abigya
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Battlefield of the Mind
by Joyce Meyer
When you hear the word battlefield, what comes to your mind?
Do you think of the Civil War, the World Wars, Vietnam or Iraq? Do you know that within each person’s mind there is a battle that takes place? You might be thinking, What do you mean by that? I believe the enemy, the devil, puts thoughts in our minds, and if we don’t know the truth of God’s Word, then we will believe whatever the enemy tells us is true. Jesus died for us to have a great life, but the devil seeks to steal it away, and he starts by filling our minds with his thoughts, all of which are lies. The Bible says that he is a liar [himself] and the father of lies and of all that is false (John 8:44).
I’ve found some scriptures that have helped me learn how to think right and to do combat in this battle. One is Proverbs 23:7, As a man thinks, so is he. Another translation says, As a man thinks, so does he become. And I’ve turned it into a phrase that says, Where the mind goes, the man follows.
A Real Eye-Opener
One of the first things you and I need to do is realize that we can do something about our thinking. To some of you, that may be a real eye-opener. For me it was, because for years I just said whatever came to my mind, and you can imagine what kind of problems that caused me.
Even though I was a Christian who loved God and attended church on Sundays, I had no idea that there was a battle going on in my mind. Nor had I heard that what I think about is very important to the outcome of my life. So…if I woke up in the morning and thought, I’m depressed, then I spent all day depressed. I hadn’t learned that if I woke up with a thought that did not agree with God’s Word, I could disagree with it and say, “No, this thought is a lie from the enemy. Satan is putting this thought in my mind, but I know that the joy of the Lord is my strength. I don’t have to sit around the house all day and be depressed. Instead, I’m going to think about God’s Word and the good plans that He has for my life.”
Check Our Emotions
I believe that our emotions follow our thinking. If we think bad thoughts, then our emotions are going to sink. However, if we think good thoughts then I believe our emotions will rise up. And there are so many wonderful scriptures that we can think about, such as Romans 12:2, which is one of my favorite verses. It says, …But be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude] so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God [in His sight for you].
This verse reminds me that God has a good plan for my life. For years I talked about the promises of God, heard about the promises of God, and people encouraged me about the promises of God, but the truth is that I was not seeing them evident in my life. And even though it was good for me to have hope and think about these things, sooner or later, I wanted to experience them in my life. As I began to look at this verse and other scriptures like it, I began to realize that I still had a bad attitude and wrong mindsets, and they weren’t going away.
Unfortunately, a bad attitude is not something that just goes away. It doesn’t just vanish. So if you’re thinking—I’ve been trying to think better, but those wrong thoughts just keep coming back even though I try to have a good attitude—that’s what it means to say our mind is a battlefield.
Although I’ve been pretty strong in studying God’s Word for at least thirty years, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have to talk to myself a little bit about my thinking every single day. It’s a daily process, and we have to learn how to think the way that God thinks—and the Bible is the way that God thinks. It’s His thoughts written down on paper for us so we can learn how to think right.
Come Into Agreement
Amos 3:3 asks how can two walk together unless they get into agreement? This verse tells us if we want to walk with God and see His good plan for our lives, then we need to be in agreement with His Word. But if we want to keep walking with the enemy and see his plan fulfilled in our lives, then all we have to do is just continue to agree with the miserable thoughts that he puts into our minds.
In Genesis 3, the Bible tells us that Eve was deceived by the lies of Satan. When he approached her, he planned on stealing the good plan that God had for her and Adam’s lives. God intended everything for Adam and Eve to be wonderful. He gave them a beautiful place to live where they could enjoy one another and enjoy what God had created for them. Yes, God wanted them to enjoy their lives, and God wants you and me to enjoy our lives.
So what did Satan do? He told Eve, “Maybe God just knows that if you eat the fruit He told you not to eat, then you’ll be like Him.”
It was a temptation to Eve to think that maybe she could be like God. But the mistake she made was in thinking that maybe God was holding out on her and not providing her with everything that she could have from Him. It’s pretty simple: Satan lied to Eve, she believed his lie, and she entered into sin convincing her husband to sin with her. And the world’s been in turmoil ever since.
Take Responsibility
Because Eve lost the battle in her mind, life is now a mess for people who don’t know the truth of God’s Word. Eve should have checked her heart and not just listened to her head. When Satan’s statement entered her head, Eve should have said, “Wait a minute…I don’t believe that, because that’s not what God told me.”
