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I am so excited to write this post today. I have just digested the last part of Beth Moore study from Breaking free, on our thought life. This part is not so much about idolatry but grows from the ideas of the thoughts that control us are idolatrous. See last post.
This post is about freedom.
Freedom always captivates my heart as a glorious idea and freedom in my mind, as a Christan is thrilling.
Romans 8:5
" those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what the nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit ( of God) have their minds set on what the Spirit ( of God) desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace: ....."
It goes on but I will stop just there.
These words from Romans are profound when we are thinking about the lies and 'strongholds' in our minds. Those thoughts that we just can not seem to let go of. These can be things like lies regarding who we are as women.
Thoughts around self worth; being productive and full filled; finding worth in something other than God;
Thoughts might be around fear, anxiety,hopelessness.
Thoughts might be revengeful, unloving, unforgiving and even hateful towards someone who has and is hurting you.
As hard as we try to forgive someone we might very well still be obsessed in our thinking about that person. In other words, our thoughts are captivated by an obsession- by wrong thinking.
There are countless examples that each of us could place in a list and with God's help , as I said in my last post on this subject, I think we can begin to see where we have idols and lies controlling our thinking.
The extremely helpful thing that Beth Moore has done in her study on this topic, is to set out practical ways to walk towards freedom of thought.
We, as Christan's, want our minds to be set on Christ Jesus so we can live according to the spirit and have minds and desires full of peace and life. Life and peace in our lives is the very real fruit on offer to every believer who sets their mind on the things in line with God's Spirit.
What a wonderful end product.
The problem is we really need to do the hard work in between and we need to let Jesus strengthen and help us on this journey.
We left the practical work last time with ...
1. recognising the lies that hold our minds captive - with God's revealing help
2. confessing these t Him and standing in agreement with Him on these lies.
Now comes the fun part.....
We need to really attack those lies. We need to tear them down and replace them with something that will stand and hold forever.
The Truth of God's Word!!
Just a word on these lies. We often believe and hold ideas to be true because of our nature and our life experiences and hurts. Childhood brokenness is a futile ground for wrong thinking in adulthood. But we have a very real enemy in Satan who is actively encouraging us to believe lies too. He is real and active.
Our third enemy is the world. The things we watch and read can fill our minds with wrong desires and fuel the lies we have.
The world
the flesh and
the devil
are our very real enemies
We can not simply just recognise the lies that hold us captive and begin to tear them down and leave it at that. We need to replace those lies with The Truth.
God's word holds the Truth out to us. We need to really work hard and do business with God and his word if we are wanting to be free from lies that control our thoughts.
Beth is extremely helpful in this regard.
Once we recognise our own particular stronghold of the mind we can set about reading scripture and writing down any verses that rebuke, help, encourage and build up. We can make a little booklet or card system of these particular verses and then she encourages us to take them with us everywhere until we are able to think right in relation to this particular lie.
We need God's very real help and his word of life to transform our minds. If we do not do this we will simply default to our nature, brokenness and the things we believe are true regardless of whether they are or not.
The exciting thing about this process of change and liberation of the mind is that God is at work. He puts his glorious stamp on this process and empowers us with his Spirit who always seeks to build us up and not to destroy us. Even when the lies we hold are painfully ripped down .
I think that the process of taking every though captive to Jesus is actually one of the heart themes of being a Christan. it is how we can grow in real godliness and have God sanctify us and change us to be more and more like Jesus. We need to be committed and we need to preserver and even those we need to ask for. The Spirit is willing but our flesh is week.
I am thrilled and confident that our Great God - Jesus Christ - can do this for and in me and so for you too dear reader.
Let us commit together to pressing on with God and his real , active, truthful word as our food for our thoughts.
Some of us might to think through the changes we might need in things like...
watching TV shows that are unhelpful and feed our lies and reading novels and magazines that do the same.
We might need to develop real and better friendships with people who seek to encourage us in this endeavoured and perhaps end some that are ungodly, hurtful and unhelpful.
We might need to join a bible study where people can hold us accountable.
We will need God's help and we will need to read, read and read God's word
and meditate on it all the time!!
Take heart and press on!
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