John 8:44-47 "You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.” Today's episode is about how important out thoughts are and how to shield ourselves from believing the enemies lies. It also talks about how important forgiveness is. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Our Thoughts Become Who We Are
John 8:44-47 "You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.”
In this Bible verse Jesus is talking to the Jews that are persecuting Him and wanting to kill Him. He is telling them that they are from the devil and they are working for the devil. He tells them the are choosing to do the devil’s desires. I really like how Jesus is describing the devil in these verses. It leaves not room for interpretation. The devil is and always has been a murdered. He is also a liar, actually the father of lies. He speaks according to his own nature.
That line reminds me of a quote that I absolutely love because I think it is so true. Loa Tzu said, "Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character.” I wish everyone new this quote and took it to heart. I wish everyone knew how important their thoughts and their words are. I struggle to get my husband and kids to know how important their words and thoughts are. When they say things that are unkind and I say something the say things like, “I am not saying it to them, I am just telling you.” They tell me they know they can’t say those things in school or around other people.
What they don’t understand is that their words become their actions. The thing is we don’t ever realize it. I just heard about this study that was done where these researchers went into several classrooms and gave the kids a pretest. Then they met with the teacher to discuss the results. They told the teacher that most of the kids in the class did very well. However, there were these few kids that scored off the charts. They were truly gifted. They didn’t want the teachers to change anything about the way they were teaching and they said they would come at the end of the year to retest the children. At the end of the year the teacher said she did not act any differently than she did before the pretest. The researchers had lied to the teacher. Everyone in the class scored the pretty much the same on the pretest. However, on the post test the students who supposedly scored off the charts the first time, scored much better.
Without knowing she was doing it, the teacher had expected more from these students throughout the year. She treated them differently than she had because she knew they could do more. She didn’t consciously change her actions, but her thoughts that they were so gifted, changed the way she talked to them and that changed her behavior towards them. Do you see how important your thoughts are? If you think someone is annoying, that will change how you talk to that person, which will change how you act around that person. Which will start to change your character.
Your thoughts are not just important for how you think, they control how you feel too. Your thoughts are the filter through which all your emotions go through. For instance, if you think your son is just being lazy when they say no to helping you will feel and react very differently than if you realize they are really tired because they worked a 12 hour shift every day for the last 10 days. If you tell yourself that a homeless person is lazy and just doesn’t want to work you will think and act differently than you would if you knew their actual story, whatever that may be. Most of this is subconscious. We don’t think we are acting differently, just as those teachers didn’t notice any change in their behavior.
The reason I am talking our thoughts when I am talking about the verse above is because one of Satan’s chief tricks in mental warfare. He gets in our thoughts and plays havoc on our thoughts. Actually I recently learned that Satan can’t read our thoughts. He doesn’t know what we are thinking, but he can give us thoughts. He can whisper things in our ears and we can take on those thoughts as our own. The thing is, he is the father of lies. The things he is telling us are not the truth. Just like the verse above. Imagine what the enemy was telling the Jews about Jesus. He was probably whispering half truths into their ears and they were buying all of it. That is one of the biggest problems with Satan, he is such a good liar. He wraps his ugly little lies around a kernel of truth so it implants doubt in our minds. Once doubt enters our mind it's easier to fall for his line of thinking.
I don’t want to keep talking about the enemy as God is so much more powerful. I just wanted to demonstrate how important it is that we watch our words and our thoughts. When we say unkind things, the enemy hears them and then thinks we are open to those types of words/behaviors and so he starts to feed us those types of thoughts. We need to resist the enemies thoughts. We need to protect our mind from him. I have talked about Ephesians 6:13-18 before so I will not explain it again, but I will read it to you because it is a great way to protect against the enemy.
Ephesians 6:13-18 says, “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.” If you want to hear the explanation of this verse you can look back to episode #108 Armor of God. I think that is a great verse to meditate on and see how you can apply that verse to your every day life.
Putting on the armor of God daily can be a great way to defend against the enemy. Another way can be praise and worship. The enemy is not going to be able to get into your mind when your mind is focused on praising the Lord. Another way to fight the enemy is to live a life of forgiveness. Unforgiveness can block healings, it can block grace, it can block a lot of things. It makes Satan so happy when we hold on to old hurts. He knows how damaging that can be for our souls. You don’t have to forgive people on your own, we can’t. You just have to ask God to come in and help you forgive. You just have to take that first step and be willing to say, “God, I don’t want to forgive this person, but I know you want me to. Please help me Lord. I want you to come in and help me forgive this person.”
An important thing to remember about forgiveness is that you are doing it for you, not for them. Also, when you forgive, you are not saying what they did is ok. When you forgive you are saying, this thing happened, it was not ok, and yet I can’t change that it happened so I am deciding I will no longer let it have a hold over me. I will no longer let it take up space in my brain. I will not longer spend valuable time thinking about it. I heard this analogy a long time about unforgiveness and I think it explains it well. Holding on to unforgiveness is like drinking a little bit of poison every day and then expecting the other person to die. I know you feel that person doesn’t deserve your forgiveness and they probably don’t. But you deserve to forgive them because you deserve to not have that weigh on you anymore. Forgiveness truly is not about them, it is about you and your peace, your freedom, your soul. God is going to forgive us in the same way we forgive others. Think about that thing you are not forgiving. Is holding on to that more important than having God forgive your sins?
The enemy corrupted the thoughts of those who wanted Jesus dead. Do not let the enemy corrupt your thought. Refuse him entry. When you start to have negative thoughts, thoughts that clearly did not come from God, notice them and change your thoughts. Just stop that train of thinking, interrupt it, and change it to something more positive. For instance if you are thinking something negative about someone you know, stop and try to come up with one positive thing instead. Remember, "Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character.” Think about your thoughts, words and actions over the last few days. Would you be happy if your character was based on those thoughts, words and actions?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this podcast today. Lord, we ask you to protect our thoughts and our minds. We ask you to show us where we might have thoughts that aren’t of you shaping our character. We ask you to help us change those thoughts Lord. You said whoever is of God can hear the truth of God. We want to hear the truth to God. We want to be of God. Help us Lord, show us, put on our hearts any ways in which our thought, words, actions or character are not of God. Lord, you are so forgiving and merciful. Help us to be forgiving and merciful Lord. I get the sense that someone listening is holding on to unforgiveness Lord, and they may not even know it. I pray you put that on their heart and that you give them the strength to hand over that unforgiveness to you. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will an in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to Walk Boldly With Jesus. I look forward to meeting you back here on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed weekend.