In Matthew 24:4, the Bible says, Be careful that no one misleads you [deceiving you and leading you into error]. Each of us has a responsibility to make sure that we are not deceived. How can we do this? By asking ourselves:
What do I believe?
What do I believe about my past?
What do I believe about my future?
What do I believe about my friends?
What do I believe about God?
What do I believe about God’s love for me?
We may wonder why we hear about His promises, yet they don’t seem to be working in our lives. I believe that a lot of times our believing is just wrong, and that’s why God’s plan is not being fulfilled in our lives.
The reason may be that we have deception in our lives because Satan has lied to us and we’ve believed his lies. We haven’t taken responsibility in our lives to make sure that we are not deceived.
How can we take responsibility? We can do this by making sure that we know the Truth, because we can’t be victorious in our walk with God if we don’t study the Word of God. And it’s easier to do now than ever before because there are CDs, DVDs, television and radio programs, the Internet and thousands of books to help us study God’s Word.
There is no excuse not to be a victorious Christian, because all we have to do is take time to equip ourselves with the Word of God and apply what we learn to our lives. Of course this means actually doing what we know is right to do.
You and I also need to become lifelong learners, the kind of people who are always ready to learn. First Corinthians 3:18 says, Let no person deceive himself by thinking he knows it all. When Jesus ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, He sent us the Holy Spirit to live on the inside of us and to help us in every situation. One of the things the Holy Spirit does is teach us. He is our constant Teacher, and if you and I will ask Him to instruct us, He will train us throughout the day in every kind of situation. The more we seek the Truth and are open to finding it, the less likely we are to be deceived.
The Truth and Nothing but the Truth
I want to encourage each of you not to be a know-it-all kind of person. Resist being the type of person who thinks that you’re always right and that no one else can teach you anything. You and I need to have the attitude—even when we are sure we are right—I think I’m right, but I may be wrong. Because pride is a very dangerous thing and actually the sin that caused Satan to fall from the original glorious position that he had with God. He said, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will make myself like the Most High… and I will, I will, I will! And God cast him down from that high place and he ended up not being anything that he thought he was going to be (see Isaiah 14:12-15). Now he goes around trying to fill everyone’s mind full of those same prideful thoughts.
Avoid being the kind of person that no one can tell anything. Be a lifetime learner who says, “God, teach me, lead me, and if I’m deceived, show me what is true. I want to know Truth.”
by Joyce Meyer
When you hear the word battlefield, what comes to your mind?
Do you think of the Civil War, the World Wars, Vietnam or Iraq? Do you know that within each person’s mind there is a battle that takes place? You might be thinking, What do you mean by that? I believe the enemy, the devil, puts thoughts in our minds, and if we don’t know the truth of God’s Word, then we will believe whatever the enemy tells us is true. Jesus died for us to have a great life, but the devil seeks to steal it away, and he starts by filling our minds with his thoughts, all of which are lies. The Bible says that he is a liar [himself] and the father of lies and of all that is false (John 8:44).
I’ve found some scriptures that have helped me learn how to think right and to do combat in this battle. One is Proverbs 23:7, As a man thinks, so is he. Another translation says, As a man thinks, so does he become. And I’ve turned it into a phrase that says, Where the mind goes, the man follows.
A Real Eye-Opener
One of the first things you and I need to do is realize that we can do something about our thinking. To some of you, that may be a real eye-opener. For me it was, because for years I just said whatever came to my mind, and you can imagine what kind of problems that caused me.
Even though I was a Christian who loved God and attended church on Sundays, I had no idea that there was a battle going on in my mind. Nor had I heard that what I think about is very important to the outcome of my life. So…if I woke up in the morning and thought, I’m depressed, then I spent all day depressed. I hadn’t learned that if I woke up with a thought that did not agree with God’s Word, I could disagree with it and say, “No, this thought is a lie from the enemy. Satan is putting this thought in my mind, but I know that the joy of the Lord is my strength. I don’t have to sit around the house all day and be depressed. Instead, I’m going to think about God’s Word and the good plans that He has for my life.”
Check Our Emotions
I believe that our emotions follow our thinking. If we think bad thoughts, then our emotions are going to sink. However, if we think good thoughts then I believe our emotions will rise up. And there are so many wonderful scriptures that we can think about, such as Romans 12:2, which is one of my favorite verses. It says, …But be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude] so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God [in His sight for you].
This verse reminds me that God has a good plan for my life. For years I talked about the promises of God, heard about the promises of God, and people encouraged me about the promises of God, but the truth is that I was not seeing them evident in my life. And even though it was good for me to have hope and think about these things, sooner or later, I wanted to experience them in my life. As I began to look at this verse and other scriptures like it, I began to realize that I still had a bad attitude and wrong mindsets, and they weren’t going away.
