The power of the Word will help any person overcome depression. The gospel will change your reality.
If you haven’t had much experience at seeing this actually take place in the lives of those you are ministering to, remember that Jesus said, ‘the truth shall set you free’.
The Word will transform any person, if they will accept it as reality.
Roman 12:2 tells us that the Word will change the way you think.
Romans 12:2: Renew your mind, overcome lies by insisting on the Truth.
And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.
When I see this happen to people, I will ask them: What is happening to you?
“I am just changing the whole way I think”, they say. “I’m just seeing things in a whole different way.”
With one woman, I read her Romans 12:2 after her comment, and she said: “That is exactly what is happening to me!”
That is our job as a minister of the Word, to make that Word apply to their lives and make it come alive in their lives. I rejoice when I see that, because the Word (Jesus) IS alive, and when you apply it to people, they see it in a way they will never forget it. This is how it was in your life when you first got saved, some scriptures came alive to you! And you need to make more of them come to life for you, as you continue to minister to others.
One thing I spend a lot of time on, especially with Christians is Romans 8:5, 8:1, 2 Cor. 5:17, Col. 1:22. Everything is behind them, they are a new creation in Christ, it is a finished work!
Romans 8:1: No condemnation, no guilt, no shame, no inferiority complex
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
2 Corinthians 5:17: You are a New Creation, old things are put behind you, it is a finished work.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.
Col. 1:22: You are holy, unblameable, unreproveable in His sight.
(You has He reconciled)…in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight, IF YOU CONTINUE TO BELIEVE THIS GOOD NEWS !!!!!!!
Romans 8:5: Accept the gift of righteousness.
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the spirit.
I spend quite a bit of time here because most Christians have no concept of righteousness. They confuse righteousness with holiness.
Righteousness is a gift, it can’t be earned or developed. We are just given it from God, as a part of the Great Exchange, Jesus took my sin upon Himself, and He gave us Righteousness as a gift (no guilt, no shame, no condemnation any more).
The great exchange….God takes our sin and gives us His righteousness. They are as righteous as Billy Graham. He may have done more works, but he is no more righteous.
Most Christians get really bogged down here, especially if they are in any type of bondage. They see themselves as sinners, and that God is behind their troubles, because they deserve it.
When I talk to people about acknowledging the issues in their life, and I dig deep enough, that is usually what comes out. They say, “Are you sure God isn’t behind this, I deserve to be in this kind of bondage. Look at the things I have done!”
That is why, with Christians, we need to spend a lot of time on the righteousness issue.
Galatians 5:16: Live in the moment, not the past. Your future is in Jesus.
I relate that back to no condemnation, no guilt.
E.W. Kenyon described righteousness very well. He said, “righteousness meant no condemnation, no guilt, no shame, no inferiority complex for the Christian”.
Guilt and shame is what puts people into a lot of these bondage’s initially. If you go back to the initial occurrence where the bondage began, (I don’t go in depth with this, but sometimes you have to start with this) something has happened in childhood perhaps.
With women, if they were molested as children, they fall into believing the lie that they had something to do with what happened to them.
I tell them: Look, you were a child, six years old, you were innocent. There is no way possible you could have had anything to do with it.
But it is amazing how much of a lie can be put into a person. I have seen this quite a few times over the years. When you dig these issues out and lead them in forgiving the perpetrator, it doesn’t seem like there is any huge breakthrough, but then the next time I talk to them, they are seeing things differently.
What God does is so supernatural, so subtle, you don’t even see it. The supernatural power of God is so subtle in this area. People are expecting some big breakthrough and that could be a deterrent. How can you tell the mind is being changed and coming into a new reality? You can’t. All of a sudden when you talk to them the next time, they are in a different place. The Kingdom of God is like a man casting seed into the ground, and he rose up day after day and didn’t see anything happening, but all of a sudden the sprout began coming up, grew to full height and produced fruit.
