Satan wants to fill our minds with negative thoughts and worry about our daily circumstances. He wants us to mull over in our minds all the times we have been hurt. He knows that if he can get our minds full of self-pity and negative thoughts, we will not be able to experience the fullness of God’s power.
Satan wants us:
To doubt God and His sovereignty.
To make us think that we are in control of our own circumstances.
To make us think that we can live our lives independent of God.
To focus on ourselves and our desires for material things.
To inflate our egos and make us prideful.
If we could only see the schemes that Satan has launched on us to try to control our thoughts.
Before we accepted Christ, we all had negative thoughts and patterns ingrained into our minds. I have often wondered why God didn’t erase all those negative thoughts at salvation, but He didn’t make us robots. He wants us to choose to love and serve Him. The Bible tells us in Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.
We still have to deal with old thoughts and habits. They weren’t erased at salvation. They are still a part of our flesh. But…praise the Lord, we are not just a product of our pasts. We are new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), and we can get the victory over our old habits and thoughts. Moment by moment, we can choose to yield our minds to the Lord.
Elizabeth Brown in her book The Joy Choice gives a comparison of wrong thoughts verses right thoughts.
Wrong thoughts make you self-centered; right thoughts make you others-centered. Choosing actions and thoughts that build character is not always easy, for unhealthy thoughts come in through logical doors. Holes in our character are caused as we justify what we want to do when we know it is not what we should do. We are never tempted to do wrong by things that seem unreasonable. The first instinct against wrong is rejection, but if is nursed in the mind long enough, the mind begins to find ways to rationalize that it is acceptable.
Although Satan’s aim is to infiltrate our thoughts with his thoughts and promote his lies, we can experience more of the fullness of God’s power by allowing Him to control our thoughts and actions.
If you are struggling today with having a right attitude or thinking right thoughts, here are a few suggestions that could help you experience more of the fullness of God’s power.
Daily Steps to Maintain Right Attitudes and Experience God’s Fullness
1. Recognize negative thoughts and emotions as they come into your mind.
2. Confess them as sin and repent of them.
3. Give over to God all your past hurts and injustices.
4. Get into the Word and reprogram the truth back into the place where Satan has placed lies.
5. Now walk by the faith of God’s Word. Realize that He has cleansed you and restored you.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
6. Present your body to the Lord.
Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God…be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
7. Deny yourself.
Matthew 16:24 Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
8. Be willing to do what God asks you to do. Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
9. Moment by moment, take every negative thought captive. II Corinthians 10:5 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;
Sometimes it seems impossible to experience God’s power, but history gives us personal testimonies of those who hungered for this power and experienced wonderful transformations in their Christian lives.
Is this power some miracle that God gives to only a select few? I don’t think so…I believe we can experience God’s power in our lives today?