Your thoughts play an important role in how you walk with God. Our thoughts lead to believing action either positively or negatively. It determines what kind of faith we exhibit, be it fearful or with confidence and trust.

Hebrews 11:6: But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

What feeds our thoughts are words, be they spoken or written. We are the gatekeepers of our mind. As a born again one, we take the Word of God in our mind to overcome negative, devilish temptation.

We all get negative thoughts that are temptations. Remember that temptations in themselves are not sin. Jesus said He was tempted in all things but without sin. Temptations become sin when we act on them and let them build a home in our thinking or in our mind.

Do you remember how Eve handled the temptations she was dealt with from the devil? She tried to debate the adversary and justify her errors. She obviously did not handle the temptations with God's Word.

How did Jesus Christ handle temptation? As we read in Matthew, Chapter 4 we discover that Jesus handled the temptations with "It is written." He replaced the temptation with a more powerful thought: the Word of God.

That is the key: Use the Word of God to replace the temptation. Many times we take on the temptation and exert great effort to throw it off or get rid of it. The key is to replace it with God's Word. For example when you have the devilish thoughts of being in self condemnation, we replace it with God's Word by saying, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:1). If we are tempted with fear, we replace it with God's Word: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (II Timothy 1:7). This technique works every time, if we allow God's Word to have preeminence in our lives.

It is amazing how much our thoughts control how we feel. God invented our minds and its process. He has given us His Word to plant in our minds and to believe. There is nothing the devil can throw at us that we do not have His Word to overcome it.

What we need to do is fill our minds with God's Word so that we can take on any pitch the adversary may throw at us. We can slug it out of our mind and replace it with the truth of God's Word.

Agape,
Bob

PS: What reminded me of this technique, that I had been taught in the past, but in different ways, is a wonderful YouTube segment by Jimmy Evans, a minister who teaches this. It is a 30 minute YouTube called “A Mind Set Free” – Jimmy Evans. Do a search on YouTube to find it.