We don’t understand how the supernatural works, we just know that it does work and everything that God does is supernatural.
Sometimes our intellect, from pride and ego wants to understand these things, and we can’t be going there, it is way out of our league.
We have to believe that the power is in the Gospel. Romans 1:16 is very clear on that. The power of God is the Gospel.
When you are preaching the Gospel, that supernatural power is riding on your words. When you know that is happening, you get very relaxed about it and you see transformation happen right before you, whether you are on the phone or present with the person.
The person comes back and says, “I am seeing things differently.”
You have uprooted something and you don’t always know what it is. You don’t have to know.
A girl I was ministering to who had a suicide problem asked me, “When did I make that radical change?” She was waiting for me to give her a long answer.
I said: I don’t have any idea. I know you got transformed all I really know is Jesus did it through His Word. How He did it, I’m not interested in finding out. He just did it.
She thought that was wonderful. Sometimes, we are tempted to give a fancy or clever answer. If you go there, you are going to get yourself in trouble with Heaven. Heaven is very clear. First Corinthians 1-3 and all over the New Testament it talks about being wise in our own eyes, and God doesn’t like that. He wants us to be wise in the Word of God but delving too much into how the supernatural works, we just need to keep away from that.
Romans 10:8-9: Confess with the mouth, use this principle
that Jesus initiated.
But what does it say? The word is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we preach, that if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.
We need to encourage people into this principal.
Confessions with their mouth.
I use the principles that Jesus initiated in Mark 11:23, believe with your heart and speak with your mouth. That wasn’t Kenneth Copeland or E.W. Kenyon that invented that. Jesus said it.
I tell them: If you were there when Jesus said that, you would be looking at Him with your eyes sticking out of your head, and if you don’t think you would, then you are just being religious. If Jesus, the Son of God, the Creator of all things, (all things being created by Him and for Him), SAYS, “believe with your heart and confess with your mouth”, you would be very wise to go along with that.
Believe with your heart and confess with your mouth and you shall be delivered! You have to stop talking and getting snared with the words of your mouth.
Immature Christians, if you hear them talk, you just shake your head and say, “That’s just not wise!”
Romans 12:2 sums it up: renew your mind, overcome the lies and insist on the truth.
Psalms 107:20
He sent His Word and healed them and delivered them
from their destruction’s.
The Word is what is going to do this.
If I am talking to someone on the phone, I say: The words that I am speaking to you, when I am speaking the words of God, they are supernatural.
People tell me all the time, “When you talk to me on the phone, how come I feel this rush of positiveness, and I feel better?”
I tell them: It is the power of God through the word. I know when I talk to you, you are feeling better. By reading the Word for yourself, you can get the same power out of the Word of God. Read it, soak it in and you will get the same sense of strength. The Word of God is living and active and it will set you free. Jesus said the truth will set you free and the truth is the Word of God. When you realize that you are putting down your own thoughts and you are picking up the Word of God and you say, “I am accepting the Word of God, I am not accepting the lie any more”, that’s the most powerful thing a Christian can do. It will absolutely transform you. It will totally change your whole reality of life.
I seen people who were suicidal, cutting themselves and they are totally transformed. The world can help a person to some degree, but only Jesus Christ can set a person totally free. Only the supernatural power of the Word of God can do that. Only Jesus can do that. Jesus is the Word. The Word is God and the Word is Jesus. When you are speaking His Word, that is the power of Jesus Christ going right down into the person.
Matthew 6:25 Be anxious for nothing
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; not yet for your body, what you shall put on.
I say: In your case, you are anxious for everything.
You laugh and joke with them a little bit, and say: That is good because Jesus is going to take care of that for you!
Phil. 4:6: Be anxious for nothing, this is not easy but possible.
Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
2 Tim. 1:7: Turmoil is usually caused by emotional buildup (things never let go of) and that is caused by fear.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Dealing with the fear of death……
The greatest fear is the fear of death. I deal with this in particular, (you may find another way to deal with this but this is what I do.
