The Battle For Control of Our Thoughts – Sunday Thought For The Day

Following is an excerpt from my devotional book: “Alone With Jesus: How I Start Each Day.”

Not long ago as I was driving home, a thought seemingly just popped into my mind and I immediately knew wasn’t my thought and I immediately asked God the Holy Spirit to remove the thought. This wasn’t the first time in my years as a Christian that this has happened and to my shame I confess that there have been times in the past that I not only entertained the sinful thoughts but I acted upon them.

None of us are immune to such thoughts. Sometimes they are about getting some measure of revenge, other times they may be impure, they may be constructing a conversation in our minds whereby when we see a person we have a grudge against we verbally eviscerate them. The thoughts may be about how to get the upper hand through less than honest methods. Sometimes the thought(s) can be simply how much we dislike a person or how inferior a co-worker is compared to ourselves. The possibilities are endless.

Through the years as I have grown and matured as a Christian I have come to realize that not all of those thoughts are mine; many times the enemy puts a thought into our minds knowing that we will take ownership of it instead of realizing we are being attacked and turn the thought(s) over to God asking the Holy Spirit to remove the thought from our minds.

The key here is that we as Christians must understand the nature of the invisible spiritual battle we have going on around us. And we must also grow to understand that the enemy wants us to feel guilty and feel as though we will never have victory of a particular sin that we seem to always struggle with. Maybe it is lying, may it’s watching things on computer or television that we know we should not be viewing. We must understand that the soul purpose of Satan and his minions is to separate us from God. And the most efficacious means of doing that is through our thoughts.

Keep in mind, King David’s sin was not seeing Bathsheba bathing; his sin was obsessing over what he had seen to the point of lusting after her. It was then that his thoughts turned to his desire to possess her; which was followed by the tragic consequences of his actions. Had he sought asked God to remove the very first thoughts he had after spying her, his life would have been a lot different.

But even in the aftermath of David’s great sins with Bathsheba, which included covetousness, lust of the heart, adultery, lies, thievery, and murder, God forgave David when he confessed and repented of his evil deeds. God revealed His great love for him and even though David did not go unpunished, God still called David a man after His own heart.

My friends, do not be discouraged or distraught by sinful thoughts. Understand the nature of the battle we are in, understand the objective of the enemies of our faith, and ask God to help you to take each thought captive and turn it over to Him to remove.

READ: 2 Corinthians 10:3-6
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
4 (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds),
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.