You're too fat.
You're too skinny.
You're ugly.
You will never amount to anything, ever.
You are a failure.
You are weak.
You have no strengths; which is why people constantly look over you.
You aren't good enough.
You aren't strong enough.
You are a bad person...no wonder no one wants to be your friend.
You are a bad mother.
You are a bad wife.
You are a bad daughter.
You are a bad sister.
You will never find your calling.
God can't use you.
God is mad at you.
God doesn't love you.
For me, I have heard all of these things in my mind in some point in my life. Some of them have played, one after another like slow and steady waves hitting the shore eroding the strength of my mind little by little.
Other times a thought has come by itself out of nowhere crashing into my mind louder than anything else, sweeping me off my feet and taking my breath away.
These thoughts in some point in my life have kept me from moving forward.
They have kept me from trusting God.
They have kept me from living for God the way He intended me to.
They have kept me from reaching others.
What thoughts have played/play in your mind on a daily basis? Are they positive or negative like the ones above?
Negative thoughts can and will destroy us and the devil knows it all too well. He knows that if he can get us in our minds then he can win in every other area in our lives. With one thought or a series of thoughts he can keep us from reaching our full potential in Christ.
The enemy himself knows the Word of God and he knows that in Proverbs 23:7 it says, "For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he..."
So, what does the "father of lies" do? He tries to get us to believe things that are totally contradictory to the Word of God, by playing them over and over again in our minds, until we believe them over all the good that God says about us. When we believe the enemy's lies we become unstable/unusable for the Kingdom of God.
The enemy doesn't want us close to God.
He doesn't want us close to others.
He doesn't want us to live in the freedom we have in Christ.
He doesn't want us helping others.
He doesn't want us reaching our full potential in Christ.
So, what can we do when negative thoughts overwhelm us?
The best way to combat the negative playlist in our minds is to create new playlists.
The most effective ways I have found to do this are as followed:
1. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to push out the negative thoughts and ask Him to fill every crevice of your being..that nothing else would speak louder than His truth.
2. Read His word, even if you do not feel like it.
3. Memorize scripture...even if you do not feel like it.
4. Seek out positive people in your life that can call you out on your negative talk. Most of the time the thoughts we think eventually come out of our mouth. We need people in our lives who can call us out on our negative talk; which will help us to capture those negative thoughts more quickly.
5. "Capture" thoughts as they come instead of letting them linger and line it them up with the Word of God. 2 Corinthians 10:5, "and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking ever thought captive to obey Christ."
6. Pay attention to the songs you are listening to. If you are listening to music that is contradictory to the Word of God it can set you up for negative thoughts to enter in. Create a list of positive music that lift up your spirit and help you to focus on Christ.
7. Pay attention to the TV shows/movies you are watching. Today, it is hard to find anything clean on television or in the theater...be "mindful" of that. You could be opening all kinds of doors for the enemy to come in an wreak havoc on your mind.
8. Pay attention to those you are around. If you are negative, naturally you can attract other negative people like yourself. Then you have people who feed into your negativity VS starving it.
9. Worship. In other words, Love God. When we worship, we turn our focus away from us and onto Jesus. When we do this Jesus does something amazing...He reminds us who we are in Him while we are worshiping Him...it is a beautiful transaction with the Creator of the Universe! He reminds us that He loves us, we are His, we are the apple of His eye, He lived for us, He died for us, He rose again for us, He wants all to come into His Kingdom, and He will come back for us. (And so many other amazing promises He gives us.)
10. Love others. Instead of focusing on yourself all of the time...focus on others. Tell someone how pretty they look, how happy you are for them, or how you love seeing God work in their lives. Trust me...when you do this...it frees you more and more with each positive thing that comes out of your mouth just as much as it frees the person you are saying it too.
11. Say positive things out loud to yourself. The more you hear it the more you will believe it. Then when those negative things come into your mind and do not line up with the truth you know to be...the negative thoughts will be easier to disregard.
12. Get off of social media. Maybe not forever but watch how much you are on it. I have to constantly watch myself because it can be addicting. Instead of it being something positive it can be used as a catalyst to comparing ourselves to others, being jealous of others, or putting others down which all cause negative thoughts to invade our minds.
I am not saying that having a clear positive mind is easy. Especially when the enemy realizes that we are coming against him, he will do his best to work overtime. But GOD!
James 4: 7 says, "Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
Submit to God and the enemy will flee...he has to. We just have to put our foot down and quit allowing him to run wild in our lives causing us to be used as "devils mistresses."
Friends, you are so much more than you realize that you are!
Stop letting the enemy win!
Putting my foot down with you,
Tiffany