(Romans 12:2 NLT) Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
(1 Thessalonians 5:23 NIV) (23) May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God labors through your recreated spirit to influence your decision making process.
Your soul is the seat of your decision making process and is comprised of your mind, will, and your emotions.
Your body is influenced by the sensory perceptions it has to provide influences in your decision making process.
How is your soul intended to operate?
- Your Mind
The mind has the God given capacity to perceive and understand and come to a logical conclusion on something.
Measure and evaluate the information that God brings to you
Based on the information that is presented to you make a decision – hopefully the right one.
- Your Will
Based on the information that you are presented you make decisions in your life which determine both the quality of your life and your destiny.
Whether we want to admit it or not, the quality of life that we are experiencing right now is based upon the decisions that we have made in the past.
Those decisions can be right or wrong based on the information that we have at that moment and that is why it is sometimes prudent to not make a decision in haste or under pressure.
- Your Emotions
What place do the emotions have in our souls?
The information or perception that we have about something will invoke an emotional response.
OR Your emotions respond to whatever you spend time thinking about.
God’s plan is that when you receive information from Him, you spend time thinking about and evaluating that information in order to make a decision to follow His will for your life. When you make your decision, an emotional response should follow that will give you the drive and momentum to follow through on your decision to completion and fruition.
I think, I feel and therefore I choose.
How Do I Renew My Mind?
(2 Corinthians 10:3-5 KJV) (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 strong holds😉 (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;
Three Levels of Mental Activity:
- Selection of thoughts.
(Matthew 6:31 KJV) Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
You determine the thoughts that you take or reject.
You take a thought by attaching words to it and saying it out of your mouth.
(2 Corinthians 10:5b BBE) …causing every thought to come under the authority of Christ;
The thoughts that come to you that do not correspond with the standards of God’s Word; if you do not put words to them, you don’t take them.
The thoughts are in line with God’s Word or the dream He has placed in your heart, you take those by putting Words to them.
- The second level of mental activity is imagination.
Imagination – the process of mental imagery.
Mentally imaging your circumstance and the thoughts you have taken building an image of what your life can be as it relates to that thought pattern.
This is the level where behavior comes into play as you begin to visualize your life in one way or another.
(Genesis 11:6 KJV) And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
The process of visual imagery is what leads to behavior.
The process of repetitive or consistent behavior will only take place if there has been repetitive or consistent visual imagery.
Patterns of behavior that can be defined as habitual, start this way.
- The third level of mental activity is called a stronghold.
We are created by God with the ability to create habit patterns to make us more efficient so that eventually you can do things without having to consciously think about them.
Example – when we were young we had to remind ourselves or someone else remind us to go and brush our teeth in the morning.
Habit – an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become involuntary.
It literally can become an enemy fortification if Satan becomes involved.
Satan cannot read your mind but he observes our lives and can rightly deduce thought processes and imaginations that are not in line with the Word of God and he will bring his effort to bear in that area of demonstrated weakness.
He has the authority to manipulate people and circumstances that are designed to exploit your demonstrated weakness to give you repeated, continued opportunity to establish a bad habit pattern.
Example – I am not tempted to do drugs in any way so Satan does not send any drug dealers across my path to tempt me in that area because I have never demonstrated a weakness in that area.
Realize that there is an anointing available to you to help you tear down those strongholds in our lives by casting down imaginations and go through the process of renewing your mind.
How you can gain the victory over the strongholds in your life:
- Identify the stronghold.
Be honest with yourself and with God.
Deal with one stronghold at a time.
- Fast and deny the cravings of the flesh.
This magnifies the anointing in your life and the anointing of God is designed to destroy bondages in our lives.
(Isaiah 58:6 NIV) “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
(Isaiah 58:8-9a NIV) Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. (9) Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I…
- Pray and the Lord will answer.
- Push the enemy back with the Word of God.
(Luke 3:21-22 NIV) When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened (22) and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
(Luke 4:1-13 NIV) Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, (2) where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. (3) The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” (4) Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.'” (5) The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. (6) And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. (7) If you worship me, it will all be yours.” (8) Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'” (9) The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. (10) For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; (11) they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'” (12) Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” (13) When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
(Luke 4:18-19 NIV) “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, (19) to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Notice in the Lord’s temptation that Satan challenged Jesus on who He was.
- You cannot do this alone.
(James 5:16 NKJV) Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
You may need some professional help especially where the body has gained a chemical dependency.
To put the right things in your mind you must simply reverse the process:
- Focus on the Word of God.
The Word is the standard of measurement.
(Joshua 1:8 NKJV) This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
- Keep the Word of God before you and in your mouth.
- Build an imagination of your life being lived out in line with God’s Word and with different behavior.
- Stay consistent with the process – day and night.
- You can build a new habit pattern in 21 days!
Based on behavioral studies that have established that. If you stay with this process you can change in less than a month!