Mastering Your Thought Life

The key to change in your life is simple. Open your mouth and use your shield of faith. If you want to change, pull up that shield of faith, and say to the devil, “Not here, bad boy. Not here! Freedom reigns in this place, in Jesus’ name!”

When you learn how to deal with the devil and go on the offensive instead of the defensive, the devil will not be able to find any place in your life.

You can’t stop him from trying, but his arrows will slide right off you without impact.

My husband, Jimmy, and I have been married for over three years. We have never — I’m not lying to you — never raised our voices to one another. Do we ever disagree? Oh, absolutely! I’m a woman; he’s a man! But our disagreements just don’t have to be explosive. I can say to him, “Now honey, this is the way I see it. “And he’ll say, “No, this is the way I see it.” Then we meet in the middle and work it out. I am determined that my daughter will never hear us fight.

But if you let the devil keep a foothold in your life — in your soul, in your mind — you will take every single little thing your mate does and turn it into something that offends you. This is not how you bring change into your life! I may sound rough, but I’ve lived it,  and I’ve  overcome this mess. I have learned that you have to be bulldog-determined to get rid of all the mess in your life if you want freedom in your home, if you want freedom in your life, and if you want freedom in your marriage!

Peace …. Shalom

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee (Isaiah 26:3).

The word “thou” in this verse is referring to the Father. Read that verse again. Underline in your Bible the words “perfect peace.” What is the qualifier to walking in perfect peace? Having your mind stayed on God because you trust in Him.

The word “perfect” in Hebrew is the word shalom, and it means “nothing missing, nothing broken.” It’s not just a word of greeting like saying, “Hey!” It’s a blessing Jewish people say every time they greet each other with the word shalom. They are declaring over each other, “Whatever is missing in your life, I proclaim that it’s  no longer missing. Whatever is broken in your life, I proclaim that it’s no longer broken.”

It’s interesting to learn that the word translated “peace” is also the word shalom.

So in the Hebrew, this verse would say, “Thou wilt keep him in shalom shalom whose mind is stayed on You.”

When God uses a word two times in a row, He is in “get your attention” and “multiplication” mode. The word shalom in its root also means salvation. But it doesn’t just mean salvation for your soul, it’s also talking about health, prosperity, wealth, and goodness. It means all of these good things. Actually, this verse could be broken down like this: I will make you doubly peaceful. I’ll make you doubly prosperous. I’ll make you doubly victorious, whose mind is stayed on Me. That is shouting ground for you right here! That is the blessing part!

In Hebrew, the word “stayed” paints a word picture. Have you ever built a house or watched a house being built? It starts with some little old two-by-fours. They’re just small timbers, but they’re going to frame the whole house. The word “stayed” means framed. You can think of it this way: “I will keep you in shalom shalom (perfect peace — nothing missing, nothing broken) and doubly wealthy, doubly healthy, doubly wise, if your mind has a frame and you tell your mind what you are allowing it to think and what you are not allowing it to think.”

For example, when I used to do a lot of teaching in children’s church and classes, we made this stuff called gack. Are you familiar with gack? It’s made out of Borax, Elmer’s Glue, and water. It’s similar to slime. The weird thing about it is that when you squeeze it, it feels hard. But if you just put gack in your hand and allow gravity to do its thing, the gack becomes a soft slime that oozes through your fingers. This perfectly illustrates what happens to your mind when you do not keep it in the confines of a framework. If you do not dictate what your mind is allowed to think and what it is not allowed to think, it will run like gack does through your fingers.

Thoughts, ideas, and suggestions will come, and you’ll think, I guess I’m not a good Christian. But that is not coming from you; it’s not your thought. And God had nothing to do with it either. The devil brings those thoughts. He does what he does, as he tries to use his wiles against you. You can’t completely stop the devil from doing what he tries to do because you live on this planet. But the fact of the matter is, his fiery darts don’t have to torment you.

Anger, stress, jealousy, and even some trust issues all start with an itty bitty thought.

With anger specifically, you’re just kind of ticked off at a situation. It starts out pretty small. For example, I love to cook. I do it a lot. It’s fun for me. Have you ever whisked fresh cream with a wire whisk, not with your handy dandy KitchenAid, but with a plain old hand whisk? You add a little sugar to that cream, and you just start whisking away. Now at first, the cream in the bowl is relatively smooth; it has no ripples. But the minute a little agitation comes to it, what happens? A few bubbles start to form, and it gets a little bubbly on the top. Then the more you whisk and the more effort that goes into the cream, it starts to stiffen up and grow in volume. Eventually when you whisk it long enough, you can make a sharp peak with the cream, and it will stay in that position.

Think of this image of whipped cream when you think of anger. You have to stop your thoughts before they harden. Say your confessions. Tell your soul what it is allowed to think when you see just a couple of bubbles of anger. If you can be strong enough to stop when it’s just a couple of bubbles, it will not ruin your life or cut someone with its sharp peak once it grows and hardens.

Husbands and wives, you know when something is ticking you off. Ladies, when your husband has once again not picked up his underwear or    once again   not put down the toilet seat, you will probably get upset with him. But whatever it is that ticks you off a little, at that point when it’s just a couple of bubbles, choose to manage how you respond. Learn how to dictate what your soul is allowed to do. How should you handle the things that come your way? What do you do first? First of all, you have to identify the enemy and that’s the devil, not your husband, wife, kids, or whomever. Second, you need to judge your thought. How do you judge it? You need to realize that the thought of you getting angry is not in line with the Word of God. So, judge that thought. If it is not a Word thought—a life thought—then it is a death thought.

Take Inventory of Your Thoughts

I’ll share my experience of how I got free from those thoughts, which had tormented me since childhood.

You can master your thoughts, and it’s not some heavy-duty revelation; it’s actually so practical that anyone can do it!

The first thing I had to do was to identify the enemy. You’d think that would be pretty easy to do since the answer is always the same. The devil is our enemy. But in my case, I had to realize that my brain wasn’t the enemy. The enemy was the devil. Once I got that straight, I began to understand his tactics: thoughts, ideas, and suggestions.

When I was in the middle of all that, I did not trust myself to just think. It sounds weird, but I really didn’t. So this is what I had to do. I had to get down to the raw nitty-gritty and inventory every thought I had. I had to think about what I was thinking about. I couldn’t let my mind just go rampant. I had to start judging every thought and putting it into one of two piles: thoughts of life or thoughts of death.

I had become the master of my thought life! It didn’t happen in one day or two, but eventually, I looked back and realized I hadn’t had a single “death thought” all day long. I did not give up until I  began winning the mind battle, and you can too!