I say: So you are having a panic attack?
Sometimes in a panic attack the heart starts pounding, it gets worse, fear comes on them and they have to go to the hospital. A lot of people who are bi-polar suffer from panic attacks, or they can’t breathe and get short of breath. It’s all fear.
Do you want to beat that quickly? Well, just think that you might die right now!
They say, “What!!!!”
(We take death way to seriously.)
The worst thing that could happen to you right now is that you die. If you die where will you go? You are a Christian, you know Jesus Christ, where would you go?
Right here I find out very quickly if they are really a Christian. They may tell me they are, but this conversation really gets to the bottom of it! If they aren’t, I pray with them for salvation before going on.
Then I say: If you died right now, so what? You will miss your family but you will be with Jesus forever. Can you be thankful for that? Let’s just imagine that you are going to die right now. You are going to have to face this down some time, anxiety comes from fear and the way to get rid of it quickly, is, ‘Thank you Jesus, that I’m not going to die, but I am never going to have fear in my life again. I rebuke this fear, I come against it in Jesus’ Name, I will not have it. If I died right now, I have no problem, I would go to be with Jesus.’
When you can stare down death you have victory. Every Christian should be able to stare that down “death where is your sting” 1 Cor 15:55.
I ask them if they remember what happened to Paul, he had his head cut off. I ask them if they could go right now, put their head down and think of someone cutting it off.
They say, “I don’t want to go there!”
I say: Yes you do, what is wrong with that! You can’t face that? That is quick and you are out of here, you are with Jesus. And by the way, you feel exactly as you do now, even though you may be seeing your head roll off. I have talked to many people who came back from the dead. They tell me that even though you are in a different dimension, you see everything that is going on regarding your body, but you can’t communicate to people in the natural anymore.
I start joking with people about death and tell them: Now can you see yourself overcoming death? If you can do this, these panic attacks will stop.
They say, “What about my heart beating real fast?”
This is what happens spiritually when that happens. Your attention is brought to your heart, and that is not a good thing. Is your attention brought to your heart while you are sleeping, or while you are running, etc? No it isn’t, it is not natural to pay attention to your heart. But in a panic attack, you are paying attention to your heart.
If you believe with your heart and speak with your mouth, you’ll have whatever you say. As a man thinks in his heart so is he, and all of these truths are coming in to play here as this fear is coming upon you, and that fear will definitely make your heart pound faster. If you get fearful enough your heart will quit.
But if you say, ‘No, in Jesus’ Name, heart stop that….if I die right now I don’t care!”, that fear will leave and your heart will settle down to its normal rhythm.
People say I’m nuts, but I ask them: Well, do you want to get rid of this? I’m giving you a remedy for getting rid of it and you will never deal with it again because the essence of all this stuff is fear. I know only one way of getting rid of fear. Only one way. Your crying to God to get rid of it for you doesn’t work. You have to face it down, as the bible says, you have to Resist the fear that comes from the demonic spiritual realm (James 4:7).
A person can pray for you and get rid of it, but it will come back and test you to see if it can come back in, when that person isn’t there and then what are you going to do? You are going to have to face it down by yourself, you and Jesus. He will be with you to strengthen you Phil 4:13. This takes courage and perseverance.
I tell people to read Numbers 13 & 14, about God giving the land to the children of Israel. The land had a bunch of problems and resistance. The people moaned and groaned and sat in self-pity. It is the same thing today.
Jesus says, “Listen, I paid the price for your freedom and all you are doing is moaning and groaning and what you are doing is giving place to devils to point at God and blame Him for your problems, and that won’t work in heaven.” We have all done this, blame God for not taking something away when it is our responsibility to Resist the Devil James 4:7, we need to repent of any time we have blamed our Father. He is the One who sent His Son so that we could escape these oppressions.
