(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.
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:
- Thoughts
- Imaginations
- Strongholds
Our thoughts are a process of moving through the circumstances of our everyday life.
There is no such thing as a blank mind. Your mind is in operation all the time.
- The first level of mental activity is the 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.
This is the level where behavior comes into play as you begin to visualize your life in one way or another.
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.
- The third level of mental activity is called a stronghold.
Habit – an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become involuntary.
It literally can become an enemy fortification if Satan becomes involved.
God created you to be a creature of good habits.
How you can gain the victory over the strongholds in your life:
- Identify the stronghold.
- 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)
- Pray and the Lord will answer.
- Push the enemy back with the Word of God.
Jesus resisted the enemy with the Word of God in His mouth.
- You cannot do this alone.
Imagination will breed expectation.
What you imagine the most you will begin to expect to happen in your life.
How do you cultivate a greater level of expectation?
- Meditation in the Word of God – imagining yourself going beyond the barriers of pre-disposed limitations.
(Joshua 1:8 AMP) This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous (break out), and then you shall deal wisely and have good success.
(Psalms 1:1-4 NKJV) Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; (2) But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. (3) He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. (4) The ungodly are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind drives away. (have no root)
(Mark 4:14-20 NKJV) The sower sows the word. (15) And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. (16) These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; (17) and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble. (18) Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, (19) and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. (20) But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”
Meditating in God’s Word is what causes the Word to become rooted in your heart.
Hope – To look forward to with confidence or expectation:
Remember, Hebrews 11: 1 says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
(Isaiah 40:31 NKJV) (31) But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
The Hebrew word for expected or expectation means as in a binding cord that attaches something to you.
(Proverbs 24:13-14 AMP) My son, eat honey, because it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. (14) So shall you know skillful and godly Wisdom to be thus to your life; if you find it, then shall there be a future and a reward, and your hope and expectation shall not be cut off.
Psalms 1:1-3 NKJV
(1) Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
(2) But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.
(3) He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.
In this scripture we see a progression of life and our behavior:
- What you SIT and listen to the most of will determine what you STAND for.
If you never learn to sit and listen you will never be able to stand.
Sitting implies listening and learning.
- What you stand for will determine how you walk in life.
- You can then walk out what you stand for and this determines the quality of your life.
Your actions follow what you meditate or think on the most of.
How does wrong thinking work?
This process that he uses to place people in bondage can be reversed and used in the positive.
- It begins with a suggestion; a brief idea.
- He follows that up with an open contradiction.
- He follows that up with an imagination.
- An imagination leads to action which will lead to a stronghold.
Satan is not a creator; he is a copier and perverts what is already created.
God is the Originator of this process so let’s see Him use this in action:
Judges 6:11-12 NKJV
(11) Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. (12) And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
- God begins with a suggestion:
The angel shows up and gives him a suggestion: You are a mighty man of valor.
Judges 6:13-14 NKJV (13) Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” (14) Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
- God then contradicts what Gideon says by saying what is contrary to Gideon’s circumstances.
Judges 6:19-21 NKJV (19) So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot; and he brought them out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented them. (20) The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. (21) Then the Angel of the LORD put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the LORD departed out of his sight.
- God then does something to stimulate his imagination.
Judges 6:24-27 NKJV (24) So Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it The-LORD-Is-Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. (25) Now it came to pass the same night that the LORD said to him, “Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it; (26) and build an altar to the LORD your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.” (27) So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the LORD had said to him. But because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night.
- Gideon stayed with his imagination, buys in, and is able to do what God tells him to do.
This process will work exactly the same for us:
- Spend enough time in God’s Word for Him to make a suggestion of faith to you.
- Meditate on that suggestion over and over. (“You are a mighty man of valor”)
- Contradict boldly every one of those thoughts that are contrary with the Word of God.
- Imagine your life being experienced that way that God wants you to live.
Imagine breakthroughs. Imagine getting a raise. Imagine a great marriage. Imagine good, strong, godly children.
Begin to put your words to it.
Behavior will follow!