Today I want to equip you and also pray that God will begin to bring healing, not just to your body, but begin to bring healing to our mind also.
Sometimes the enemy uses our past experiences to build strongholds in our mind because he want to destroy you. He will use all the circumstances that you are in to destroy you. He will use the sickness in the body to afflict your mind, he will use relationship problems to harass your mind, and today you need to decide to change your mindset, because only a transformed mind can experience the best of God.
Most of life’s battles are won or lost in your mind.
I have good news for you! The good news is that God’s Word is powerful not just to help you but to transform and renew your mind with truth.
You will not achieve the best of God if your mind is not transformed and renewed with the Truth of the Word of God.
Our thoughts are powerful. They change our perspective, our decisions, and influence our habits.
It’s time to decide to change your thinking so God can change your life.
3 “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV
The word translated as “Power” it’s the Greek word δύναμις : “DUNAMIS,” and it means explosive, miraculous power of God. We get the word dynamite from this.
The weapons that we fight with, they have divine power to demolish and to destroy strongholds!
What are strongholds? In simple terms, strongholds are thoughts, arguments and reasonings.
The devil our spiritual enemy wants to attack our mind and create strongholds of deception. So you believe something that is not true and that takes you away from God’s healing, His calling and promises.
The devil tries to shape your thinking. One lie at a time, until you’re a prisoner of deception.
What does the devil tell you?
You can’t trust people, you will never succeed, you’re never going to have a good marriage, God doesn’t hear your prayers, God doesn’t care about you, you’re never going to make a difference, you’re always going to be broke, you will never be set free from your addiction, you will never going to lose weight, you will never be set free from pornography, you never will be free from cigarettes, and on and on. Some people have had even suicidal thoughts, destructive thoughts such as you have no value, why are you living, take your life!
Many Christians are stuck in spiritual bondages because they think like “Elephants”.
I want to give an example.
How many of you have you ever seen a circus elephant tied to a stake?
Did you know that you can keep an Elephant captive with only a short rope tied to a stake in the ground?
How does such weak device bind and hold down a large and strong Elephant?
Of course the Elephant could free itself easily with only a fraction of his strength!
How do they keep the Elephant bound in this way?
Every since the elephant was young and small it was tied in place by a stake and a rope. When the small elephant was weaker the rope was strong enough to hold it down.
Now the elephant is big and stronger but it stays in place simply because it doesn’t know it can break the rope and go free.
The only power the enemy has over you is the power to deceive you with his lies which are strongholds built to disrupt your life.
When a believer knows who they are in Christ and lives accordingly, they live in freedom!
Many of us were stuck to many “strings” when we were children and today we need to free ourselves from these lies that have imprisoned your mind to your past.
How many fearful Christians, afraid to face circumstances, have been imprisoned by satan in the past and are still imprisoned by the same sins.
I’m here to say God’s Word is powerful not just to help you but to transform and renew your mind with truth. It’s time to decide to change your thinking so God can change your life.
Some believers comes to me and say: pastor if God would only change these circumstances then my life would be perfect!
But the scripture says differently and the opposite. Romans 12:2 Says that your mind has to change first so that your life can be transformed.
Don’t wait for your circumstances to change before you change your mindset.
God said: change your mindset. You have to work on your mind.
God gives us His Word, God gives us the Church, God gives us the Holy Spirit, so that our mind changes.
The real reason the Lord wants us to manage our minds and wants to bring healing to our minds is because our life always heads in the direction of our most dominant, strongest thoughts.
Your life is currently following the direction of your most dominant, strongest thoughts.
Where those thoughts are at, that’s exactly where your emotions, your body, and everything is headed to.
If those thoughts are: I’m a failure, my life sucks, everyone around me hates me, I’m rejected, I’m lonely.
Many times these thoughts are sent by demons. If we hold on to them it will open the door to them. So demons will begin to torture your life.
In the book of acts Peter rebuke a believer in the church:
“Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself.”
Acts of the Apostles 5:3 NLT
A believer accepts a thought, an idea of satan: “this money belongs to God but you can give less and say that you received less”! (The Bible says it was Satan who put this idea in Ananias’s mind)
Also another one of Jesus’ disciples accepted an idea of satan.
2 “And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him. 27 Now after the piece of bread, Satan entered him. Then Jesus said to him, John 13:2, 27
First satan put a thought in the mind of Judas to betray Jesus, and few verses later the Bible says satan entered Judas.
So satan will send you a thought, and ideas, if you receive it, feed it, nurture it, then you become enslaved and he will destroy your live, your family, finances and spiritual life.
My friend, satan uses thoughts to harass christians. If we hold on to them, these thoughts take root in our minds, they begin to develop a life of it’s own in our mind.
They became stronghold mindset. They go into your subconscious thinking. Then you can’t stop anymore, you become addicted.
God wants to liberate us from that !
What are you eating?? What are you drinking? A lot of christians don’t drink but their mind does! A lot of christians don’t smoke or use drugs but their mind does!
What is the food or the liquor or drugs has the devil been giving to your mind?
Which news medias have been intoxicating your mind with and causing things to seem darker then they are, worse than they are, making you feel terrible?
Where have you been feeding yourself? What is the food and drink that you have given to your mind?
