Not Every Thought Is Yours

3/15/2002

One important principle about all that is realizing that every thought that goes through your mind has not necessarily found its origin in YOU. Meaning, the very nature of satan and his work is that he is an intelligent being and has the ability to impart thoughts into your brain. That’s called temptation. Josh and I were talking a couple days ago, and this has come up twice since then, and this will be the third time. Satan has been around for 6000 years doing some very, very serious business on 15 billion people. I guarantee you, you do anything for 6000 years with 15 billion opportunities, day in and day out, for an average of 50 years, you will get pretty good at it! Anything you do for that long, you’re going to get fairly good at it. I guarantee you satan is very, very good at what he does. And one of his favorite things is to make YOU think the thoughts he put in your brain are of your origin. “YOU are that person.” “YOU are the person having all these bad thoughts.” “YOU are the person that feels this way about that person.” “YOU are the person that has this picture and this attitude.” “YOU are that person, therefore you are a terrible person! Therefore you’re worthless, and there’s no hope for you!” Satan takes all this stuff and finds ways to make you take ownership for his work. That’s one of his favorite things.

You have to understand that your mind can be accessed by a person other than yourself. You are not the only person in your mind! You have to know that! Because if you take responsibility for every thought and every temptation, then you’re helpless in essence to find the strength to deal with it, because you have this composite concept that you’re a bad, weak person with crazy, stupid, sinful thoughts and so, “What good am I?!” And then you’re tempted to be disgusted with yourself, be depressed, be fatigued with all the battles, to feel guilt, and oppression, and worthless and then you give up because, “What’s the use anyway?! As hard as I try, I’m still this person.” All of this stuff goes on, and one of the reasons why it goes on and on and on is because satan not only puts the thoughts there, but he gets you to take ownership for it.

One of the most freeing things that you can comprehend about the nature of this spiritual warfare is that your mind can be accessed from the outside, and that just because the thought is in your head doesn’t mean it’s you! Which gives you the ability to say NO! How do you say, “No” to yourself? That’s a little more complicated. But if I can say, “No” to somebody on the outside, that’s not me, then I can say, “That’s not me!” “Reckon yourselves DEAD to sin, but ALIVE to Christ,” that’s a command in the context of spiritual warfare in Romans 6. There’s this battle between sin and righteousness, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Power, versus the spirit of sin and the spirit of death. And God said through Paul, “Reckon yourselves dead to sin, but alive to Christ.” He’s reasoning and saying, “Just as Jesus died, He also rose in newness of Life.” You, too, have done the same thing.

Now you need to understand, because you’re a new Creation, the old has passed away, behold all things are new, that if you’ve been born a second time, those things are not you! You don’t have to take ownership as if you are the source of all of this evil. You can actually say, “I am dead to sin!” I reckon myself dead to sin, because of the Spirit of God, the one who rose from the dead, and conquered all of sin and death, who lives inside of me, I’m not subject to this stuff anymore! I don’t have to give in to these thoughts! I can say NO to a thought without the guilt or the fear of thinking that that’s just, “Here I go again”. It’s, “There HE goes again“. That’s a much more freeing thought for me, “There HE goes again,” than “There I go again.” That’s a much different thought. It opens up a whole new avenue of courage to deal with things as, “There HE goes again. You fool! Get out of my life!”

Resist the devil and he’ll flee from you.

If you think it’s YOU, how are you gonna resist the devil? See? You’re the devil if you accept responsibility for every thought that enters your mind as if you originated that thought and that’s who you are, and then you’ll have a very difficult time resisting the devil. How many times has the devil come up to you in a parking lot and started beating you? And then you resisted him in keeping with that Scripture. It’s never happened, has it? That isn’t how the devil attacks you, therefore that’s not how you resist him. How does he attack you? In your brain. That’s pretty much how he attacks you, is in your brain. There aren’t a lot of exceptions to that. That’s just about it, right there. That’s almost the whole ball of wax. Now if he attacks you in your brain, how therefore do you resist him? In your brain. Ok? You make the choices, “I resist you! I renounce you. I take no responsibility for you and all that you are. I reject this thought. I reject this thing that you’re trying to get me do, to look at myself in the mirror again, or to do this, or do that or whatever. I choose to resist that temptation.” Ok?