They could also be cultural and traditional beliefs that may even be recognised and accepted as societal norms. But all they do is prevent new thoughts from God from entering your mind. In essence, strongholds are mental walls of containment that prevent people from advancing in the things of God. These are strongholds!
This refers to falsely exalted systems of ethics, religion, philosophy, etc. But thanks be unto God who has fortified us with an impregnable armour and made us invulnerable to these satanic onslaughts against the mind.
In Ephesians , Paul itemises the different parts of our formidable and impregnable armour. The belt of truth 2. The breastplate of righteousness 3. The boots of preparedness of the gospel 4. The shield of faith 5. The helmet of salvation, and 6. Now, the rendering of the 16th verse in the KJV may be a little misleading. An enlightening commentary by W. Conybeare argues that had this been the case, the shield of faith would have been listed last, but Paul went on to mention two more items of the armour after the shield of faith.
It was a large, four by two-and-a-half feet, oblong shield, and not the comparatively small, round one. One of the most dangerous weapons in ancient warfare was the fiery dart—an arrow tipped with tow dipped in pitch. The pitch-soaked tow was set alight and the flaming arrow launched at the enemy. To combat this, the Roman soldier, fully covered under or behind his shield, presented it to the arrow, which was quenched upon sinking into the shield. But with your shield of faith, you can and should quench every single dart the enemy fires at you.
What do you use to overthrow the strongholds of the adversary? The sword of the Spirit—the Word of God! Remember, this is the only offensive weapon in our arsenal. You overthrow those as well with the sword of the Spirit. He still operates the same way today. If you were, then why do you still feel the pain?
With your armour in place, nothing the devil throws at you can penetrate. And with the sword of the Spirit, you can go on the offensive against him and tear down his strongholds. Glory to God! This refers more particularly to different degrees of affection, disaffection, and passion. You can be more or less affectionate toward someone or something. So there can be affection or disaffection.
You can also be passionate for or against. These are all products of the mind. So he told them not to manufacture worry or pain, because those things would bring them down and destroy them. I will not fail nor forsake you. Like Joshua, the Lord is asking you to be strong and very courageous.
But how are you going to be strong? Refuse to dwell on pain, displeasure, worry, and all such negative feelings and emotions. Be Christ-like in your attitude. Extend your love attention and care to others, even if they despise and disrespect you.
God wants His Word in your spirit, and to control your mind as well. It goes further to let you know that in renewing your mind, you will prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Read this scripture slowly to yourself and meditate on it. It will not have power over me. Refuse to let your life be a vent for satanic expressions. Therefore, satan has no authority in any part of your life. Your mind and mental receptacle system may be processing myriads of thought-signals coming through it even now as you read this book.
There can be a barrage of thoughts bombarding your mind at any point in time, but you ultimately decide and choose the one you want to dwell on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek These are the things people of the world are concerned about and run after. But the Lord Jesus charges us not to be like them, and He lets us know why. This should be your constant contemplation. Let spiritual things of the Kingdom be uppermost on your mind. Osborn said those who are concerned about what people think about them are the slaves of the last people they talked to.
So be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Understand that just as there are physical laws of gravity, electricity, mechanics, magnetism, and the like, there are also spiritual laws. The principle here is that when you take no thought, but instead present your requests to the Lord in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, the result is the peace of God protecting your heart and mind.
I declare and I confess that I am a success, glory to God! Attitude is the disposition to act in ways determined by the mental processes of our feelings, emotions, beliefs or reasoning.
In our definition of the brain, we said it is the primary center for the regulation and control of bodily activities, receiving and interpreting sensory impulses and transmitting information to the muscles and body organs.
The mind is the information-processing centre of the human person. It collects and processes all the information received through the nervous system of the outward man and through the spiritual senses of the inward man human spirit and soul.
The processing and eventual interpretation of information by the mind determines human behavior or attitude. This is the reason for your attitude, positive or negative. It all comes from your mind and how you process the information you receive. You must make the very important choice to get the best out of your spirit, through the diligent management of your mind. This means they can be reorganised and re-programmed. When you were born again, you were born after God, with His very life and nature in you.
You see, the best and most excellent things of your spirit are expressed through your mind. Speak His Word and look straight on. Renewal Of The Mind The first and most important aspect of preparing your mind to glorify God is its renewal. This is the first thing you must do in learning to use your mind right. This is a complete overhauling of your mind, not just a change in some areas or aspects.
