Month: October 2021

 

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
–2 Corinthians 10:5

How do we confront wrong thoughts? First of all, we should refuse to feel guilty when wrong thoughts come into our minds. Second, we need to resist allowing those wrong thoughts to linger. That leads to tactic number three: we need to recognize wrong thoughts and replace them with God’s thoughts. Let’s say a burglar knocks down your front door and makes his way into your house. You may not have any control over that, but once he is inside, you are certainly not going to fix him a pot of coffee and allow him to take up residence in a spare bedroom. Instead, you are going to do everything you can to get him out of your house as quickly as possible. That is what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 10:5 when he wrote, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Once wrong thoughts are in your mind, you need to recognize them as wrong thoughts, and then replace them with God’s thoughts.

How do you know if a thought that comes into your mind is from God or Satan? A few weeks ago, I gave you three filters for evaluating the messages you receive–including the thoughts that come into your mind. Ask yourself:

1. Is this thought true?
2. Does this thought motivate me toward faith and obedience, or toward fear and disobedience?
3. Does this temptation in any way contradict the clear teaching of God’s Word?

The problem is, after recognizing a wrong thought, most of us just do everything we can not to think about it. But that approach is absolutely useless in spiritual warfare. It is not enough to recognize wrong thoughts; we need to replace them with God’s thoughts. That is exactly what Jesus did when He was being tempted by Satan in Luke 4. Satan said, in essence, “You do not have what You need to be satisfied in life. Why don’t You turn these stones into bread?” Did Jesus try to put that thought out of His mind? No, He responded to that wrong thought with the right thought by quoting from Scripture: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone’” (v. 4). Jesus did the same thing for the other temptations Satan put into His mind–He replaced those wrong thoughts with the right thoughts from God’s Word. That is how we “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

Colossians 2:9  For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

The philosophy that threatened the Colossian Christians was a strange eclectic mix of early Gnosticism, Greek philosophy, local mystery religions, and Jewish mysticism. The philosophy threatening the Colossian Christians was so dangerous because it was not obviously sinful and licentious. It was high-sounding and seemed highly intelligent. Philosophy: “It had originally a good meaning, the love of wisdom, but is used by Paul in the sense of vain speculation. The Colossian heresy promoted itself as traditional. It could trace some or many of its ideas back to traditions among the Jews or the Greek philosophers or both. Paul here warned that the tradition of men has no equal authority to the word of God. Common to both Jews and pagans was the basic idea of cause and effect and in a sense, it rules nature and the minds of men. We live under the idea that we get what we deserve; when we are good, we deserve to receive good; when we are bad, we deserve to receive bad. Paul warned the Colossians to not subject themselves to this grace-eliminating kind of thinking and to consider themselves dead to it.

 

So I went to the angel and said to him, “Give me the little book.” And he said to me, “Take and eat it.”
Revelation 10:9

 

The Bible is often compared to food, to bread, to milk, to meat, and to nourishment. It is the proper diet for the inner self, and it’s necessary to keep us from spiritual starvation. People today are starving for spiritual truth, but many aren’t even aware they are hungry. There is a famine of the hearing of the Word of God (Amos 8:11).

One of the best ways to stimulate the appetite of others is letting them see how much you enjoy your daily bread. Keep an open Bible nearby all the time. Read it frequently. Quote it often. Trust it always. And find every opportunity to share the Bread of Life with others.

 

From Pathway to Victory, Dr. Jeffress

The tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
–Matthew 4:3-4

Growing up, when I heard the story of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness, I had in my mind that the reason He quoted Scripture was to make Satan run away. I thought, “The Word of God is such a powerful weapon that whenever you quote Scripture, Satan just runs in the opposite direction.” Hogwash! Satan is not afraid of the Bible. In fact, he knows the Bible better than most Christians do. When he was tempting Jesus to jump down from the pinnacle of the temple, he even quoted the Psalms. But Jesus quoted Scripture right back to him, not for Satan’s benefit, but for His own benefit. Quoting Scripture gave Jesus the strength to recognize Satan’s lie and replace it with God’s truth, so that He could act on that truth. That is what He was modeling for us. When wrong thoughts come into our lives, we need to know God’s Word so well that we are able to call up the appropriate Scripture and replace those wrong thoughts with God’s thoughts.

For example, let’s say you are overwhelmed with a particular fear related to your job, or to your future, or to your family. That fear has paralyzed you. It is not enough to say, “I am just not going to think about it.” Instead, you need to take that wrong thought–that fear–and replace it with God’s thought. Call up 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.” Or Philippians 4:6: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Maybe you are concerned about your financial future, and you are thinking about money way too often. What do you do with those thoughts of greed? It is not enough to say, “I am not going to think about money.” Instead, quote 1 Timothy 6:7-9: “For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.”

Maybe you find yourself attracted to somebody to whom you are not married. You begin to wonder, “What would it be like to be with that person?” It is not enough to say, “I am just not going to think about it anymore.” You have to confront that temptation with the truth of Proverbs 6:32: “The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense; he who would destroy himself does it.”

Do you see the pattern here? Recognize wrong thoughts and replace them with God’s thoughts. That’s what Paul meant when he said, “Having girded your loins with truth” (Ephesians 6:14).

From Turning Point, Dr. Jeremiah

 

“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord.”
Amos 8:11

G. Campbell Morgan once preached a sermon titled “Famine for the Word of God.” He said: “It is possible there is someone in this congregation who is living in the midst of a famine for the Word of God. It may be even as I attempt to deliver the message there is nothing in it for you. Words, empty words, a meaningless occasion, an opportunity for curiosity. You are in the midst of a great famine, famine for the Word of God….You have become hardened to the touch of God, unconscious of the fact of God; and though His Word is living and quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword, it fails to affect you.”  Nutritionists tell us that when we lose our appetite for food, it may be from anemia, cancer, diabetes, medication, depression, or a host of other causes. When we lose our appetite for Scripture, it’s because of spiritual sickness. Ask God to give you a renewed appetite for His Word, and learn to devour it daily.