Be alert and aware of Satan’s deception 3. Question the thoughts we think 4. Reject Satan verbally (ex. “This is not what I believe, I command you to leave in the name of Jesus”).
This might be far fetched to you, however, I challenge you to look at the number of things and times that you do the opposite of what you’ve set out to do. How often you do the opposite of what you believe.
When we do things that aren’t what we believe that’s the quickest sign that it’s not from God and not from us – so that leaves only one person… Satan. He’s not all knowing or all powerful so we can’t cast him away in our minds we need to speak it out in the powerful name of Jesus.
Let’s take our thought captive and inquire of the LORD on every one. Discern the thoughts and don’t just obey them. Ask God. And let’s reject Satan and his temptations.