Joshua and Caleb had the right idea….”we are able, let’s go in and get this thing”, but just like you they had many trials and it did not look good in the natural, we have to have courage and perseverance, we have the faith, we were given a measure Romans 12:3, what we need like Joshua and Caleb is persistence and courage, if God said we have it (You have delivered out of the kingdom of darkness), then we are going to have it. If Jesus has defeated the enemy, then we are having what He paid for, our freedom from oppression.
1Jn 5:4-5 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
1Jn 5:5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
As a born again believer you have Faith, and this scripture clearly says that if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then you will overcome, you do believe and can overcome, it is usually not a matter of Faith, it is usually a problem with courage and persistence to overcome oppression.
If you have that attitude, you get your freedom, but you have to walk into it. There is a fight involved here, a battle and there is always resistance. You will just have to knuckle down and face fear and say, “Hey, I’ve had enough of this, it’s got to go”. How desperate are you to get your freedom, will you do whatever it takes, like Joshua and Caleb, will take on obstacles and challenges and bring the victory to the feet of Jesus.
Now I’m leading into resisting the oppression.
When I am talking to people, I make sure I give concrete examples, not theory. It has to be real, the Word has to apply and work for us. I’m supposed to be a good minister of the Word, pull out my sword and stick it right where it is supposed to go and open things up inside of them, and that Word will supernaturally help them to make a stand on truth, to enable any person to get free from oppression.
When you loose a battle or two and everybody looses a battle or two, then the enemy will certainly SCREAM AT YOU TO QUIT. This is when you will have to pick up the standard and go forward and do better next time. God has no problem with a failure, He has a problem with us going backward, moaning, growing and getting into self pity, rather than saying, “I’m going to pick up the standard and I am going to do better the next time”, and never GIVE UP…..I am going to have what Jesus paid a high price for, and I honer His finished work and please my Father when I have this attitude. Heb 11:6. With this attitude, and you persist, the enemy can not resist a committed Christian, who will not give up, and totally trust the word.
There ARE failures. Just don’t let the failure push you back, once you are lined up with the scriptures and the finished work, you will be well on your way to victory over this oppression. But, the failures always bring on the enemy’s voice and they will tell you that this does not work, you are wasting your time, they will LIE LIE LIE, that is what they are good at, and you must stop listening to these negative thoughts.
That really upsets God. You can see that in Numbers 13 & 14, they wanted to go back to Egypt and bondage. If you were looking at that from heaven’s perspective, you couldn’t help but be upset about it.
Self pity is from hell. What is the opposite of self pity? It is gratitude. Thank you Jesus, I am coming out into Freedom, and nothing will stop me………
Isa 61:3 The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
If the people would have thanked God: ‘Thank you Father, we thank you, we are Your sons and daughters. You have given us this land, and because You have given it to us, we are going to walk in there and get it.’
It is even better now because Jesus has absolutely defeated demons today. You can’t lose. If you keep going with this and don’t back off, line up to the Scriptures, realizing your freedom is a done deal, that Jesus has already paid the price for your freedom, and you take up the sword of the Word of God and begin attacking the enemy, you are guaranteed victory, absolutely, positively you’ll be set free.
The only way you won’t is if you give in to self pity again. If you do you’ll get wiped out. We have all spent time in self pity, and when you go there the demons love it, they know it is one of the most dangerous places a Christian can go, because they know if you stay there you will end up blaming God.
John 15:5: You are connected to strength, determination and overcoming ability.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Women will say, “But I’m a woman, I don’t fight that way.”
I say: No, that’s wrong, in the spiritual realm you do. In the spiritual realm we all fight the same way. It takes courage and persistence and that’s not male or female, there is no gender in the fight.
John 15:5 says you are connected to the Vine. You are connected to Jesus, you can do all things, and I want you to keep thinking and seeing that you can get past this. Phil 4:13 I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me, make this scripture real in your live, depend on it, you will not feel strength, but you know you have it, because He said you have it, and when you overcome this particular battle or struggle, you will know it was through Him that you had this minor victory ….