I told you the exciting thing about the mind is that its contents and processes can be managed, re- organised or re-programmed. This is exactly what Paul is talking about here when he says to renew your mind. Your mind must be renewed in content and processes. This is a taxing but worthy exercise, and the only potent instrument to achieve this effectively is the Word of God. Your mind must receive new knowledge to replace the sense-knowledge you used to have or the worldly wisdom you walked in regarding any subject.
Go for and receive new knowledge. Learn spiritual verities through the Word and the agency of the Holy Spirit. Let the Word of God dwell in you richly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. When you do, your attitude will change in consistency with your new way of processing thoughts.
You must see and hear yourself making such irrefutable arguments before you get into the courtroom. It all starts from the images of your mind! One of the beautiful things you can do for yourself as a Christian is to always build in your mind the right pictures about what you want in life. It pays when you activate your faith-eyes to see beyond your present horizon, and envision yourself living out the very best of what God has prepared for you in this world.
He created us to excel and flourish in all areas of our lives. Well, at that time Abraham had no child, and it was naturally impossible for him to, because he was old and his wife was barren. How was he going to connect with this vision of God for his life and lay hold of that which God had given him?
How kind and gracious our Lord is. He knew Abraham was having difficulty connecting with this vision, and since he had no one to teach him, God had mercy on him and taught him to put his faith and imaginative power to work. This is absolutely remarkable! Now he tells him to get up and walk through the length and breadth of all the land he could see! Now God tells him to walk the length and breadth of all that land?
It would have been practically impossible for Abraham to do that. Abraham saw the whole world and took all of it; he left nothing out! God made Abraham a promise that He would give him everything he saw.
Well, Abraham saw the whole world, and God fulfilled His end of the bargain and gave it all to him. But God had to show Abraham how to do it by using the power of his mind. He believed because his mind had now formed the picture, and he could literally see tiny little faces in those stars twinkling back at him from the sky that night. And you can do that by focusing your mind on things that strengthen or enhance your vision.
The Three Realms of Vision You have three means or channels of vision: 1. The eyes of your spirit 2. The eyes of your body 3. Understand that when God put you in the earth, He made your spirit to function through your outward man—your body. This means the eyes of your spirit can only see what God shows them. The Eyes of Your Body The eyes of your body are your physical eyes in your head. You can choose to use them whenever you want. However, the sight or vision you get through these eyes is limited.
This is where the eyes of your mind become so important. The Eyes of Your Mind The eyes of your mind are your creative eyes. The eyes of your mind, however, can produce what you want to see in the physical. God gave us the ability to imagine as a special gift to help us create the world we want to live in.
God has given you the tool your mind and the ability to make the change. This ability is naturally God-given. With your mind, you can choose what you want to see. Understand what God did here: first, in Genesis , He created man from within, and then in Genesis , He formed man from the dust of the ground, according to what He had created from within Himself.
So God created and formed—in His own image and after His likeness —this excellent creature that He called man. Now, you have an image, a vision you want to bring forth.
When God has given you a Word concerning anything, then you have the right to produce it, and its creation begins in your mind. Then they turn around and wonder where their problems are coming from. You ought to spend your moments alone creating what you want. When a negative picture comes to your mind, stop it and replace it with the right one.
True Meditation Is Creation Isaac, the son of promise, had learned something from Abraham his father. The Scriptures show him as a deeply spiritual man who meditated often.
He had learnt the power of meditation, knowing that your moments of meditation are your moments of creation. True meditation is creation, but not too many people have learnt to use their moments of meditation to create. Meditation therefore refers not only to pondering, ruminating, or reflecting on something; it also implies muttering that thought under your voice, speaking it out, and roaring it to yourself.
We can see that Isaac had learnt the same lesson God taught his father. He knew what to do with his mind and his times of meditation. Genesis Isaac stayed put and, even though there was a severe drought in the land, everywhere he dug, his wells sprang water. The Bible says he prospered, and continued to prosper, until he became so great and prominent in the land that the Philistines envied him Genesis This was why, even though he suffered many things under his uncle Laban for many years, he came out very prosperous in the end.
Laban said it was fine with him, but Jacob must serve him for seven years before he could have Rachel as his wife. Jacob served the seven years, and at the end of the period, Laban reneged on their agreement, and tricked him into marrying Leah, the older daughter, instead.
But Jacob wanted Rachel so much, and Laban knew this and took advantage of it. Jacob continued serving Laban, who had over the period reviewed his salary, not upward but downward, on ten different occasions! I mean, the man was just a mean, dishonest boss! My wives are having kids and our family is growing larger. Better for us to leave now before we become a nuisance to you and to this place.
