Thoughts Behavior Temptations Addictions
Your thoughts are influenced by your body and by your emotions.
Under the Old Testament, we did not know things, but under the New Testament, we know these things because Holy Spirit reveals them to us.
God’s ways were higher than our ways and God’s thoughts were higher than our thoughts until we were raised up to gather with Jesus.
We are new creations; we have a new heart and we have the mind of Christ.
The disciples did not have the New Testament to follow, so they followed Jesus and others would follow those that followed Jesus.
We have the law of sin and death, and we have the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Since Jesus died to bless us with freedom, we now have grace which empowers us to live without sin.
The law of sin and death brings about addictions.
You break addictions by changing the way you think.
Righteousness breaks addictions, it’s the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Sin is no longer your master. When you follow Jesus, you are in ministry. Jesus said, “I’ll make you fishers of men.”
A lot of people seem to be very comfortable joining a church as opposed to laying down junk in their life to follow Jesus.
Jesus will empower you to follow Him but will not force you to follow Him.
The rich young ruler was not willing to lay down what he had to in order to follow Jesus. The disciples laid down their lives to follow Jesus. Zacchaeus the tax collector knew what he had laid down to follow Jesus.
If you sinned before you were saved, you needed a savior. If you sinned after you were saved, you needed an attorney.
We are victors, not victims.
Condemnation always attempts to tie your bad behavior, your bad actions with your identity. Once the enemy convinces you are what you did, you will keep on doing it.
You sin because you want to, not because you have to, so change your want to.
You are not the temptation you resist; you are the virtue you embrace.
I am not my one, I am my will. The way you feel is not the way you are.
Freedom is so much more enjoyable than regret.
I am not the temptation that I resist.
Temptation is to your character what lifting weights is to your body. When you resist temptation, you build character.
When we stop teaching, what is right and what is wrong, people stop resisting what is wrong in their character. When a person remains idle, inactive for a long time, they develop atrophy. Atrophy is the loss of muscle tissue due to inactivity. If you remain inactive long enough, you will lose the use of your muscle.
So many people today have very little “character”. That’s because people are not taught the difference between right and wrong. People are taught “if it feels good, do it.” People are taught “it’s your life, do what you feel. No one has a right to tell you what to do.”
Because people do not know the difference between right and wrong, people are not given the opportunity to develop their character by resisting wrong and choosing what is right. Because of that, people obtain spiritual atrophy. The enemy works very hard to promote that there is no evil. When there is no evil, then there would be nothing to resist. When there is nothing to resist, a person never has the opportunity to build character
People become obsessed with lifting weights. Well, become obsessed with resisting temptation. Find out how far Holy Spirit can take you. Learn the joy in building character by resisting that which opposes the truth of your life.
Learn to embrace the joy of building character by resisting temptation. Guilt and regret are painful – that’s why people do not go where the word of God is preached. People do not listen long enough to obtain their freedom.
There is no substitute for freedom.
We need people around us who will pour water on our fears and pour gasoline on our passions, not gasoline on our fears and water on our passions.
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The reason people are so quick to dismiss or rebel against the principles of God is because they grew up in an atmosphere void of the teaching of the ways of God. As we minister to people, they weigh what we tell them against what the world has already programmed into them.
If a person grew up in an atmosphere where they were constantly taught about the existence of God in the ways of God, then a foundation would be developed in a person would have a set of lenses that would position them to receive more and more revelation of God.
When people are raised with no reference to God, signs and wonders become extremely important. When a person sees a miracle, a display of power, it can break the old godless foundation and reconstruct a new foundation – a new way of thinking. This is why the enemy works so hard to stop signs and wonders.
Ephesians 4:23 3 And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude].
The enemy is by nature, very rebellious. The enemy entices our emotions to cause us to have thoughts that also produce a rebellious attitude towards God.
When you are determined to only receive truth, your emotions will not be hijacked to think the way the enemy wants you to think.
By learning how you want to behave, you align your thoughts and your emotions to bring about that behavior.
When you learn to develop your character by resisting evil temptations, you grow to be strong spiritually. Peace joy and contentment will always be superior to anything of the flesh.
Refer to these scriptures: 1 Corinthians 2:1 – 16 Romans 12:1-2 Matthew 17:1 –2 1 John 1:5 – 2:2