Your thoughts have a massive effect on your life. Every single day, your thoughts are either running the moment or allowing you to enjoy the moment. The truth is, you simply can’t have a positive life with a negative mind. God created your mind for life and peace, but the enemy fights hard to distort our thinking. Understand, today there’s still a battle going on in your mind, and it’s creating either defeat or victory in your life. Ephesians 6:17 tells us to “Put on the helmet of salvation.” What does a helmet do? It protects your head. Do you see what the helmet of salvation is? This is Jesus’ protection for your mind! The enemy is after your thoughts. He’s after your mindset. Your mind is the full on battlefield. And Jesus says, “Let me protect your mind!” The enemy cannot steal your salvation, so he attacks your thoughts instead. Romans 1:28 warns of what happens when God’s creation no longer seeks Jesus for protection over their thoughts. It says, “And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right.” Their thoughts were wrong so their actions were wrong. Why were their thoughts wrong? Because they no longer gave any effort to seeking God and God gave them over to their worthless mindset. So the battlefield of their mind was lost to the enemy. You eventually move in the direction of your strongest or repetitive thoughts. The Message translation says it like this, “Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose. They made life hell on earth.” Who made life hell on earth? The people did. What caused it? Their unprotected mind and thoughts that ran wild. Whew, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want God to quit bothering me. I don’t want him to quit waking me up. I don’t want him to quit convicting me. I don’t want him to quit giving me that icky feeling in my spirit when I’m out of alignment. Lord, don’t quit bothering me! Bother the heck out of me. Don’t let me sleep if I am wrong! Have you seen a life where all hell broke loose? We all have seen that example. We’ve seen a life ruined because of a worthless mindset. We’ve witnessed the battlefield of the mind defeated by the enemy. A life filled with potential that falls so short. But understand, Jesus always wanted to protect that mind! Jesus always wanted to fight that battle. Jesus always had victory for them. But when we don’t choose Him, our minds go unprotected. Girl, put on the helmet of salvation! Make time for God so he can protect you from the battle over your mind. Your mind was never meant to lead you – it was meant to be lead by the Spirit. Our minds are wild little beasts. The moment you tell yourself not to think of something, what do you do … you start thinking of the exact thing you just said NOT to think about. I often teach how to harness the power of your thoughts using the example of a refrigerator. Close your eyes and think about your kitchen right now. Think about all the details of your kitchen, just don’t think about your refrigerator. You can think about everything but your refrigerator. Think of your kitchen, just not your refrigerator. Your entire kitchen and it’s details are what I want you to think about, just as long as you’re not thinking about your refrigerator. Now, what were you thinking about? Your refrigerator! Isn’t it crazy how the more you say “don’t think about that”, the more you DO think about that exact thing. Sounds a whole lot like what Paul is saying later in Romans 7:15, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I dow what I hate.” He’s saying, I keep thinking about the things I don’t want to think about. I keep dong the things I don’t want to do. I keep saying things I know I shouldn’t say. I can’t control myself and I can’t change myself. Finally he says in verse 24, “Oh what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this …” What will change us? What will help us control this mind that continually thinks about the very thing we don’t want it to think about? What will help us win this war on the battlefield of our mind? Let’s return to your kitchen to see! Close your eyes again, and think about your kitchen. You can think about all the details of your kitchen, but I specifically want you to think about your sink this time. In your kitchen is your sink. What color is your sink? Is it white? Is it silver? What does your faucet look like? Does your faucet have a knob for hot and cold individually, or just one knob in the middle. Do you have one of those detachable sprayer things? Is your soap dispenser built into the sink? Which side of the sink is the garbage disposal? Is your sink currently empty of full? Okay, now open your eyes and tell me what you were thinking about. What? Your kitchen sink! Precisely! And what were you NOT thinking about this time? Your refrigerator. This time, it took absolutely no effort to ignore your refrigerator. Now, why was that? Because I gave you something specific to think about instead. I offered you a new mindset. A new focus for your attention. Your mind always moves toward what you magnify. Girls, that’s what JESUS does for us! Do I believe in the power of positive thoughts – absolutely. But it’s so much more than that. Victory isn’t found in thinking more positively – Victory is found in thinking more spiritually. Thoughts led by the Spirit bring us breakthrough and victory! Thoughts led by the Spirit radically change our life! Romans 8:9 says, “BUT YOU ARE NOT CONTROLLED BY YOUR SINFUL NATURE. YOU ARE CONTROLLED BY THE SPIRIT IF YOU HAVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD LIVING IN YOU.” The Spirit of God lives within us through Jesus. And Jesus is our helmet of salvation. He protects our minds. When our minds are right, our actions can be right! We no longer have to do what we don’t want to do! We no longer have to think all the things we don’t want to think. Jesus has rescued us from the flesh that causes us to resist what is good. He is the only answer. His Spirit living within you changes your mindset! This is how the war on the battlefield of your mind is fought and won. JESUS! Remember, what happens to us when we no longer bother with acknowledging and seeking God … God stops bothering us. We’re turned over to a worthless mindset. We’re filled with thoughts of all we don’t want, and pulled right into those thoughts and create a living hell, doing all the things we know we don’t want to do. But when we seek God, when we acknowledge him, we are given a new mindset led by the Spirit. We no longer think about what we don’t want, but about what we do want. Our thoughts are Spirit led! Our thoughts are filled with goodness, and our actions flow from that goodness. We are able to take our wild thoughts captive and make them obedient to Jesus! Naturally, we will no longer dwell on the things we don’t want to because we’ve replaced it with the things of the Spirit. You don’t have to avoid thinking about your refrigerator when I redirect you to your kitchen sink. Jesus redirects us to our sink. Jesus doesn’t merely remove bad thoughts, he replaces them with life-giving truth. To the good story he has for us. To the power he has given us to change. To the mind that is set on him. There’s a battle going on in your mind. The enemy of your soul wants to keep you stuck in a pattern of doing what you don’t want to do, and not doing what you do want to do. He wants to make you feel powerless and out of control. He thrives on this chaos and brings his hell to your corner of this earth… IF YOU LET HIM. Don’t let him. Devil, you’re out. Jesus, you’re in! My thoughts are fully on you! I find my strength in you. I put on the helmet of salvation and receive protection for my mind. Through his Spirit, I have the power to control and direct my thoughts. The last paragraph of Romans 7 reflects exactly what we battle in our minds and therefore in our choices. (Reading from the MSG translation): “What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? NOW here comes the answer with the final verse in chapter 7 and the opening verse in chapter 8: “The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. With the arrival of Jesus that fateful dilemma is resolved. A new power is in operation.” My mind has been reset by Jesus, and Jesus brings LIFE! Now living within us is God’s Holy Spirit who gives us a holy conviction when our thoughts are out of alignment. That’s where that icky feeling comes from, and thank God for it! And now you know, that’s God’s redirection of our saved mind to get in alignment with him. To help us stop thinking about our refrigerator, and think about our story. To shift our thoughts and therefore shift our entire perspective, attitude, words and actions! Today, practice allowing God’s spirit to help you shift your thoughts from negative to positive. From what’s wrong to what’s right. From what you don’t want to what absolutely beautiful thing God is doing all around you that you will so