Say: Whatever bondage’s I have, Jesus has already paid the price for me to be free and I will walk in that freedom.” That is renewing the mind.
You may think, “I have been doing this for twenty years, I’ll never get out of it.” Usually, this is also a lie, you may have been praying and asking God to do something, but I rarely find a Christian who has these issues who really knows how to fight, based on the finished work of Jesus, and who understand the spiritual side of these issues. You can not really fight against demonic forces without knowing the word of God and understand how the spiritual realm works.
Jesus paid the price for you. This is your inheritance. You can’t lay on the couch and let God do it, the finished work of Jesus is already done for you, you will have to resist and through your resistance the oppression will flee.
I spend a lot of time getting people into that place where they are ready to fight and they know they are going to win. The New Testament is absolute. It guarantees us victory, we just have to keep going.
Courage is more important than faith, and when you act you have faith, you can’t act and have faith, this is also a lie that a lot of Christians believe.
Faith is trusting and acting on the Word of God, and acting on it tells you if you are in faith, if you act you are in faith, if you do not act you are not in faith, it is that simple. Faith without corresponding action is dead James 2:17
Courage is getting up when you have been beaten up and have had a few failures. When you have a failure, you can get back up and get back into the fight again. Devils know that we human beings quit very easily. After all these years on this earth, dealing with human beings, they know we will probably quit, if they persist with the negative thoughts.
That we will be like Adam and Eve, ‘Surely the Word isn’t true’, or ‘it isn’t true in my case.’ That is the phrase they keep using on us and eventually we give up, but if we keep on going, we will win the battle over the enemy.
Psalm 89:34: Don’t break your word
My covenant I will not break, not alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
Many times people will tell me, “I have been dealing with this a long time. I have faith and I have been fighting for years.”
I read them this verse and say: So in your case, God needs to alter His Word, is that what you are trying to tell me? God has tied His hands here, He will not alter that Word He has spoken. He spoke that Word thousands of years ago before you were born. A thousand years from now when you are in heaven with Him, He will be still saying the same thing. The Word He has spoken isn’t going to change. If you say, ‘What about my case?’, He will say, ‘You were deceived by devils. My Word applies to you as well as to anyone else. You could have gotten what I promised in My Word’. “The just will live by faith” three times in the new testament, just in case we missed it the first time. There is no other way in the N.T. God has spoken it and it will be this way for whosoever will accept the finished work. Every Christian has to accept the finished work and trust in it for salvation (sozo: made whole)
In our self pity, blaming others, taking offenses and being selfish, we really don’t want to fight, we want God to change His Word. We want God to do something for us besides the Finished Work of Christ. Christians sometimes have that attitude.
I tell them: You don’t want to go anywhere close to Heaven with that kind of thinking. You really don’t mean that. You are getting into the area where it is, ‘Jesus plus something else’. Jesus and the Law. Jesus plus special treatment for me.
Paul said, ‘Let those people be accursed’.
That is strong language.
People get into areas contradicting the Finished Work of the Cross and they better not touch that or go there. When the Father accepted the Blood of Jesus in the Holy of Holies, the Cross became a Finished Work in Heaven and everything bows to that.
When you come saying, ‘I want something else, that wasn’t good enough for me, I want something extra’, YOU DON’T WANT TO COME TO HEAVEN WITH THAT!
Things are taking place in the Church world today where people are wanting to come to God with Jesus PLUS SOMETHING ELSE. GOD DOESN’T LIKE THAT!
Psalm 89:34 will not change. We have to come to God and acknowledge the Finished Work of Christ, then we can fight and defeat the enemy by co-laboring with Jesus using the authority He gave to us Luke 10:19 and be guaranteed the victory, because Jesus have defeated they completely. However, they are still operating on this earth until Jesus comes back, so the spiritual forces will attack us and put demonic lies into our thoughts and these strategies have worked for them in many cases, even though they are defeated.
