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Posts Tagged ‘thought-life’

Day Forty-Eight, Under-the-Influence

Posted in Under-the-Influence, Devo Shorts 2011, tagged , , , , , on September 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Day Forty-Eight

Two-Sided Destruction

“For [then] He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.”

Ps 91:3

          Do you know there are two sides to the offensive attacks of the enemy?  One side – brings an attack from the outside.  It is like the fowler’s snare –it presents the attack against your flesh (your body and soul).  These are the kinds of threats we are most aware of — muggers, murderers, even ones who simply desire to mistreat or harm you or speak evil of you – they are the more obvious agents prompted by the enemy.  Yet the Word of God is replete with instances where it shows that as we dwell in the Secret Place of the Most High God, we remain safe.  The need, however, is to abide in the Secret Place; to make the dwelling of God our home. Don’t wait for an attack to present itself before you go there – go there early, daily, and abide there.

Far more dangerous is the enemy’s postured attack that presents to the inside of you.  This is like the deadly pestilence.   It could be in the form of disease or infirmity, but it could easily be a thought or an attitude of your heart (doubt, wavering, fear, or wicked thinking) that will ultimately defile you.  Left unaddressed and unresisted, these thoughts can not only defile you, but if you were to entertain them (accept or share them) they would rise up and defile many.  These are the most dangerous agents, because we don’t often recognize the enemy’s campaign here.  They present their attack to the inside and we think it is our own thought.  We tolerate or worse make room for it by acceptance (“I’m getting sick.” or “I agree with that thought.”). Whether or not it is your thought or one planted by the enemy, the combat strategy is the same.  Confess and repent to the Lord, then resist the enemy and he will flee from you.       Ask the Lord to cleanse you and for destruction by the cross of the very nature in you which embraces and participates in such thinking.

It is failure to perceive the anti-Christ nature of these thoughts, and to address them properly that causes us much harm.  To not recognize them as wrongful, against the nature of Christ, and to not deal with them means they gain an avenue of entrance into us that is welcoming.  That allows for that thought process to grow and expand with other thoughts, equally destructive and harmful.  Soon it is like the Trojan-Horse waiting to distribute an advance team of the enemy’s camp and opening the gates to greater enemy forces.

For both of these attacks (from the inside or outside) the Lord is equally able to render them powerless.  However, we are way more disposed to perceive and register the external threat than the internal.  This is a problem.  It means the enemy will attempt both and see where you are quick to put him off.  Additionally, as part of growing in maturity in the Lord, He desires for us to become “like Him” in standing on His word.  More and more the Lord will require us to use His word by faith to deflect the tactics of the enemy.  This is part of our “yielding” to the Lord, where it really means we stand beside Him.  We must become sensitive to know when He will fight or when we must take up the fray.  This is part of growing in Him.

For now – be quick to discern the two-sided destruction the enemy would hurl your way to ensnare you!  It is already defeated by the blood!  Let us know the enemy’s tactics, but even more so know the provision of our Lord Jesus Christ that has overcome the world, even our faith!

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Day Twenty-Nine, Under-the-Influence

Posted in Under-the-Influence, Devo Shorts 2011, tagged , , , , on October 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Day Twenty-Nine

 

Overthrowing Your Strongholds

 

“For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds,…”

Amp 2Cor 10:4

 

 

          Have you ever seen the poles along the interstates in Montana and Wyoming used to measure snow drifts?  Sometimes I think it would help to have such a device to measure the pervasiveness of change which the Kingdom of God has made in our old patterns of thinking.  That’s a vague notion I’m sure – let me clarify.

          Simply put, the question is this – is there agreement between what I show people, what I demonstrate to be my thinking or opinions on some topic or towards some person – and what are the thoughts I allow to occupy my internal dialogue?  In other words, am I congruent?  If I harbor thoughts of dislike, distrust, jealousy, anger, rage, bitterness, etc. in my internal mind, but reframe those thoughts and actually dress them up with “pseudo-Christian fluff” that then gets projected outwardly – I am not congruent.  I am living a divided life where what I think and tolerate in my thoughts is markedly different from what I display outwardly.  This is not good.

          The Scripture says, as a man thinks in his heart – so he is.  It says out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks!  We think we are hiding those critical, negative attitudes of our heart.  Or at the very least we think we are dressing them up to make them more socially acceptable.  But we deceive ourselves.  They are known.  More importantly — when your secret thoughts indulge dark thinking – thoughts that are more like the enemies thoughts than a believers, when they are diametrically opposed to the heart and thoughts of God – you place yourself in a dangerous and precarious position.  When you harbor thoughts that are essentially “evil” in that they form a report that does not agree with God, His Word, or His will on the matter, you have then given the enemy a potentially evil foothold.  He cannot read your thoughts, but he can read your actions like a book.  He has studied you especially for places of weakness.  If he can use your negative thinking as a platform and base of operations where he can skew your thoughts into deeper darkness – he will indeed!  This is the zone of danger Will Robinson!

          This is why we are called to guard our hearts above all that we guard – for out of them flow the very issues of life (Prov 4:20-23).  We would seek to modify the projection of our thoughts, to make them look more kind.  We excuse them as something that we are allowed to indulge – completely oblivious to the truth that as they continue to solidify and expand their hold on us — those thoughts are what we actually are becoming!  If our eye is evil or unsound, then the very light that is in us is darkened, and how dense is that darkness (Mt 6:22-23).

          So where is the line in you that marks the level of the Lord’s rule in your life and the reign of His Kingdom.  To what depth does it extend?  Do you religiously arrange your external behavior but bring no discipline to your thought-life?  Do you still insist on harboring thoughts adversarial to His truth and His will simply because you excuse them as harmless? The Lord has given us His life in us and His word to renew our thinking to His.  Saints – use His word as a yardstick to judge the quality of your thinking and to bring truth to your inner man.  As your thinking is brought captive to the obedience of Christ Jesus, His life will expand and grow in you.  You will begin to have victory over internal struggles and external conflict like never before.  This, then, begins the overcoming life — the resurrection life, the new life in Christ being lived out in us that He came to give us.

          Be free, be one with Christ in love, be-loved!

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