How can you have a great, good life wasting your time on social media? wasting your time playing games on the internet or destroying your mind and life on pornography.
What are you fuelling your mind when with?
Mind management is the priority of a winner because your victory starts within you, not around you!
I want to give you very simple practical steps on how to shift your mindset.
1- We have to take responsibility for our thoughts.
Please understand, you can’t change your mindset until you take responsibility for your thoughts.
You can’t change your mindset in an instant! There is no prayer that can change your poverty into wealth. There is no prayer that can change your bike into a motorbike. There is no anointing oil that can change your mindset.
You can be delivered quickly, you can be physical healed but no one can change mindset instantly.
First start with taking responsibility for your thoughts. Many people are waiting on God to change their mindset and saying that they can’t control their thoughts. This is where the problems begin.
We have to take responsibility for our thoughts.
You have to control your thoughts and your mind.
The Bible says:
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Philippians 4:8 NIV
Think about such things ! You have the control of your mind , think about things that are excellent !
“For as man thinks in his heart, so is he.”
Proverbs 23:7 NKJV
As man thinks, so he is. You are the product of your mind, you will receive what your mind believes.
You can control your thoughts. There is a boss and there is an authority in me and in you. You have to say no and yes for your thoughts.
2- Capture your thoughts before they make you their captive.
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV
King James Version says : Casting down imagination and every hight think …..
Capture your thoughts before they make you their captives. You can’t make thoughts captive until you capture them. Capture them meaning: become aware of them. (Ephesians 6:16,17)
Before we can make our thoughts captive we first have to became aware of them. And the best way to do that is to stop for a moment, take a pause, and breathe and just observe.
Why are these thoughts thinking on their own, without you permission?
Who planted that ? Who injected this into my mind? Where is the basis for that?
What you just did there is you captured them. The “boss” saw somebody misbehaving. You only can captivate what you’ve already captured.
But if you’re not aware that they are lonely thoughts or negative thoughts you can’t subdue them because you don’t even recognise them.
When you notice rejection thoughts, or anxious thoughts, this is not only products of your imagination – Paul says, that “fiery dart from enemy that is flying” (Ephesians 6:16) and you are seeing it, you captured it.
You have to say: Okay, you’re not going any further. You stop right there. You abort that line of thought. You remove that and you say : No, this doesn’t go any further.
You can’t captivate it until you catch it, until you are aware of it.
3- Don’t focus on emptying your mind.
Emptying your mind is just a technique of eastern meditation. You have to fill it. Emptying your mind is passive. Filling up your mind is active.
Emptying your mind makes you susceptible to demoniac infiltration.
Filling your mind makes you powerful because you can push away any evil infiltration.
Emptying your mind can lead to demonisation but filling your mind leads you to the filling of the Holy Spirit.
The Bible never teaches us this passive technique to just relax, and think about nothing. That’s very dangerous. That’s why so many people get depressed, anxious, sad or suicidal thoughts.
You need to fill your mind intentionally, actively, aggressively and purposefully.
There is a war out there, You can’t walk around without a weapon. There is a spiritual world around us, there is a war zone, and you need to feel active and be active.
Many people can not change their mind simply because they’re lazy!
They are not active with their thoughts, they are not active against what is happening there. They are just playing games on their phones, just surfing on internet and have a relaxing spiritual life.
We are in a spiritual warfare, God wants to train your hands for war and your fingers for battle.
God wants you to train your thoughts, to raise and direct your thoughts.
You’ve probably heard a saying: An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. So, Come on, get busy !
There are many things to be done in the Kingdom of God. Come to Bible studies, come to Conquerors School, come the our Cell Meetings, to our prayer meetings, get busy and don’t be lazy!
Read, Study, Meditate, Memorise and Confess the Scripture.
I don’t have time to be sad ! My life is so busy that I have no time to be anxious or depressed!
I’m happy doing the work of the ministry, my mind is concentrate to love God , to serve him and be please for God and when you take care of the things of God, God will take care of your things.
4 “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds”
5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV
Have you noticed that there is no passivity here?
“The weapons of our warfare”. You’re in a War and you have to bring “spiritual weapons” ! You have to bring the scripture, you have to know the scripture.
Your weapon is the word of the Spirit. You have to put God’s Word inside of you!
You have to turn your thoughts into captivity. You have got to be aggressive.
Please: Take every thought captive like a prisoner of war! Sometimes thoughts are transgressors. They need to be treated as such ! They need to be enslaved.
If you don’t make them into your captives, you will become a captive of them.
You either take your thoughts captive or you will be a captive of your thoughts.
You either turn your thoughts to God or your thoughts will rule your life and your thoughts will dictate the direction of your life.
You have to take control of your thoughts or your thoughts will control your life!
You have to be aggressive towards bad thoughts, to take them captives, to pull them up and shoot them down. The only thing that Christians can shoot down are bad thoughts.
Put your weapon to good use. You have got to go to war !
Some Christians are lazy: I want my mind to relax. After a long day of work I just want to sit still, relax, scroll on the internet and Netflix and chill. If you do that , your life will be passive and miserable.
There is no prayer, there is no rebuking that will fix your laziness only being in control of your thoughts and mind.
God bless and keep you!