"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30)
Consider these four areas we are called to commit to God:
heart, soul, mind and strength.
Which is your strongest? Which is your weakest?
For me, my mind is my weakest.
Consider these four areas we are called to commit to God:
heart, soul, mind and strength.
Which is your strongest? Which is your weakest?
For me, my mind is my weakest.
I just finished Beth Moore's book called Breaking Free. It took me a little while to get into it, but the book really spoke to me at the end with chapters 40-42, where she discussed how to tear down our strongholds with the reprogramming of our minds. She broke it down into a five-step process: (1) Recognize the captor. (2) Stand in agreement with God. (3) Tear down the lies. (4) Put up the Truth. (5) Bow thought to the Truth. I love how she goes from step to step describing how we can apply them to our lives.
Dealing with strongholds in my life become difficult because I can never complete all 5 steps. I can normally recognize the captor pretty easily, I then choose to stand in agreement with God, but when it comes to #3. Tear down the lies, I struggle. Satan is a powerful deceiver and loves to manipulate our minds. He knows just how to plant lies and small thoughts in our heads to make them grow to a size that becomes unmanageable or uncontrollable. Soon those negative thoughts become obsessive and seem so overpowering. Beth Moore discusses that you can never break down your stronghold if you don't break down the lies that go along with it. She says it doesn't stop there. Once you have torn down those lies, it is very important to fill in its place positive thoughts and the Truth.
That's where I am right now in my life. Step 3: tearing down the lies in my mind. I have thoughts in my head that have been brewing for close to 20 months by now, and its time to tear them down and replace them with the Truth. It's been a long journey and struggle in the past, and I expect it to be a long process in the future, but I believe and hold fast that even when the world and people turn their back, God never will. Even when I grow weary, He never will. As Beth Moore stated, "He [God] is our inexhaustible well of living water."
One of my all-time favorite verses in the Bible is this: 2 Corinthians 10:5.
"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
So here's to thinking positively, replacing lies with the Truth, to a year of progress. Cheers 2011!
Dealing with strongholds in my life become difficult because I can never complete all 5 steps. I can normally recognize the captor pretty easily, I then choose to stand in agreement with God, but when it comes to #3. Tear down the lies, I struggle. Satan is a powerful deceiver and loves to manipulate our minds. He knows just how to plant lies and small thoughts in our heads to make them grow to a size that becomes unmanageable or uncontrollable. Soon those negative thoughts become obsessive and seem so overpowering. Beth Moore discusses that you can never break down your stronghold if you don't break down the lies that go along with it. She says it doesn't stop there. Once you have torn down those lies, it is very important to fill in its place positive thoughts and the Truth.
That's where I am right now in my life. Step 3: tearing down the lies in my mind. I have thoughts in my head that have been brewing for close to 20 months by now, and its time to tear them down and replace them with the Truth. It's been a long journey and struggle in the past, and I expect it to be a long process in the future, but I believe and hold fast that even when the world and people turn their back, God never will. Even when I grow weary, He never will. As Beth Moore stated, "He [God] is our inexhaustible well of living water."
One of my all-time favorite verses in the Bible is this: 2 Corinthians 10:5.
"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
So here's to thinking positively, replacing lies with the Truth, to a year of progress. Cheers 2011!
Great post!
ReplyDeleteawesome post Lauren! Beth Moore writes some great stuff, it just smacks you in the face! Glad you enjoyed her book. Cheers to thinking positively!
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