Here was what Jacob asked, and this is where we begin to see his creative mind at work: Laban and his sons were to take away all the spotted, speckled, and striped animals from the herd, leaving only the pure- coloured ones. Both Jacob and Laban knew there was very little chance of that ever happening. But Laban, being the dishonest boss, was very happy with the deal.
Now they waited to see how Jacob would pull this off and have his own livestock and support his family. Observe closely what Jacob was doing here. Jacob got rods from poplar, hazel, and chestnut trees and made markings on them so they looked like the designs on the bodies of the striped, spotted, and speckled animals.
So he set his focus on this. This is how to help your vision—you meditate until your whole mind is inundated with the idea of what you want to see. Start by reading Scripture or some other material in the direction of your vision.
Jacob understood this; he knew that the things we see were not made of things that appear Hebrews Those pure-coloured cattle actually gave birth to ringstraked striped , speckled, and spotted young! And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.
He had started out by placing his marked rods before the cattle, so that when they saw the rods while mating, they conceived their young with designs like those on the rods. But now he no longer needed the rods. So each time the strong cattle mated at the watering trough, he put in the marked rods so they would conceive striped, spotted and speckled young, and when he noticed it was the weaker cattle mating, he removed the rods so they produced their regular pure-coloured offspring.
What Jacob did was to use his imaginative power—his creative ability. You can create the vision you want in your mind. He told them how he kept seeing a vision of what should have been pure-coloured rams appearing ringstraked, speckled, and grisled as they mated. This is a charge, an instruction of the Spirit. All things have become new! You belong in a new family now—the family of God Ephesians Now, see that all things have become new!
Jacob used markings on wood to help his. Stay with the things that steer the focus of your spirit and your mind in the right direction. When people go to the wrong place, their vision is altered, and they start seeing the wrong things, because the Word of God is not being taught. It matters what you see. The pastor, however, has to keep his focus on what God is showing him. Let your focus be on what the Lord has shown you instead.
We see a very instructive account in this regard from the life of Joshua. How important it is for us to have the right mental picture of whatever our desire is! Understand this: the extent of your vision is the boundary of your blessing! What do you see today about your career, business, family, finances, ministry, academics, etc.? How far can your mind go? I remember a remarkable experience I had some years ago during one of our healing meetings.
To her, it was the set time for her transformation, and nothing was going to prevent her from receiving her healing. She had already pictured strength coming to her limbs, and she could see herself running again just like any healthy kid her age. Guess what? And they say that, unless this vapory canopy is again formed around our earth, to ward off these death-dealing rays, we shall never attain immortality in the flesh.
They claim that as heat and light rays are power and wisdom, so the actinic rays are the Devil of the Bible, the Destroyer. And they believe that before man can be saved the Destroyer must be cast into outer darkness—shut out by that sheltering canopy of vapor. An interesting and apparently plausible theory, is it not?
But there are facts yet to be reckoned with. It is true that if a great watery veil spread itself over the earth to-day there might be no more death. But neither could there be growth. Every form of life would continue as it is, wrinkles, gray hair and all.
Because there must be dissolution of old forms before there can be new ones made with that material. Take a photo plate as an instance: Here is a glass surface covered with a delicate gelatine; expose it in a dark-room under a red light and you can see just what it looks like; hold it there as long as you please and it still looks the same. Now shut it into the black camera and sally forth on pleasure bent.
The delicate film is undisturbed. Just for one instant of time you let in those actinic rays, and then all was darkness again inside the camera. Now back you go into the dark-room and turn up the red light, by which you see again your beautiful bit of woodland, reproduced on that delicate gelatine surface.
Henceforth the light cannot affect that gelatine; the picture you have, but life, progress, change, possibilities, are gone from the delicate gelatine forever. And if you continued to live under the red light you might as well throw away your camera and plates—you could never take another picture.
A few days in the red light and you would be sick, and a few more days and you would go mad. I wonder if scientists have ever tried keeping a dead form hermetically sealed under red glass.
The cutting off of the actinic rays ought to arrest decay and facial change. You see, the actinic rays, the devil or destroying rays of the sun, are absolutely essential to all change in the photo plate. Probably the actinic rays soften and separate the atoms of the gelatine, which are immediately polarized into the form of the scene it faces in the light and heat rays. It takes the trinity of rays, light, heat and actinic, to produce a photograph negative.
It is said that all inventions are but clumsy copies of mechanisms found in the human body and brain; that man contains on a microscopic scale all the inventions ever thought of, or that ever will be thought of. This is another way of saying that man is the microcosm, the universe the macrocosm.
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