WE HAVE TO TAKE AUTHORITY AND DOMINION OVER THESE FORCES AND RESIST THEM AND THEY WILL FLEE, WHEN THEY KNOW YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT TAKING DOMINION OVER THEM. They will not listen to lip service, why should they, they will check you out to see if you really trust the finished work.
I say to people: You tell me you have been fighting this for ten years. That you were in faith. That is impossible. First of all, you cannot fight until you know the Word of God, and you can’t be in faith if you don’t know the Word of God and I’ve just shown you that you are coming to God asking Him to do something that He has already done, it is a finished work. That is not faith and that is not fighting, so don’t be telling me you have been fighting this for ten years. You couldn’t fight if you didn’t know the Word. Now you know, now you have faith and you can fight, so stop the nonsense about yesterday, get after it and in a while, if you keep going, you will be free.
Get rid of self pity, ‘Poor old me, I have been fighting this all these years’. In reality that is just demons and they want you to blame God. The blame is not God’s. It is ours. Not spending enough time with God, not reading the Word properly in order to understand what is going on here.
The woman I was telling this to said, “Praise God, I see it now. Now I can get free.”
It is very important for people to understand what is said here in Psalms 89:34.
God won’t break His covenant nor alter the thing that has gone out of His mouth and He wants you to do the same thing. God put Himself in a corner by saying this. He absolutely isn’t going to take back or change anything that He has said. So when you say something or make a promise, you need to be like God.
I try to have people make a commitment to God, based on Psa. 89:34. I tell them to make a commitment to God and tell Him that they will break out of this bondage. That their prayer will become:
‘Thank you Jesus, I know that You have set me free. I know that it has happened, and I make a covenant with you that I will break out of this bondage that I am in. And that will bring honor to my Father that is in heaven and Father, I am making a commitment to you right now that I am coming out of this bondage. I honor the finished work of your Son, by having what He paid for, I know that faith pleases you and I am having what Jesus has paid a high price for.’
I ask them: will you do whatever it takes….because it might require that. You will do whatever it takes and will you not alter the word that has gone out of your mouth that you are going to break this bondage. You have made a covenant with God by your own words and you are now accountable to your own words. Can you be a person of your word, can you hold your word in high esteem?
Kenyon talked about this and I believe what he said is true….if you don’t hold your word in high esteem, how can you hold God’s Word in high esteem? You can’t.
I tell them: You must get to the point you are committing to the fact that Jesus Christ has set you free. You say, ‘I know that He has. I was confused before but I know that He has set me free and now I am going to work out my freedom from this bondage I have had’.
I don’t want to hear you say any more, ‘I can’t’, because the Scripture is very clear, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Now, are you just going to be religious with me or over spiritual, or are you going to take that and say, ‘Hey, if Jesus said I can do all things, then I CAN DO ALL THINGS’. I never want to hear you say, ‘I can’t’.
That is pulling down thoughts, that is part of keeping YOUR word. God wants you not to alter the words that you have spoken. If you can’t believe in your Word, how will you believe in God’s Word?.
2 Cor. 10:4: Capture and pull down thoughts and lies.
We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.
Do not let your mind wander, your mind (soul) should be under authority to your spirit (regenerated spirit) which understands and accepts the Word. We need to pay attention to EVERY THOUGH if we want to get free from oppression. Thoughts need to be checked against the word to make sure they are not lies (anything that is opposite to the word, is a lie). This will take time to develop, and most of us have been letting our minds and thoughts just wander where they will, and this will eventually get us into trouble, the enemy know how to affect our minds, they have practiced these strategies and make plans and schemes to bring us into bondage.
So, when he talks about keeping the heart with all diligence (Prov 4:23), your job is to guard your heart, your inner mind. Your mind is where the battlefield is. The enemy comes at us through our minds, every single person. I say this all the time, you’ve got a target on your back if you’re a christian. You definitely have a target on your back. We know, and I did, and most Christians did, when we first became a christian, and we kind of realized that we were in a battle, we all wanted to jump in the battle, no we didn’t.
