“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things; and the God of peace shall be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9
In his second letter to the Corinthian church, Paul likens the Christian life to a battle that occurs in our minds. He exhorts us to take every thought captive and test it against God’s Word. Satan uses the power of sin to interject thoughts in our minds in his effort to tempt, accuse and deceive us. If we listen to and believe these thoughts, he builds what Paul calls strongholds in our lives. Dr. Neil Anderson defines strongholds as belief systems that are filled with hopelessness that are built on lies that feel true. One of Satan’s favorite lies is “Feelings determine truth.” This lie leads to thoughts like, “I don’t feel like God is with me, therefore, He has forsaken me,” and “I don’t feel like God loves me, therefore He doesn’t love me.” Because the emotions associated with these thoughts are intense, it is easy to fall into the trap of these lies. Once we give into them, Satan continues to remind us of them and builds more emotionally laden lies on top of them. Eventually, we give into despair and hopelessness.
How do we overcome in this battle? First, we need to remember that the battle belongs to the Lord. So, we need to learn to use warfare prayers to rebuke Satan’s attacks and to tear down the strongholds we allowed him to build through our wrong patterns of thinking. Second, we need to become serious students of the Word and commit to memorizing key portions of Scripture. In Philippians 4:8, Paul gives us a list of criteria to measure our thoughts against. Our thoughts need to pass the test of being true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, excellent, and praiseworthy. The only way we will know if our thoughts pass this test is if we first know what is true. What is our primary source of truth? The Bible. So, we need to transform our thinking by studying and memorizing the Bible. There is no substitute for this discipline, and there is no legitimate excuse for not doing it no matter what your skill level is. Thirdly, we need to use Paul’s criteria to measure what we read, listen to and view. All of our media choices need to be filtered through this grid. Remember that what we set our minds on determines our emotions. To be emotionally healthy, we need to think on truth. The old adage, “Garbage in, garbage out” applies to our thinking as well as our eating. We need to develop the discipline to be aware of our thoughts, capture the ones that are not based on God’s truth, throw them out of our minds, and reset our thoughts on God’s Truth.
Paul tells us that when we make it our practice to think on what is true, we will live in God’s peace and presence. How does that sound? It sounds great to me. We need to make our daily time in God’s Word a high priority each day. We need to evaluate where Satan is launching his attacks in our minds. If we can discern his strategies, we should have the advantage by building up our mental defenses by memorizing verses that pertain to the battle. Paul tells us that God’s spoken Word is our Sword which we are to use against the schemes of Satan. He exhorts us to be strong in the Lord and to stand firm in our faith because he knew that the battle for our thinking is intense and unending. So, join me in testing our thoughts and kicking out thoughts that do not measure up against the list that Paul gives us.
Whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, excellent, praiseworthy: let our minds dwell on these things!