Pastor A

The devil gets a foot in the door of your life when you allow sin to pile up in your heart!

Therefore, we must discipline our thoughts. Proverbs warns us in 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.” Your thoughts reveal the real YOU. Not your actions, not your appearance, not your words, but your thoughts reveal YOU. You will eventually become what you allow yourself to think. It is a proven pschological and spiritual fact. If you sincerely want to experience spiritual victory in your life, you must discipline yourself to think the right things.

Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.“

This immediately does away with the vast majority of movies being shown today, a large percentage of the books and magazines on the newsstands, much of what is viewed on the Internet, and probably a lot of what filtered through your brain in the past week! If something causes you to think the wrong thoughts, it is wrong.

This is perhaps the hardest part of being a real disciple. Our thoughts seem so uncontrollable. They just pop up, whether we want them to or not. But your success in disciplining your mind cannot be measured by the number of impure or evil thoughts you have. It can only be measured by what you do with those thoughts when they come.

You see, Satan knows that if he can control your thoughts, he can directly influence everything about you. So one of the major fronts of his attack on you as a believer is your mind. He suggests thoughts to you, and plants stimuli in convenient places to prompt wrong thoughts. And if he does it long enough, he wears a rut in your mind so that you cannot help yourself: he has reprogrammed you to think in that certain way. By continually bringing up the wrong kind of thoughts, he eventually gets you to act them out. Your wrong thought has become a wrong act. But God says there is a way out.

God promises in I Corinthians 10:13, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.“