We wanted to go as far away from the spiritual battle as we could, we just wanted to live our life’s and we wanted to keep away from that stuff. How did that work out for you? How did that work out for me? Not good, I wish I knew some of these principles from the word 30 years ago, some of the things that I know today, I wished somebody would have told me this stuff.
I went to church, why didn’t anybody tell me about these principles and that I had a target on my back, that I could have victory in my life, I might have paid more attention to the word of God, why didn’t ministers know some of this? It does upset me a little bit, because we should know it. My life would have been totally different if I knew just some of these basics from the N.T.
The attack never stops, you’ve got be diligent, you’ve got to make sure that you guard your heart and you guard your mind from attacks, because you’re under constant attack all the time, so you must get into a place where you’re actually thinking about what you’re thinking about.
We must! And we don’t! We’re not taught to. If you just think, on a daily basis, what is going through my mind, and are these thoughts from heaven or hell (why did I say that, why do I thing this, why do I think so negatively etc. etc. etc.)
And the way you can guard your mind is to obviously understand what the scriptures say, compare what you are thinking to what the word says. If you don’t understand what the scriptures really say, then it’s very hard to beat the devil, that’s the real problem. When Jesus was attacked by demons, or just like Eve in the garden, it was her thoughts that got her in trouble, the enemy got into her mind. Just like they came at Jesus, they came at him with thoughts, just like they do to you, they attack you with thoughts and lies, or twisting the word.
What did he respond with? If you don’t know, what might be the problem? He responded with the word of God. The problem is that if they come at you with something, and you don’t know the word, what are you going to do? No way, All your thoughts are yours, you have to realize that your thoughts are influenced either by heaven or hell all the time. And if you don’t understand that and you don’t realize that, that’s one of the first things you must address if you want to walk in freedom from oppression.
You must settle that in your heart. That all the time you’re being attacked, all the time, it doesn’t stop, it’s constant. Nobody’s bringing this to your attention, you just go on, and think about things for a long time, and mull over negative thoughts that are designed to bring you down (i.e. self pity, blame others, take offenses, negative thoughts about yourself, critical, judgmental etc. etc.)
The problem is each one of us are a product of what we’ve thinking about ourselves for the last 5 years “As a man thinks in his heart,so is he” That’s an absolute fact. If you want to get your future sorted out properly, if you want to get your future straight, you need to get your mind under control and in obedience to the word of God. Replace lies with truth and think positive thoughts from the word of God to change your future.
As a man thinks in his heart, he might become that. As a man thinks in his heart, it may happen that way. Is that what he says? so is he! That’s typical Jesus speaking, right? Jesus is the word, right? So as a man thinks in his heart, that’s coming from Jesus Christ. There are no if’s and buts. As a man thinks in his heart, SO ARE YOU! That’s phenomenal wisdom, it’s all over the word of God, we just kind of ignore it, or we kind of lip-service over it. And if you don’t get a hold of some of this stuff, and your mind’s in a mess, and you got messy thoughts, you have a messy life. I mean, how deep, how complicated is that? It is a simple gospel, just accept what is says ……. If you just let your mind breeze through the week, you’ll have a messed-up mind. We have to start thinking about what you’re thinking about – that’s one of the basics in walking in freedom. Start to practice pulling down thought that are opposite to what the word says about you.
This will take time, to transform your thoughts will take time and effort, you have to practice, and after a while you will know that Jesus is working with you, you will start thinking positive thought, and the word will do what it says it will do, it will renew your mind. Make a list of negative thoughts that you know were from hell, and write down the truth from the word across from the negative ones. Then read these on a daily basis and “out of the abundance of the heart let your mouth speak the truth……..
2 Cor. 10:4: Capture and pull down thoughts and lies.
We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.
[schema type=”person” name=”Pastor Pat Buckley” orgname=”Haven of Refuge Ministries” description=”Free From Depressionn” ]