Your Unlimited Life (8 page)

RENEWAL TRUTH

I am standing fast in the liberty Christ has provided for me.

I’ll not be entangled again with the

bondage of believing Satan’s lies.

(Galatians 5:1)

Who told you that you have a temper? Where did you get that thought? Don’t believe it. You simply have bad thinking. Your temper isn’t any different than anyone else’s temper. But, you’ve got an attitude because of thoughts that somebody from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil put in your mind.

Look at any area of your life where you believe you have a problem and ask yourself, “Where did I get that thought? What thoughts have I been operating from? What thoughts have been controlling me?”

We like to blame Satan for taking our jobs, our spouses, and our health, and certainly he is the source of
all evil
. But don’t just blame the
source
. Look at
how you let it come into your life
.

When a mouse is in my house, I know a mother mouse birthed that little critter, but the mother mouse is not my problem. The problem is:
how did he get in my house?
There is a devil and you know he is the ultimate source of every problem, but that’s not the real issue. The issue is:
how did the problem get in your life?
If you plug the hole, you don’t care how many mother mice are out there! As long as they aren’t in your house, the mother mice can do whatever they want to do. When you plug the hole in your life, the devil can do whatever he wants to do but he won’t be able to get in! None of his antics will affect you!

RENEWAL TRUTH

Because I am submitted to God,

I resist the enemy and he flees from me.

(James 4:7)

D
ISCIPLINING THE
M
IND
W
ITH
G
OD
’
S
W
ORD

Paul said,
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh”
(2 Corinthians 10:3). We live in a fleshly body and a carnal, physical world, but we don’t war according to the flesh. In other words, don’t make things in the physical world around you the issues that you are struggling with.

In our church, we don’t preach about hair and clothes and all that stuff because that’s not where the battle is. If you want to color your hair or paint your face, just do what you are going to do. Be modest and reasonable, but that’s not the issue. When you get into the fleshly battles and everything becomes a physical issue, you are off track.

When little kids are worried about their physical body, we say to them, “Come on, you’re going to grow up. Don’t worry. Don’t even think about it. Everything is going to be cool! Get your mind educated. Learn to serve God and that won’t be a problem.”

As adults we need to learn this lesson, because we spend an hour primping our body and two seconds plugging into the Spirit. We have time to shower, shave, paint, color, comb, brush and spray, but we have little or no time to pray. Don’t let your fleshly, physical being demand center stage in your life.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal
[physical, fleshly]
but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.

If I stopped right here and started talking about the strongholds of the devil, you would shout, for most Christians are into this: “Yeah, we need to pull down the strongholds of the devil. We need to speak to the prince of the power of the air and go after the demons in the spirit realm. We need to do warfare and wrestle against principalities and powers.” We get all fired up about this stuff, because it’s an ethereal [or intangible] thing that doesn’t make us look at our practical lives.

Are you a better wife? “No, but I broke the power of the devil.” Did you pay any bills? “No, but I went into the third heaven.” Did you clean your house? “Yeah, I got the spirits out of there.” Why don’t you just deal with the garbage? We like to talk about the strongholds and spiritual things, but what are they?

Casting down arguments
[The King James Version says imaginations]
and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Paul is not talking about demons. He is talking about arguments, imaginations, rationalities, thoughts, and knowledge. These are the strongholds that keep us from winning the war and from being the people God wants us to be. We are dealing with the same thing that we dealt with back in the Garden of Eden. Satan wasn’t the problem. Adam opened their minds to the thoughts, deceptions, and lies of the devil. They could have kicked the devil out of the garden with their little pinkies. They could have stepped on the serpent and stomped his head! I mean, they could have roasted him and had their first meal of meat.

Adam and Eve had the authority and dominion of God over every beast of the field. They could have wrung the serpent’s neck and had a gourmet dinner, but their heads got in the way. The strongholds that caused them to sin were deception, fleshly ideas, and lies. These strongholds removed them from the blessing of God and got them kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

Although Satan is the father of all lies (John 8:44), and this may shock you but, ultimately he and his demons are not your problem because he is already defeated through Jesus’ cross. The way you win the war over his strongholds is by getting your mind renewed to the Word of God and not buying into his lies and deceptions; not allowing arguments and worldly knowledge to be exalted against the knowledge of God.

When you get your mind disciplined with the Word, you will win every war! That is where you will find freedom, abundant life, and the blessings of God. By being transformed by the renewing of your mind with God’s Word, you will find God’s perfect will.

RENEWAL TRUTH

God always causes me to triumph in Christ.

(2 Corinthians 2:14)

When revival hits, if your mind is still all messed up, it won’t have a great lasting impact upon your life. Many of us have gone to conferences, services, and meetings where we got in the glory cloud. Glory balls were busted over our heads, and we fell out under the power of God. We laughed until our stomachs hurt. Or simply truly felt a touch from God. Then we went home and the wife still hates the husband, the kids are still rebelling, the bills still aren’t paid, and we are still thirty-five pounds overweight. We look in the mirror and we still feel ugly. We then think that we must quickly go back to the glory balls, back to the cloud, back to the anointing, and have the evangelist pray for us again!

Thank God for the miracles and for His presence, but if we aren’t renewing our minds with God’s Word, nothing is going to change. If we aren’t renewing our minds with God’s Word, we will never win the war.

I can cast the devil out of someone who needs deliverance, but I cannot cast out his or her thoughts, rationales, and imaginations. Demons will obey me, but your negative thinking won’t. That’s why you can pray against these things and rebuke them, but there will be no lasting change until you renew your mind to God’s Word.

Case in point: smoking. Most people start smoking because they are trying to look cool. Then they find out that cigarettes are killing them, so they want to quit. So, how are they going to quit? Rebuke a nicotine demon, right? Brother So-and-so prays and casts out a nicotine demon, but the next morning your cup of coffee isn’t right without a cigarette. Or, you can’t go back to work after lunch without a cigarette. Or, you go all day without a cigarette, then after dinner when you have your latte, you think, “After all day I deserve a cigarette. Brother So-and-so cast a demon out of me and he’s a man of God, a man of authority. How come I’m thinking about cigarettes again?”

Some people blame their genetic makeup and believe they are the way they are, full of addictive behavioral problems because of their genetic makeup. We love this! We’ve got fat genes, addictive genes, alcohol genes, heroin genes, thief genes, and because of our “genetic makeup” we are not responsible. Christians blame the devil. Secular humanists don’t believe in a devil because that would be too spooky, so they blame your genes. And if it’s not your genes, it’s your corduroys, or your khakis!

What has to happen to whip these behaviors? There are genetic issues, but I’m convinced God gave us the power to rule over our flesh. The war is not with our genetic makeup. A renewed mind will change your physical body. When you get your mind renewed, then you’re not going to suck on cigarettes anymore. You can replace cigarettes, but it all comes back to one issue:
When my thinking changes, then I’ll break the habit.