We all deal with thoughts that harass us – thoughts that try to take away the peace with have and cause us to worry, become depressed, or even tormented. I want to encourage you to hold tightly to whom the Lord is in your life, and to not give place to the many thoughts that bombard you to get you into fear and confusion. When those thoughts are coming at you they are doing so to unsettle you. Once they get you unsettled they work to hold you into a place of fear and inaction. It works the same on me as it does you. I’d like to share something I learned that has helped me in my life, and I believe it will in yours to.
I lost my mother in a car wreck when I was 12. For several years afterward I dealt with fear of losing those close to me. At first I didn’t understand what was transpiring, until one day I heard a siren in the distance and the first thought that came to me was wondering if my wife had been in a wreck. I suddenly understood that fear was dominating my thoughts and taking me to a place in my mind where the outcome was negative and oppressing. My first thoughts were of harm, despair, and tragedy almost every time when I heard a siren, saw smoke in the distance, etc. Once I recognized that I was dealing with a problem I set out to seek the Lord on how to combat it and overcome it. Those are key steps: to recognize the issue, learn to combat it, and in combating it overcome it.
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…” 1 Cor. 10:4,5
Those thoughts that come to your mind to torment and bring fear are in effect “arguments” or “imaginations” that Paul spoke about in the verse above. When they come to you they “exalt themselves” against the knowledge of God. What does that really mean? It means that a thought that something evil is going to come and take your health is in effect saying:
“I am more powerful than God is in your life. He can’t protect you or your health. You are at my mercy, and you can’t even defend yourself against me. Your only protection is when you try and pray, but you can’t pray right. You mess your prayers up and by the time you are done your words fall to the ground, lifeless. You’re in my hand, and whatever you think on is what is going to happen to you. I am in control!”
Those words are either true, or they are a lie. As the scripture tells us they are “exalting” themselves, or giving themselves the highest place, over the knowledge of God. So what is this knowledge of God they are saying they are higher than? The knowledge of God is who He says He is, what He says He will do. It is His Word. When those words are held up against God’s Word, they are exposed as what they are – A LIE. Don’t believe the lies. Instead, expose them and refute them – rendering them the lifeless words that have fallen to the ground.
Answering Bullying Thoughts
Those arguments that say “I am more powerful than God in your life” will hang in the air and attack you unless you stand up to them. Each thought is like a bully. It will continue to harass you until you stand up to it. You have to answer its statement or accusation. Paul wrote of this in James Chapter 4:
“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7
Take that thought and its statement and hold it up to what God has said. Evaluate the statement and judge it’s validity by what God has stated. Submit your mind and that thought to God. Then rule on how that thought stands up to what God has said in His Word. Let’s see this in action:
The thought says – “I am more powerful than God in your life.”
God’s Word says – “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4
The thought says – “He can’t protect you or your health. You are at my mercy, and you can’t even defend yourself against me.”
God’s Word says – “24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” 1 Peter 2:24
“Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place,
10 No evil shall befall you, Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;
11 For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:9-11
The thought says – “You’re in my hand, and whatever you think on is what is going to happen to you. I am in control!”
Your answer is –
“Colossians 1:13-14 says that ”He has delivered me from the power of darkness and conveyed me into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom I have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
I am no longer subject to the kingdom of darkness of under its control. In fact, Colossians 2:15 says that ”Having disarmed principalities and powers, Jesus made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” Jesus has disarmed you and made it a public showing that you no longer have that power over me.
Romans 8:37-39 tells me that “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I am not under your control. I am not a victim. I am a victor through Jesus and what He has done for me. I resist your attack and I refuse your lies. Nothing can separate me from God’s love for me – not lying thoughts, imperfect wording in my prayers – nothing.”
This is the essence of that combat. It’s waged in your mind, and in the spirit. You have it in you to beat the fears that assail you. Fill yourself with the scriptural responses to the many thoughts that you wrestle with, and then use them to throw down those thoughts when they come to rob you of your peace. This is the same method that has been used for the ages, and was employed by Jesus as well. In Luke chapter 4 we see this on display, as Jesus deals with Satan’s arguments by casting them down with what God’s Word had to say on the matter.
There is much more to this teaching, but I’ve given you the basics to help you begin to fight back. God is faithful – he’s faithful to me, and he’s faithful to you.
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