Unfortunately, a bad attitude is not something that just goes away. It doesn’t just vanish. So if you’re thinking—I’ve been trying to think better, but those wrong thoughts just keep coming back even though I try to have a good attitude—that’s what it means to say our mind is a battlefield.
Although I’ve been pretty strong in studying God’s Word for at least thirty years, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have to talk to myself a little bit about my thinking every single day. It’s a daily process, and we have to learn how to think the way that God thinks—and the Bible is the way that God thinks. It’s His thoughts written down on paper for us so we can learn how to think right.
Come Into Agreement
Amos 3:3 asks how can two walk together unless they get into agreement? This verse tells us if we want to walk with God and see His good plan for our lives, then we need to be in agreement with His Word. But if we want to keep walking with the enemy and see his plan fulfilled in our lives, then all we have to do is just continue to agree with the miserable thoughts that he puts into our minds.
In Genesis 3, the Bible tells us that Eve was deceived by the lies of Satan. When he approached her, he planned on stealing the good plan that God had for her and Adam’s lives. God intended everything for Adam and Eve to be wonderful. He gave them a beautiful place to live where they could enjoy one another and enjoy what God had created for them. Yes, God wanted them to enjoy their lives, and God wants you and me to enjoy our lives.
So what did Satan do? He told Eve, “Maybe God just knows that if you eat the fruit He told you not to eat, then you’ll be like Him.”
It was a temptation to Eve to think that maybe she could be like God. But the mistake she made was in thinking that maybe God was holding out on her and not providing her with everything that she could have from Him. It’s pretty simple: Satan lied to Eve, she believed his lie, and she entered into sin convincing her husband to sin with her. And the world’s been in turmoil ever since.
Take Responsibility
Because Eve lost the battle in her mind, life is now a mess for people who don’t know the truth of God’s Word. Eve should have checked her heart and not just listened to her head. When Satan’s statement entered her head, Eve should have said, “Wait a minute…I don’t believe that, because that’s not what God told me.”
In Matthew 24:4, the Bible says, Be careful that no one misleads you [deceiving you and leading you into error]. Each of us has a responsibility to make sure that we are not deceived. How can we do this? By asking ourselves:
What do I believe?
What do I believe about my past?
What do I believe about my future?
What do I believe about my friends?
What do I believe about God?
What do I believe about God’s love for me?
We may wonder why we hear about His promises, yet they don’t seem to be working in our lives. I believe that a lot of times our believing is just wrong, and that’s why God’s plan is not being fulfilled in our lives.
The reason may be that we have deception in our lives because Satan has lied to us and we’ve believed his lies. We haven’t taken responsibility in our lives to make sure that we are not deceived.
How can we take responsibility? We can do this by making sure that we know the Truth, because we can’t be victorious in our walk with God if we don’t study the Word of God. And it’s easier to do now than ever before because there are CDs, DVDs, television and radio programs, the Internet and thousands of books to help us study God’s Word.
There is no excuse not to be a victorious Christian, because all we have to do is take time to equip ourselves with the Word of God and apply what we learn to our lives. Of course this means actually doing what we know is right to do.
You and I also need to become lifelong learners, the kind of people who are always ready to learn. First Corinthians 3:18 says, Let no person deceive himself by thinking he knows it all. When Jesus ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, He sent us the Holy Spirit to live on the inside of us and to help us in every situation. One of the things the Holy Spirit does is teach us. He is our constant Teacher, and if you and I will ask Him to instruct us, He will train us throughout the day in every kind of situation. The more we seek the Truth and are open to finding it, the less likely we are to be deceived.
The Truth and Nothing but the Truth
I want to encourage each of you not to be a know-it-all kind of person. Resist being the type of person who thinks that you’re always right and that no one else can teach you anything. You and I need to have the attitude—even when we are sure we are right—I think I’m right, but I may be wrong. Because pride is a very dangerous thing and actually the sin that caused Satan to fall from the original glorious position that he had with God. He said, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will make myself like the Most High… and I will, I will, I will! And God cast him down from that high place and he ended up not being anything that he thought he was going to be (see Isaiah 14:12-15). Now he goes around trying to fill everyone’s mind full of those same prideful thoughts.
Avoid being the kind of person that no one can tell anything. Be a lifetime learner who says, “God, teach me, lead me, and if I’m deceived, show me what is true. I want to know Truth.”
