We are at war!
For, although we live in the world, we do not fight battles as the world does. The weapons with which we fight are not of the world, but have the divine power to overthrow strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty thing that rises up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to submit to Christ. 2 Cor. 10:3-5.
Introduction
We’re not just involved in a football game, a video game, a basketball game, or a playground. We are in the midst of a war. We are at war and the battlefield is your mind! Satan wants to control your every thought. Our responsibility is to fight those evil thoughts and think about Christ. Bring your thoughts to obedience to Christ. Our weapons are power through God. It’s the Bible, prayer, and through our surrender to the power of the Holy Spirit. What do you think? What’s going through your mind? What or who is controlling your thought patterns? A Christian must keep his mind on the things of God.
Our Mind
Thoughts are powerful to hurt us or to hurt us. In Proverbs 23:7, ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. How do you think when you’re alone? Who controls your mind? Many are alone with their own thoughts. What do you talk to yourself about?
It is better to be patient than powerful; it is better to dominate oneself than to conquer a city. Prov. 16:32.
You will keep in perfect peace all those who trust in you, all who concentrate their thoughts on you! Isa. Acts 26:3.
Our Carnal Mind is at Enmity against God.
Your mind must be disciplined. He must be taught to think about what God’s will is. Your mind doesn’t want to do anything that God wants to do with us, for us, or through us. We are alienated and separated from God. Your mind made that decision. He will not submit to God’s will.
For the carnal mind is enmity against God… Rom. 8:7
This is because the corrupt nature has a hostile attitude toward God. He refuses to place himself under the authority of God’s standards because he cannot. Rom. 8:7
And you, who were once alienated and enemy in your mind by evil deeds, but now He has been reconciled. Col. 1:21
We have a blinded mind
The devil has supernatural power to blind your mind if you let him. I have seen the power of the enemy not only with unbelievers, but with believers who let their minds be taken with darkness. I have seen Christian men and women give place to the devil in their minds and end up in terrible situations. These men and women came from Christian homes, but they gave rise to the devil and experienced terrible situations in their lives. They are taken captive by Satan. The Holy Spirit who can open your eyes to the truth by letting Him. He’s a gentleman and won’t force you.
“whose minds the god of this age has cut off, who do not believe, so that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, may shine upon them.”
2 Cor. 4:4
Dubious Mind
Many people, even Christians, constantly doubt God’s goodness and care for them. They are always worried about tomorrow.
So don’t worry about what you have to eat or drink; stop tormenting yourselves. Luke 12:29
Double-minded person
How many Christians call God their Father a liar by saying yes one minute and the next letting circumstances rule their minds and lives? When you doubt, you sin. When you hesitate, you sin. Many are torn right now between their desire to love and serve God, but they feel the pull of their sinful desires. You must choose who you will follow. There is a broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow road that leads to eternal life. In that narrow door is the Cross of Jesus. And it will all be decided first on what you will do about Christ in your mind. Is he a liar? He’s crazy? Or is He the Son of the living God? You must choose.
“Everything that is not of Faith is Sin.” Rom. 14:23
But let him pray with faith, without doubting, for he who doubts is like the waves of the sea, tossed and tossed to and fro by the wind. Let him who is like this not think that he will receive anything from the Lord; He is indecisive and fickle in everything he does. James 1:6-8
How do we fix our minds?
Fixation on our minds involves discipline. When we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, our spirit is born in a new way. We are new creations and we have a new spirit that lives in an ungenerated body and an ungenerated mind. In our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ we must take command of our minds. As we think, we’ll talk. And as we speak, so we will live. What comes out of our mouth is what we’ve been thinking. Our words are localized, we are speaking things of the world and we are either speaking our allegiance to God.
1. Renew
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may be able to prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Rom. 12:1-2
2. As a Christian you must know what belongs to you.
His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us to glory and virtue. In this way great and precious promises are given to us, that by these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world through lust. And besides this, using all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to the knowledge of virtue, and to the knowledge of temperance, and to temperance, and to the patience of godliness, and to the brotherly goodness of godly goodness , and to brotherly goodness charity. tags. For if these things are in you and abound, they cause you to be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he who lacks these things is blind and cannot see far away, and he has forgotten that he was purged of his old sins. Therefore, brethren, give diligence all the more that your calling and election may be sure, for if you do these things, you will never fall. 2 Peter 1:2-11
3. Think on purpose
Finally, brethren, anything that’s true, anything that’s honest, anything that’s just, anything that’s pure, anything that you think about and the peace of God is going to keep you.
Phil.4:8-9.